Digging in deeper - 15 November 2007
Nov. 16th, 2007 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptI’m beginning to see just how much planning is going to be involved in all the projects I’m just thinking about possibly putting into reality. That’s without all the other stuff that might appear, and stuff that the system wants to do, too. As we said yesterday, if you think that all we do is sit around and read books at the desk, you’re mistaken.
Getting to the news. Not content to just make the jolly Christmas Fable slim down to make him more palatable, he's been advised that his from-the-gut laugh should be replaced with something with less potential offensiveness.
Barry Bonds has been indicted by the federal government for perjury and obstruction of justice with regard to the ongoing steroid investigation around BALCO. The government contends that Bonds did not speak truth when he said that he did not receive nor use any sort of steroid or human growth hormone from his trainer, and backs that claim with schedules and testimonies from the BALCO laboratory. The asterisk might turn out to be true after all. And if it does, then what does Selig do regarding the record that Bonds set for most home runs in a career?
New laws in Japan have foreigners fingerprinted and photographed when they enter the country. Just like the United States does. They’re not to the point of domestic photography and biometric databases... yet. They’re currently working on bringing their soldiers close to a "Gundam" world.
They're making a Dragonball movie. Aieeeeeeeeee.
A World War II P-38 fighter has been unearthed on a beach in Wales, sixty-five years after burying itself there.
In the governmental realm, the image linked in the following is unsourced, and thus, I have no idea if there is any context at all, but it claims you are what the government pays for you to eat. Putting the subsidy pyramid next to the older food pyramid intends to help get perspective on both. Makes me wonder if we’ll start seeing the subsidy pyramid begin to resemble the new food pyramid.
Bills passed by both houses of government do not grant telecoms immunity for aiding in warrantless wiretapping, despite the threats from Mr. Bush to veto any bills that do not include that provision. Additionally, the House of Representatives approved a war spending bill that ties money to troop withdrawals, also garnering a veto promise from Mr. Bush in addition to the standard rhetoric about how much the Democratic party is in thrall to liberals like Code Pink and MoveOn.org. Applying the same logic, when a report came out suggesting that the real cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are closer to $1.5 trillion dollars, it was called "clearly partisan". Ask anyone who is a liberal, or is a Democrat, and see if they agree that liberals and Democrats are unified under a single banner.
The voting populace, however, is not exactly making themselves out to be the best people on the planet. Most of them would trade their right to vote for material gain, while at the same time saying that voting itself is a very important thing - even the ones who would trade their vote away.
While not as bad as a result as the MySpace-stalking story from yesterday, here’s another example as to why the Internet is not always a great place - false, intended to be satirical, Craigslist ads. We hope that satirists always strive to make it known that their work is satirical. We can’t say anything about the ability of those seeing the satire to understand it, thought. In that same vein, because I don’t really want to believe it’s an actual event with actual people behind it, I’m declaring the Million March for God to be a satire, poking fun at other people who take their Christianity too seriously. If it’s not satire, let me know, of course.
Real life has its own share of fakers, too, though. Take, for example, the man who shot himself with a nail gun and then attempted to blame it on an attack by a roving gang.
Going from false to actively Bad, United States Catholic bishops say that those who vote for pro-choice candidates are cooperating in abortions. The bishops are only advising, and have not yet implied that voting for the Democratic candidate is a grievous sin that removes one from obtaining the sacraments. In that sense, they’re doing better than the American Family Association, which has been implicated in causing a DDoS that nearly shut down the city of Philadelphia's e-mail system. In trying to get their members to protest the decision of the city aldermen. The decision in question is charging the Boy Scouts of America rent for use of city facilities because their anti-homosexual stance places them in violation of the city’s Fairness ordinance. So many messages were sent that the spam filters tripped, trapped, rejected, and did their best to contain and repulse the mailbomb, and still almost collapsed. I suppose that shows something about the power of lots of people writing someone, but in the case of e-mail, it’s more like someone writing a script that hammers the appropriate addresses as fast as they can send.
Going from Bad to Worse, the Saudi victim of a gang-rape had her punishment increased, adding lashes and a prison sentence for “attempting to use the media to influence” the judges. The attackers had their sentences doubled as well, but the woman was first being punished because she was violating the law that segregates the sexes, and then had it increased when she appealed her sentence. Her lawyer had his license to practice suspended and faces discipline of his own. So, let’s recap. Woman is gang-raped, presses charges, gets attackers convicted. Woman is sentenced to lashes because she was in the car of someone who wasn’t her immediate family. Upon appealing to the judges’ common sense, the judges increased the punishment. And these are the people that we consider allies in the war on terror, right?
