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Welcome again to our place and time. Be sure to file any bugs you might see in reality appropriately. We start today with a description of depression and working through it that resonates with a lot of people who must work with and through their own depression. No hyperbole in this entry at all.
Elsewhere, how to help make your links and blog posts much better for screen readers. Because not everyone on the internet can see you.
a response to the idea that games cannot be art that argues that context is important, to judge whether something is art is based on the experience of the person(s) who sees/listens/interacts with it, and that things such as games are art because of their underlying systems and mechanics as much as any pretty pictures and sounds they might also have.
And finally, a proclamation that picture books deserve care, thought, and decisions to produce quality materials, even materials that might be challenging, and that the format of picture books should not be seen as a barrier to talking about important things in children's lives.
The Dead Pool claims Joe Frazier, boxer, at 67 years of age from cancer and Andy Rooney, long-time commentator on "60 Minutes", at 92
Out in the world today, the march of progress has not been marching very far in terms of economic and political equality for women, even with good gains in health and education.
Mr. Assange of Wikileaks has lost a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer to allegations of sexual misconduct.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States should be much more aggressive about deposing the government of Iran.
Domestically, supplemental Census figures that take into account costs such as medical expenses indicate that the record number of poor is even more record poor, and that seniors and the elderly are taking it on the chin as much as the rest of the 99 per cent. The system of medical insurances, expenses, reimbursements, and disbursements to large profitable companies is bankrupting the people who ahve to use those services.
On the matter of the Occupy movement in Oakland, The Infamous Brad suggests two theories as to why the Oakland Police Department basically facilitated the illegal* general strike and march into and through the port, but then raided with a vengeance when people attempted to re-open a foreclosed building that supported the homeless. Also, Occupy protesters closed down a Wells Fargo branch in protest over the bank's close ties to immigrant detention centers.
Occupy activists in New York were recruited to help bring a building up to code and fight against a landlord that refused to repair the building.
And a reminder - according to the police and the law, everything Occupy Wall Street or its cousins do is illegal, regardless of what the Bill of Rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or any other document that guarantees much of what the Occupy movements do is legal.
Then there's a history lesson - the change undergone by the Republican Party from being a party trying to control social spending to a party that tries and succeeds to starve the government of necessary revenues and stick Democrats with cleaning up the mess.
Inside the United States, the long-term unemployed are once again running out of their benefits time, despite a lack of jobs coming from anywhere.
Convicted felon Jack Abramoff interviewed with 60 Minutes and indicated several of the still-legal tricks he and ther lobbyists used to buy Congresscritters and their staff people.
The Republican House Oversight chairman called for an investigation into whether an organization solicited donations for one cause and then rerouted them to the Occupy Wall Street protest. If you cut through the "ACORN's Hand! There Must Be Something Suspicious!" frame that Fox puts the question in, you have the possibility that a major organization did serious wrongdoing and is trying to cover it up. But there's a large requirement of salt, because of the credibility of Fox News, and that they and very conservative media seem to be the only ones with interest in such a scandal.
Credit unions and community banks received large amounts of deposits from customers closing out their accounts with bigger financial institutions, trying to sever their ties to the institutions that routinely screw them, up and throgh charging ATM withdrawal fees to persons receiving unemployment benefits after the first few transactions, because unemploymemt benefits often get turned into cash to do a lot of small transactions. Or the debit cards they're tied to have fees associated with them.
Pennsylvania State University Head Coach Joe Paterno was fired for assisting in a cover up for child abuse by an assistant coach and for perjuring himself before a jury. When investigated to its core elements, the breadth and depth of the abuse scandal is frightening. In response to the sacking of their coach, a large amount of students demonstrated against the decision, favoring Mr. Paterno's record and role in college football over the allegations and his role in the coverup.
And finally, a letter of note from an issue so simple a child could understand it - and write a response.
In technology, the government of the United States argues that intercepting data sent by your mobile device to connect to wireless towers is not a search, and that even if it were, there would be no need for a separate warrant to set up a spoofed tower to capture that data. The government doesn't really understand the meaning of "secure in their persons and papers", it seems.
They're also quite fond of sticking GPS trackers on the cars of citizens without warrants and arguing before the Supreme Court that they should be allowed to continue doing so without warrants, something that the inventor of the GPS technology is strongly against. Said Court? Is apparently at least a bit disturbed by this turn of events and might not rubberstamp the practice.
The CIA is tracking the mood of people through their social media and blogging platforms, trusting that the crowd will show their attitude in the aggregate.
A security consultant demonstrates a truism of security - the weakest link in the chain of security is often the people themselves, and so an excellent social engineering attack, disguised as something like a fire inspection, will almost always work because people trust people who look like they belong there.
