Late day, early night - 26 November 2007
Nov. 27th, 2007 12:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptYou’ll excuse me if I’m a little tired tonight. I don’t have too much time to be witty and interesting, so you may have to do a little more joke-making yourself.
Of course, there’s always the steampunk MP3 player mod to distract you from what might be a lackluster entry. Or throw out a story about how even Santa's elves don't get job security. Or perhaps trying to wow you with the past's visions of the future. Not that I’d stoop so low as to just throw out random links with no context in an attempt to distract you. With tabbed-browsing technology, of course, you can get after all of those and keep reading on.
Facing severely decreased donations, Republicans are trying to convince independently wealthy people to run under their party ticket. “Sure, finance your own campaign, we’ll endorse you, and then you can have a Congressional seat!” This does run across both major political parties, but the Republicans seem to really be seeking those who are willing to stake their personal fortunes on political office.
Rain has arrived in Georgia. Whether any sort of institutional prayer uttered on the seat of government had any efficacy at all has the Slacktivist commenting that perhaps it would have been better for those prayers to have been undertaken in secret, rather than in public. Although other prayers have probably been answered, as Trent Lott will be stepping down from his post.
How many brain injuries? The Pentagon’s official reports through the end of September are about one-seventh of the brain trauma cases that appear when compiling data from the Army, Navy, and the VA. I wonder what the criteria are that have produced such wildly divergent numbers.
When Yahoo! set up shop in China, the Chinese government requested and received personal data on journalists that were critical of the regime. With the two men in prison, Human Rights USA sued and had a settlement made against Yahoo, Inc, claiming that the company violated United States human rights laws in complying with the Chinese government request. Doug Wilson calls this a victory for freedom, but the two journalists are still in prison. Perhaps there will be some pressure to release, but the difficulties of being a multinational, especially an Internet portal, are starting to develop.
Is Israel planning on cutting electricity to Gaza? All of this because Hamas took power in the area in elections? What kind of grudge are we nursing here?
The Slacktivist is genuinely confused by the conservative noise machine, because they can say with a straight face that Nancy Pelosi talking to Syria is Bad, but George Bush talking to Syria is Good. Most of the comment squad retorted with the first immediate thought - “Two-legs bad, four-legs good.” Anything Nancy Pelosi or a Democrat does is Bad, by definition, anything Bush or a Republican does is Good. I wonder if that mentality extends to the Department of Homeland Security's want to train firefighters to spy on the people whose fires they're putting out, or people they’re rescuing, since they don’t have to have warrants to enter buildings. Spy on your neighbor, citizen, and report their subversive behavior, like entering the public library and checking out books.
Much more dangerous than the noise machine is that almost 40 percent of people in a nine-country survey believe AIDS is nonfatal. Despite all the treatments and possibilities that extend life and stave off the worst effects, it’s still lethal. And the other news from that survey isn’t too encouraging, thinking more people are getting treatment and that people are still uncomfortable about HIV/AIDS. Which makes the Reuters article about older white women heading to Kenya to pick up younger men slightly scary, considering that there’s a relatively high HIV infection rate in Kenya.
If the particulars are accurate on the following account, however, we have a winner in a baby quiche competition, or a perfect example of how much kids really do look to their parents for modeling behavior and learning opinions. As the story is told, a single peace shirt that became many peace shirts provoked an angry response from other students, including the misusage of swastikas, further damaging that symbol, and “Support the Troops” responses (although possibly one self-mocking response in “I Love America, Because America Loves War”). The administration is treating the group as if they were an unauthorized club, without a faculty sponsor, rather than a group of friends all saying the same thing. If you stick out in school, there will be plenty of people who want to hammer you down and try to keep you in line. This situation is a reasonable microcosm of the world outside - group wishes to express a peace message, plenty of shouting and angry response, those in power seem more interested in finding some way of shutting down the peace group rather than their attackers. Peace is not a political message - it only seems that way to those who think their pet cause is being talked about. We wonder whether these differences of opinion will be allowed to continue, in such a way that both sides will have to come to the agreement that they disagree, and only incidents where there is violence or a credible threat thereof getting administration intervention. It’s a marvelous teaching moment, assuming everyone’s willing to participate in the lesson. And who knows? It might sneak outside the school and be a teaching lesson for the community, too.
Ooh, look, an ending distraction! The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, another fine organization, open to members of all gender identities, from the same people who brought you the Ig Nobel Prize for research that makes people laugh, and then think, Improbable Research. They’re probably at least partially responsible for the following poster about why curiosity often results in mindscarring. But I don’t think they have anything to do with the underwear tug-of-war kit available in Japan, nor the SKORPIONS shifting garments.
My professional self found more books to read, too - was scoping out some of the newest paperbacks, and there’s another Darwin Awards book on the way, in addition to a Ken Jennings book that will probably get checked out, and I ordered up a book I heard on NPR - and should probably go snag a different book, assuming it’s still there tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll ever not have books to read, it’ll just be a matter of how far behind I am when I run out of time to read. G’night, everybody.
