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Morning, everyone. In conjunction to the post about things that we need, a post for people to request people or make some new friends.
For the first time in thirty-five years, the Pulitzer committee chose not to award a prize for American fiction, as none of the nominees could muster a majority.
A pitcher for the Chicago White Sox retired twenty-seven batters in order without allowing one to reach base by hit or base on balls. A Perfect Game! Applause, applause.
And then, its opposite. More than 226,000 petitions to repeal the emergency manager law arrived in Lansing, and enough were certified to put the matter up for a citizen recall. That was, until a group that shares its headquarters with one of the members of the Board of State Canvassers filed an objection to the petition, claiming the font size was too small to be legal. No substantive objection to the issue, but the font size was too small. So, when it came time for the Board of State Canvassers to vote on the issue...they deadlocked, 2-2, when three votes were needed to certify the petition. And furthermore, one of the members of the Board of State Canvassers is at the same address as the font size challenge, and did not recuse himself, which allowed for the deadlock and prevented the petition from being certified. After this happened, the crowd shouted "Shame!" at the Board of State Canvassers for the result, for they understood what had happened.
Before that, we note, Flint's emergency manager was in a big hurry to pass new orders before the possibility of his power being suspended.
Finally, the Dead Pool Broadcaster's Association signs a contract with Dick Clark at 82 years of age.
Out in the world today, the European Parliament agreed to screen all their passengers through the United States Department of Homeland Security, even for flights that do not go anywhere near the United States, if that carrier has service to the United States.
Net migration between the United States and Mexico is functionally zero, which pretty well throws wrenches in all of the people screaming about illegal immigrants coming over the border in waves to steal jobs from United States workers.
Domestically, the latest cheap alcohol for teens to drink is distilled hand sanitizer. Which has much the same brilliance as huffing or drinking other cleaners - sure, you might get drunk, but the other things that you can do to yourself...
Republicans in the House of Representatives believed the best way to gain popularity with students by not raising rates was to hurt themselves with women by cutting a women's health program.
A Senate report soon to come out will add another nail to the coffin of "Torture Doesn't Work.". Even though here are plenty in the Republican candidate's house that would love to revisit those times and techniques.
While "Stand Your Ground" laws will shield a man who chased a teenager and then shot him, all on the suspicion of Walking While Black, they do not apparently apply to a woman defending herself from an abusive husband. Inside the state of Florida, a Neo-Nazi group claimed they were ready to "protect" the white citizens of Florida in the case of race riots in the Trayvon Martin case. They called themselves a "White Civil Rights Organization". In response, we say, in the words of Elwood Blues, I hate (Illinois) Florida Nazis.
Thankfully, it's just a fringe group that believes this, right? It's not like the proponents of the "Papers Please" law in Arizona crafted their law because they wanted to make sure that whites stayed the majority of voters in the country or anything, right?
...we're screwed, aren't we?
Citigroup shareholders rejected theexecutive compensation plan in a non-binding vote. Normally, there's no bother, but it appears that even the proxy corporation urged a rejection because they didn't see the value for the compensation.
The Air Force will no longer be stating that chapel attendance is the way to morality to its officer candidates. Which is better than just expanding the list of Approved Minority Religions that the majority tolerates. We have a military that can handle having people of different faith or no faith. I believe it.
A couple of judges said that regulation is fundamentally unconstitutional in an opinion...and did so withotu citing the document they claim those regulations are against.
Last out, a firsthand account of the process of legislative committee. Sausage-making is insufficiently gory to describe the process. And when it comes to national politics, the Republican Party had no intention of working in a bipartisan manner. (Not that this wasn't obvious from the beginning, but...)
In technology, someone is attempting to raise one million dollars to build out an ISP whose sole goal is protecting the privacy of the data and its users, to the point of encrypting it so well that even the ISP itself couldn't read it.
Elsewhere, a way of using technology to defeat mandated lying imposed by politicians upon doctors who provide abortions - donating music players and noise-canceling headphones so that at the right time, a woman could "accidentally" drown out the script. Why do they need such a thing? Read what it takes to get an abortion in Texas and similar states, and decide for yourself.
Into opinions, where we start with a list, mostly negative, of many famous authors regarding fan-fiction of their work, and the arguments for and against in the comments. Or, actually, how about arguments that involve the interactive nature of audience and the technology that allows for fanauthors and canon authors to interact, and fanauthors and other fanauthors to interact and trade stories.
