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silveradeptJust one more day until I get on a plane and fly out the convention space. Convention doesn't officially open until Friday, of course, but there will be a grand time had by all when it comes to the JAMS reunion Thursday night, before we all scatter to the five winds. After this entry, I'm basically out of contact until Monday, so take care of yourselves and don't let anything too important happen while I'm gone.
Onward to the news.
Showing a common humanity in times of struggle, Tawian has offered search and rescue personnel to China to help with the earthquake recovery.
The United States government has been drugging persons scheduled for deportation, against their will, using drugs that are designed to control serious psychological disorders. Often without any indication that the detainees have any sort of disorder at all, unless you count annoyance at deportation to be such. And against the rules of the government itself. Isn't it nice to know that the government will treat deportees in a humane manner? Just wonder what they must do to their prisoners... or even their citizens. Getting some scope of how far and wide the media propaganda goes, Media Matters counts more than 4,500 instances where the propaganda contributors were referenced, cited, appeared on programs, or were otherwise used as experts.
In further news from the domestic sphere, the government has dropped all charges against the "20th hijacker" of the 11 September 2001 attacks. Said charged were dropped "without prejudice", allowing for them to be filed later.
With regard to Iraq itself, Iraqi troops are being allowed into Sadr city once more, under a new cease-fire. What is potentially more interesting, though, is the somewhat uncensored take of Mr. Bush's order to take the city, which seems more in line with his image of people a regular Joe... or in being The Chimp. Paired with Mr. Bush's great sacrifice in not playing golf while the Iraq War is on, I think we're all confirming what we already knew - despite all of the media's fawning attention on George Bush, he was exactly as he appeared - someone without the faculties for international politics. And now, we have ample evidence of what this war in Iraq has wrought. Pictures, stories, accounts, all of them in living color and captured by various media. All this is our legacy, and the legacy of the current administration. Have a look and see the consequences of war.
Mr. Bush is much less optimistic about the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian authority, with his optimism slowly being eroded away into something else entirely.
Fourteen counts of perjury were filed against Barry Bonds, contending that he lied about his use of performance-enhancing drugs to a grand jury and that he impeded the federal investigation by doing so.
Surprising no-one, Senator Clinton thumped Senator Obama in the West Virginia primary, but did very little to disrupt the momentum of Senator Obama's campaign and likely nomination. CNS News plays up the general election as being a much more hotly contested race by claiming approximately 20 percent of Democrats will defect to the Republican if their candidate does not receive the nomination. That seems odd to me, but maybe it's because I would think the Democrats would want to believe either candidate is better than the Republican. If that's not the case, I wonder what sort of faith the Democrats have in their own nomination process. Is it that they actually take stock in silly things?
Following up on an earlier story, the Arkansas prisoner claiming that he was being starved has been caught trying to give some of his food to other inmates.
The United Kingdom has unsealed a comprehensive archive of UFO sightings, giving plenty for the skeptical and the believers to go through and make their own conclusions about.
In technology, scientists are using Second Life as a virtual lab, designing experiments and teaching science classes to those who stop by. This seems to be the second phase of new toys - after playing with it lots just to play with it, then the play organizes into playing to do things and accomplish stuff. Then, once it's figured out what the game does well and what it does poorly, things tailor further to making it really enjoyable, if you're into that sort of thing. Kind of like naming a new spider species after Neil Young.
Getting into the opinion columns, Mark Helprin says the U.S. needs to step up its military spending to become a deterrent to China, suggesting that soon the U.S. and China will clash on policy issues and that if they decide to launch an attack, the U.S. won't be able to stand up to it.
Thomas Sowell thinks people understand supply and demand just fine, especially when it comes to gas prices going up or land prices skyrocketing, but that people prefer to see themselves as victims and politicians as heroes to rescue them from greedy corporations.
Because I trust CNS News about as far as I can throw it, I'm looking for more information on a University of Toledo employee supposedly dismissed for writing an opinion column on whether homosexuality really is a civil-rights issue. If there are other reasons for dismissal, I'd like to see them appear - after all, they appeared in the "wizardry" dismissal case. And if the university really did dismiss her because of that opinion, then there needs to be an accompanying statement of policy that backs them up on this. Then the campaigns can begin to get the policy changed. To see the editorial for yourselves, in all its Jesus-praising, "they choose this lifestyle, so they can un-choose it", God hates fags way, The Toledo Free Press has it for all to see. And, as a good newspaper does, here are a selection of responses to the opinion column, with several raising the point that regardless of the content of the speech, speech alone is not usually sufficient to invoke dismissal or administrative leave.
In other "family values" types of matters, a candidate for the Idaho State House says that homosexual students should have to use separate bathroom facilities, among other planks of his platform. Um, we already did the "separate but equal" thing, and that didn't turn out to work all that well, so what makes him think that introducing a mandated inequality will work? At least he's not an established legislator with a chance of having his proposals come to law. I'm hoping that he stays unestablished, myself.
The religion section also has Albert Einstein's letter that called belief in the Abrahamic God "childish" and remarked that the Jews were no different than any other people.
Last for tonight, to be cheery right before heading out, Impending Doom, which has several countdowns to the end of the world as we know it. Well, for now, I feel fine, but we'll see. Actually, let's counter that doom with a laugh - the marriage rating scale devised by an APA member in an attempt to scientifically determine whether one's wife or husband was poor or excellent. Consult the entire test yourselves and see how yours stacks up statisically.
