My head started to hurt - 27 June 2007
Jun. 28th, 2007 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptAnd it only started recently. Although today itself was interesting. Little thunder, little lightning, little bit of rain, got to see that my UPS works as advertised, as the power went out in the house today, probably due to the storm. Since I’m posting tonight, the outage didn’t last for long, but I relocated myself one town over and spent a lot of time leveling up some Disgaea characters and gaining lots of license points for the board in Final Fantasy XII (ran a chain up to 101, just to see if it would go that high. Makes me wonder just how high it will go.
Anyway, getting to the links part - The Senate subpoenas the White House and the Vice President's Office over warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and there’s no immediate indication from the White House as to whether they will be acknowledged or fulfilled. With the way this White House has been handling requests such as this, they’ll probably say that it doesn’t apply to them or they don’t have to fulfill it. And then, perhaps grudgingly, they’ll give something that’s useless just to avoid being held in contempt of the Congress. After all, thanks to signing statements, the Executive and its agencies have been ignoring about 30% of the laws passed last year. I believe the Executive is only permitted the power to veto bills he objects to, not to pass them and then ignore them. But that might be under the old-fashioned Constitution, not the one that’s currently being enforced.
Once again, if this is satire, it’s too close to the real - it’s ridiculous, regardless of whether it’s a Swift homage or someone being serious, but Debbie Schlussel concludes that pro-choice Congressmen are likely to have slutty daughters , after reading a Yale report that correlates a Congressman having a daughter with more support of women's issues. Perhaps through experience with them, rather than abstracts or ideologies?
Rolling Stone has the first of a two-part series about the record industry's decline, showing how the record industry cannibalized itself after shooting itself in the foot by not recognizing the Internet’s potential when it was presented. That, and the continued insistence on DRM in lots of places had probably harmed them significantly.
There are potentially four weird things about the following story. The first three are that bus drivers moved their vehicles in the way of a low-speed chase (not more than 50 km/h) to assist police. The fourth, and what probably brought on the whole thing, was none of the three bus drivers talked to each other in making the decision to block the fleeing car.
The city of Ann Arbor is replacing the current AATA bus fleet with hybrid buses within the next three years. The University has not followed suit, citing the greater cost and waiting for potentially a decade where gas costs may make hybrid vehicles an easier transition. Well, the city always wants to maintain its image as an eco-friendly kind of place, where possible, so hybrid public transport is a good start. Now, if the buses would run on a sane schedule and later at night. In other eco-type news, A corporation claims that with a microwave, it can reduce petroleum-based plastics back to a combustible gas and diesel oil. Which would be one more way of extending the supply of oil and such, assuming the process isn’t woefully inefficient.
The best enviro-, eco-, or green-type thing I’ve seen yet today was passed to me by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blacktigr, and is simple, yet has great potential for awesome - RePlate, the process by which one places leftovers in places that they will be picked up and eaten, rather than thrown away. This is assuming that you have a sufficient crowd of people who will take the food before it spoils or is otherwise rendered inedible. In larger cities and towns, that’s probably not that much a problem. As these people say, you may already be an activist. But if you want to make it bigger and badasser, you’ll probably find support.
Going stranger, however, the Wall Street Journal has an article about people panicking or feeling pressure about what to name their children. Such that some odd names, like “4real” appear to be good choices for names. There are, apparently, too many names available to make decisions. It’s infoglut. Perhaps a better idea would be to eschew the baby name books and just wait for inspiration from somewhere, or an old friend to call, or something that just says “Ah, yes! That’s a perfect name!” Of course, that might mean that we see more of “4real” rather than less. Apparently, babies need to be branded like products.
Last for tonight, though, is something nice. Out of The Happiness Project, something that can hopefully make all our days better and brighter, tips on how to be likable. Pretty common-sense stuff - smile, be interested in the other person, talk positive, and be able to laugh at yourself. If you behave like someone who likes the person you’re talking to or hanging out with, there’s a good chance they’ll like you in return.
