Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2009-07-24 12:16 am
silveradept) wrote2009-07-24 12:16 am
Big fun vacation vanish time - 23 July 2009
Well, this will make for highlight reels - Twenty-seven up, twenty-seven down means a call from the White House - the President is a White Sox fan, remember? Said pitcher, Mark Buehrle, will be buying at least dinner for his center fielder for helping him pick up the perfect game.
Also, before the news, a Time poll indicated Jon Stewart is the most trusted newsman in America! Which makes a devilish sort of sense - he’s up front that he’s taking people out of context and the like. In a perverse way, he may be the most honest news person in America, despite the fact he doesn’t necessarily do news. The Fools are always the people to listen to.
Outside the United States, Secretary of State Clinton floated the idea of a possible defense umbrella around Guld State allies if Iran continues their nuclear ambitiona. This was not speaking as a policy prescription, but as a possible idea that would then have to become a policy thing.
The matter of North Korea and the United States was reduced to schoolyard taunts, and no, that’s not The Onion.
Excepting for a few spots, though, it looks like the new administrator means the image of the United States has improved worldwide.
Domestically, something went seriously wrong here - four boys, aged 8 to 14, were charged with sexually assaulting a 8 year-old girl. To add insult, the girl was taken into protective custody after it appeared her parents felt she had shamed the family by being assaulted. There are cultural differences here - the boys and the girl are all around an area flush with residents recently arrived from Liberia. This may have contributed to the problem, anyway.
The big thing in the United States would be a prime-time presidential news conference on health care, where the President pegged the future of the country to whether or not we could control health care. From the information provided by Death and Taxes, which examines the federal budget in detail, the President’s assessment is spot on. (A point also raised by The Infamous Brad as he notes that most people don't know the real size of their pet projects or pet peeves.)
And speaking of health care, any time someone cites The Lewin Group, mentally append "a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth, one of the nation's largest insurance groups" if they do not expilicitly say so. The Lewin Group is a favorite citation of Republicans against health insurance plans presented by the President. Now we know why. On the other side of the aisle, Mr. Jindal, last seen giving a Republican Response to stimulus plans, accuses the administration and the Left in general of lying to accomplish their ends on health care, using the standard “government takes over, then rations your care” arguments. Citing, you guessed it, the Lewin Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth, one of the nation’s largest insurance groups. This officially became the province of the Department of You Can’t Make This Up. That said, Mr. Jindal at least outlines some principles he thinks will bring about real reform. It’s better than just saying NO. Which puts him above Mr. Sowell, who offers no suggestions but instead repeats the talking points about cost and rationed care. One would think that if such things keep popping up over and over again, one would start by offering plans that purport to solve those problems. Srs bznz, ppl. Even Mr. Fund does better, offering groups of people he thinks are going to get screwed by the health care plan.
Additionally, CREW called the President on his refusal to release who met with White House and government staff, citing the same arguments the previous administrator did about privilege. The White House did eventually provide a list of names, but CREW also wants who invited them and what the White House visitor logs will disclose.
The President also spoke about the stupidity of Cambridge police in arresting an African-American professor for disorderly conduct after he had identified that he was trying to get into his own home, prompting a rebuke and request for the President to butt out of his arrest. Conflicting reports say the professor either called the officer a racist and refused to surrender identification or showed his ID immediately and was polite, yet still got arrested.
The Dow Jones index crossed a certain threshold and stayed above it before closing. Under no circumstances am I joining in that anime-related joke.
Last out before opinions, New Jersey mayors, lawmakers, and others were all arrested in relation to a corruption case involving black market kidneys and fashionable handbags.
In the opinions, the WSJ has no doubt that if they could, Google and Microsoft would find inexpensive ways of deterring each other and not competing in each other's backyards in any serious way.
The WSJ also expresses some skepticism as to whether the Fed will have the nuts to exit when the time is right, expressing their opinion that whether the Fed knows how to do it isn’t the issue, but when.
The WSJ also pens an unsigned in support of the scrapped F-22 spending, but mainly trying to say that cutting a little spending here does not fiscal restraint make. Their final unsigned of tonight is expressing support to give tuition aid to schools working for-profit, considering them a better deal and more effective than the community colleges they compete against for vocational and technical training. Makes sense - they like charter schools, so privately-run schooling is clearly something they like across the board.
