Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2008-09-20 04:45 pm
silveradept) wrote2008-09-20 04:45 pm
Work-work! - 20 September 2008
A germ of an idea appears and begins, and much like larva art, for some, it's beautiful, and for others, it's quite ugly. Depending on how one views one's path through the multiverses, that decision may have some effects... or none at all. (I like the idea of only a few major narrative points generating branches, with the creatures in this branch of the multiverse actively contributing toward choosing the nxt big decision. Makes sliding around the various branches much easier, if one could do it.)
And thus follows the news.
On the international scale, police banned an anti-Islamification rally in Germany before it was scheduled to begin, citing the behavior of counterdemonstrators creating a public safety issue. The rally was to protest the approval of building a large mosque in the country.
a truck drove into the Islamabad Marriot and exploded, killing more than forty and wounding at least two hundred fifty. Is Pakistan the new front for the Concept War?
Domestically, Mark Foley, the male Congresscreature that sent racy e-mails and IMs to male teenage pages will likely not be facing charges, as the investigation against him concludes. Meaning, sure, he sent all that stuff, but he didn't have any "inappropriate contact" with the pages, so there's nothing to charge him with. He already resigned his position, so I suppose that's all the damage there will be, aside from his reputation.
Hurricane Ike uncovers an old, currently unknown ship, possibly dating to the Civil War era.
Senator Leahy, targeted by the antrax attack in 2001, disputes the findings of the FBI that Dr. Ivins worked alone on the plan. Of course, since a significant amount of the case work, like who can generate anthrax, is classified, most of the details that the Senator wants to know will probably be available only in closed sessions, so we'll never know the complete truth. It could be that Dr. Ivins was working along, but with the way the investigation has been handled up to this point, the conclusions drawn by the FBI will probably always be viewed as suspect.
Talking yet more about the upcoming election, the mainstream media wastes ink and paper talking about how Senator Obama is now the candidate people would watch a football game with. There's a very slow news day somewhere. As a refresher, Sam Harris on why electing someone just like you is a bad idea for politics, because most of the people just like you aren't really qualified to be President or Vice, and that the last eight years really should have taught the populace that the candidate you want to have a beer with is probably not the candidate you want running the country. Or in place to potentially be running the country.
What the media should be focusing on is something like Senator McCain proclaiming that the country should deregulate health insurance like it has deregulated Wall Street. Without, apparently, noticing where those deregulations have gotten us, and who was giving them the rope to hang themselves with.
In more general opinions, ddjango suggests that trying to stand and shout down the storm that is modern life and modern national politics is futile, and that getting out of the way of it and cultivating one's own happiness and love with a small group is far better. And then, like the water, one eventually would wear down the edifice, but on the water's time, not ours.
The Wall Street Journal on the potential path to getting out of the current panic, and making things hunky-dory again. On the other side, The Power of Narrative suggests that the government's takeover of AIG was strategic, to use the group as a weapon against other countries who need their services. Considering AIG has quite a few fingers in various pots, if that were true, then there's a lot of people in the world that just went up the creek. Perhaps the best example of why people shouldn't panic on their market investments, though, is an example in Nashville where people believed rumors that there would be no gas in Nashville, so they panicked, and now, there's no gas in Nashville because everyone went out and filled up.
In our science department, humans will correct their reach toward an object even if the object is moved as the lights go out, based on research that prevented subjects from seeing a second light that came on after the first light went off, but noted they changed the course of their reach toward the light they did not perceive. At least, I think that's what this is saying.
Giant VR room makes for interesting play and discovery at UCSD, the growing popularity of the treadmill desk, which combines work and exercise. It's a pretty cool idea, so long as they don't do anything like require workers to be walking for their computers to be powered. For my profession, that would be a disaster, considering how much we walk around away from the desk as it is.
And then there's the mail that people who comment on unexplained phenomena get.
Last for tonight, a woman won her sex-discrimination case against the Library of Congress after it withdrew a hiring offer based on the fact that she was originally born a he and was going to transition. That's a nice ruling, and it makes sense that the discrimination based on sex/gender would apply to a case like this.
And thus follows the news.
On the international scale, police banned an anti-Islamification rally in Germany before it was scheduled to begin, citing the behavior of counterdemonstrators creating a public safety issue. The rally was to protest the approval of building a large mosque in the country.
a truck drove into the Islamabad Marriot and exploded, killing more than forty and wounding at least two hundred fifty. Is Pakistan the new front for the Concept War?
Domestically, Mark Foley, the male Congresscreature that sent racy e-mails and IMs to male teenage pages will likely not be facing charges, as the investigation against him concludes. Meaning, sure, he sent all that stuff, but he didn't have any "inappropriate contact" with the pages, so there's nothing to charge him with. He already resigned his position, so I suppose that's all the damage there will be, aside from his reputation.
Hurricane Ike uncovers an old, currently unknown ship, possibly dating to the Civil War era.
Senator Leahy, targeted by the antrax attack in 2001, disputes the findings of the FBI that Dr. Ivins worked alone on the plan. Of course, since a significant amount of the case work, like who can generate anthrax, is classified, most of the details that the Senator wants to know will probably be available only in closed sessions, so we'll never know the complete truth. It could be that Dr. Ivins was working along, but with the way the investigation has been handled up to this point, the conclusions drawn by the FBI will probably always be viewed as suspect.
Talking yet more about the upcoming election, the mainstream media wastes ink and paper talking about how Senator Obama is now the candidate people would watch a football game with. There's a very slow news day somewhere. As a refresher, Sam Harris on why electing someone just like you is a bad idea for politics, because most of the people just like you aren't really qualified to be President or Vice, and that the last eight years really should have taught the populace that the candidate you want to have a beer with is probably not the candidate you want running the country. Or in place to potentially be running the country.
What the media should be focusing on is something like Senator McCain proclaiming that the country should deregulate health insurance like it has deregulated Wall Street. Without, apparently, noticing where those deregulations have gotten us, and who was giving them the rope to hang themselves with.
In more general opinions, ddjango suggests that trying to stand and shout down the storm that is modern life and modern national politics is futile, and that getting out of the way of it and cultivating one's own happiness and love with a small group is far better. And then, like the water, one eventually would wear down the edifice, but on the water's time, not ours.
The Wall Street Journal on the potential path to getting out of the current panic, and making things hunky-dory again. On the other side, The Power of Narrative suggests that the government's takeover of AIG was strategic, to use the group as a weapon against other countries who need their services. Considering AIG has quite a few fingers in various pots, if that were true, then there's a lot of people in the world that just went up the creek. Perhaps the best example of why people shouldn't panic on their market investments, though, is an example in Nashville where people believed rumors that there would be no gas in Nashville, so they panicked, and now, there's no gas in Nashville because everyone went out and filled up.
In our science department, humans will correct their reach toward an object even if the object is moved as the lights go out, based on research that prevented subjects from seeing a second light that came on after the first light went off, but noted they changed the course of their reach toward the light they did not perceive. At least, I think that's what this is saying.
Giant VR room makes for interesting play and discovery at UCSD, the growing popularity of the treadmill desk, which combines work and exercise. It's a pretty cool idea, so long as they don't do anything like require workers to be walking for their computers to be powered. For my profession, that would be a disaster, considering how much we walk around away from the desk as it is.
And then there's the mail that people who comment on unexplained phenomena get.
Last for tonight, a woman won her sex-discrimination case against the Library of Congress after it withdrew a hiring offer based on the fact that she was originally born a he and was going to transition. That's a nice ruling, and it makes sense that the discrimination based on sex/gender would apply to a case like this.
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