A new report suggests that junk food very well might have addictive properties...and that some people might be prone to being addicted to food in general, as their brains react in the same way to food as junkies react to chemically addictive substances.
In the opinions, the editors of the WSJ believe that the European debt crisis is the reckoning for their high taxes and generous welfare state democratic socialism. Wouldn't have anything to do with the bank problems or the casino-like gambling withassets, now would it, Wall Street paper?
Mr. Stossel insists that the Food and Drug Administration unnecessarily kills people and makes drugs more costly to come to market because of required compliance with their regulations. The Free Market (A.P.T.I.N.) would sort out anything the FDA might do, of course - and if you're lucky enough not to be the one that gets the drug that kills you, it does, eventually. But we kind of like not having things that can kill us exist on the market for long enough to kill us before the market decides they aren't safe.
Mr. Sowell belkieves that talk about income inequality is meaningless unless you pit the young against the old, by which the old, having the virtue of having lived, worked, paid off debts, and made money longer, are almost always richer than the young. "Income brackets", he says, are useless because they don't follow real people, who fluctuate in and out of income brackets. We note to Mr. Sowell that if the 1% are cpaturing ever more of income and wealth in the country, then there weill be ever fewer people who make it to that point, leaving the rest of us to fight and be mobile over a shrinking part of the pie. That's a recipe for widespread disaster and problems, Mr. Sowell.
Mr. Murchison perverts a message about the horrible nature of politics in the United States into a call to reduce the federal government's size and scope, because the perpetual campaign is a result of our dependence on the government, according to him. I'm more inclined to agree with the WSJ's original premise that he builds on - "normal" people don't take part in presidential politics any more. (Because they can't - it takes millions of dollars they don't have, provided by groups with their own agendas, and the nominating process requires unceasing fidelity to ideology instead of being able to be practical and hold opinions on multiple parts of the spectrum.)
On the matter of politicians, Mr. Elder suggests that the media had a double standard by not investigating as strongly into the affairs of Jesse Jackson than they are now into the possible improprieties of Herman Cain. Mr. Kuhner chooses better targets for his accusation of the same - Bill Clinton and Barack Obama
For a change, we'll let Mr. Cain speak about what he envisions his first 100 days in office as the President will look like - a lot of "repeal what the last guy did" and "we're number one, we're number one", from the looks of it. Mr. Boskin looks at the various tax plans and proposals of the Republican candidates and finds them all worthy, at least in the sense that they will all lower taxes and prevent the expiration of tax cuts put in place by the last administrator.
Mr. Krauthammer believes that because the Obama Amdinistration did not create a centrist government and did not renegotiate the continued stay of United States troops in Iraq past their scheduled drawdown date, Iraq will be lost to The Bloodthirsty Religion and this amdinistration is to blame. Not content to stay in Iraq, Mr. Gaffney, Jr. ups the ante and blames Barack Obama for the unraveling of the Middle East to the Bloodthirsty Religion, by allowing all of the religious parties to come to power in free and democratic elections, for which they will impose the harshest Sharia on the people. Because, if you believe Mr. Williams, democracy is impossible for a people that have always been ruled by strongmen, dictators, and religious zealots, and besides, according to Mr. Spencer, the Bloodthirsty Religion doesn't want any of those freedoms that might hurt their feelings or make fun of their sacred figures, and they'll use whatever violence they need to to accopmlish such a thing, according to Mr. Ibrahim.
Messrs. Biggs and Richwine insist that in terms of total compensation, retiree benefits, and other non-salary benefits, public school teachers are baid much much better than people of similar skills and qualifications would get in the private sector. Which is a nice double attack - teachers are less qualified than their private sector counterparts, and that teachers make too much - so nobody should feel bad about reducing teacher salaries and compensations, because they get too much and don't deserve it, anyway. How about we have a society that respects its teachers for a change, instead of insisting that they do the finest work of education on shoestring budgets, huge class sizes, and hostile environments?
Last out of opinions, Ms. Noonan sggests that the only reason the Democrats are more popular than the Republicans is that the Democratic brand is better and more fun, with taxing the rich and the glamour of spending, than the stodgy Republican brand of working hard and living within your means. Republicans not only have to recapture their base that fled them, they have to make their brand sexy again. Democrats, well, they're just living on the Time That Never Was. Ms. Noonan is far kinder than Mr. Pendry, who believes all of the college students, OWS protesters, and anyone else who has a liberal education or liberal politics is stupid, will never produce anything of value, and will hopefully be hit with a clue-by-four before they let communists (like George Soros and Van Jones) take over the country and impoverish everyone.