Mr. Senor sees the issue of autonomous Kurds coming back to the forefront, now that other, more pressing Iraq issues have been resolved or quieted enough.
Running fast for the quiche, Representative Bill Posey and all his "must provide birth certificate" bill co-sponsors, just for believing the birther nonsense and giving it legitimacy in Congress that it shouldn’t have. The General turns the tables on Rep. Posey and accuses him of not being a citizen, because of his feature similarity to Francois Mitterand, previous president of France. It’s clearly old meme night tonight on the blog.
Stephen Carter also checks in at bronze status for his remark about the "emptiness" of empathy as a judicial standard, for which The Slacktivist points out that a justice without empathy is unlikely to live up to their name.
Mr. McCarthy joins the party at the bronze level by declaring the President an ally of Iran, a Communist, and an America-hater, based on his decision to release five Iranian Revolutionary Guards alleged to be terror-masterminds, while Iran is still hostile. The White House contends they are diplomats, but this is just another cog in McCarthy’s... you know, we’re going to stop that line before history repeats itself. Apparently, Iran is counting on the President being a total America-hater so that he’ll not do anything when they blatantly steal an election and then give them back their best terrorists because He Hates America. If he hates America, there are far more direct ways of causing its downfall and damage than releasing people back to Iran.
Go up one level and what do you get? Mr. Prager's beleif that the current administration lets America understand the Left, the America-hating anti-Market (all praise to it's name) people they are, along with his interpretations of the principles of liberalism, like opposition to wealth creation, preoccupation with equality, as big and powerful a government as they can muster, which they will then use to impose their will on everyone. His belief that conservatives aren’t as power-hungry as liberals because they want to rule a “small” state instead of a “big” one is a canard and only works on fifth-grade logic. Actually, I think even fifth-graders would scratch their heads at that. Singled out for particular disdain is this comment: “The left does not perceive that poverty is the human norm and therefore asks, ”Why is there poverty?“ instead of asking the economic question that matters: Why is there wealth?” In anticipation of being raked over the coals over this, he says that liberals have a sense they are superior in all ways, and this sense leads into their desire to impose themselves on everyone. I think Mr. Prager and Mr. Scrooge would get along just fine.
Also staying at the silver level inn, Dr. McKalip, who forwarded on a picture portraying the President as a witch doctor, although his model was apparently Papua New Guinea, not Africa, and who freely admitted the image he thought was funny played on racial stereotypes to achieve the point. The hammer and sickle at the bottom is a nice festive touch, too. You know, for supposedly being post-racial for having elected a President of different ancestry than all the others, there’s an awful lot of racially charged talk going on in politics. One might almost think all those successfully repressed tendencies are coming out. Hopefully the end effect is that all that suppressed malaise gets out and stays out.
At the top of the dungheap, however, opinion columnists still can’t beat real elected representatives. Mr. Pence tells us it's time to stop all federal funding to Planned Parenthood because they perform abortions. The accounting requirments that PP has to go through because Title X funds can’t go to abortions isn’t bad enough, Mr. Pence wants to get rid of the organization because they dare to offer abortion services in the first place and are apparently “the nation’s biggest abortion provider” who “profits from the abortion trade”. He’s got no guff with other services offered under Title X (and is very conveniently ignoring the fact that PP provides many of those services), of course, and he wants to protect all the African-American babies being killed in a disproportionate amount compared to the white babies (without looking at the underlying causes of why those African-American women might be getting more abortions). So Congress has a moral duty to make their budget a moral document and accept his amendment to deny Planned Parenthood funds unless they stop the abortions. Effectively outlawing abortion by starving funding for it, if Mr. Pence’s figures are to be believed, with the likely-intended consequence of starving out all of PP’s other family-planning services, leaving women without options or control over their own bodies. Probably just the way Mr. Pence would like it. Mike Pence, winner of the Golden Quiche and the Unabashed Feminism Department’s Worst Person in the World.
In technology, the Blue Brain Project wants to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, MIT's electric car looking to rival its gas-powered equivalents in power, speed, and longevity, and the government is looking to make its microwave pain-inducer even more area-effect and have it fire from the sky.
