Got to go to bed soon - 12 August 2009
Aug. 13th, 2009 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptGreetings, all, to the news cycle, which never stops, never sleeps, and almost never distinguishes between what is news and what is merely filler. Thus, you could see on the headlines a collection of paintings of various toys of Japan's past just as easily as the hunt for an acid-spitting death worm or the discovery of large carnivorous plants, or sufficient size to consume rodents.
Out in the world - Terror plot stopped, six arrested, cooperation between U.S. and Kuwait intelligence cited as the reason why. Something worked. Without having to resort to extralegal matters. See? It does exist!
Domestically, good news and an interesting idea for big cities - produce vans carrying fresh and organic stuff into the heart of Detroit, and selling it for affordable prices to the residents. This helps to solve the problem that Detroit’s big markets with healthy foods are often very far away from the residents, who don’t have cars, and may not even be able to afford the time and fare of bussing out and back (not to mention, they’re limited to what they can carry).
Not nearly as pleasant, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and agents at BATF, militia groups are on the rise across the United States. All they lack is the big spark to set them off, according to those officials monitoring the rise. Boy, that right-wing extremism report that DHS released looks more and more like the truth instaed of some sort of veteran-discrimination tripe, doesn’t it?
On health care, a comment at Senator Specter's town hall envisioned the future of the United States as one where even toilet paper is rationed, much like Russia of the past. Although asking the country to be restored to what it was under the constitution makes us ask, “Which version? The original wasn’t exactly kind to women or minorities.” Joining the town hall department is Mr. Obama, who spoke in New Hampshire about resisting the misinformation and warning of the dangers of do-nothing-ism.
Elsewhere, some suspicion about industry groups geting on board with health care reform, perhaps with the interest of being able to direct where it goes if they end up supporting it, and the reality that stupid statements by your opposition often can be exploited to raise money for you.
On the town halls, Senator Specter says the disruptive protestors at his town hall meetings are not representative of the American people, but they deserve to be heard. Even if they’re the shill groups and paid spokespeople of astrotrurfers and industries that have a vested interest in preventing a real debate on health care, Senator? Those promoting the protests claim, of course, that it's all genuine anger and venting, perhaps not on the actual topic, we note, especially when people start spraypainting swastikas on Congressional signs.
In the opinions, earning a best person in the world, Michael Lind exposes how ludicrous the health care debate's arguments are by substitution - replace health care with police and see if it still seems like the arguments are good. Inverting another argument made, think about what life would be like if your health insurers ran the DMV.
Also earning big props is Meghan McCain, who continues to fight for a more inclusive GOP against who could probably be charitably described as the Harpies of the party - Ann Coulter, Laura Ingram, and now, Michelle Malkin, who remarked that McCain was someone in the party that needed to “shut up”. While McCain may be fighting an uphill battle, especially when other conservative columnists agree with her that more moderates need to be in the party, but then criticize her justification, thereby missing her point, it’s good for her, and ultimately, for the GOP, to continue insisting that she has just as much right to be heard and seriously considered as the others. (Twitter following and social media is a good indication of where the young people are, moreso than the NYT bestseller list. Also, a party where a commandment is not to speak ill of your felows, even when they’re being stupid, lying, or driving the party farther away from electability, is a party that’s going to end up in real trouble if those liars, demagogues, and idiots end up in charge.) While eventually, McCain will likely be justified by sheer attrition and death of the people in charge currently holding to the hard right line, it could be decades before this happens. Which, if you believe the Dems are going to drive the country to hell in a handbasket, should be all the justification you need to abandon the clearly not-working hard right and start working more toward a platform that will appeal to the populace. Infighting on points of view is healthy, as is infighting, actually, on which type of attack to use and what to attack. A party that moves in lockstep will succeed big if it’s the right tactic. It will fail bigger if it’s the wrong one. The last election proves that.
Bill'O makes a point in saying that the Independents may be losing trust in the President's plans, and that the current debate is a matter of liberal ideas about government ability versus conservative ideas about government inability. That he says conservatives outnumber liberals two-to-one is advocating that his point of view is superior, and misleading people into believing that it is so because more people have it. Otherwise, though, it appears to be sanity and from O’Reilly. Why can’t he do this more often?