So, once again, with the power of my box fan at my disposal, I attempt to obtain a restful night’s sleep... hindered by this pressure-change headache. Hopefully, something nice to drink and maybe some medicine to open up the blood vessels will help.
Anyway, getting to the links part - The Senate subpoenas the White House and the Vice President's Office over warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and there’s no immediate indication from the White House as to whether they will be acknowledged or fulfilled. With the way this White House has been handling requests such as this, they’ll probably say that it doesn’t apply to them or they don’t have to fulfill it. And then, perhaps grudgingly, they’ll give something that’s useless just to avoid being held in contempt of the Congress. After all, thanks to signing statements, the Executive and its agencies have been ignoring about 30% of the laws passed last year. I believe the Executive is only permitted the power to veto bills he objects to, not to pass them and then ignore them. But that might be under the old-fashioned Constitution, not the one that’s currently being enforced.
Once again, if this is satire, it’s too close to the real - it’s ridiculous, regardless of whether it’s a Swift homage or someone being serious, but Debbie Schlussel concludes that pro-choice Congressmen are likely to have slutty daughters , after reading a Yale report that correlates a Congressman having a daughter with more support of women's issues. Perhaps through experience with them, rather than abstracts or ideologies?
Rolling Stone has the first of a two-part series about the record industry's decline, showing how the record industry cannibalized itself after shooting itself in the foot by not recognizing the Internet’s potential when it was presented. That, and the continued insistence on DRM in lots of places had probably harmed them significantly.
There are potentially four weird things about the following story. The first three are that bus drivers moved their vehicles in the way of a low-speed chase (not more than 50 km/h) to assist police. The fourth, and what probably brought on the whole thing, was none of the three bus drivers talked to each other in making the decision to block the fleeing car.
The city of Ann Arbor is replacing the current AATA bus fleet with hybrid buses within the next three years. The University has not followed suit, citing the greater cost and waiting for potentially a decade where gas costs may make hybrid vehicles an easier transition. Well, the city always wants to maintain its image as an eco-friendly kind of place, where possible, so hybrid public transport is a good start. Now, if the buses would run on a sane schedule and later at night. In other eco-type news, A corporation claims that with a microwave, it can reduce petroleum-based plastics back to a combustible gas and diesel oil. Which would be one more way of extending the supply of oil and such, assuming the process isn’t woefully inefficient.
The best enviro-, eco-, or green-type thing I’ve seen yet today was passed to me by
blacktigr, and is simple, yet has great potential for awesome - RePlate, the process by which one places leftovers in places that they will be picked up and eaten, rather than thrown away. This is assuming that you have a sufficient crowd of people who will take the food before it spoils or is otherwise rendered inedible. In larger cities and towns, that’s probably not that much a problem. As these people say, you may already be an activist. But if you want to make it bigger and badasser, you’ll probably find support.Going stranger, however, the Wall Street Journal has an article about people panicking or feeling pressure about what to name their children. Such that some odd names, like “4real” appear to be good choices for names. There are, apparently, too many names available to make decisions. It’s infoglut. Perhaps a better idea would be to eschew the baby name books and just wait for inspiration from somewhere, or an old friend to call, or something that just says “Ah, yes! That’s a perfect name!” Of course, that might mean that we see more of “4real” rather than less. Apparently, babies need to be branded like products.
Last for tonight, though, is something nice. Out of The Happiness Project, something that can hopefully make all our days better and brighter, tips on how to be likable. Pretty common-sense stuff - smile, be interested in the other person, talk positive, and be able to laugh at yourself. If you behave like someone who likes the person you’re talking to or hanging out with, there’s a good chance they’ll like you in return.
So, once again, with the power of my box fan at my disposal, I attempt to obtain a restful night’s sleep... hindered by this pressure-change headache. Hopefully, something nice to drink and maybe some medicine to open up the blood vessels will help.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-28 08:26 pm (UTC)I don't think I'd be able to go to a "professional" for help with naming my kids. For one thing, I've got no problems with passing on family names - even if it means making a junior because my husband really wants to name their son after them. might be a bit "boring", but I like the ideas of passing on family names.