Very on the late side - 25 March 2009
Mar. 26th, 2009 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptUp top - Today is apparently a day to spread information about the uses of emergency contraception, based on the concept of “backing up” one’s birth control. All this comes about because of a federal court decision requiring Plan B to be made available over-the-counter to women seventeen years of age or older. Good start. Could use lowering that age a bit, though, because kids have risky sex earlier than 17. If, though, there are risks and problems with that, then we need better education and/or to develop one that’s safer for young women. Still, the “My Body, My Rules” department will be happy. They and the Unabashed Feminism Department will likely also be happy with fourteen year-olds lobbying Congress to set aside funds specifically to teach comprehensive sexual education in public schools, instead of the inane and backwards-looking abstinence-only programs they currently fund. Also, a special hell to Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, for saying that most schools are already teaching comprehensive sex ed and the birth rate is going up. I want to see what figures she’s quoting from.
This is interactivity in the world - a billboard-based game played by a mobile phone on one end and Youtube computer users on the other. For those who prefer to pull the real world into their games, try romance bingo, where based on the title words of the romance novels in your nearest book warehouse, you can play an excellent game.
Also worth your time - a series of four from the Utne reader about how much Americans need social interaction, but think they're being a bother when they have opportunities for it. This loneliness might be alleviated by taking a closer look at one's own neighborhood and all the diversity there. Put those two together and you can add on ways of getting to a good conversation, by choosing to consciously not wing it and to get into interesting and possibly vulnerable topics, and the social part is getting better and better and less lonely. It also has potentially political consequences, too - Barack Obama built a groundswell by not trying to micromanage everything in his campaign. Doing the same with government entities and giving them direction to communicate and get input from the public might improve decision-making on their end and civic participation on ours.
Internationally, doctors wandering the countryside performing medicine in Burma risk the government's wrath, a PSA - when the plane is going down, save it first, then pray that you did it - if you do things in the wrong order, you endanger the people on board (and in Italy, can be sentenced to years in jail), and the Secretary of State is on board with the idea that the United States' drug laws are the primary cash and power inflow to Mexican drug cartels. Did we mention that a really high number of non-drug substances will test positive for those drugs, so that the punitive parts of the law may be based entirely on a test that fails quite regularly?
Domestically, the Dumb Criminals file has a new entry - a security guard at a bank tried to rob the same bank, and got caught. Because people recognized him, naturally. On a scale between maybe dumb and maybe not, a robber was shot dead by a concealed-carrying civillian (whose papers were in order) as he tried to hold up a Burger King. The civilian was seriously wounded in the exchange. About the only thing I can be sure about is that this will be a feather in the cap of people who believe in concealed-carry permits for all citizens.
And, looking back on the past, we have what may be the seeds of our crisis, and with someone predicting exactly how it would end - in flames. The Infamous Brad has the details, and it involves someone telling Congress he was going to break the law and Congress blinked, creating the first “too big to fail” situation. Even worse, as we know from experiments on authority and electric shocks, if experts or authoritative figures tell us things, we trust them more than our own decision-making.
Database and resource vendors are feeling the economic crisis, too - libraries and their biggest customers proabbly won't support their standard yearly price increases.
Settling into politics, GWOT has become OCO - the war on terror is now Overseas Contingency Operations. Acronym soup? Maybe. Additionally, the President gave a press conference last night, talking about bailouts, budgets, and financial plans. The Republican Minority Leader raised the spectre of having a deficit worse than Cuba, those communists, them.
Leading the opinions, Mr. Will feels there are lawless men and omen running the Congress, who will do what they want, Constitution be damned, and as such, are being schooled on what American government should be by foreign countries. Comedian David Limbaugh believes that liberal ideology is forging ahead, despite all the stop signs, because liberals finally have their change to make the country into the antithesis of its design, flaunting the Founders and bankrupting the country while they try. Mr. Sowell feels that the Congresscritters threatening to reveal the home addresses of bank executives who don't appear before them are insane, because there are hit squads that will mobilize to take shots at them once they know where to start firing, and because Congress is using all this to mask its own participation in the housing scandal that generated this particular situation. Mr. Chanos isn't going to let the isntitutions get away easily, considering mark-to-market accounting a reasonably transparent and effective way of doing things, instead of other ways that the companies would like. The WSJ is pleased that a plan has been decided on, even if they think the plan isn't the best one to do. They're also a bit worried that the possibility of taking from one to subsidize another could be a power granted to state and local governments, depending on whether laws regarding such a seizure are narrowly or broadly interpreted.