The motto on the national currency is in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, exactly like two words added to the Pledge of Allegiance that rendered it also in violation of that same clause. Therefore, to bring the currency back into compliance, the offending motto must be stricken.
What kind of complete cluster fuckup does it take for a movie that's about bullying of teenagers to be rated R so that the teens can't see it in most theaters? Oh, right, there's a lot of f-bombs. Because teens talk like that. Which probably means that it's going to be more effective at reaching teens than other ways. But they can't see it, because they say the word "fuck" in it.
The narrative about social programmes is changing, ever so slightly, away from "lazy, shiftless people who don't deserve help" to "people who did everything right and are still unemployed". This terrifies politicians beholden to the conservative movement, because it means their accusations and arguments are no longer the default, and that the system they helped to engineer so that a very few get very wealthy is having its flaws shown. The more someone who can't find a job is closer to John Q. Public, the more weight the idea of social programmes comes to prominence.
That it took a near-collapse and another huge depression and a jobless recovery that only reinforces the idea that the people at the top are doing quite well and don't care about the people at the bottom to get people and the mainstream media to decide that maybe that previous narrative was wrong is more than a bit sad. But maybe this time, it can stick around a bit more after the return of prosperity.
Why is it that the Catholic bishopric, which is supposedly pro-life, is more than willing to let women die for the sake of pregnancies that will not come to term? And, furthermore, why did the Inquisition put a male bishop to oversee a prominent group of women Catholics, accusing them of "radical feminist" ideas and incompatibility with the church's teachings on sexuality?
And speaking of self-righteous, sanctimonious people, maybe the seven deadly sins are due for an overhaul to fit our more modern times.
If that's not your prefered place and time, then examine the bingo card for sexism, misogyny, and other social problems in video game and on-line game communities - here's a hint: they're many of the same problems in other male-dominated circles and fandoms that involve men marginalizing women, dismissing the opinion that there might be problems, and otherwise dissing the thing they claim to love because they can't be arsed to think about how to make it better and less FAIL-y.
Last out, sincere apologies with no baggage attached - the hardest and most important thing to do when there's a screw-up.
Last for tonight, what being the only stable person in a group of needy and unstable people generally ends in - the only stable person saying "No, you're not dragging me into this - I have to protect myself".
Additionally, the power that books have - they allow someone to survive in a world that is fundamentally unstable.
For the first time in thirty-five years, the Pulitzer committee chose not to award a prize for American fiction, as none of the nominees could muster a majority.
A pitcher for the Chicago White Sox retired twenty-seven batters in order without allowing one to reach base by hit or base on balls. A Perfect Game! Applause, applause.
And then, its opposite. More than 226,000 petitions to repeal the emergency manager law arrived in Lansing, and enough were certified to put the matter up for a citizen recall. That was, until a group that shares its headquarters with one of the members of the Board of State Canvassers filed an objection to the petition, claiming the font size was too small to be legal. No substantive objection to the issue, but the font size was too small. So, when it came time for the Board of State Canvassers to vote on the issue...they deadlocked, 2-2, when three votes were needed to certify the petition. And furthermore, one of the members of the Board of State Canvassers is at the same address as the font size challenge, and did not recuse himself, which allowed for the deadlock and prevented the petition from being certified. After this happened, the crowd shouted "Shame!" at the Board of State Canvassers for the result, for they understood what had happened.
Before that, we note, Flint's emergency manager was in a big hurry to pass new orders before the possibility of his power being suspended.
Finally, the Dead Pool Broadcaster's Association signs a contract with Dick Clark at 82 years of age.
Out in the world today, the European Parliament agreed to screen all their passengers through the United States Department of Homeland Security, even for flights that do not go anywhere near the United States, if that carrier has service to the United States.
Net migration between the United States and Mexico is functionally zero, which pretty well throws wrenches in all of the people screaming about illegal immigrants coming over the border in waves to steal jobs from United States workers.
Domestically, the latest cheap alcohol for teens to drink is distilled hand sanitizer. Which has much the same brilliance as huffing or drinking other cleaners - sure, you might get drunk, but the other things that you can do to yourself...
Republicans in the House of Representatives believed the best way to gain popularity with students by not raising rates was to hurt themselves with women by cutting a women's health program.
A Senate report soon to come out will add another nail to the coffin of "Torture Doesn't Work.". Even though here are plenty in the Republican candidate's house that would love to revisit those times and techniques.