Last out, a timeline showing how ineffective DRM'd music is in making money for a company, considering how many DRM services have gone to the grave.
Oh, and prisons converted into hotels.
Elsewhere, how to help make your links and blog posts much better for screen readers. Because not everyone on the internet can see you.
a response to the idea that games cannot be art that argues that context is important, to judge whether something is art is based on the experience of the person(s) who sees/listens/interacts with it, and that things such as games are art because of their underlying systems and mechanics as much as any pretty pictures and sounds they might also have.
And finally, a proclamation that picture books deserve care, thought, and decisions to produce quality materials, even materials that might be challenging, and that the format of picture books should not be seen as a barrier to talking about important things in children's lives.
The Dead Pool claims Joe Frazier, boxer, at 67 years of age from cancer and Andy Rooney, long-time commentator on "60 Minutes", at 92
Out in the world today, the march of progress has not been marching very far in terms of economic and political equality for women, even with good gains in health and education.
Mr. Assange of Wikileaks has lost a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer to allegations of sexual misconduct.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States should be much more aggressive about deposing the government of Iran.
Domestically, supplemental Census figures that take into account costs such as medical expenses indicate that the record number of poor is even more record poor, and that seniors and the elderly are taking it on the chin as much as the rest of the 99 per cent. The system of medical insurances, expenses, reimbursements, and disbursements to large profitable companies is bankrupting the people who ahve to use those services.
On the matter of the Occupy movement in Oakland, The Infamous Brad suggests two theories as to why the Oakland Police Department basically facilitated the illegal* general strike and march into and through the port, but then raided with a vengeance when people attempted to re-open a foreclosed building that supported the homeless. Also, Occupy protesters closed down a Wells Fargo branch in protest over the bank's close ties to immigrant detention centers.
Occupy activists in New York were recruited to help bring a building up to code and fight against a landlord that refused to repair the building.
And a reminder - according to the police and the law, everything Occupy Wall Street or its cousins do is illegal, regardless of what the Bill of Rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or any other document that guarantees much of what the Occupy movements do is legal.
Then there's a history lesson - the change undergone by the Republican Party from being a party trying to control social spending to a party that tries and succeeds to starve the government of necessary revenues and stick Democrats with cleaning up the mess.
Inside the United States, the long-term unemployed are once again running out of their benefits time, despite a lack of jobs coming from anywhere.
Convicted felon Jack Abramoff interviewed with 60 Minutes and indicated several of the still-legal tricks he and ther lobbyists used to buy Congresscritters and their staff people.
The Republican House Oversight chairman called for an investigation into whether an organization solicited donations for one cause and then rerouted them to the Occupy Wall Street protest. If you cut through the "ACORN's Hand! There Must Be Something Suspicious!" frame that Fox puts the question in, you have the possibility that a major organization did serious wrongdoing and is trying to cover it up. But there's a large requirement of salt, because of the credibility of Fox News, and that they and very conservative media seem to be the only ones with interest in such a scandal.
Credit unions and community banks received large amounts of deposits from customers closing out their accounts with bigger financial institutions, trying to sever their ties to the institutions that routinely screw them, up and throgh charging ATM withdrawal fees to persons receiving unemployment benefits after the first few transactions, because unemploymemt benefits often get turned into cash to do a lot of small transactions. Or the debit cards they're tied to have fees associated with them.
Pennsylvania State University Head Coach Joe Paterno was fired for assisting in a cover up for child abuse by an assistant coach and for perjuring himself before a jury. When investigated to its core elements, the breadth and depth of the abuse scandal is frightening. In response to the sacking of their coach, a large amount of students demonstrated against the decision, favoring Mr. Paterno's record and role in college football over the allegations and his role in the coverup.
And finally, a letter of note from an issue so simple a child could understand it - and write a response.
In technology, the government of the United States argues that intercepting data sent by your mobile device to connect to wireless towers is not a search, and that even if it were, there would be no need for a separate warrant to set up a spoofed tower to capture that data. The government doesn't really understand the meaning of "secure in their persons and papers", it seems.
They're also quite fond of sticking GPS trackers on the cars of citizens without warrants and arguing before the Supreme Court that they should be allowed to continue doing so without warrants, something that the inventor of the GPS technology is strongly against. Said Court? Is apparently at least a bit disturbed by this turn of events and might not rubberstamp the practice.
The CIA is tracking the mood of people through their social media and blogging platforms, trusting that the crowd will show their attitude in the aggregate.
A security consultant demonstrates a truism of security - the weakest link in the chain of security is often the people themselves, and so an excellent social engineering attack, disguised as something like a fire inspection, will almost always work because people trust people who look like they belong there.