American Samizdat expresses their opinion of Barack Obama's major message, In response to Mr. Nichols and Mr. McChesney suggesting that good journalism is a public good, and thus newspapers should receive some propping up and funding from teh government, Ms. Ridenour laughs at the idea of propping up newspapers, by making an annalogues to churches (a seriously apples-and-oranges comparison), and declaring that the government should not be funding any media at all, including NPR. Politico tells us that the President is trying to avoid communicating through various media platforms so as to get an unfiltered message across. Both they and I know that it’s impossible, and the real meat is that the President here is embracing the new media and new ways of producing media in trying to get his message out to as many people as possible. It will never be devoid of context or filtering, because people will interpret what he says in context with everything else. He’s just giving more people the opportunity to mix and remix him, for good or for ill. Ms. Byrnd fels that the lack of humor about the President is because the humorists are so enamored of him they can't find the jokes that are obviously there, which conservatives have been making all the time, including telepromter material. That and the President isn’t funny when he tries to be joking. (So what do you want? A President that you can pal around with, or one who’s seriosu all the time? Make up your minds...) Mr. Harnden subtly pokes at people desperate to find gaffes and mistakes in the Presidential demenor, by pointing out how a letter that was thought to be a snub to Mr. Sarkozy was actually a response to Mr. Chirac writing him as the head of his own foundation.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell receives a failstamp on how the economic crisis is affecting us all - her friend is giving up a vehicle, and having to struggle with how to get both parents to their jobs and the kids to the private school, she’s happy that college opportunities are being extended to everyone. Her mother volunteers at a religious crisis ministry, and thus might have something close to the real perspective. Closer, anyway. Musings and Migraines considers it to be an indictment that the Nation has given up on objectivity, but I think it’s more of a “Let them eat cake” kind of situation. For actual advice on what to do if one should be laid off, Dave Ramsey has some pointers on surviving your own dismissal.
Mr. Stephens wants the President to pay more attention to the black side of Iran, and hopes that he will come to the conclusion, as Mr. Stephens has, that Iran is a barbaric place filled with a hateful religion and will either look the other way if/when Israel glasses it or join in on the beatdown.
Mr. McGurn swipes at the Administration, Notre Dame, and every Catholic Democrat in Congress for betraying their commitment to life for the sake of party orthodoxy, through the “I personally oppose it, but I can’t make that choice for everyone” line that many Democrats have. He wants the pro-lifers to put their politics where their mouths are. Which they are, believing in personal freedom of choice (hey, there’s some other party that claims that’s their ultimate goal. Wonder who they are?) over government regulation of bodies. Admittedly, American Catholics are an odd bunch compared to the rest of the world, so maybe they should break and get it over with. Or, perhaps they’re taking the message of “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more” as the admonition that one should strive for godly perfection in their own life and not interfere with the lives of others nor pray in the streets and be like the hypocrites.
Right before science, Ms. Schlafly on the latest reasons why earth cooling is a counterexample of anthropogenic climate change, as well as the 680 scientists who don’t believe in it making enough of a controversy for the matter to be unsettled. In the same way that 41 Republicans in the Senate constitute a majority, no doubt.
In science and technology, the details on why chili peppers have such "heat", more U.S. federal money for energy R and D, reports appearing suggesting a maximum sustainable population for the United Kingdom, inkjet circuit and gadget printing, new groups of self-assembling molecules, fighting the addictive qualities of drugs using nanoparticles that silence the genes that result in addiction, and putting the universe at your desktop. Along with Google's semantic search capability rollout.