Although they’d probably cite things like that case as justification, the response is not to do as the LAPD tried to do and map the Muslim populace of Los Angeles. The issues raised were that it was religious profiling, and that it would be tough to be accurate, which could create bigger problems if raids with force happened at the wrong place.
And from Worse to Worst, in filming a movie about a child forced into prostitution, the writer/producer has his eyes opened to the real problem of child sexual exploitation.
Trying to climb out of the pit I’ve dug for you, the reading audience, let’s have a sex-positive tale, with adult video stars giving a guest lecture about their work to a Sociology of Sexuality course. From the account, it was well-attended, the discourse was lively, and there were some samples shown in class. Only at university could such a thing happen.
Wow. Cool Things brings to my attention an annual report package for a food company where one of the components must be covered in foil and baked before it is usable. If done properly, the tiny book gets text and images to appear. If done wrong, then, well, the book overcooks. Further Cool Stuff tells us that a Grand Unified Theory that accounts for the four fundamental forces and supposedly needs only the three dimensions of space and one of time might have a testing run done on it with the completion of a large atom smasher. The new theory utilizes a mathematical form with multiple dimensions consisting of 248 points arranged in various groupings. By placing particles and forces on the various vertices of the form, in proper groupings, several new particles are predicted to exist, and would have to be detected to give validity to the idea. Of course, the mathematical form itself has supposedly several dimensions to it, but I think those dimensions are somehow different than the three of space and one of time that the theory supposedly needs. Not being a physicist, however, I confess to confusion at the particulars of the matter. Those who do understand, can we have the layman’s version of this new theory?
I have to smile at the following, possibly in a wistful way with a faraway look in my eye toward a hypothetical, still-unrealized future. The Nerd Handbook offers significant others of nerds ways to understand them, and to help their nerds understand them and society at large. For those who have those significant others, perhaps this will be helpful.
Our biggest Cool Thing, and the lead-out for tonight, is causal relationships found between low self-esteem and strong materialism. Buying things doesn’t make people happy, even though people think it does. And the cycle perpetuates itself - we keep thinking that buying things will make us happy, and it doesn’t, so we buy more things, and they still don’t. Sounds remarkably like the cycle of suffering in Buddhist philosophy. Perhaps the way out is to cause A Heap Of Trouble (NSFW) for all of us?
Or not. Maybe we just need more sleep. Which I will be getting.
Getting to the news. Not content to just make the jolly Christmas Fable slim down to make him more palatable, he's been advised that his from-the-gut laugh should be replaced with something with less potential offensiveness.
Barry Bonds has been indicted by the federal government for perjury and obstruction of justice with regard to the ongoing steroid investigation around BALCO. The government contends that Bonds did not speak truth when he said that he did not receive nor use any sort of steroid or human growth hormone from his trainer, and backs that claim with schedules and testimonies from the BALCO laboratory. The asterisk might turn out to be true after all. And if it does, then what does Selig do regarding the record that Bonds set for most home runs in a career?
New laws in Japan have foreigners fingerprinted and photographed when they enter the country. Just like the United States does. They’re not to the point of domestic photography and biometric databases... yet. They’re currently working on bringing their soldiers close to a "Gundam" world.
They're making a Dragonball movie. Aieeeeeeeeee.
A World War II P-38 fighter has been unearthed on a beach in Wales, sixty-five years after burying itself there.
In the governmental realm, the image linked in the following is unsourced, and thus, I have no idea if there is any context at all, but it claims you are what the government pays for you to eat. Putting the subsidy pyramid next to the older food pyramid intends to help get perspective on both. Makes me wonder if we’ll start seeing the subsidy pyramid begin to resemble the new food pyramid.
Bills passed by both houses of government do not grant telecoms immunity for aiding in warrantless wiretapping, despite the threats from Mr. Bush to veto any bills that do not include that provision. Additionally, the House of Representatives approved a war spending bill that ties money to troop withdrawals, also garnering a veto promise from Mr. Bush in addition to the standard rhetoric about how much the Democratic party is in thrall to liberals like Code Pink and MoveOn.org. Applying the same logic, when a report came out suggesting that the real cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are closer to $1.5 trillion dollars, it was called "clearly partisan". Ask anyone who is a liberal, or is a Democrat, and see if they agree that liberals and Democrats are unified under a single banner.
The voting populace, however, is not exactly making themselves out to be the best people on the planet. Most of them would trade their right to vote for material gain, while at the same time saying that voting itself is a very important thing - even the ones who would trade their vote away.
