And onward - 09 October 2007
Oct. 10th, 2007 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptWow. Those 9-7 days don’t seem that much longer than before, but they leave you even less time to do stuff before it’s time for bed. Thus, the time crunch only gets better. Accomplished a few things, though - deposited money, got an ID laminated, looked into some options regarding changing one’s cellular phone service to a local number (mostly so that I’m not carrying an old number around) which was much cheaper than I had thought before. We’ll see what I make decisions on.
I’m not going to be taking any advice from the Happiness Project, although if I wanted more comments on individual issues, or more comments in general, I probably should - more efficient e-mail means one e-mail to a task that you want done/discussed. That way, you respond to them individually, rather than only to some.
Reformists and traditionalists scuffle outside school where Mr. Ahmadinejad was giving an opening-of-the-year speech. Whether this is supposed to be a technique for showing “See? We have protesters, too?” or an actual protest, I have no idea.
Oxford research group says war on terror is teh fail, could continue for decades if no progress is made. Which, if you’re going for permanent war, is good news, not bad. But if you’re someone who has to find a way of financing said war, decades-long conflict with no end or resolution in sight, this can lead to despair or rage. And then you get to hear about intelligence officials saying that The White House's rush to trot out the latest al-Qaeda video before a scheduled release and praise the people who found it compromised the ability to obtain more of the same, and it only gets worse.
Interpol's director wants to know why he's being catastrophically underfunded, while “Homeland Security” seems to get all the toys it wants. Despite Interpol having great resources to help fight a war on terrorists, it seems to be left out of the feeding trough.
All of this terror and fear has done something though - it's gotten citizens of the world who once prided themselves on their individual rights and privacies to accept that the government will always be watching, and in some cases, to encourage that watching. And to turn over all sorts of data to computers to interpret and provide leads for. We can brute-force all the thigns we like, but if the premise is flawed, it won’t do any good at all.
Judge voids California election result because there were insufficient audit materials to reconstruct a challenged vote. If nobody knows how things were cast, then there’s no way to certify when the challenge comes through. Good decision by the judge after poor decisions by the California voting commission.
SSRC alert ahead. And yes, that means there’s quiche involved. To get the ball rolling - minister autoeroticised with rubber fetish and dildo, ended up accidentally killing himself . It’s really easy to go too far in those kinds of situations - and being a minister, it would be very tough for him to have someone else on hand to keep an eye on him. This could be used as a reason why some of the restrictions on ministers should be eased so that they can function and be permitted to have a steam valve.
Making a strong showing through the logic of “if we never expose them to the outside world, then the sinful stuff won’t get in”,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blackletter in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dark_christian, describes University Model Schools, a hybrid between homsechooling and private instruction that places education fourth on its guiding principles, after three that are clearly God-oriented.
Also making a good contention on the Scientology defense (sue them enough and they’ll stop saying such mean things!) are the creators of the Left Behind video game are sending cease-and-desist notices to blogs critical of their game, claiming there are “false and misleading” comments being made. Or maybe the game just sucks.
Our runners-up, who lose the fight due to their targets’ age, but are in the long term much more dangerous, is the tactics being used by evangelical organizations to proselytize in military installations, something forbidden by the Constitution. Even worse, the manuals specifically say to go after people at boot, who are shaken up, out of their element, and impressionable and vulnerable. Like you would go after someone if you were trying to get them to go into a state where they don’t think and just do whatever it is you want so that you don’t continue to inflict stress and disorientation on them. In essence, they’re targeting people at the point where programming is most likely to take hold. And the Pentagon is letting them do this. If there’s not a Constitutional forbidding, there’s got to be a serious ethical breach here.
But the winners of tonight’s quiche are the conservative bloggers and media outlets who are attacking a twelve year-old child because he wants more children insured under SCHIP, like he is. The kid spoke for a Democratic ad, talking about his experience and how Maryland’s CHIP helped him when he was involved in an accident. Thus, the machine cranked out plenty of things about him, trying to portray him and his family as rich folk who are fleecing the government. Can’t really give the attackers, and all the nominees for tonight’s award anything but the quiche and the following: You stupid, stupid rat creatures.