Last for tonight, tagging along to an exercise of teaching non-nuclear states how to inspect and follow the custody chain of nuclear materials, and the strange statistical anomaly of Iowa.
And after all of that, I need a nap.
Also, before the news, a Time poll indicated Jon Stewart is the most trusted newsman in America! Which makes a devilish sort of sense - he’s up front that he’s taking people out of context and the like. In a perverse way, he may be the most honest news person in America, despite the fact he doesn’t necessarily do news. The Fools are always the people to listen to.
Outside the United States, Secretary of State Clinton floated the idea of a possible defense umbrella around Guld State allies if Iran continues their nuclear ambitiona. This was not speaking as a policy prescription, but as a possible idea that would then have to become a policy thing.
The matter of North Korea and the United States was reduced to schoolyard taunts, and no, that’s not The Onion.
Excepting for a few spots, though, it looks like the new administrator means the image of the United States has improved worldwide.
Domestically, something went seriously wrong here - four boys, aged 8 to 14, were charged with sexually assaulting a 8 year-old girl. To add insult, the girl was taken into protective custody after it appeared her parents felt she had shamed the family by being assaulted. There are cultural differences here - the boys and the girl are all around an area flush with residents recently arrived from Liberia. This may have contributed to the problem, anyway.
The big thing in the United States would be a prime-time presidential news conference on health care, where the President pegged the future of the country to whether or not we could control health care. From the information provided by Death and Taxes, which examines the federal budget in detail, the President’s assessment is spot on. (A point also raised by The Infamous Brad as he notes that most people don't know the real size of their pet projects or pet peeves.)
And speaking of health care, any time someone cites The Lewin Group, mentally append "a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth, one of the nation's largest insurance groups" if they do not expilicitly say so. The Lewin Group is a favorite citation of Republicans against health insurance plans presented by the President. Now we know why. On the other side of the aisle, Mr. Jindal, last seen giving a Republican Response to stimulus plans, accuses the administration and the Left in general of lying to accomplish their ends on health care, using the standard “government takes over, then rations your care” arguments. Citing, you guessed it, the Lewin Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth, one of the nation’s largest insurance groups. This officially became the province of the Department of You Can’t Make This Up. That said, Mr. Jindal at least outlines some principles he thinks will bring about real reform. It’s better than just saying NO. Which puts him above Mr. Sowell, who offers no suggestions but instead repeats the talking points about cost and rationed care. One would think that if such things keep popping up over and over again, one would start by offering plans that purport to solve those problems. Srs bznz, ppl. Even Mr. Fund does better, offering groups of people he thinks are going to get screwed by the health care plan.
Additionally, CREW called the President on his refusal to release who met with White House and government staff, citing the same arguments the previous administrator did about privilege. The White House did eventually provide a list of names, but CREW also wants who invited them and what the White House visitor logs will disclose.
The President also spoke about the stupidity of Cambridge police in arresting an African-American professor for disorderly conduct after he had identified that he was trying to get into his own home, prompting a rebuke and request for the President to butt out of his arrest. Conflicting reports say the professor either called the officer a racist and refused to surrender identification or showed his ID immediately and was polite, yet still got arrested.
The Dow Jones index crossed a certain threshold and stayed above it before closing. Under no circumstances am I joining in that anime-related joke.
Last out before opinions, New Jersey mayors, lawmakers, and others were all arrested in relation to a corruption case involving black market kidneys and fashionable handbags.
In the opinions, the WSJ has no doubt that if they could, Google and Microsoft would find inexpensive ways of deterring each other and not competing in each other's backyards in any serious way.
The WSJ also expresses some skepticism as to whether the Fed will have the nuts to exit when the time is right, expressing their opinion that whether the Fed knows how to do it isn’t the issue, but when.
The WSJ also pens an unsigned in support of the scrapped F-22 spending, but mainly trying to say that cutting a little spending here does not fiscal restraint make. Their final unsigned of tonight is expressing support to give tuition aid to schools working for-profit, considering them a better deal and more effective than the community colleges they compete against for vocational and technical training. Makes sense - they like charter schools, so privately-run schooling is clearly something they like across the board.
Mr. Senor sees the issue of autonomous Kurds coming back to the forefront, now that other, more pressing Iraq issues have been resolved or quieted enough.
