Blargh, it's not Friday yet? - 08 November 2007

[silveradept]

Well, even though I’m nowhere near it, I hope that U*CON goes off without a hitch this year. First one in six that I’ll be missing, but that whole job on the other coast thing severely limits the options. I kept trying to make today Wednesday, which is wasn’t, and hoping it was Friday, maybe, which is isn’t.

But anyway, onward to more important things.

Recall on toys because if ingested, they metabolise into GHB. The famed “date-rape” drug GHB. Bad for adults, and here it is in the children. Good, I suppose, that it was found and recalled, very, very bad that this was the method of finding it. Other medical science news includes creating a "fearless" mouse by stopping it from behaving instinctively when it smelled predators, like cats. Yeah, if my fear response were suppressed, I’d probably be more buddy-buddy with my worst enemies, too.

Dispatches from Iraq’s PR department - drop in Baghdad violence is sustainable, even as forces will leave the area. And they’ll also point to the fact that more people are coming back to Iraq all the time as positive change as well. Even though what’s probably causing it is the tightening of borders in the neighboring country and the expiration of temporary refugee statuses in those countries.

Some soldiers are itching to get back into the war zone after losing limbs. With new advancements in prosthetics and rehabilitation, it’s quite possible that someone who lost one limb will go back on active duty and could lose more. Some people want to do this, and I’m glad that medical technology helps them out, but I’m having trouble understanding why you would want to go back to the place that took one of your limbs.

Oh, and an Iraqi Chaldean was elected to the College of Cardinals.

Nine Iranians will be released, as eleven others are held on insurgency charges. At the same time, Iran claims to have achieved another nuclear processing milestone. Which, if you believe the reports coming from the International Energy Agency about the end of petroleum power arriving quickly, may end up being beneficial to Iran, assuming the intent of Iran really is peacful and civilian uses of the energy.

Rounding out the foreign affairs bureau, police have been called out to stop mass protests in the country of Georgia after the President instituted emergency measures. Georgia expelled Russian diplomats and accused Moscow of fomenting the protests that led to the declaration of emergency. It’s a hot week for emergency powers. Anyone here going to try that shtick soon?

Now in domestic affairs, another death knell for Mayor 9/11 - he picked up Pat Robertson's endorsement. Although they’ll both be trying to spin that in a positive way, I do believe that Mayor 9/11 picked up another albatross. Of course, my bias might be showing a bit. What it does potentially show, though, is that the religious and social conservatives are splitting themselves among several candidates. Although only for the primaries, as best I can tell - once the general election gets underway, they’ll probably be back in lockstep with the Republican candidate.

Telecom spying whistleblower says that the retroactive immunity provision is a cover-up operation. Something many of us know or have theorized, so it’s nice to know we’re on the same wavelength.

Quiche competition time! On the light and fluffy exterior, an Air Force general says not only do extremists want to take over the world, they have a one hundred year plan to do it with. Here. I’ll make the general a deal. If he can produce a hard copy, or even a strongly credible argument for why it would be 100 years, or that even such a worldwide conspiracy exists in any form more than loosely associated terror cells, I’ll give him a sneak peek at the Liberal Agenda and let him see what’s in store for the next year, or something. Assuming that my copy of the Agenda ever arrives. Until then, I’ll have to content myself with the rising ocean levels tea-cup, it changes with hot water.

Potentially demonstrating stupidity and inability to see shades of grey, MySpace may be blocking profiles that have futhork on them, because certain less-than-desirable hate groups also like to use them on their pages/Internet venues. Which pisses off all the rune-using Pagans, of course. No confirmation on that, though.

If one were going straight for hubris, however, then tonight’s award would certainly have to be given to the chupacabra - Ann Coulter promotes a book that paints Joseph McCarthy as a dedicated patriot who knew about Soviet spies infiltrating the government and acted upon that knowledge, rather than the overzealous witch-hunter his current historical profile places him as. This requires the Democratic party to have been complicit, or at least too stupid to notice, in allowing Soviet spies to infiltrate the government and people’s lives. Which is no stretch of the imagination for Coulter, given her opinion of the current crop of persons to carry that label. And if she’s willing to project those images into the past, then it becomes very easy to see Democrats and liberals of past lives letting traitors in and turning a blind eye to their obvious leanings. Not to invoke the wrath of Godwin, but I will kindly remind her that the philosophies of the Third Reich had quite the following before the Second World War, and that they still have some adherents yet today in a world significantly more liberal than before. The United States did not become a Marxist/Leninist state, and the Stalinist state has since collapsed.

Tonight’s Seriously Awesome Thing is two Tesla coils tuned to play the overworld theme from Super Mario Brothers.

