Short amounts tonight - 10 Feburary 2008

[silveradept]

Short work shift today - went by pretty quickly, and with enough volume of customers to make it an interesting day. And now, vegetative time, after the news. Not a whole lot in the n00s segment, but still enough to provide a daily fix, hopefully.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis has delivered a new laboratory module to the International Space Station. Installation of the lab is delayed until Monday while a crewmember slated to spacewalk recovers from a non-serious medical condition.

A United States Army sniper accused of killing an Iraqi and planting evidence on him has been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The sniper admitted to doing the act, which made the case easier, and so the justice system works in this case.

The United Kingdom's athletes are going to be asked to stay mum about China's political positions, human rights record, or treatment of Tibetans when they travel to Beijing for the Olympics later this year. Using the Olympic stage as a soapbox has possibilities both for good and for ill, depending on how much the focus shifts toward or away from those athletes that choose to speak their minds on things if they wish to do so.

Continuing in the Chinese theme, the United States claims that the Chinese government is financing well-coordinated attempts to break into United States government and private-sector computer networks

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is current inoperative, thanks to not having sufficient members to operate, and having its renewal law stalled in the Senate. It’s unknown when the bills might go through and people get appointed - and Consumerist would like actual consumer advocated to be sitting on the board, of course. This sort of thing seems to follow a standard pattern with Democrats - elected to end the war, they instead surrendered to Mr. Bush's whims on just about everything.

Austin Cline, at the General’s, decries the use of "I was following government lawyers' advice" as an excuse for doing illegal things, and worries about the precedents being set by the Bush Administration for building a true unitary executive. Electing someone willing to dismantle the power structures that Mr. Bush has set up is something that the populace should take as a priority.

Significantly more hysterical and less fact-based, Cinnamon Stillwell is worried about textbooks that don't paint Islam as a violent religion appearing in California schools. That Cinnamon is willing to say flat out that “Islamists” are “jihadists” and only considers the violent aspects of jihad dismisses her objection as credible. It would be like saying that all “Christians” are “Crusaders” and only considering the violent and loud aspects of the religion, like the Inquisition and Fred Phelps, as what every Christian is. Or that the Creationists who are seeking footholds in Europe are what all Christians are

Admittedly, that the question as to whether someone can convert back to Christianity from Islam requires a court ruling in Egypt means that there is some work to be done in integrating and pulling forward ideas of Islam into the 21st century, but that progress is being made.

Next to last for tonight, concept drawings of New Yorkers living in blimps above the city in the case of a disaster. I don’t know if we could build blimps big enough to house and commerce and all the things that New Yorkers would need.

Last for tonight, our Many Uses of Nintendo Wii file shows us that the Nintendo Wii is being used for physical therapy exercises.

Comments

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

"Admittedly, that the question as to whether someone can convert back to Christianity from Islam requires a court ruling in Egypt means that there is some work to be done in integrating and pulling forward ideas of Islam into the 21st century, but that progress is being made.

Hell, that's already progress. Lot of middle eastern countries'll just kill you if you try to convert away from Islam.