Running fast for the quiche, Representative Bill Posey and all his "must provide birth certificate" bill co-sponsors, just for believing the birther nonsense and giving it legitimacy in Congress that it shouldn’t have. The General turns the tables on Rep. Posey and accuses him of not being a citizen, because of his feature similarity to Francois Mitterand, previous president of France. It’s clearly old meme night tonight on the blog.
Stephen Carter also checks in at bronze status for his remark about the "emptiness" of empathy as a judicial standard, for which The Slacktivist points out that a justice without empathy is unlikely to live up to their name.
Mr. McCarthy joins the party at the bronze level by declaring the President an ally of Iran, a Communist, and an America-hater, based on his decision to release five Iranian Revolutionary Guards alleged to be terror-masterminds, while Iran is still hostile. The White House contends they are diplomats, but this is just another cog in McCarthy’s... you know, we’re going to stop that line before history repeats itself. Apparently, Iran is counting on the President being a total America-hater so that he’ll not do anything when they blatantly steal an election and then give them back their best terrorists because He Hates America. If he hates America, there are far more direct ways of causing its downfall and damage than releasing people back to Iran.
Go up one level and what do you get? Mr. Prager's beleif that the current administration lets America understand the Left, the America-hating anti-Market (all praise to it's name) people they are, along with his interpretations of the principles of liberalism, like opposition to wealth creation, preoccupation with equality, as big and powerful a government as they can muster, which they will then use to impose their will on everyone. His belief that conservatives aren’t as power-hungry as liberals because they want to rule a “small” state instead of a “big” one is a canard and only works on fifth-grade logic. Actually, I think even fifth-graders would scratch their heads at that. Singled out for particular disdain is this comment: “The left does not perceive that poverty is the human norm and therefore asks, ”Why is there poverty?“ instead of asking the economic question that matters: Why is there wealth?” In anticipation of being raked over the coals over this, he says that liberals have a sense they are superior in all ways, and this sense leads into their desire to impose themselves on everyone. I think Mr. Prager and Mr. Scrooge would get along just fine.
Also staying at the silver level inn, Dr. McKalip, who forwarded on a picture portraying the President as a witch doctor, although his model was apparently Papua New Guinea, not Africa, and who freely admitted the image he thought was funny played on racial stereotypes to achieve the point. The hammer and sickle at the bottom is a nice festive touch, too. You know, for supposedly being post-racial for having elected a President of different ancestry than all the others, there’s an awful lot of racially charged talk going on in politics. One might almost think all those successfully repressed tendencies are coming out. Hopefully the end effect is that all that suppressed malaise gets out and stays out.
At the top of the dungheap, however, opinion columnists still can’t beat real elected representatives. Mr. Pence tells us it's time to stop all federal funding to Planned Parenthood because they perform abortions. The accounting requirments that PP has to go through because Title X funds can’t go to abortions isn’t bad enough, Mr. Pence wants to get rid of the organization because they dare to offer abortion services in the first place and are apparently “the nation’s biggest abortion provider” who “profits from the abortion trade”. He’s got no guff with other services offered under Title X (and is very conveniently ignoring the fact that PP provides many of those services), of course, and he wants to protect all the African-American babies being killed in a disproportionate amount compared to the white babies (without looking at the underlying causes of why those African-American women might be getting more abortions). So Congress has a moral duty to make their budget a moral document and accept his amendment to deny Planned Parenthood funds unless they stop the abortions. Effectively outlawing abortion by starving funding for it, if Mr. Pence’s figures are to be believed, with the likely-intended consequence of starving out all of PP’s other family-planning services, leaving women without options or control over their own bodies. Probably just the way Mr. Pence would like it. Mike Pence, winner of the Golden Quiche and the Unabashed Feminism Department’s Worst Person in the World.
In technology, the Blue Brain Project wants to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, MIT's electric car looking to rival its gas-powered equivalents in power, speed, and longevity, and the government is looking to make its microwave pain-inducer even more area-effect and have it fire from the sky.
Last for tonight, tagging along to an exercise of teaching non-nuclear states how to inspect and follow the custody chain of nuclear materials, and the strange statistical anomaly of Iowa.
And after all of that, I need a nap.