In the quiche derby, Mr. McGurn blames the President for a turnaround on health care, going from open-to-ideas and higher taxes Candidate Obama to my-way-or-the-highway President Obama. Years can change a man, especially when he finds out that when he gets into office, his opposition goes from having ideas to shouting “no, never, nothing”. Mr. McGurn sees this as a change from politics to religion - well, he’s right, but he’s looking in the wrong direction if he wants to see where things went dogmatic. The idea that universal care is a right, not a privilege may be what’s driving the current reforms, but I still don’t see any single-payer systems yet, Traojan’d or not. Plus, we had an economic crash in the intervening time, so we all get to see what happens when propserity fails - and how inadequate our current safety net really in in keeping people alive and finanically sound when things go down the tubes. People’s opinions change - perhaps the candidate then was moer amenable to a gentler pace and a single-payer system. Now that he’s seen how things work, he’s adjusted.
Ms. Rabinowitz claims tone-deafness from the Obama Administration, repeatedly and routinely trying to take the American people where they don’t want to go and claiming that it’s better for them, spreading messages with generalities that are undecipherable, and increasing amounts of bullying and moralization from someone who had adoration when he was elected. One might say that sentence applied to the last administrator, too. Moreso, if what you are advocating really is better for the populace, even thoguh they don’t believe you, and are scared, even Aristotle says it’s part of your duty to tell the people about the world outside the cave and try to convince them to go outside with you. Still, it’s hard to tell whether the people’s skepticism on the health care plan is because they have objections, or they’re being manipulated by fear of death camps, taxpayer-funded abortions, or the prospect that our major creditors will stop loaning us money so much that their thinking processes are suppressed.
Making a good case for worst people are the people wearing guns out in opposition to a march of children against a sheriff who routinely separates parents and children in his immigrant raids. Because those children are dangerous and killers might be afoot.
In technology, nuke power for a moon base, maybe coming soon, thanks to tiny size nuclear reactors, which when combined with a machine that can extract oxygen from lunar rock, attempts to figure out why Mars's methane is so very variant, continued monitoring and alarm at the rate of glacial melt, the increasing utilization of augmented reality through mobile phone cameras and GPS, and Intel and Micron teaming up to manufacture more information-dense flash drives.
Out in the world - Terror plot stopped, six arrested, cooperation between U.S. and Kuwait intelligence cited as the reason why. Something worked. Without having to resort to extralegal matters. See? It does exist!
Domestically, good news and an interesting idea for big cities - produce vans carrying fresh and organic stuff into the heart of Detroit, and selling it for affordable prices to the residents. This helps to solve the problem that Detroit’s big markets with healthy foods are often very far away from the residents, who don’t have cars, and may not even be able to afford the time and fare of bussing out and back (not to mention, they’re limited to what they can carry).
Not nearly as pleasant, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and agents at BATF, militia groups are on the rise across the United States. All they lack is the big spark to set them off, according to those officials monitoring the rise. Boy, that right-wing extremism report that DHS released looks more and more like the truth instaed of some sort of veteran-discrimination tripe, doesn’t it?
On health care, a comment at Senator Specter's town hall envisioned the future of the United States as one where even toilet paper is rationed, much like Russia of the past. Although asking the country to be restored to what it was under the constitution makes us ask, “Which version? The original wasn’t exactly kind to women or minorities.” Joining the town hall department is Mr. Obama, who spoke in New Hampshire about resisting the misinformation and warning of the dangers of do-nothing-ism.
Elsewhere, some suspicion about industry groups geting on board with health care reform, perhaps with the interest of being able to direct where it goes if they end up supporting it, and the reality that stupid statements by your opposition often can be exploited to raise money for you.
On the town halls, Senator Specter says the disruptive protestors at his town hall meetings are not representative of the American people, but they deserve to be heard. Even if they’re the shill groups and paid spokespeople of astrotrurfers and industries that have a vested interest in preventing a real debate on health care, Senator? Those promoting the protests claim, of course, that it's all genuine anger and venting, perhaps not on the actual topic, we note, especially when people start spraypainting swastikas on Congressional signs.
