Hissatsu! Part One - 13 March 2008
Mar. 13th, 2008 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptBeware the special attacks, especially if they’re the kind that get telegraphed long before they arrive. Got the Holy-Grail-type of Wii games yesterday, which makes it all the more vitally important that good behavior be enforced this upcoming week.
If you haven’t heard it on the news channel, no worries - it never appeared there. But, as a service, LiveJournal will no longer be offering a free, no-ad account level. It has become either advertisement or payment. For which I can only recommend that everyone invest in advertisement-blocking software for their computers, if they haven’t already. That the official channels were not used, and the advisory board’s recommendations were trampled on really does give one pause as to whether the LJ service is worth continuing to use.
My professional self gets one in early by saying, Well, at least he returned it.
In the news, a kidnapped Archbishop of the Chaldean church has turned up dead. Which may show the signs of what could happen in the area once the United States presence leaves. With regard to interrogations, the CIA said “Oops. We destroyed our tapes.” The Department of Defense, however, did not, and are currently rounding up some so that methods can be reviewed. It’s not a complete archive, but it might actually galvanize some Congresscritters to vote and override a bill that restricts interrogation methods.
The dollar's continued fall has savers turning to other currencies, like the euro, for transacting business. Hrm. If the United States suddenly starts becoming “powerful” only in military exercises, and not economically or politically, what will that do to the country and the warhawks...
Poland's ex-prime minster is sour on electronic voting, because he considers giving a democratic method to the unwashed, screen-staring masses not taking the act of voting seriously, and being too easily swayed. I’d probably adapt the Metatron’s joke in Dogma to the situation here, just replace “sex” with “voting”.
Domestically, and fairly close to home, residents of a mobile home community in Pierce County have had the land underneath their houses sold to make way for big-box stores. Because they don’t own the land which the house sits on, these things happen disturbingly often to residents in communities like these. And it’s not necessarily that likely that another area can be found that will take all of them in.
Also needing new homes are 800 dogs that were living on the property of one Arizona home. The house was a mess (well, 800 dogs and 82 parrots, too), but the dogs seemed to be in decent condition. They also were breeding, however, which is how I suspect that 800 figure was achieved. “This is Bob Barker, reminding you to help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.”
With regard to election people,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bradhicks wonders if John McCain is too stupid to know when he's being bribed, or too willing to listen to his own puffed-up ego and sycophants to effectively notice when he’s being suckered. If that’s the case, it might explain why Senator McCain hasn’t distanced himself from Rod Parsley, who speaks in the same language that "jihadists" do, only he wants christians to wage war against Islam. Parsley endorsed McCain, certainly, but McCain can only hurt himself by letting Parsley stand anywhere near him.
Jack Kevorkian, a longtime advocate for assisted suicide, will be running for a Congressional seat. If the populace is considering someone who wants to be pro-life and is over 70, they should probably also consider someone who is pro-quality of life and approaching 80. I don’t give him the proverbial snowball’s chance of winning, but he’s well within his rights to try.
Geraldine Ferraro resigned her position with the Clinton campaign over the remarks she made about Barack Obama’s success. As Mr. Olbermann pointed out, by letting Ferraro resign rather than dismissing her, the Clinton campaign lets her remarks stand with some sort of weight, which is not the image that Senator Clinton wants to project if she wants to be elected, regardless as to whether she believes it or not.
Representative Sally Kern continues to stand by her discriminatory remarks, insisting that they are not hate speech, but still believing in the Homosexual Agenda and saying that she professes Christian love toward homosexuals. Queerty wonders if a large part of her anti-homosexual rhetoric might be based on her own son being homosexual. If she thinks that biology has nothing to do with homosexuality, and that she obviously wasn’t supporting any sort of decision to become homosexual, then obviously there must have been recruiters or people in the schooling system that turned her son into a homosexual. It’s sad to see that kind of construction going on to avoid acceptance.
Also inspiring several Whiskey Tango Foxtrots is a new charge in Albany, New York, bus-riding while black. Without a search warrant, the cops rounded up, sedated, strip-searched, and held a man on suspicion that he was carrying drugs in his body, and then billed him for the hospital procedures done to him. All he was charged with was“ resisting arrest”, and that charge was thrown out.
In the wake of on-campus shootings in other states, Arizona is considering a bill that would permit guns on school grounds. It’s being touted as a way of being able to react to those shooters faster, but it could also create more of those shooters or guns being drawn and used in situations where they aren’t needed. Truth be told, despite their massive media attention, most kids go to school every day without there being a shooting. I just don’t see the value of having guns in schools where they can be used.
There’s also a big WTF in regard to a mother who threw her children, and then herself, off an overpass. Luckily, the traffic was moving slowly enough that all three people survived the fall. The story behind this incident, though, speaks to neglect that was caught, several times, but the children were returned to their mother after each of the incidents, probably in hopes that things would work out. At some point, somewhere before something like this, either the protective services or the mother has to realize that this isn’t working out and to release the children to go somewhere where things are normal and healthy, even if only long enough for Mom to get back on her feet and be able to provide a stable lifestyle for the kids.