For someone’s significantly more impassioned version of the above statement, calling into question parentage, ability, and whether or not the Republican Party is good for anything but evil, Lest We Forget is a letter to Keith Olbermann (who walks the line between news and satire every night) asking for a Special Commentary on the ills that Bush’s Republicans have wrought. (And there’s probably plenty of Democrats who could be lumped in to that pot as well. Like the ones that appear perfectly willing to grant extensions to the powers that the government has to spy on its own citizens.) Paul Krugman finds Mr. Bush to be a perfect example of conservatism as it has been for the last thirty years, so while it may not be your grandfather’s conservatism (or maybe it is), it’s certainly a good example of the movement now. And there are still lots of people wondering why hasn't Congress began impeachment proceedings against Mr. Bush, with as much of a case as they could make for it.
Hillary’s fighting off her own problems, as well. And again, she seems to get portrayed a shrewish rich woman, even with such things as her “Middle Class Express”. Check the writeup on the latest stop for the MCE, and decide for yourself whether than last sentence is gratuitous, designed to make Hillary sound more like Marie Antionette’s famous “eat cake” statement, or an actually important piece of news. And then, just to make the actual liberal members of the Democratic party squirm at her candidacy, she defends herself from someone accusing her of voting toward attacking Iran by suggesting that the person there doesn’t understand the text of the resolution. On one end, trying to make her seem vapid and clueless, on the other, trying to make her into a war eagle Republican. Yet she still leads the Democratic primary polls. I wonder which of those images will win out, or whether they’ll fuse and come at her like the hydra (or Yamato-no-Orochi, if you like).
Rudy’s going for voters in places you wouldn’t normally expect, agreeing to speak at the Family Research Council's "values voter" summit. Rudy’s positions don’t make a match that easily, but he might be trying to pick up those voters that are fence-sitting on whether to vote “values” (whatever the hell that means) or to vote for a candidate they feel is electable. If it works for him, Mr. Guliani gets valuable experience facing a hostile political crowd.
In the end, though, all of this opinion-slinging and rage at hat’s drop might be bad for us. Kurt Anderson wants to know why we're reacting so strongly to everything. And whether we really need to do all of that froth and rage when it’s over small stuff. When there are bigger issues, like the continued decline of civics and government education in the public schooling system, that might be the right time to raise a holler, because people who don’t understand how their government works will have no way of knowing whether any of a hundred other governmental types are superior and worth trying to bring about. Or why having the police/public safety officers on a university campus armed is potentially good and potentially bad, considering the kind of populace they’re dealing with.
In non-political news, Egypt is attempting to reclaim desert area and turn it into cropland. It will eventually become useful land for the populace to move onto, as well. But the question is now whether it costs too much in water usage to be a sustainable venture. Continuing in the environmental theme, the state of Illinois is asking its residents to report on where they see wild bees, so that they can chart how abundant they are and how hard things like colony collapse disorder are hitting them.
The Jellyfish 45 will take six under the sea and float them along. Depending on food stores and the tides, one might be able to use it to float along from island to island and live on an enclosed boat. Or it could just be rented by people who want to say they’ve done it underwater. You never know.
Tonight’s Odd Things department offers up Crime and Punishment, a Flickr photoset of early 20th century photos centered around prison and things like mug shots. While too late to make the photoset, this odd account of a seventy-five year-old woman taking a hammer to Comcast customer support representatives' computers as a way of expressing frustration will follow the theme nicely. At the very least, I’m sure she got someone’s attention. Whether anything productive happens out of it, I don’t know.
Last for tonight, though, is something to make you laugh. Assuming you’ve got some fairly geeky humor, that is - some examples of Adam Koford's blending of old-style comics and new-style phrases. The visual makes the verbal joke work. If you want to see more, including his perhaps better-known Laugh Out Loud Cats, visit http://apelad.blogspot.com/.