After that kind of awesome, I’m going to bed.

Comments

[rowenablue.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit pissed about the myspace/runes issue. I'm going to start being more active on my myspace page merely to use that image. I wonder if Hindus are allowed to use the swastika image?

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Hindus are allowed to use the swastika image?

I would guess not. It strikes me that if they're banning Futhark they probably don't understand the subtleties of a religion's symbols over a hate group's use of them. I've not been impressed by myspace in the past.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Re: toys being metabolized into GHB. I'm curious... why make a big deal that they're from China, if the formulation is such that the glue is semi-toxic, it's not the manufacturer's fault for inappropriate testing.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand what is so wrong about the Runes. If you don't view it as a pagan divination tool, then Runes are simply an old language, same as any other language. I don't understand.

I also don't quite understand how something can "turn into" the date rape drug. I mean, wouldn't it almost have to be pre-coated with the date rape drug, or is there some magic when it interacts with saliva?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

How can something turn into the drug, though? Wouldn't it have to already have the drug on it? Or is there something that interacts with saliva?

[silveradept]

Metabolization - something in the formulation transforms the otherwise-harmless component into GHB when the person tries to digest the beads.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Weird.

Makes me a bit worried though that someone might find a way to isolate the chemical on the bead to put it on other things in order to drug people....

[silveradept]

Runes are symbols, like letters. And people of all sorts like symbols with which to display their allegiances. Usually, if the allegiance is something less than socially acceptable, the symbol hides behind something else, so that the casual user doesn't see anything out of the ordinary, but those clued into the secret meanings know they have a fellow. Probably some white-supremacy groups liked the look of the runes, and thought they might make excellent symbols of their mindset. Something in the back of my brain says that adopting the runes is some sort of heavy metal influence, but I don't think I can connect those dots with any confidence.

Think about it - if you graffiti'd a hand flipping the bird with English saying "Fuck the Government" somewhere where that wasn't a rude gesture and English wasn't the primary language, people might look at it and wonder what it was, but they're not going to be offended by it. Anyone coming from a country where that was offensive, though, and English is spoken and read understands the symbol well - and knows there's at least a mildly annoyed dissident around.

[silveradept]

Because China wants to kill us all and steal our economy, of course. They're letting all those harmful toys through deliberately so they can destabilize our government, commit terror attacks against us, and undercut our economy into nothing with their cheap and unregulated manufacturing. Isn't it obvious?

[/Wild, Baseless, Conspiracy Rant]

[silveradept]

Considering, as I recall, that GHB is somewhat like Iocaine powder, excepting without the instant lethality part (although it is deadly if ingested too much), why vote for the lesser evil? If you control the dosage, you control the results - metabolizing into something like GHB is potentially uncontrollable. Which could mean someone dies that you just wanted not to be able to resist.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

sort of like how in england, they flip the bird with the pointer finger, and in Italy (i think), it's the thumb.

I could understand the ban on it if someone was spelling out "f*ck off" (which I've seen a few times in icons) with the Runes.

I guess it bothers me more because I've been known to use Runes for divination purposes, and can pick out a handful without having to refer to my cheat sheet. I also know that Runes have been used for protective purposes, mostly by Druids, but I'm sure like most things in the pagan world, it's got some cross-over into the other Pagan religions.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

But if someone doesn't care if someone lives or dies, they might try doing it. I mean, someone who slips GHB into someone's drink isn't exactly thinking of the other person's well-being.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Those damn commies, right?

[urbankotq.livejournal.com]

Well, given their amazing growth rate, huge population, numerous instances of stealing technology from the U.S., belligerence toward Taiwan, and rapidly-advancing technology, it's not surprising that people would start pointing fingers at them when they start doing anything even remotely suspicious.

I believe that China will be the next world superpower. I just don't think it'll have to do all that much in the way of undercutting to get there, given how we're doing a great job of gradually removing ourselves from the world stage.

[silveradept]

Someone who doesn't care if someone lives or dies is probably not going to bother with drugging their date first, in my opinion, or will wait for the drug to wear off and whatever restraints they have in place to take hold first. And usually, I'd suspect that at that point, the end result is probably going to be death rather than life, so it doesn't make sense to use more of those kinds of drugs on someone to kill them.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Hm. You're probably right. There I go trying to apply logic to a psycho's mentality. Yeah, like that's going to work.

[thalass.livejournal.com]

Man, myspace sucks. I use futhorc runes (slightly modified to make it easier to write modern english) for my notes on paper (and, when I finish the font I'm building, and have my tablet pc, I'll be using them electronically as well) and stuff... To me it's no different to writing english with... I dunno, Japanese katathings? Y'know.