Perhaps the most frightening of all of these, though, is 60 Minutes' account of a gigantic free clinic normally suited to the depths of the Amazon taking care of the uninsured and underinsured in Tennessee. The people there sat out in the parking lot overnight just to make sure they could get in and see the clinicians. And more than 400 were turned away when they finally closed up.
Weird news for today - a child was suspended for buying Skittles from a classmate, after the school adopted a “no candy sales” policy. While I agree that candy probably shouldn’t be in school that much, suspension like that seems a bit over the top. Luckily, there isn’t any permanent damage, like people blinded by trying to find an image of Mary in the sun. There’s also the world's oldest animation and nanowires seem to prefer Deep Purple for growth. Still weird, but “Awww” inducing, a dolphin led beached wales off the sandbar and back out to sea.
Getting play on the writing and artistic side of my friends list is Robin Hobb's rant that blogging is an antithetical measure to creative writing. The general response among the friends list is that blogging, like TV-watching or letter-writing, can be a distraction and a time suck, but those who know how to manage their time well will be able to write, even while they blog. And for some of us, our blogging is a writing exercise, regardless of how good we actually are at our presentation and format.
In technology news, a neckband that receives nerve signals can be used to make voiceless telephone calls. Thinking appropriate words and/or phonemes will allow the wearer to transmit their thoughts into a spoken word call. Which could give voice to a lot of mute people who can or can’t use other methods of communication. If the technology refined to semi-realtime processing, that would be a very interesting idea. I can imagine the wave of the future being able to talk one conversation and think another. Wouldn’t that be “Extreme multi-tasking” or something?
A new virus infection method to be aware of - a link to an FTP site, where one then downloads a malicious program. Mind you, the telltale double-extension is still there, which should flag most people’s caution, but there are probably plenty of people who still blindly click links.
Paying a flat fee for all-you-can-download music may not be that far off. Which would be great - pay a small fee, have peace of mind about getting frivolously sued by an organization just trying to find people who will settle. And with video content being the biggest consumer of Internet bandwidth, a license to watch may not be that far behind.
In science (SCIENCE!) - a cup of black tea could yield the makings of an anthrax cure. But only if taken without milk. It may not matter, though, if James Lovelock's predictions about the planet are going to come true.
Our Arts department says Tim Burton's making Alice in Wonderland. Will it be a head-trip?
The Happiness Project contributed the Required List, asking how mindfully do we live?
Last for tonight, just to show us all how many ideas really go into the creation of a product or service, some of the rejected ideas for product tie ins to the Star Wars franchise. For the ones that work, there are several thrown by the wayside.
If you haven’t heard it on the news channel, no worries - it never appeared there. But, as a service, LiveJournal will no longer be offering a free, no-ad account level. It has become either advertisement or payment. For which I can only recommend that everyone invest in advertisement-blocking software for their computers, if they haven’t already. That the official channels were not used, and the advisory board’s recommendations were trampled on really does give one pause as to whether the LJ service is worth continuing to use.
My professional self gets one in early by saying, Well, at least he returned it.
In the news, a kidnapped Archbishop of the Chaldean church has turned up dead. Which may show the signs of what could happen in the area once the United States presence leaves. With regard to interrogations, the CIA said “Oops. We destroyed our tapes.” The Department of Defense, however, did not, and are currently rounding up some so that methods can be reviewed. It’s not a complete archive, but it might actually galvanize some Congresscritters to vote and override a bill that restricts interrogation methods.
The dollar's continued fall has savers turning to other currencies, like the euro, for transacting business. Hrm. If the United States suddenly starts becoming “powerful” only in military exercises, and not economically or politically, what will that do to the country and the warhawks...
Poland's ex-prime minster is sour on electronic voting, because he considers giving a democratic method to the unwashed, screen-staring masses not taking the act of voting seriously, and being too easily swayed. I’d probably adapt the Metatron’s joke in Dogma to the situation here, just replace “sex” with “voting”.
Domestically, and fairly close to home, residents of a mobile home community in Pierce County have had the land underneath their houses sold to make way for big-box stores. Because they don’t own the land which the house sits on, these things happen disturbingly often to residents in communities like these. And it’s not necessarily that likely that another area can be found that will take all of them in.
Also needing new homes are 800 dogs that were living on the property of one Arizona home. The house was a mess (well, 800 dogs and 82 parrots, too), but the dogs seemed to be in decent condition. They also were breeding, however, which is how I suspect that 800 figure was achieved. “This is Bob Barker, reminding you to help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.”
With regard to election people,
bradhicks wonders if John McCain is too stupid to know when he's being bribed, or too willing to listen to his own puffed-up ego and sycophants to effectively notice when he’s being suckered. If that’s the case, it might explain why Senator McCain hasn’t distanced himself from Rod Parsley, who speaks in the same language that "jihadists" do, only he wants christians to wage war against Islam. Parsley endorsed McCain, certainly, but McCain can only hurt himself by letting Parsley stand anywhere near him.Jack Kevorkian, a longtime advocate for assisted suicide, will be running for a Congressional seat. If the populace is considering someone who wants to be pro-life and is over 70, they should probably also consider someone who is pro-quality of life and approaching 80. I don’t give him the proverbial snowball’s chance of winning, but he’s well within his rights to try.
