Zip, zip, zoom! - 26 February 2008
Feb. 27th, 2008 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptGetting off the ground running, I can sympathize with the Agents in Mobile Desktop, as I’ve hauled my rig back and forth between various things before, and it’s not easy to pull off. Although, I do kind of miss those parties, now that I’m several states away.
The United States Defense Secretary has apparently failed to grasp the significance of his statements with regard to the PKK situation - Mr. Gates says that a military solution is insufficient to solve the problem. Yet the Bush Administration continues to try and use a military solution that ended up putting only 8,000 more troops on the ground net since the "surge" started, and continues to want to delay the drawing down of military forces. If the political and economic options arent’ forthcoming, then throwing more troops and money at it militarily isn’t going to work, Mr. Gates. You said so yourself.
Iran has dismissed as forgeries new documents that claim the country clandestinely restarted a nuclear weapons program after stopping in 2003. These documents no doubt have American conservatives salivating at the chance to prove that the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusions were wrong.
Unable to build an actual fence at the border, a "virtual fence" that uses cameras and radar to catch those crossing the Arizona border has been approved. Which makes border hawks happy. Just don’t show them that immigrants, legal or illegal, are less likely to commit crime in California than the natives.
Of interest to our political radar, after a CBS affiliate censored part of a 60 minutes broadcast, and then blamed the matter falsely on transmission problems, Harper's Magazine has an in-depth look at the political motivations behind the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman . Brought on bad charges, with false evidence, and withholding acquittal evidence, the whole thing looks like it was a political hatchet job from the beginning, hatched from Karl Rove’s turd blossom.
In the matters of the general election in November, the Republican Party is disseminating messages to its members to avoid saying things that could be considered racist or sexist. This does not mean that opinions will take issue with Senator Obama, raising spectres of the past. Linda Chavez believes that liberals are misguided in their definition of patriotism. Chavez says patriotism is unconditional love for one’s country, whether your party or the opposition occupies it. Liberals, she alleges, see patriotism as something to be earned when the country is, in their opinion, doing the right thing. My guess is that she sees conservative patriotism as “My way, my country, right or wrong.” and liberal patriotism as, “I have the right to be disappointed in my country if it is in the wrong.”, and that being disappointed in the country is somehow sacrilege. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s old rhetoric from the post 11 September period to the beginning of the Iraq War.
Speaking of old rhetoric, in OpinionJournal today the GOP talking points resurfaced on the FISA renewal expiration, contending that our telecoms need to have immunity from lawsuits so they can help the government spy on people without a warrant. And besides, they contend, they’re terrorists, not people, so we don’t have to give them our Constitutional protections on their communications. It’s the same sort of disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law that brought much of the surveillance and “unitary executive” bullshit onto the law books. If the Constitution can be ignored or shelved when inconvenient, then it really has become just a goddamned piece of paper, and the populace should be ready to invoke Dr. Guillotine’s point about those who break their oaths to defend the Constitution.
Reality check time. An opinion in USA Today runs down the costs of the two Democratic candidate's plans, and remarks that they are “costly”. For perspective, the sum total of both candidates plans, by my armchair figures, is less than the supplemental budget request from President Bush to fund his sandbox games. Costly? No more so than a semester of war. And rather than being all at once, it’s spread across some years. Admittedly, the costs of entitlement programs are going to go up over the next few years, but the monies not spent on guns and bombs might be able to help with the cushion there or in setting up a program that works and doesn’t cost quite so much.
Continuing in the theme of things that should be said to draw people back into reality, a young crossdresser was gunned down in Fort Lauderdale. The police are unsure whether the boy’s sexual orientation or crossdressing had something to do with his death, but it’s still tragic. And as Anthony B. Robinson says, Ridiculing gay men is a bad pillar to base an organization, or a society on. It’s such a problem when you think that at the very least, the Westboro Baptist Church would be proud that the world was rid of another abomination to God. If we can’t get past tribalism, or at least expand the concept of the tribe to include all humans on a fundamental level, I think our development as a species will stagnate.
In technology news, Nokia unveiled a concept video for Morph, a way of using nanotechnology in various applications and flexible, adaptable designs. It looks pretty neat - of course, if we had that kind of technology now, it would be pretty cool to watch it at work, assuming we didn’t turn ourselves into grey goo.