While not as bad as a result as the MySpace-stalking story from yesterday, here’s another example as to why the Internet is not always a great place - false, intended to be satirical, Craigslist ads. We hope that satirists always strive to make it known that their work is satirical. We can’t say anything about the ability of those seeing the satire to understand it, thought. In that same vein, because I don’t really want to believe it’s an actual event with actual people behind it, I’m declaring the Million March for God to be a satire, poking fun at other people who take their Christianity too seriously. If it’s not satire, let me know, of course.
Real life has its own share of fakers, too, though. Take, for example, the man who shot himself with a nail gun and then attempted to blame it on an attack by a roving gang.
Going from false to actively Bad, United States Catholic bishops say that those who vote for pro-choice candidates are cooperating in abortions. The bishops are only advising, and have not yet implied that voting for the Democratic candidate is a grievous sin that removes one from obtaining the sacraments. In that sense, they’re doing better than the American Family Association, which has been implicated in causing a DDoS that nearly shut down the city of Philadelphia's e-mail system. In trying to get their members to protest the decision of the city aldermen. The decision in question is charging the Boy Scouts of America rent for use of city facilities because their anti-homosexual stance places them in violation of the city’s Fairness ordinance. So many messages were sent that the spam filters tripped, trapped, rejected, and did their best to contain and repulse the mailbomb, and still almost collapsed. I suppose that shows something about the power of lots of people writing someone, but in the case of e-mail, it’s more like someone writing a script that hammers the appropriate addresses as fast as they can send.
Going from Bad to Worse, the Saudi victim of a gang-rape had her punishment increased, adding lashes and a prison sentence for “attempting to use the media to influence” the judges. The attackers had their sentences doubled as well, but the woman was first being punished because she was violating the law that segregates the sexes, and then had it increased when she appealed her sentence. Her lawyer had his license to practice suspended and faces discipline of his own. So, let’s recap. Woman is gang-raped, presses charges, gets attackers convicted. Woman is sentenced to lashes because she was in the car of someone who wasn’t her immediate family. Upon appealing to the judges’ common sense, the judges increased the punishment. And these are the people that we consider allies in the war on terror, right?
Although they’d probably cite things like that case as justification, the response is not to do as the LAPD tried to do and map the Muslim populace of Los Angeles. The issues raised were that it was religious profiling, and that it would be tough to be accurate, which could create bigger problems if raids with force happened at the wrong place.
And from Worse to Worst, in filming a movie about a child forced into prostitution, the writer/producer has his eyes opened to the real problem of child sexual exploitation.
Trying to climb out of the pit I’ve dug for you, the reading audience, let’s have a sex-positive tale, with adult video stars giving a guest lecture about their work to a Sociology of Sexuality course. From the account, it was well-attended, the discourse was lively, and there were some samples shown in class. Only at university could such a thing happen.
Wow. Cool Things brings to my attention an annual report package for a food company where one of the components must be covered in foil and baked before it is usable. If done properly, the tiny book gets text and images to appear. If done wrong, then, well, the book overcooks. Further Cool Stuff tells us that a Grand Unified Theory that accounts for the four fundamental forces and supposedly needs only the three dimensions of space and one of time might have a testing run done on it with the completion of a large atom smasher. The new theory utilizes a mathematical form with multiple dimensions consisting of 248 points arranged in various groupings. By placing particles and forces on the various vertices of the form, in proper groupings, several new particles are predicted to exist, and would have to be detected to give validity to the idea. Of course, the mathematical form itself has supposedly several dimensions to it, but I think those dimensions are somehow different than the three of space and one of time that the theory supposedly needs. Not being a physicist, however, I confess to confusion at the particulars of the matter. Those who do understand, can we have the layman’s version of this new theory?
I have to smile at the following, possibly in a wistful way with a faraway look in my eye toward a hypothetical, still-unrealized future. The Nerd Handbook offers significant others of nerds ways to understand them, and to help their nerds understand them and society at large. For those who have those significant others, perhaps this will be helpful.
Our biggest Cool Thing, and the lead-out for tonight, is causal relationships found between low self-esteem and strong materialism. Buying things doesn’t make people happy, even though people think it does. And the cycle perpetuates itself - we keep thinking that buying things will make us happy, and it doesn’t, so we buy more things, and they still don’t. Sounds remarkably like the cycle of suffering in Buddhist philosophy. Perhaps the way out is to cause A Heap Of Trouble (NSFW) for all of us?
Or not. Maybe we just need more sleep. Which I will be getting.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-16 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-16 08:31 pm (UTC)So so stupid. Because if it's unwillingly, she still had something to do with it? Is that what they honestly think?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-16 11:53 pm (UTC)