Onward to the news.
Showing a common humanity in times of struggle, Tawian has offered search and rescue personnel to China to help with the earthquake recovery.
The United States government has been drugging persons scheduled for deportation, against their will, using drugs that are designed to control serious psychological disorders. Often without any indication that the detainees have any sort of disorder at all, unless you count annoyance at deportation to be such. And against the rules of the government itself. Isn't it nice to know that the government will treat deportees in a humane manner? Just wonder what they must do to their prisoners... or even their citizens. Getting some scope of how far and wide the media propaganda goes, Media Matters counts more than 4,500 instances where the propaganda contributors were referenced, cited, appeared on programs, or were otherwise used as experts.
In further news from the domestic sphere, the government has dropped all charges against the "20th hijacker" of the 11 September 2001 attacks. Said charged were dropped "without prejudice", allowing for them to be filed later.
With regard to Iraq itself, Iraqi troops are being allowed into Sadr city once more, under a new cease-fire. What is potentially more interesting, though, is the somewhat uncensored take of Mr. Bush's order to take the city, which seems more in line with his image of people a regular Joe... or in being The Chimp. Paired with Mr. Bush's great sacrifice in not playing golf while the Iraq War is on, I think we're all confirming what we already knew - despite all of the media's fawning attention on George Bush, he was exactly as he appeared - someone without the faculties for international politics. And now, we have ample evidence of what this war in Iraq has wrought. Pictures, stories, accounts, all of them in living color and captured by various media. All this is our legacy, and the legacy of the current administration. Have a look and see the consequences of war.
Mr. Bush is much less optimistic about the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian authority, with his optimism slowly being eroded away into something else entirely.
Fourteen counts of perjury were filed against Barry Bonds, contending that he lied about his use of performance-enhancing drugs to a grand jury and that he impeded the federal investigation by doing so.
Surprising no-one, Senator Clinton thumped Senator Obama in the West Virginia primary, but did very little to disrupt the momentum of Senator Obama's campaign and likely nomination. CNS News plays up the general election as being a much more hotly contested race by claiming approximately 20 percent of Democrats will defect to the Republican if their candidate does not receive the nomination. That seems odd to me, but maybe it's because I would think the Democrats would want to believe either candidate is better than the Republican. If that's not the case, I wonder what sort of faith the Democrats have in their own nomination process. Is it that they actually take stock in silly things?
Following up on an earlier story, the Arkansas prisoner claiming that he was being starved has been caught trying to give some of his food to other inmates.
The United Kingdom has unsealed a comprehensive archive of UFO sightings, giving plenty for the skeptical and the believers to go through and make their own conclusions about.
In technology, scientists are using Second Life as a virtual lab, designing experiments and teaching science classes to those who stop by. This seems to be the second phase of new toys - after playing with it lots just to play with it, then the play organizes into playing to do things and accomplish stuff. Then, once it's figured out what the game does well and what it does poorly, things tailor further to making it really enjoyable, if you're into that sort of thing. Kind of like naming a new spider species after Neil Young.
Getting into the opinion columns, Mark Helprin says the U.S. needs to step up its military spending to become a deterrent to China, suggesting that soon the U.S. and China will clash on policy issues and that if they decide to launch an attack, the U.S. won't be able to stand up to it.
Thomas Sowell thinks people understand supply and demand just fine, especially when it comes to gas prices going up or land prices skyrocketing, but that people prefer to see themselves as victims and politicians as heroes to rescue them from greedy corporations.
Because I trust CNS News about as far as I can throw it, I'm looking for more information on a University of Toledo employee supposedly dismissed for writing an opinion column on whether homosexuality really is a civil-rights issue. If there are other reasons for dismissal, I'd like to see them appear - after all, they appeared in the "wizardry" dismissal case. And if the university really did dismiss her because of that opinion, then there needs to be an accompanying statement of policy that backs them up on this. Then the campaigns can begin to get the policy changed. To see the editorial for yourselves, in all its Jesus-praising, "they choose this lifestyle, so they can un-choose it", God hates fags way, The Toledo Free Press has it for all to see. And, as a good newspaper does, here are a selection of responses to the opinion column, with several raising the point that regardless of the content of the speech, speech alone is not usually sufficient to invoke dismissal or administrative leave.
In other "family values" types of matters, a candidate for the Idaho State House says that homosexual students should have to use separate bathroom facilities, among other planks of his platform. Um, we already did the "separate but equal" thing, and that didn't turn out to work all that well, so what makes him think that introducing a mandated inequality will work? At least he's not an established legislator with a chance of having his proposals come to law. I'm hoping that he stays unestablished, myself.
The religion section also has Albert Einstein's letter that called belief in the Abrahamic God "childish" and remarked that the Jews were no different than any other people.
Last for tonight, to be cheery right before heading out, Impending Doom, which has several countdowns to the end of the world as we know it. Well, for now, I feel fine, but we'll see. Actually, let's counter that doom with a laugh - the marriage rating scale devised by an APA member in an attempt to scientifically determine whether one's wife or husband was poor or excellent. Consult the entire test yourselves and see how yours stacks up statisically.
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