A new report suggests that junk food very well might have addictive properties...and that some people might be prone to being addicted to food in general, as their brains react in the same way to food as junkies react to chemically addictive substances.
In the opinions, the editors of the WSJ believe that the European debt crisis is the reckoning for their high taxes and generous welfare state democratic socialism. Wouldn't have anything to do with the bank problems or the casino-like gambling withassets, now would it, Wall Street paper?
Mr. Stossel insists that the Food and Drug Administration unnecessarily kills people and makes drugs more costly to come to market because of required compliance with their regulations. The Free Market (A.P.T.I.N.) would sort out anything the FDA might do, of course - and if you're lucky enough not to be the one that gets the drug that kills you, it does, eventually. But we kind of like not having things that can kill us exist on the market for long enough to kill us before the market decides they aren't safe.
Mr. Sowell belkieves that talk about income inequality is meaningless unless you pit the young against the old, by which the old, having the virtue of having lived, worked, paid off debts, and made money longer, are almost always richer than the young. "Income brackets", he says, are useless because they don't follow real people, who fluctuate in and out of income brackets. We note to Mr. Sowell that if the 1% are cpaturing ever more of income and wealth in the country, then there weill be ever fewer people who make it to that point, leaving the rest of us to fight and be mobile over a shrinking part of the pie. That's a recipe for widespread disaster and problems, Mr. Sowell.
Mr. Murchison perverts a message about the horrible nature of politics in the United States into a call to reduce the federal government's size and scope, because the perpetual campaign is a result of our dependence on the government, according to him. I'm more inclined to agree with the WSJ's original premise that he builds on - "normal" people don't take part in presidential politics any more. (Because they can't - it takes millions of dollars they don't have, provided by groups with their own agendas, and the nominating process requires unceasing fidelity to ideology instead of being able to be practical and hold opinions on multiple parts of the spectrum.)
On the matter of politicians, Mr. Elder suggests that the media had a double standard by not investigating as strongly into the affairs of Jesse Jackson than they are now into the possible improprieties of Herman Cain. Mr. Kuhner chooses better targets for his accusation of the same - Bill Clinton and Barack Obama
For a change, we'll let Mr. Cain speak about what he envisions his first 100 days in office as the President will look like - a lot of "repeal what the last guy did" and "we're number one, we're number one", from the looks of it. Mr. Boskin looks at the various tax plans and proposals of the Republican candidates and finds them all worthy, at least in the sense that they will all lower taxes and prevent the expiration of tax cuts put in place by the last administrator.
Mr. Krauthammer believes that because the Obama Amdinistration did not create a centrist government and did not renegotiate the continued stay of United States troops in Iraq past their scheduled drawdown date, Iraq will be lost to The Bloodthirsty Religion and this amdinistration is to blame. Not content to stay in Iraq, Mr. Gaffney, Jr. ups the ante and blames Barack Obama for the unraveling of the Middle East to the Bloodthirsty Religion, by allowing all of the religious parties to come to power in free and democratic elections, for which they will impose the harshest Sharia on the people. Because, if you believe Mr. Williams, democracy is impossible for a people that have always been ruled by strongmen, dictators, and religious zealots, and besides, according to Mr. Spencer, the Bloodthirsty Religion doesn't want any of those freedoms that might hurt their feelings or make fun of their sacred figures, and they'll use whatever violence they need to to accopmlish such a thing, according to Mr. Ibrahim.
Messrs. Biggs and Richwine insist that in terms of total compensation, retiree benefits, and other non-salary benefits, public school teachers are baid much much better than people of similar skills and qualifications would get in the private sector. Which is a nice double attack - teachers are less qualified than their private sector counterparts, and that teachers make too much - so nobody should feel bad about reducing teacher salaries and compensations, because they get too much and don't deserve it, anyway. How about we have a society that respects its teachers for a change, instead of insisting that they do the finest work of education on shoestring budgets, huge class sizes, and hostile environments?
Last out of opinions, Ms. Noonan sggests that the only reason the Democrats are more popular than the Republicans is that the Democratic brand is better and more fun, with taxing the rich and the glamour of spending, than the stodgy Republican brand of working hard and living within your means. Republicans not only have to recapture their base that fled them, they have to make their brand sexy again. Democrats, well, they're just living on the Time That Never Was. Ms. Noonan is far kinder than Mr. Pendry, who believes all of the college students, OWS protesters, and anyone else who has a liberal education or liberal politics is stupid, will never produce anything of value, and will hopefully be hit with a clue-by-four before they let communists (like George Soros and Van Jones) take over the country and impoverish everyone.
Last out, a timeline showing how ineffective DRM'd music is in making money for a company, considering how many DRM services have gone to the grave.
Oh, and prisons converted into hotels.