In the opinions, earning a best person in the world, Michael Lind exposes how ludicrous the health care debate's arguments are by substitution - replace health care with police and see if it still seems like the arguments are good. Inverting another argument made, think about what life would be like if your health insurers ran the DMV.
Also earning big props is Meghan McCain, who continues to fight for a more inclusive GOP against who could probably be charitably described as the Harpies of the party - Ann Coulter, Laura Ingram, and now, Michelle Malkin, who remarked that McCain was someone in the party that needed to “shut up”. While McCain may be fighting an uphill battle, especially when other conservative columnists agree with her that more moderates need to be in the party, but then criticize her justification, thereby missing her point, it’s good for her, and ultimately, for the GOP, to continue insisting that she has just as much right to be heard and seriously considered as the others. (Twitter following and social media is a good indication of where the young people are, moreso than the NYT bestseller list. Also, a party where a commandment is not to speak ill of your felows, even when they’re being stupid, lying, or driving the party farther away from electability, is a party that’s going to end up in real trouble if those liars, demagogues, and idiots end up in charge.) While eventually, McCain will likely be justified by sheer attrition and death of the people in charge currently holding to the hard right line, it could be decades before this happens. Which, if you believe the Dems are going to drive the country to hell in a handbasket, should be all the justification you need to abandon the clearly not-working hard right and start working more toward a platform that will appeal to the populace. Infighting on points of view is healthy, as is infighting, actually, on which type of attack to use and what to attack. A party that moves in lockstep will succeed big if it’s the right tactic. It will fail bigger if it’s the wrong one. The last election proves that.
Bill'O makes a point in saying that the Independents may be losing trust in the President's plans, and that the current debate is a matter of liberal ideas about government ability versus conservative ideas about government inability. That he says conservatives outnumber liberals two-to-one is advocating that his point of view is superior, and misleading people into believing that it is so because more people have it. Otherwise, though, it appears to be sanity and from O’Reilly. Why can’t he do this more often?
In the quiche derby, Mr. McGurn blames the President for a turnaround on health care, going from open-to-ideas and higher taxes Candidate Obama to my-way-or-the-highway President Obama. Years can change a man, especially when he finds out that when he gets into office, his opposition goes from having ideas to shouting “no, never, nothing”. Mr. McGurn sees this as a change from politics to religion - well, he’s right, but he’s looking in the wrong direction if he wants to see where things went dogmatic. The idea that universal care is a right, not a privilege may be what’s driving the current reforms, but I still don’t see any single-payer systems yet, Traojan’d or not. Plus, we had an economic crash in the intervening time, so we all get to see what happens when propserity fails - and how inadequate our current safety net really in in keeping people alive and finanically sound when things go down the tubes. People’s opinions change - perhaps the candidate then was moer amenable to a gentler pace and a single-payer system. Now that he’s seen how things work, he’s adjusted.
Ms. Rabinowitz claims tone-deafness from the Obama Administration, repeatedly and routinely trying to take the American people where they don’t want to go and claiming that it’s better for them, spreading messages with generalities that are undecipherable, and increasing amounts of bullying and moralization from someone who had adoration when he was elected. One might say that sentence applied to the last administrator, too. Moreso, if what you are advocating really is better for the populace, even thoguh they don’t believe you, and are scared, even Aristotle says it’s part of your duty to tell the people about the world outside the cave and try to convince them to go outside with you. Still, it’s hard to tell whether the people’s skepticism on the health care plan is because they have objections, or they’re being manipulated by fear of death camps, taxpayer-funded abortions, or the prospect that our major creditors will stop loaning us money so much that their thinking processes are suppressed.
Making a good case for worst people are the people wearing guns out in opposition to a march of children against a sheriff who routinely separates parents and children in his immigrant raids. Because those children are dangerous and killers might be afoot.
In technology, nuke power for a moon base, maybe coming soon, thanks to tiny size nuclear reactors, which when combined with a machine that can extract oxygen from lunar rock, attempts to figure out why Mars's methane is so very variant, continued monitoring and alarm at the rate of glacial melt, the increasing utilization of augmented reality through mobile phone cameras and GPS, and Intel and Micron teaming up to manufacture more information-dense flash drives.