Of course, there’s always the steampunk MP3 player mod to distract you from what might be a lackluster entry. Or throw out a story about how even Santa's elves don't get job security. Or perhaps trying to wow you with the past's visions of the future. Not that I’d stoop so low as to just throw out random links with no context in an attempt to distract you. With tabbed-browsing technology, of course, you can get after all of those and keep reading on.
Facing severely decreased donations, Republicans are trying to convince independently wealthy people to run under their party ticket. “Sure, finance your own campaign, we’ll endorse you, and then you can have a Congressional seat!” This does run across both major political parties, but the Republicans seem to really be seeking those who are willing to stake their personal fortunes on political office.
Rain has arrived in Georgia. Whether any sort of institutional prayer uttered on the seat of government had any efficacy at all has the Slacktivist commenting that perhaps it would have been better for those prayers to have been undertaken in secret, rather than in public. Although other prayers have probably been answered, as Trent Lott will be stepping down from his post.
How many brain injuries? The Pentagon’s official reports through the end of September are about one-seventh of the brain trauma cases that appear when compiling data from the Army, Navy, and the VA. I wonder what the criteria are that have produced such wildly divergent numbers.
When Yahoo! set up shop in China, the Chinese government requested and received personal data on journalists that were critical of the regime. With the two men in prison, Human Rights USA sued and had a settlement made against Yahoo, Inc, claiming that the company violated United States human rights laws in complying with the Chinese government request. Doug Wilson calls this a victory for freedom, but the two journalists are still in prison. Perhaps there will be some pressure to release, but the difficulties of being a multinational, especially an Internet portal, are starting to develop.
Is Israel planning on cutting electricity to Gaza? All of this because Hamas took power in the area in elections? What kind of grudge are we nursing here?
The Slacktivist is genuinely confused by the conservative noise machine, because they can say with a straight face that Nancy Pelosi talking to Syria is Bad, but George Bush talking to Syria is Good. Most of the comment squad retorted with the first immediate thought - “Two-legs bad, four-legs good.” Anything Nancy Pelosi or a Democrat does is Bad, by definition, anything Bush or a Republican does is Good. I wonder if that mentality extends to the Department of Homeland Security's want to train firefighters to spy on the people whose fires they're putting out, or people they’re rescuing, since they don’t have to have warrants to enter buildings. Spy on your neighbor, citizen, and report their subversive behavior, like entering the public library and checking out books.
Much more dangerous than the noise machine is that almost 40 percent of people in a nine-country survey believe AIDS is nonfatal. Despite all the treatments and possibilities that extend life and stave off the worst effects, it’s still lethal. And the other news from that survey isn’t too encouraging, thinking more people are getting treatment and that people are still uncomfortable about HIV/AIDS. Which makes the Reuters article about older white women heading to Kenya to pick up younger men slightly scary, considering that there’s a relatively high HIV infection rate in Kenya.
If the particulars are accurate on the following account, however, we have a winner in a baby quiche competition, or a perfect example of how much kids really do look to their parents for modeling behavior and learning opinions. As the story is told, a single peace shirt that became many peace shirts provoked an angry response from other students, including the misusage of swastikas, further damaging that symbol, and “Support the Troops” responses (although possibly one self-mocking response in “I Love America, Because America Loves War”). The administration is treating the group as if they were an unauthorized club, without a faculty sponsor, rather than a group of friends all saying the same thing. If you stick out in school, there will be plenty of people who want to hammer you down and try to keep you in line. This situation is a reasonable microcosm of the world outside - group wishes to express a peace message, plenty of shouting and angry response, those in power seem more interested in finding some way of shutting down the peace group rather than their attackers. Peace is not a political message - it only seems that way to those who think their pet cause is being talked about. We wonder whether these differences of opinion will be allowed to continue, in such a way that both sides will have to come to the agreement that they disagree, and only incidents where there is violence or a credible threat thereof getting administration intervention. It’s a marvelous teaching moment, assuming everyone’s willing to participate in the lesson. And who knows? It might sneak outside the school and be a teaching lesson for the community, too.
Ooh, look, an ending distraction! The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, another fine organization, open to members of all gender identities, from the same people who brought you the Ig Nobel Prize for research that makes people laugh, and then think, Improbable Research. They’re probably at least partially responsible for the following poster about why curiosity often results in mindscarring. But I don’t think they have anything to do with the underwear tug-of-war kit available in Japan, nor the SKORPIONS shifting garments.
My professional self found more books to read, too - was scoping out some of the newest paperbacks, and there’s another Darwin Awards book on the way, in addition to a Ken Jennings book that will probably get checked out, and I ordered up a book I heard on NPR - and should probably go snag a different book, assuming it’s still there tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll ever not have books to read, it’ll just be a matter of how far behind I am when I run out of time to read. G’night, everybody.