Thus, hopefully having at least managed to entertain you, I say that there’s a poll one entry back that is hopefully worth filling out, and then I go to bed. Because I need my beauty sleep.
I’m not going to be taking any advice from the Happiness Project, although if I wanted more comments on individual issues, or more comments in general, I probably should - more efficient e-mail means one e-mail to a task that you want done/discussed. That way, you respond to them individually, rather than only to some.
Reformists and traditionalists scuffle outside school where Mr. Ahmadinejad was giving an opening-of-the-year speech. Whether this is supposed to be a technique for showing “See? We have protesters, too?” or an actual protest, I have no idea.
Oxford research group says war on terror is teh fail, could continue for decades if no progress is made. Which, if you’re going for permanent war, is good news, not bad. But if you’re someone who has to find a way of financing said war, decades-long conflict with no end or resolution in sight, this can lead to despair or rage. And then you get to hear about intelligence officials saying that The White House's rush to trot out the latest al-Qaeda video before a scheduled release and praise the people who found it compromised the ability to obtain more of the same, and it only gets worse.
Interpol's director wants to know why he's being catastrophically underfunded, while “Homeland Security” seems to get all the toys it wants. Despite Interpol having great resources to help fight a war on terrorists, it seems to be left out of the feeding trough.
All of this terror and fear has done something though - it's gotten citizens of the world who once prided themselves on their individual rights and privacies to accept that the government will always be watching, and in some cases, to encourage that watching. And to turn over all sorts of data to computers to interpret and provide leads for. We can brute-force all the thigns we like, but if the premise is flawed, it won’t do any good at all.
Judge voids California election result because there were insufficient audit materials to reconstruct a challenged vote. If nobody knows how things were cast, then there’s no way to certify when the challenge comes through. Good decision by the judge after poor decisions by the California voting commission.
SSRC alert ahead. And yes, that means there’s quiche involved. To get the ball rolling - minister autoeroticised with rubber fetish and dildo, ended up accidentally killing himself . It’s really easy to go too far in those kinds of situations - and being a minister, it would be very tough for him to have someone else on hand to keep an eye on him. This could be used as a reason why some of the restrictions on ministers should be eased so that they can function and be permitted to have a steam valve.
Making a strong showing through the logic of “if we never expose them to the outside world, then the sinful stuff won’t get in”,
blackletter in dark_christian, describes University Model Schools, a hybrid between homsechooling and private instruction that places education fourth on its guiding principles, after three that are clearly God-oriented. Also making a good contention on the Scientology defense (sue them enough and they’ll stop saying such mean things!) are the creators of the Left Behind video game are sending cease-and-desist notices to blogs critical of their game, claiming there are “false and misleading” comments being made. Or maybe the game just sucks.
Our runners-up, who lose the fight due to their targets’ age, but are in the long term much more dangerous, is the tactics being used by evangelical organizations to proselytize in military installations, something forbidden by the Constitution. Even worse, the manuals specifically say to go after people at boot, who are shaken up, out of their element, and impressionable and vulnerable. Like you would go after someone if you were trying to get them to go into a state where they don’t think and just do whatever it is you want so that you don’t continue to inflict stress and disorientation on them. In essence, they’re targeting people at the point where programming is most likely to take hold. And the Pentagon is letting them do this. If there’s not a Constitutional forbidding, there’s got to be a serious ethical breach here.
But the winners of tonight’s quiche are the conservative bloggers and media outlets who are attacking a twelve year-old child because he wants more children insured under SCHIP, like he is. The kid spoke for a Democratic ad, talking about his experience and how Maryland’s CHIP helped him when he was involved in an accident. Thus, the machine cranked out plenty of things about him, trying to portray him and his family as rich folk who are fleecing the government. Can’t really give the attackers, and all the nominees for tonight’s award anything but the quiche and the following: You stupid, stupid rat creatures.
