State of the Union 2013 + Republican Response: It's going to be a long year.

"He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union,..." - and thus the mandated report begins again for this year. It being an annual event is mostly due to tradition, and the oral address is a relatively recent return, as writing was the popular form for much of the United States' existence. This particular address follows an inaugural address talking about the history and shared struggles of the nation and its peoples as well as a mass shooting that appears to have galvanzied public opinion. Perhaps because those killed were defenseless children and their teachers. Perhaps not. In any case, I'm using the remarks as delivered by the President in the actual speech.

The beginning is normally boilerplate, or sometimes a stretch, to show off the things that are improved in the union this past year. Considering we're still crawling ourselves out of a recession, there was a lot of low-hanging fruit to pick. Recognizing that there was still a long way to go helped. Making mention that the remining war and its cost can come to an end soon is also a good thing. Pointing out that the American people expect their government to govern could have been a much sharper edge used, if one were trying to go for accuracy, but just saying so probably caused gasps in the mainstream media.

Then come the commonsense reforms - cut defense, reform the tax code to be fairer, and STOP BEING OBSTRUCTIONISTS, GOP. Increase jobs by funding projects to innovate in many areas.

Plank two: climate change. Start shooting for multiple targets - energy independence, reduced climate emissions, and more/better renewables and clean energy. Fix the infrastructure that supports all of these innovations. (It creates jobs!) Let people refinance their mortgages so as to free up some money.

Plank three: Universal preschool and high schools that can get students out with the skills needed to get jobs. Early learning research says that having quality preschool is very helpful for getting kids ready for schooling. And if our high schools could graduate students that could get good jobs, that's excellent, instead of requiring a collegiate degree to make minimum wage in an unrelated field.

Plank Four: Raise the standard of living. Reform immigration, DREAM-style. Pass the Violence Against Women Act. Although, the way he framed it actually frames women in terms that try to appeal to men that aren't going to support Obama policies anyway, instead of allowing those women to stand on their own right as independent women and supporters. They're also intimately tied to the proposal to raise the minimum wage, as more people, especially single mothers, are finding that their costs are more than their income, even with multiple part-time jobs all running concurrently.

Plank Five: Take care of the soldiers. Which is a twofold position - wind down the war that has already gone on too long, and then take care of the veterans that are coming back. Process their disability claims swiftly, get them the benefits they deserve, and help them with the stresses of readjusting to civilian life after a decade plus of deployments and combat.

The Interlude: The voting process needs reform. Because 200,000 people not voting in Florida is a bug. Because a 102 year-old woman shouldn't have to spend six hours to vote.

Plank Six: Let's actually put in some meaningful gun reform. Or, at the very least, put those proposals that have been drafted to a proper up-or-down vote. STOP BEING OBSTRUCTIONISTS, GOP. Most of their constituency is okay with sensible reforms and against the NRA's more extreme stances.

And that was the speech. The question is whether or not the GOP will decide to abandon the "must not let Obama win at any cost!" ideology. The Republican Response would show whether or not they were ready to grow up and act like serious people...

...the result? FAILURE. (And the Beltway should be ashamed of themselves for focusing on the water-drinking instead of the substantive commentary.) Sorry, Senator Rubio, your star has entered a decaying orbit.

The Republican Response appeared to be disjonited and not related to the speech that preceded it. We're using the Fox News Insider transcript.

The opening lines talk about immigration leading to "Hey, I have the potential to do well, and that's the most important thing, not like that socialist way of thinking that says people need more than opportunity to succeed!" The Obama is a Socialist meme died before the Birthers came into existence. Let it go.

Furthermore, the idea that government was the problem of the economic crisis and slow recovery is empirically discredited. The Big Government thing is not true, either - at least not in the financial area that has been deregulated to the point of allowing such crisis problems to happen. Blaming the government and the Affordable Care Act for private employers not hiring is disingenuous - it's the employers that decide not to hire because they're more interested in profit for certain individuals, not the government.