Our News of the Weird says that it’s a potentially slow news day at Faux, as they have an article about a talking Elmo doll that is supposedly issuing death threats. “All your friends are laughing behind your back... kill them.” We knew that the fuzzball offed Snuffy to get top billing on Sesame Street. This just proves it. Further Weird Stuff comes from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theweaselking as one of the eggs is not like the others. And last out of this Weird segment, three couples all got married at a White Castle in Ohio.
Health news says antidepressants don't work any better than placebo on most people who are depressed. Diagnostics for mental disorders may have gotten better - a blood test might be able to tell you if you're bipolar, but running tests like that on blood drawn raises some ethical questions about how much poking around should be done when it comes to the health of the brain. For some, finding out that the man who randomly stabbed two people during a horror movie screening was unstable before the stabbing would have been nice. (Also, they restarted the movie afterward? I would have thought seeing that would sour everyone in the theater on finishing out the movie.)
geek_chorus gives us advice for critiquers and editors on how to get your critiques listened to. These are significantly useful for when storied happen to be offensive to the editor.
Listmania for tonight before the quiz result thing - How to Exercise an Open Mind, which is basically a list of things that you can do that are new experiences. Pretty neat. There’s also the top ten best post-apocalyptic survival vehicles. And then, one very Weird List - David Horowitz will do interesting things if you give him specific amounts of money. Some cheap, some not so cheap, but all of them promises.
Because I’m a sucker for Bill Watterson’s creation, the following Quizilla result:
Your Score: Bit Of Both - You are 60% Calvin and 40% Hobbes.
Calvin & Hobbes, like a scruffy yin and yang, are in perfect balance within you. Like Calvin, you’re weird, a bit insecure, and can be a trouble-maker. But like Hobbes, you’re down to earth and sensitive. It’s a risk to say it here, after just a ten question test, but I’ll bet you’re smarter than most. Both Calvin and Hobbes are crafty, clever characters, and any one made from equal parts of each is a force to be reckoned with.
The Calvin Or Hobbes Test
At the tail end for tonight, five years after being jailed for "moral crimes", in Morocco, heavy metal continues to rock on. That’s obviously worth some devil horns, yo. I’m headed to bed.
The United States Defense Secretary has apparently failed to grasp the significance of his statements with regard to the PKK situation - Mr. Gates says that a military solution is insufficient to solve the problem. Yet the Bush Administration continues to try and use a military solution that ended up putting only 8,000 more troops on the ground net since the "surge" started, and continues to want to delay the drawing down of military forces. If the political and economic options arent’ forthcoming, then throwing more troops and money at it militarily isn’t going to work, Mr. Gates. You said so yourself.
Iran has dismissed as forgeries new documents that claim the country clandestinely restarted a nuclear weapons program after stopping in 2003. These documents no doubt have American conservatives salivating at the chance to prove that the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusions were wrong.
Unable to build an actual fence at the border, a "virtual fence" that uses cameras and radar to catch those crossing the Arizona border has been approved. Which makes border hawks happy. Just don’t show them that immigrants, legal or illegal, are less likely to commit crime in California than the natives.
Of interest to our political radar, after a CBS affiliate censored part of a 60 minutes broadcast, and then blamed the matter falsely on transmission problems, Harper's Magazine has an in-depth look at the political motivations behind the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman . Brought on bad charges, with false evidence, and withholding acquittal evidence, the whole thing looks like it was a political hatchet job from the beginning, hatched from Karl Rove’s turd blossom.
In the matters of the general election in November, the Republican Party is disseminating messages to its members to avoid saying things that could be considered racist or sexist. This does not mean that opinions will take issue with Senator Obama, raising spectres of the past. Linda Chavez believes that liberals are misguided in their definition of patriotism. Chavez says patriotism is unconditional love for one’s country, whether your party or the opposition occupies it. Liberals, she alleges, see patriotism as something to be earned when the country is, in their opinion, doing the right thing. My guess is that she sees conservative patriotism as “My way, my country, right or wrong.” and liberal patriotism as, “I have the right to be disappointed in my country if it is in the wrong.”, and that being disappointed in the country is somehow sacrilege. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s old rhetoric from the post 11 September period to the beginning of the Iraq War.