For someone’s significantly more impassioned version of the above statement, calling into question parentage, ability, and whether or not the Republican Party is good for anything but evil, Lest We Forget is a letter to Keith Olbermann (who walks the line between news and satire every night) asking for a Special Commentary on the ills that Bush’s Republicans have wrought. (And there’s probably plenty of Democrats who could be lumped in to that pot as well. Like the ones that appear perfectly willing to grant extensions to the powers that the government has to spy on its own citizens.) Paul Krugman finds Mr. Bush to be a perfect example of conservatism as it has been for the last thirty years, so while it may not be your grandfather’s conservatism (or maybe it is), it’s certainly a good example of the movement now. And there are still lots of people wondering why hasn't Congress began impeachment proceedings against Mr. Bush, with as much of a case as they could make for it.
Hillary’s fighting off her own problems, as well. And again, she seems to get portrayed a shrewish rich woman, even with such things as her “Middle Class Express”. Check the writeup on the latest stop for the MCE, and decide for yourself whether than last sentence is gratuitous, designed to make Hillary sound more like Marie Antionette’s famous “eat cake” statement, or an actually important piece of news. And then, just to make the actual liberal members of the Democratic party squirm at her candidacy, she defends herself from someone accusing her of voting toward attacking Iran by suggesting that the person there doesn’t understand the text of the resolution. On one end, trying to make her seem vapid and clueless, on the other, trying to make her into a war eagle Republican. Yet she still leads the Democratic primary polls. I wonder which of those images will win out, or whether they’ll fuse and come at her like the hydra (or Yamato-no-Orochi, if you like).
Rudy’s going for voters in places you wouldn’t normally expect, agreeing to speak at the Family Research Council's "values voter" summit. Rudy’s positions don’t make a match that easily, but he might be trying to pick up those voters that are fence-sitting on whether to vote “values” (whatever the hell that means) or to vote for a candidate they feel is electable. If it works for him, Mr. Guliani gets valuable experience facing a hostile political crowd.
In the end, though, all of this opinion-slinging and rage at hat’s drop might be bad for us. Kurt Anderson wants to know why we're reacting so strongly to everything. And whether we really need to do all of that froth and rage when it’s over small stuff. When there are bigger issues, like the continued decline of civics and government education in the public schooling system, that might be the right time to raise a holler, because people who don’t understand how their government works will have no way of knowing whether any of a hundred other governmental types are superior and worth trying to bring about. Or why having the police/public safety officers on a university campus armed is potentially good and potentially bad, considering the kind of populace they’re dealing with.
In non-political news, Egypt is attempting to reclaim desert area and turn it into cropland. It will eventually become useful land for the populace to move onto, as well. But the question is now whether it costs too much in water usage to be a sustainable venture. Continuing in the environmental theme, the state of Illinois is asking its residents to report on where they see wild bees, so that they can chart how abundant they are and how hard things like colony collapse disorder are hitting them.
The Jellyfish 45 will take six under the sea and float them along. Depending on food stores and the tides, one might be able to use it to float along from island to island and live on an enclosed boat. Or it could just be rented by people who want to say they’ve done it underwater. You never know.
Tonight’s Odd Things department offers up Crime and Punishment, a Flickr photoset of early 20th century photos centered around prison and things like mug shots. While too late to make the photoset, this odd account of a seventy-five year-old woman taking a hammer to Comcast customer support representatives' computers as a way of expressing frustration will follow the theme nicely. At the very least, I’m sure she got someone’s attention. Whether anything productive happens out of it, I don’t know.
Last for tonight, though, is something to make you laugh. Assuming you’ve got some fairly geeky humor, that is - some examples of Adam Koford's blending of old-style comics and new-style phrases. The visual makes the verbal joke work. If you want to see more, including his perhaps better-known Laugh Out Loud Cats, visit http://apelad.blogspot.com/.
Thus, hopefully having at least managed to entertain you, I say that there’s a poll one entry back that is hopefully worth filling out, and then I go to bed. Because I need my beauty sleep.