The false motives attack is, erm, disproven by your own colleagues, Senator Rubio. Mr. Ryan's plan for entitlements was not just "more flexibilty for states", it was "a block of money that everyone has to fight over". Most of the candidates fielded in the last election catered quite a bit to the rich - Mr. Romney, Mr. Brown, Mr. Ryan... there's moer of a pattern there than you can admit, Mr. Rubio. (Also, how's the list price of your house coming?) The Republican Party needs to pay attention to the effects of their policies on everyone, not just on their donors. (Have an example: Republicans love big government when it's about shaming poor people. And even the libertarians are all for big government when it suits their needs.)

Also, while it's nice to say that the economy needs to grow, we like concrete plans explaining how, rather than just saying that mythical growth will solve all our problems. "Solyndra" jab is low. "Government creates more debt than ever" is false, as is "the real cause of our debt is Obama's spending and nothing else."

And that final swing, saying that many of our problems are moral and have to be fixed that way? I'd like to know what you mean specifically about that, Senator Rubio, since it seems pretty obvious to me that you're calling out soe of your fellow Americans for being moral degerates. I'd like to know who they are that you mean, so that they know you don't represent them or care about them.

It just didn't address the things in the President's speech, and it rehashed several old lines of attack. So I guess the GOP still doesn't really want to be ready to be responsible grownups. (Based on behavior since, that theory is pretty well confirmed.)

And now the dose of regular newsiness - 07-23 February 02013

Before beginning: sharpeningthebones suffered a hacked bank account that stole some of the money they were planning a move with. The bank, being a bank, refuses to admit that anything fraudulent happened (at this point). In addition to giving the bank hell about this, they're also offering long-form prompts and fics as a fundraiser. They could really use some help to get their monies restored.

We'll open with what being a strong female character is in most movies and shows. And then make a comparison between that and what can happen to strong females in relationships - a writer wrote memoirs about how her boyfriend changed her from being a hardcore feminist into a model of femininity (through emotional abuse) and then wrote a blog post about how said boyfriend became physically abusive. Then read the comments to find out the thilling conclusion.

There's also the pervasive confusion of urban fantasy with rural fantasy, with regard to the racial makeup of the cast.

And finally, Cat revenge. From the medieval era.

Out in the world today, the Bishop of Rome is resigning his post, citing his advanced age and failing strength as the reasons why. There's a wish in there that he also did it because of the rampant amount of abuse uncovered in his flock, but we'll never know if that's the case. In any case, Benedict will retire and there will be black and white smoke coming from the conclave of cardinals sometime soon. Incidentally, this is the first regisnation of a Bishop of Rome since 1415.

The caretakers and employees of a library in Mali were able to save the grand majority of manuscripts of the history of Africa from radicals that attempted to burn them as they were being pushed away by French troops summoned to combat the radicals. By sneaking the books out of the old library. And by a little bit of luck that the radicals didn't find and destroy a basement storage vault in a new library. The preservation of those texts and their knowledge should elevate all who helped save the manuscripts to the status of international heroes.

A textbook misunderstanding of the role of libraries and their relationship to authors, from an author who has adopted the same stance as the media cabals regarding sharing. Speaking of the media cabals, the WTO approved allowing a small Carribean nation to pirate United States material in retaliation for the U.S. basically preventing them from operating gambling sites for discerning U.S. customers. Speaking of piracy, take a look at these pictures of a totally-unauthorized World of Warcraft theme park.

Domestically, although there's no media attention on it, George Zimmerman is still going to be on trial for the shooting of Treyvon Martin. And with the potential emergency financial manager appointment for the city of Detroit, almost half of the African American population in the state of Michigan will be under dictatorial rule. That would be under the second emergency financial manager law passed by the Michigan legislature after the voters gave a vehement middle finger to the first one.

There is a lot of media attention, though, about a new and dreadful form of filibuster abuse - the unprecedented filibustering of a Cabinet nominee, apparently mostly over petty desires for revenge when that nominee was a Senator. That is, unless you're Ted Cruz, who may be channeling Joe McCarthy in the way he does his Senatorial business - one can hope that we'll skip the part where he seems influential and go straight to the pointing and laughing.