Stupid.

[redrab.livejournal.com]

Points for using "chupacabra" and Ann Coulter in the same sentence. Nicely done.

[silveradept]

Yes, that's what those mean to you. What they mean to other people, however, could be something different - kind of like how a peaceful symbol has had its meaning twisted very hard by persons who wanted to use it as a banner for desetruction. this rune work is moving along the same path, really - because some people decide to use it to promote ends that are generally agreed-upon as destructive and wrong, the symbol itself is banned. No gradations, no actual work, problem solved, ya?

[silveradept]

It seems that sanity and a willingness to make useful distinctions is in short supply across social networking sites these days. Next thing we know, using anything other than English in Latin script won't be allowed, just in case you might be a foreigner, and thus a terrorist.

[silveradept]

I'm not the first to make that formulation - and was it you or someone else who linked me to the Coultercabra pages?

[redrab.livejournal.com]

ah, that would've been me.

[silveradept]

I thought that was true. Good to know that my memory is only rusty rather than failling (at least for now).

[ldragoon.livejournal.com]

Florence sees himself as one of the "lucky ones." He has no serious brain damage and lost only a part of one leg, below the knee. In rehab, soldiers call that a "papercut."

Gosh, I call that "trivializing another's pain" or "brainwashing". But I'm just a god-less granola-chewing liberal femi-nazi bitch, so WTF do I know?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I see. And then it doesn't matter what you are using the symbol for, you're using a symbol thats "bad". Like how if you use a swastica, you're assumed to be a nazi.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I must have missed that article. My uncle lost his leg below the knee, and it's definitely more than a "paper cut".

[ldragoon.livejournal.com]

Having never lost a limb myself, I can't speak from experience, but I would IMAGINE THAT LOSING A LIMB FUCKING SUCKS ASS. That article pissed me off more than anything I've read all week. I'm sure pressuring these soldiers into returning to "work" has NOTHING whatsoever to do with crappy recruitment, and their desperation for warm bodies.

[przxqgl.livejournal.com]

mooaah hah hah hah hah! i can put futhorc on my myspace profile page and nobody will realise it... at least not until myspace recognises unicode...

ᚱᛇᚾᛊᛝᚠᛢᛟᛈᛔᚿᚻᛎᛃᛅᛞ

of course that would mean that i would actually be using my myspace profile page for something...

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Yeh. And the rehabilitation for it takes a LONG TIME. My uncle had his amputation in August. He wasn't even released from the hospital until October, and now he has to play the waiting game of letting the stump shrink so he can get his artificial leg. they think he might be able to get his leg in December, but even after that, he will still have months of rehabilitation learning how to USE the leg and he has to teach himself how to walk on it.

Right now, he can't even do simple things like go to the bathroom without someone else there to help and support him.

Definately NOT something trivial.

It may be easier to rehabilitate someone who's lost an arm instead of a leg, but even so, it's still a very traumatic experience I'm sure.

[ldragoon.livejournal.com]

I think that's what made me so angry. I can't even imagine (and I don't want to!) the pain and horror and sickening realization that part of your body is GONE. It's gone for FOREVER. Having it trivialized like that...it's just maddening!

[przxqgl.livejournal.com]

you do know about the unicode entities for futhorc, i am assuming...

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they're just brainwashed by the Army. You know - Be tough! Come back to the Army, even if you did lose a limb! That doesn't matter, we still need you! or something.

[ldragoon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think that's exactly what's going on.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Actually, things changing is incredibly common and is a major difficulty in drug design. Almost candidate drugs work great on the bacteria or the cell line or whatever but are not bioavailable. Pretty much everything that enters your mouth changes after a pass through your bloodstream.

[silveradept]

Yep, you've got the idea. For some people, once a symbol means something to them, it's always meant that symbol, regardless as to whether it meant anything else to anybody else.

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

Oh, just for reference - you posted a story a number of days back on how NZ seemed to be emulating the US terror laws. I pointed out that thankfully, unlike the US we tend to stomp on such sillyness pretty quickly.

This is the followup: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10475054&ref=rss

Yes, our prime minister really did say that. *snicker*

[silveradept]

That your prime minster is more than willing to admit that things might not have been perfect gives your country bragging rights until we can admit to be wrong.

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=340&objectid=10474950
With a little digging on the internets (aka: Hit up Google News) you can get quite a bit of coverage very easily.

The law's pretty much been thrown out as ridiculous, but the people caught are generally still stuck on firearms charges - so while they didn't get off free, the terrorism law shows that maybe there is still hope in the world.