And another in the books - 10 May 2008

[silveradept]

So it's a work Saturday, traded in so that I can so off to Chicago next week and enjoy myself greatly there. Life is doing pretty good. Work was also rather interesting yesterday, in that I got to have my professional qualifications and fitness to be a librarian called into question, heard a recommendation for my dismissal, and was told what the library is supposed to be, but also that I was able to sufficiently leverage a good relationship to resolve the conflict without problems. I could feel myself getting all flushed as I was getting verbally abused, which isn't the right response, but I chalk it up to inexperience. Well, either it was embarrassment, or aggravation. Might have transitioned from one to the other. Either way, situation resolved. Perhaps rantiness on it later, if I really think it's warranted. Probably isn't.

It's Mother's Day on Sunday, so hooray for motherhood, without which none of us would be here. amenquohi has a column from Anna Quindlen about motherhood, where all the expert knowledge gives way to the knowledge that children are always a specific case unto themselves.

Proving that social networking tools are great for both good and ill, a garden in the United Kingdom was wrecked as three hundred people showed up for a water fight organized on Facebook. So, able to protest Scientology or create chaos. Improv street performance or giant soaking. Never underestimate the mob. The comments are "make them clean it up!/pay for the damage!/arrest them!/" in the majority, with additional "How sad that our youth do these things! I never would have been in a mob like this!" and "Bet they're all on public assistance, the yobs." sprinkled in. It was probably a bunch of fun, and it may have only been afterward that anyone found out there was a lot of damage, or someone damaged something accidentally and either left it or thought it didn't look that bad. It's kind of like the end-of-school water balloon fight. (Of which, as I recall, carrying a camera in plain sight meant general immunity from the balloon strikes.)

Zimbabwe's opposition leader has said he would stand for a runoff election after the official results said that while he had garnered the most votes, he did not gain a majority of votes, necessitating the runoff. The opposition leader has been concerned that violence in the country is making it impossible for a free and fair election to take place. To that end, the opposition leader has asked for several conditions to be met before the runoff takes place.

An interesting piece - several years after arrest, and apparently a few mistrials, the government is once again trying to prosecute the detainees in Guantanamo Bay - the defendant in this case, Mr. Hamdan, however, wants to know what law he's being tried on, and doubts the fairness of his trial. We'd like to know at some point, too. The defense is trying not only to prove Mr. Hamdan's innocence, but that the process by which he is being tried and the military commissions have been tainted by political meddling. More as this develops.

I'm getting some lessons in perspective here - CNS News, who I think is a little shaky on the news bit, characterizes the recent unrest in Lebanon as a hostile takeover by pro-Iran Hezbollah. The New York Times, in reporting that there will be a cease-fire and Hezbollah will stand down, characterizes Hezbollah's actions as a reaction to government forces attacking people in the country. The facts of the events are still the same. It's all dependent on interpretation.

The world's oldest gorilla turned 55 today. Thanks to good captive care and protection from predators, Jenny has outlasted her compatriots by about 20 years so far.

All it took was two lines, written with what was at hand, and Canada's last World War I survivor is a Canadian citizen again. Having given it up to become a U.S. citizen in 1946 because there was no dual citizenship allowed at the time, things have been returned to the way they were before.

Getting into candidate affairs, CNS News attempts to re-stir the hornets involved with the Jeremiah Wright scrutiny by making mention of other pieces written in the church bulletin that could also be viewed as inflammatory. It's beginning more and more to sound like the pastors and people in the church are concerned with more than just spiritual matters, sure, but what counts are the Senator's beliefs. Until the Senator's behavior starts to indicate that he believes the same as some of the more extreme churchmembers, then it's just smoke. Unlike, say, John McCain, who gladly sought John Hagee's endorsement and has done nothing to distance himself from it.

Remarkably (and I'm not sure how this happened, or whether we slipped into Bizzaro World for a bit), Bill O'Reilly has an accurate summary of the issues Senator Obama will have to overcome if he wants to win the general election. No spite, no vitriol, just good reasoning. Had to check the name on it to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me. Could you be more like that in general, Bill? For all our sakes?