Geraldine Ferraro resigned her position with the Clinton campaign over the remarks she made about Barack Obama’s success. As Mr. Olbermann pointed out, by letting Ferraro resign rather than dismissing her, the Clinton campaign lets her remarks stand with some sort of weight, which is not the image that Senator Clinton wants to project if she wants to be elected, regardless as to whether she believes it or not.
Representative Sally Kern continues to stand by her discriminatory remarks, insisting that they are not hate speech, but still believing in the Homosexual Agenda and saying that she professes Christian love toward homosexuals. Queerty wonders if a large part of her anti-homosexual rhetoric might be based on her own son being homosexual. If she thinks that biology has nothing to do with homosexuality, and that she obviously wasn’t supporting any sort of decision to become homosexual, then obviously there must have been recruiters or people in the schooling system that turned her son into a homosexual. It’s sad to see that kind of construction going on to avoid acceptance.
Also inspiring several Whiskey Tango Foxtrots is a new charge in Albany, New York, bus-riding while black. Without a search warrant, the cops rounded up, sedated, strip-searched, and held a man on suspicion that he was carrying drugs in his body, and then billed him for the hospital procedures done to him. All he was charged with was“ resisting arrest”, and that charge was thrown out.
In the wake of on-campus shootings in other states, Arizona is considering a bill that would permit guns on school grounds. It’s being touted as a way of being able to react to those shooters faster, but it could also create more of those shooters or guns being drawn and used in situations where they aren’t needed. Truth be told, despite their massive media attention, most kids go to school every day without there being a shooting. I just don’t see the value of having guns in schools where they can be used.
There’s also a big WTF in regard to a mother who threw her children, and then herself, off an overpass. Luckily, the traffic was moving slowly enough that all three people survived the fall. The story behind this incident, though, speaks to neglect that was caught, several times, but the children were returned to their mother after each of the incidents, probably in hopes that things would work out. At some point, somewhere before something like this, either the protective services or the mother has to realize that this isn’t working out and to release the children to go somewhere where things are normal and healthy, even if only long enough for Mom to get back on her feet and be able to provide a stable lifestyle for the kids.
Perhaps the most frightening of all of these, though, is 60 Minutes' account of a gigantic free clinic normally suited to the depths of the Amazon taking care of the uninsured and underinsured in Tennessee. The people there sat out in the parking lot overnight just to make sure they could get in and see the clinicians. And more than 400 were turned away when they finally closed up.
Weird news for today - a child was suspended for buying Skittles from a classmate, after the school adopted a “no candy sales” policy. While I agree that candy probably shouldn’t be in school that much, suspension like that seems a bit over the top. Luckily, there isn’t any permanent damage, like people blinded by trying to find an image of Mary in the sun. There’s also the world's oldest animation and nanowires seem to prefer Deep Purple for growth. Still weird, but “Awww” inducing, a dolphin led beached wales off the sandbar and back out to sea.
Getting play on the writing and artistic side of my friends list is Robin Hobb's rant that blogging is an antithetical measure to creative writing. The general response among the friends list is that blogging, like TV-watching or letter-writing, can be a distraction and a time suck, but those who know how to manage their time well will be able to write, even while they blog. And for some of us, our blogging is a writing exercise, regardless of how good we actually are at our presentation and format.
In technology news, a neckband that receives nerve signals can be used to make voiceless telephone calls. Thinking appropriate words and/or phonemes will allow the wearer to transmit their thoughts into a spoken word call. Which could give voice to a lot of mute people who can or can’t use other methods of communication. If the technology refined to semi-realtime processing, that would be a very interesting idea. I can imagine the wave of the future being able to talk one conversation and think another. Wouldn’t that be “Extreme multi-tasking” or something?
A new virus infection method to be aware of - a link to an FTP site, where one then downloads a malicious program. Mind you, the telltale double-extension is still there, which should flag most people’s caution, but there are probably plenty of people who still blindly click links.
Paying a flat fee for all-you-can-download music may not be that far off. Which would be great - pay a small fee, have peace of mind about getting frivolously sued by an organization just trying to find people who will settle. And with video content being the biggest consumer of Internet bandwidth, a license to watch may not be that far behind.
In science (SCIENCE!) - a cup of black tea could yield the makings of an anthrax cure. But only if taken without milk. It may not matter, though, if James Lovelock's predictions about the planet are going to come true.
Our Arts department says Tim Burton's making Alice in Wonderland. Will it be a head-trip?
The Happiness Project contributed the Required List, asking how mindfully do we live?
Last for tonight, just to show us all how many ideas really go into the creation of a product or service, some of the rejected ideas for product tie ins to the Star Wars franchise. For the ones that work, there are several thrown by the wayside.