The House GOP is unwilling to put the Senate's Violence Against Women Act up for a vote - instead, they prefer a much more watered-down version that doesn't extend the protections of the bill to everyone.

That's when they're not busy misrepresenting important sicentific research in juvenile ways to get their base outraged at government spending.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta unveiled a new military policy that extends all the marriage/partnership benefits to same-sex couples that the military can extend. Secretary Panetta noted that the Defense of Marriage Act precludes extending some benefitts, but that if the law were struck down, it would be the policy of the Defense Department to extend those benefits to same-sex couples as well. The full details of what new benefits are available to married and partnership couples is in this Defense memo [PDF]. Which will be some help for couples trying to make their marriages work in the military, but it's not a full repeal yet.

Unfortunately, a lawsuit alleging the government denied rightfully-earned veterans' benefits to Filipino veterans of World War II was denied.

Tying "abstract" concepts like racism, privilege, and the labor movement to concrete examples, like baseball, produces excellent results in getting students to learn them. And also in getting them to show their own backgrounds. Being concrete also helps expose hypocrisy - people who want their religion in schools are suddenly all for separation of religion and schooling when its someone else's religion that could come in. Although yoga is not always with its spiritual elements these days. Of course, if the radicals in Texas have their way, these things would never appear in the textbooks for primary and secondary school, and there would be no abstract to attach conrete ideas to.

Knowing science is not a trivial pursuit. This doesn't mean, necessarily, that everyone has to be a CERN wizard, but it does mean that everyone should have a basic idea of what science is and does as part of their general knowledge. (For one thing, knowing science helps you with a lot of other things, like being able to fix things that fall apart in your house. Or to hang new light fixtures. Or fold overly complex objects into existence.) Besides, there are a lot of great stories that come out of scientific experimentation. (As well as the joke hashtag at the link.)

Last out, NRA chief claims Brooklyn is a post-apocalyptic zone, resident of Brooklyn call bullshit.

In technology, creating a dictionary of words for an Austen-period piece to ensure that neologisms don't slip in and become anachronisms. Whcih is pretty neat.

Additionally, projecting a movie on falling snow makes for some really beautiful pictures.

Weed control of lawns...with LASERS!

A buried lead if there ever was one. Article says "BPA affects sex-specific reproductive behaviors in a monogamous animal species." Which are mice. Actual thrust of the article? - If you want to study the effects of chemicals on humans, pay attention to whether the biological sex of the human produces different results.

Last out of this section, pathogens in blown glass, at many millions of times actual size.

In opinions, a manipulator wants you to undertand how manipulators work.

A few good reasons to work out of a coffee shop every so often. That is, if you're the kind of employee or entrepreneur who can work from a coffee shop occasionally. It's mostly "change your locale so you can break the habits of routine".

A recognition that Thor in the comic books has the same propensity for smack talk that the Thor of the Norse legends does. As well as the same ability to back up that smack talk with beatdowns. (Also, really neat superhero cross-stich patterns.) Also, on comics, the giant disappointment that is Marvel and DC not protraying (or doing much hiring for writing and art of) people of color in their comic books.

The Future of technology should not consistent of pictures under glass, but devices that provide feedback and can be manipulated in the myriad ways that hands and limbs and bodies already do. So not just haptics (but that's a good start), but the full three-dimensional experience.

Speaking of the Future (via The Idealized Past), a purpose for steampunk writing - to write about the modern without having to extrapolate how the moden became The Future. Because stories about certain things fit better into certain genres. (They more effectively bypass our filters and let us examine the thing in modernity that's being talked about without us catching on that we're talking about modernity.) Also, the piece mentions that The Future that we're hurtling toward will be...boring. Much like modern life, our Future does not have rogue agents and special heroes and all the other narrative conventions that make reading those kinds of books fun.

Last out, I think I am in Friend Love with you. And that's a very nice thing, indeed. (For those who aren't feeling the friend love, there's also the exhibit and lectures about early Japanese erotica and pr0n. Which you can only see in person if you happen to be in Honolulu.) And, I suppoose, some love quotes, too.

And podcasts of fantasy fiction magazine stories.