Further into the opinion columns, Michael Barone thinks the populace was sold a bad narrative on the Iraq War - that the lack of the WMD meant the war was unjustified. Apparently, the threat of WMD and some ties to terror organizations is still sufficient to invade a country. We're getting the same rhetoric with regard to Iran now, although this time Iran is openly admitting that they are doing processes that could lead to weapon construction. Afterward, when the weapons weren't found, the spin changed immediately to what Barone is saying now - Saddam was a Bad Man, we had to get rid of him, he still had the capacity to make the weapons, even if we never found any, and he still was working with terrorists. "Guns don't kill people, you silly liberals, people kill people, so getting rid of the person was a good thing." Despite being a fairly secular regime and having fought wars against Iran in the past. Saddam was a bad man - the evidence is indisputable on that point. If we were going for regime change based on moral outrage, though, there are better targets in the Middle East.

American Samidzat has a laugh in linking to Pharyngula's noting that Yoko Ono was suing the makers of "Expelled". Namely that, the makers of "Expelled" enforced a copyright claim when someone attempted to link to the offending piece that contained Yoko Ono's "Imagine". So, the people being sued for violating someone else's copyright had no qualms on enforcing their own. Thus, the laugh.

If one ever wanted to know what all the dirty words were in Straight Outta Compton, well, the reverse edit should be perfect to satisfy that curiosity. Hooray for technology! Okay, silliness aside, there are patents in the works to use plasma to life objects, admittedly only 15cm, at the moment, but it could be the future at hand! Or, it could be another patent to be put into an Inventors game, like the Horse Waster-Wing Jacket or the Automatic Hat Tipper.

Another unmanned probe will try to penetrate the mystery of Martian ice after the last one ceased to function just before touching down on the South Pole. Mars still looks like a good candidate for terraforming, or at least having a colony established upon it - I wonder whether Mars will be the new Australia. With the warranty being voided on Terra, finding a new planet may be in our best interests. (Th' article's a joke. Terra was clearly marked as-is.)

A PR nightmare was narrowly averted when EA dropped a planned requirement for PC versions of Spore and Mass Effect to phone home every ten days to check and see if the CD key involved was still valid and hadn't been pirated. What were they thinking? Not everyone has a connection, for one, and two, gamers are usually pretty up-to-snuff on their game news. Why piss off an entire user base like that? As things are, reauthentication will still be needed to get new game content, but I wonder how their sales will be hurt as more people find out about the planned protection scheme.

Last for tonight, deserving of a very Special Hell Flaming Quiche, either for being serious about this, or for being a satire that isn't discernible as such, is Take the Action, a program that intends to curb the craving for masturbation. Because apparently, media viewing leads to wanking, wanking is addictive and takes over lives, destroying partnerships and sex lives, and wasting time, dreams, and potentially money (because every masturbator is a porn addict, too). While I'm sure that it would please a significant number of the abstinence movement to find such a product, and to potentially encourage its use, I think $47 is going to be a bit steep of a price to pay.

The last thing this country needs is more sexual repression. For as much as the media sells sex and sexuality, the society it's trying to sell it to has precious little openness of attitude about partnerships, aids, and autoeroticism. Despite saying that products will help you get all the chicks/bring all the boys to the yard, the prevailing attitude is still "Marriage. Then sex. And only for children. If you can't or don't want to marry, tough. No sex for you." *sigh* Society is such a tease.

Also, isn't it sexually healthy to orgasm, whether by one's own implements or another's?

That's all for tonight. I hope that everyone here has a way of being happy with themselves, whether through positive thinking, battery-operated implements, or other methods.

Comments

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

This was posted o the scrapbooking comm: http://claudinehellmuth.blogspot.com/

I know we talked about it before and determined it wasn't a go, but what do you make of this whole "it's not a hoax" thing?

[silveradept]

Are the bills linked in question actually doing anything other than dying in committee? Until that point, there's not much to worry about.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

People (that blogger, a lawyer the blogger links to) seem to think the bill isn't dying. But it is still flopping, right? I mean, who in their right mind would even approve something like that?

[silveradept]

Re-parse that last sentence again, and tell me what assumption you're making that's not necessarily true...

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

*snort* Fair enough.