Last for tonight, quite possibly the worst scary situation - the brain surgeon operating has a heart attack during the procedure. The surgeon completed the procedure, and both of them are on the mend.
For those who are writing, The Turkey City Lexicon, also known as things you might want to not do when writing, and science fiction especially.
For those who want nothing to do with potentially weighty matters, One Hundred Ways to Kill A Peep. I wonder if they’ll stop at 100.
This is interactivity in the world - a billboard-based game played by a mobile phone on one end and Youtube computer users on the other. For those who prefer to pull the real world into their games, try romance bingo, where based on the title words of the romance novels in your nearest book warehouse, you can play an excellent game.
Also worth your time - a series of four from the Utne reader about how much Americans need social interaction, but think they're being a bother when they have opportunities for it. This loneliness might be alleviated by taking a closer look at one's own neighborhood and all the diversity there. Put those two together and you can add on ways of getting to a good conversation, by choosing to consciously not wing it and to get into interesting and possibly vulnerable topics, and the social part is getting better and better and less lonely. It also has potentially political consequences, too - Barack Obama built a groundswell by not trying to micromanage everything in his campaign. Doing the same with government entities and giving them direction to communicate and get input from the public might improve decision-making on their end and civic participation on ours.
Internationally, doctors wandering the countryside performing medicine in Burma risk the government's wrath, a PSA - when the plane is going down, save it first, then pray that you did it - if you do things in the wrong order, you endanger the people on board (and in Italy, can be sentenced to years in jail), and the Secretary of State is on board with the idea that the United States' drug laws are the primary cash and power inflow to Mexican drug cartels. Did we mention that a really high number of non-drug substances will test positive for those drugs, so that the punitive parts of the law may be based entirely on a test that fails quite regularly?
Domestically, the Dumb Criminals file has a new entry - a security guard at a bank tried to rob the same bank, and got caught. Because people recognized him, naturally. On a scale between maybe dumb and maybe not, a robber was shot dead by a concealed-carrying civillian (whose papers were in order) as he tried to hold up a Burger King. The civilian was seriously wounded in the exchange. About the only thing I can be sure about is that this will be a feather in the cap of people who believe in concealed-carry permits for all citizens.
And, looking back on the past, we have what may be the seeds of our crisis, and with someone predicting exactly how it would end - in flames. The Infamous Brad has the details, and it involves someone telling Congress he was going to break the law and Congress blinked, creating the first “too big to fail” situation. Even worse, as we know from experiments on authority and electric shocks, if experts or authoritative figures tell us things, we trust them more than our own decision-making.
Database and resource vendors are feeling the economic crisis, too - libraries and their biggest customers proabbly won't support their standard yearly price increases.
Settling into politics, GWOT has become OCO - the war on terror is now Overseas Contingency Operations. Acronym soup? Maybe. Additionally, the President gave a press conference last night, talking about bailouts, budgets, and financial plans. The Republican Minority Leader raised the spectre of having a deficit worse than Cuba, those communists, them.
Leading the opinions, Mr. Will feels there are lawless men and omen running the Congress, who will do what they want, Constitution be damned, and as such, are being schooled on what American government should be by foreign countries. Comedian David Limbaugh believes that liberal ideology is forging ahead, despite all the stop signs, because liberals finally have their change to make the country into the antithesis of its design, flaunting the Founders and bankrupting the country while they try. Mr. Sowell feels that the Congresscritters threatening to reveal the home addresses of bank executives who don't appear before them are insane, because there are hit squads that will mobilize to take shots at them once they know where to start firing, and because Congress is using all this to mask its own participation in the housing scandal that generated this particular situation. Mr. Chanos isn't going to let the isntitutions get away easily, considering mark-to-market accounting a reasonably transparent and effective way of doing things, instead of other ways that the companies would like. The WSJ is pleased that a plan has been decided on, even if they think the plan isn't the best one to do. They're also a bit worried that the possibility of taking from one to subsidize another could be a power granted to state and local governments, depending on whether laws regarding such a seizure are narrowly or broadly interpreted.