Speaking of old rhetoric, in OpinionJournal today the GOP talking points resurfaced on the FISA renewal expiration, contending that our telecoms need to have immunity from lawsuits so they can help the government spy on people without a warrant. And besides, they contend, they’re terrorists, not people, so we don’t have to give them our Constitutional protections on their communications. It’s the same sort of disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law that brought much of the surveillance and “unitary executive” bullshit onto the law books. If the Constitution can be ignored or shelved when inconvenient, then it really has become just a goddamned piece of paper, and the populace should be ready to invoke Dr. Guillotine’s point about those who break their oaths to defend the Constitution.
Reality check time. An opinion in USA Today runs down the costs of the two Democratic candidate's plans, and remarks that they are “costly”. For perspective, the sum total of both candidates plans, by my armchair figures, is less than the supplemental budget request from President Bush to fund his sandbox games. Costly? No more so than a semester of war. And rather than being all at once, it’s spread across some years. Admittedly, the costs of entitlement programs are going to go up over the next few years, but the monies not spent on guns and bombs might be able to help with the cushion there or in setting up a program that works and doesn’t cost quite so much.
Continuing in the theme of things that should be said to draw people back into reality, a young crossdresser was gunned down in Fort Lauderdale. The police are unsure whether the boy’s sexual orientation or crossdressing had something to do with his death, but it’s still tragic. And as Anthony B. Robinson says, Ridiculing gay men is a bad pillar to base an organization, or a society on. It’s such a problem when you think that at the very least, the Westboro Baptist Church would be proud that the world was rid of another abomination to God. If we can’t get past tribalism, or at least expand the concept of the tribe to include all humans on a fundamental level, I think our development as a species will stagnate.
In technology news, Nokia unveiled a concept video for Morph, a way of using nanotechnology in various applications and flexible, adaptable designs. It looks pretty neat - of course, if we had that kind of technology now, it would be pretty cool to watch it at work, assuming we didn’t turn ourselves into grey goo.
Our News of the Weird says that it’s a potentially slow news day at Faux, as they have an article about a talking Elmo doll that is supposedly issuing death threats. “All your friends are laughing behind your back... kill them.” We knew that the fuzzball offed Snuffy to get top billing on Sesame Street. This just proves it. Further Weird Stuff comes from
theweaselking as one of the eggs is not like the others. And last out of this Weird segment, three couples all got married at a White Castle in Ohio.Health news says antidepressants don't work any better than placebo on most people who are depressed. Diagnostics for mental disorders may have gotten better - a blood test might be able to tell you if you're bipolar, but running tests like that on blood drawn raises some ethical questions about how much poking around should be done when it comes to the health of the brain. For some, finding out that the man who randomly stabbed two people during a horror movie screening was unstable before the stabbing would have been nice. (Also, they restarted the movie afterward? I would have thought seeing that would sour everyone in the theater on finishing out the movie.)
geek_chorus gives us advice for critiquers and editors on how to get your critiques listened to. These are significantly useful for when storied happen to be offensive to the editor. Listmania for tonight before the quiz result thing - How to Exercise an Open Mind, which is basically a list of things that you can do that are new experiences. Pretty neat. There’s also the top ten best post-apocalyptic survival vehicles. And then, one very Weird List - David Horowitz will do interesting things if you give him specific amounts of money. Some cheap, some not so cheap, but all of them promises.
Because I’m a sucker for Bill Watterson’s creation, the following Quizilla result:
Your Score: Bit Of Both - You are 60% Calvin and 40% Hobbes.
Calvin & Hobbes, like a scruffy yin and yang, are in perfect balance within you. Like Calvin, you’re weird, a bit insecure, and can be a trouble-maker. But like Hobbes, you’re down to earth and sensitive. It’s a risk to say it here, after just a ten question test, but I’ll bet you’re smarter than most. Both Calvin and Hobbes are crafty, clever characters, and any one made from equal parts of each is a force to be reckoned with.
The Calvin Or Hobbes Test
At the tail end for tonight, five years after being jailed for "moral crimes", in Morocco, heavy metal continues to rock on. That’s obviously worth some devil horns, yo. I’m headed to bed.
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