Yay for candy day! - 31 October 2007

[silveradept]

So, Happy Halloween, everyone. Or Merry Samhain, or yay for costumes-and-candy day, whatever you like.

I spent my day almost not having anyone come to my storytime, getting compliments on bladespark‘s excellent handiwork in crafting the tail and springbok horns that I purchased from her, then running out from work to go up to Seattle and listen to the honorable mention and winners of the Hugo House’s writing contest. I also got to hear cmpriest deliver a short story of hers and then hang out a bit afterwards, where more compliments were delivered, someone had a sonic screwdriver (and someone else was definitely getting the Jack Harkness vibe going), and we find that not only is cmpriest an excellent writer and impeccably fashionable, she speaks at a fairly rapid pace and doesn’t leave much for holes in the conversation. (We did manage to introduce ourselves near the end, after sort of hovering, unto which she explained that there are no breaks in the conversation.) Certainly was worth the entry fee for the chat and the story alone. Now I have even more reason to buy and read her books.

Since I still have work in the morning, we’re getting the fast version of things tonight.

Giant garbage pile in Pacific might finally get some cleanup?

Cranking Widgets says cover your ass - speak to the best of your knowledge and no further. A pretty good example of this is the new Attorney General candidate saying that he doesn't know if waterboarding breaks laws on torture. Not the thing to be saying to hostile political forces, nor particularly confidence-inspiring from someone who wants to be the new Attorney General, but he did cover his ass nicely. Others are much more willing to say that waterboarding is torture, drawing on their own experiences with the process.

Lethal injection deaths shelved until SCOTUS case resolves, it looks like.

Something simple and brilliant in execution, and one of the finer bits of social engineering, is the stripper game that allows spammers to bypass Turing test protections. And apparently it’s not just a tease to get more words typed in. Harnessing wank to evil purposes. Got to applaud it, while wanting the program itself to be destroyed.

In better technology, an e-paper for cell phones can now do video. Still waiting for our touch-sensitive paper-thin displays.

Yet another Republican outed - one of the State Representatives for Washington, who voted against domestic partnerships and anti-discrimination laws, was apparently getting it on with a male escort. I’m beginning to wonder if the Republican party is going to institute “straight tests” or something just so that they can be sure that their members aren’t going to come out of the closet in scandalous ways. Or they could get with the program and decide that they’re going to support the whole equality thing, so that it’s not so scandalous when these things happen.

A quiche detour to splat Walter E. Williams, who says the poor are getting richer, and absolute poverty has disappeared from the United States. His reasoning cites that many poor families still have costly consumer goods, like air conditioning, television, microwaves, and cars. And that they own their homes. So people who are poor must be doing something wrong, if they have all that luxury and still have trouble with their lives. But for most, that car is necessary, as the air conditioning might be, and eventually, anyone could own their home. What about insurances, though? Luckily, as he notes, most poverty is temporary and those who are in poverty at one point find their way out of it. But if all it takes is gambling wrong on people getting sick this year to put you in poverty, then there’s still a lot that needs fixing. And even if our poor are the envy of the world, there’s always room for improvement, both for our own people and for helping the world’s poor get at least up to our poor’s level.

Reason skewers the idea of conscientious objection to contraception, saying that it shouldn't be prescription but over-the-counter, and thus cut out entirely any need for a woman to have to ask to control her own body. And Alternet excerpts from a book that doesn't like the tendency of pr0n to be more gonzo than before coupled with the increasing popularity of pr0n, because it sends signals that women are supposed to be degraded and like it, and that the culture enjoys seeing that sort of thing.

Our shining jewel tonight, however, is not that a family of a marine sued Fred Phelps for their stunt at his son's funeral (which is good), but that the jury found in favor of the family and awarded damages. Admittedly, more than the defendants were worth, but in this RIAA-enabled sort of day, wouldn’t Phelps just have to suck it up and mortgage a few generations?

Anyway, off to bed for me. Work tomorrow and all that.

Comments

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

One major flaw in the argument that people can't be poor if they own a house. Very few people in America actually own their cars, homes and many other things we think of as something we own. The bank owns them, and they've entered into a partnership with you to let you use it while you're paying them back for the money they lent you. If you're still paying off a loan on any object you "own", I guarantee they can take it away. Actually that's part of the crisis we're currently seeing. Too many of those high risk loans went bad and the companies can't even sell the foreclosed houses because of how the market is in many places.

I will agree with the sentiment though that poverty in America means a very different thing that it does in Mexico to give one example, but there is still a long way to go.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I was going to point that out too. As long as the poor person has a decent credit score, they can probably get a mortgage and a car loan - at least a car loan for one of the more inexpensive cars. I'm pretty sure that they aren't driving around luxury SUVs. They might even be driving around a used car. And a house? well, if you think about it, some mortgages are cheaper than renting a place!

I also don't think you can compare poverty in 1971 to 2001. A lot of homes now are already equipped with air conditioning, and even some kitchens have a built in microwave, and most have a dishwasher. They also need to take into consideration that some things that were new in 1971 have come down in price in the past 30 years, making it possible for poor people to afford it.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Even IF this guy is right about people with houses... America is not exactly free from homeless people! And what about the millions who live in apartments and only rent, and don't even "own" their houses in the sense of paying back the bank for them? I don't own a house! My family didn't own a house, in any sense, for most of my life. We rented, stuck in the trap of being unable to get up a down payment because we had no money to spare, because it was going towards rent.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's that as well. It also strikes me that there's something intellectually dishonest about saying things like "Poverty isn't a problem anymore. I've stated it, so it's true, and now we don't have to worry about it anymore. Besides, people in other countries have it worse." Like just saying that people in South America have it worse makes it okay to ignore the problem. That's like saying that since it's okay to enslave young girls in India and use them as property then Feminism in America isn't needed anymore because women elsewhere have it so much worse.

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

Hi. I did admire your srpingbok horns, as you were hovering and waiting for a break in the conversation. I should have been more dilliegent in attempting to provide such breaks, as I could sort of see that that was what you were doing. All I can say in my defense is that we were on a conversational roll and I was afraid that any lapse in momentum on my part would result in the conversation wave-form collapsing on itself. I, in case you were wondering, am the rather larger red-head dressed in black who was having the chat with cmpriest after the ghost tour. I was dressed as an office-worker.

[silveradept]

No worries. I've heard that bad things can happen when wave forms collapse. And even though I was sort of hovering, I was enjoying listening to things. Next time, of course, I'll know to bring something useful to contribute into the conversation and merge in skillfully from there.