American Samizdat expresses their opinion of Barack Obama's major message, In response to Mr. Nichols and Mr. McChesney suggesting that good journalism is a public good, and thus newspapers should receive some propping up and funding from teh government, Ms. Ridenour laughs at the idea of propping up newspapers, by making an annalogues to churches (a seriously apples-and-oranges comparison), and declaring that the government should not be funding any media at all, including NPR. Politico tells us that the President is trying to avoid communicating through various media platforms so as to get an unfiltered message across. Both they and I know that it’s impossible, and the real meat is that the President here is embracing the new media and new ways of producing media in trying to get his message out to as many people as possible. It will never be devoid of context or filtering, because people will interpret what he says in context with everything else. He’s just giving more people the opportunity to mix and remix him, for good or for ill. Ms. Byrnd fels that the lack of humor about the President is because the humorists are so enamored of him they can't find the jokes that are obviously there, which conservatives have been making all the time, including telepromter material. That and the President isn’t funny when he tries to be joking. (So what do you want? A President that you can pal around with, or one who’s seriosu all the time? Make up your minds...) Mr. Harnden subtly pokes at people desperate to find gaffes and mistakes in the Presidential demenor, by pointing out how a letter that was thought to be a snub to Mr. Sarkozy was actually a response to Mr. Chirac writing him as the head of his own foundation.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell receives a failstamp on how the economic crisis is affecting us all - her friend is giving up a vehicle, and having to struggle with how to get both parents to their jobs and the kids to the private school, she’s happy that college opportunities are being extended to everyone. Her mother volunteers at a religious crisis ministry, and thus might have something close to the real perspective. Closer, anyway. Musings and Migraines considers it to be an indictment that the Nation has given up on objectivity, but I think it’s more of a “Let them eat cake” kind of situation. For actual advice on what to do if one should be laid off, Dave Ramsey has some pointers on surviving your own dismissal.
Mr. Stephens wants the President to pay more attention to the black side of Iran, and hopes that he will come to the conclusion, as Mr. Stephens has, that Iran is a barbaric place filled with a hateful religion and will either look the other way if/when Israel glasses it or join in on the beatdown.
Mr. McGurn swipes at the Administration, Notre Dame, and every Catholic Democrat in Congress for betraying their commitment to life for the sake of party orthodoxy, through the “I personally oppose it, but I can’t make that choice for everyone” line that many Democrats have. He wants the pro-lifers to put their politics where their mouths are. Which they are, believing in personal freedom of choice (hey, there’s some other party that claims that’s their ultimate goal. Wonder who they are?) over government regulation of bodies. Admittedly, American Catholics are an odd bunch compared to the rest of the world, so maybe they should break and get it over with. Or, perhaps they’re taking the message of “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more” as the admonition that one should strive for godly perfection in their own life and not interfere with the lives of others nor pray in the streets and be like the hypocrites.
Right before science, Ms. Schlafly on the latest reasons why earth cooling is a counterexample of anthropogenic climate change, as well as the 680 scientists who don’t believe in it making enough of a controversy for the matter to be unsettled. In the same way that 41 Republicans in the Senate constitute a majority, no doubt.
In science and technology, the details on why chili peppers have such "heat", more U.S. federal money for energy R and D, reports appearing suggesting a maximum sustainable population for the United Kingdom, inkjet circuit and gadget printing, new groups of self-assembling molecules, fighting the addictive qualities of drugs using nanoparticles that silence the genes that result in addiction, and putting the universe at your desktop. Along with Google's semantic search capability rollout.
Last for tonight, quite possibly the worst scary situation - the brain surgeon operating has a heart attack during the procedure. The surgeon completed the procedure, and both of them are on the mend.
For those who are writing, The Turkey City Lexicon, also known as things you might want to not do when writing, and science fiction especially.
For those who want nothing to do with potentially weighty matters, One Hundred Ways to Kill A Peep. I wonder if they’ll stop at 100.