While "Stand Your Ground" laws will shield a man who chased a teenager and then shot him, all on the suspicion of Walking While Black, they do not apparently apply to a woman defending herself from an abusive husband. Inside the state of Florida, a Neo-Nazi group claimed they were ready to "protect" the white citizens of Florida in the case of race riots in the Trayvon Martin case. They called themselves a "White Civil Rights Organization". In response, we say, in the words of Elwood Blues, I hate (Illinois) Florida Nazis.
Thankfully, it's just a fringe group that believes this, right? It's not like the proponents of the "Papers Please" law in Arizona crafted their law because they wanted to make sure that whites stayed the majority of voters in the country or anything, right?
...we're screwed, aren't we?
Citigroup shareholders rejected theexecutive compensation plan in a non-binding vote. Normally, there's no bother, but it appears that even the proxy corporation urged a rejection because they didn't see the value for the compensation.
The Air Force will no longer be stating that chapel attendance is the way to morality to its officer candidates. Which is better than just expanding the list of Approved Minority Religions that the majority tolerates. We have a military that can handle having people of different faith or no faith. I believe it.
A couple of judges said that regulation is fundamentally unconstitutional in an opinion...and did so withotu citing the document they claim those regulations are against.
Last out, a firsthand account of the process of legislative committee. Sausage-making is insufficiently gory to describe the process. And when it comes to national politics, the Republican Party had no intention of working in a bipartisan manner. (Not that this wasn't obvious from the beginning, but...)
In technology, someone is attempting to raise one million dollars to build out an ISP whose sole goal is protecting the privacy of the data and its users, to the point of encrypting it so well that even the ISP itself couldn't read it.
Elsewhere, a way of using technology to defeat mandated lying imposed by politicians upon doctors who provide abortions - donating music players and noise-canceling headphones so that at the right time, a woman could "accidentally" drown out the script. Why do they need such a thing? Read what it takes to get an abortion in Texas and similar states, and decide for yourself.
Into opinions, where we start with a list, mostly negative, of many famous authors regarding fan-fiction of their work, and the arguments for and against in the comments. Or, actually, how about arguments that involve the interactive nature of audience and the technology that allows for fanauthors and canon authors to interact, and fanauthors and other fanauthors to interact and trade stories.
The motto on the national currency is in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, exactly like two words added to the Pledge of Allegiance that rendered it also in violation of that same clause. Therefore, to bring the currency back into compliance, the offending motto must be stricken.
What kind of complete cluster fuckup does it take for a movie that's about bullying of teenagers to be rated R so that the teens can't see it in most theaters? Oh, right, there's a lot of f-bombs. Because teens talk like that. Which probably means that it's going to be more effective at reaching teens than other ways. But they can't see it, because they say the word "fuck" in it.
The narrative about social programmes is changing, ever so slightly, away from "lazy, shiftless people who don't deserve help" to "people who did everything right and are still unemployed". This terrifies politicians beholden to the conservative movement, because it means their accusations and arguments are no longer the default, and that the system they helped to engineer so that a very few get very wealthy is having its flaws shown. The more someone who can't find a job is closer to John Q. Public, the more weight the idea of social programmes comes to prominence.
That it took a near-collapse and another huge depression and a jobless recovery that only reinforces the idea that the people at the top are doing quite well and don't care about the people at the bottom to get people and the mainstream media to decide that maybe that previous narrative was wrong is more than a bit sad. But maybe this time, it can stick around a bit more after the return of prosperity.
Why is it that the Catholic bishopric, which is supposedly pro-life, is more than willing to let women die for the sake of pregnancies that will not come to term? And, furthermore, why did the Inquisition put a male bishop to oversee a prominent group of women Catholics, accusing them of "radical feminist" ideas and incompatibility with the church's teachings on sexuality?
And speaking of self-righteous, sanctimonious people, maybe the seven deadly sins are due for an overhaul to fit our more modern times.
If that's not your prefered place and time, then examine the bingo card for sexism, misogyny, and other social problems in video game and on-line game communities - here's a hint: they're many of the same problems in other male-dominated circles and fandoms that involve men marginalizing women, dismissing the opinion that there might be problems, and otherwise dissing the thing they claim to love because they can't be arsed to think about how to make it better and less FAIL-y.
Last out, sincere apologies with no baggage attached - the hardest and most important thing to do when there's a screw-up.
Last for tonight, what being the only stable person in a group of needy and unstable people generally ends in - the only stable person saying "No, you're not dragging me into this - I have to protect myself".
Additionally, the power that books have - they allow someone to survive in a world that is fundamentally unstable.
