Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2009-12-24 10:08 am
silveradept) wrote2009-12-24 10:08 am
Ah holidays - enjoy them while they're here - 23 December 2009
Greetings, persons of great honesty and integrity! We’re certain that you were not part of the thumping truth took in politics for 2009, and did not believe the big political lie for the year about death panels nor the runners-up that didn't win the award.
Out in the world today, lest we think that our problems are ever only in America, there is at least one pastor in the United Kingdom who thinks death for homosexuals is a swell idea. And there are parents who will fly in genital multilators for their children, despite the illegality of the practice in the UK.
More tamely, although perhaps more ideologically interesting, is Benedict moves Pius XII and John Paull II closer to sainthood. JPII, no complaints, but Pius was the Pope during the madman’s reign in Germany and was frequently accused of not doing a whole lot to stop his pogrom against Jews.
And remember, the actions of one madman or group do not change the meaning of a symbol as old as a swastika.
Finally, as expected by this point, Iran pooh-poohs a deadline sset for them regarding a deal to swap enriched uranium for civilian nuclear reactor fuel.
In domestic news, a new Representative switched his party affiliation to the Republicans after indicating his frustration with the way the Democratic Party was running the show and their apparent indifference to the cries of the people. We appreciate any Congresscritter showing honesty and siding with the people they feel are closest to their own ideology.
A suburban chicagho library user believes it inappropriate that another user tagged Ann Coulter's books in the catalogue as "hate speech" and the library didn't immediately remove it. His argument is that it looks like the library itself tagged the books, instead of a user, and thus is making political speech in a place they shouldn’t. Greater deliniation between library and user-generated content is agood suggestion to make, sure. And, as was mentioned, there is no restriction on that user tagging the books with something more positive or with tagging other pundits with negative tags.
Fact-checking the current administrator, despite his denials that he didn't campaign for the public option, a quick scour of the Intarwebs says he did. Lots. Elsewhere on possible health care reform, after the cloture vote passed, with the opposition claiming this was all moving too quickly and Democrats wanted to pass soemthing before the population knew what was in it, there was concern that perhaps the imprecatory prayers had boomeranged onto a different Senator, who was fine, thank ye very much. Nowadays, though, the idea of a bill that's moving too fast, without bipartisanship, without listening to anyone in the medical industries, will reduce choice, institute government control, and raise premiums passed by thuggery and intimidation is the main argument against passage (and they’re not happy that it’s happening right around the holiday break so they’re stuck working when they could be elsewhere), having exhausted just about every other tactic to stop it.
A candidate for governor of Idaho is holding rallies open only to male Mormons, ostensibly to discuss issues that only those who have good priesthood standing in the church would be able to hear and understand. To the rest of the country, though, that looks suspiciously like willingly excluding a significant amount of your possible base to cater to your religious affiliation.
Our dumb criminals file points, laughs, at Ted Klaudt, the former lawmaker convicted of rape of his foster daughter, attempting to copyright his own name so he can demand his permission be granted before news organizations run articles or stories about him. Yeah... that’s not going to go very far.
Furthermore, The WaPo commits a journalism failure by squelching an on-the-scene report made by a staffer in favor of the official police line, despite evidence already available that refutes that line, and later having to correct the errors. Why not just file the report from the person who watched it unfold? Or at least study the already-available material on hand?
Last out, according to The New Republic, our business schools are turning out more financial wizards and asset managers rather than people who are interested in making the manufacturing process and the products they produce better. Thus, even if we went back to a heavy manufacturing base, the article suggests we don’t have the managers to truly take advantage of it.
In technology, Microsoft loses its case, will have to remake Word 2003 and 2007 so as to remove infringing XML-reading code, efficiency technology makes bandwidth nearly 10 percent better, gains of traffic capacity possible from the addition of more computer-controlled cars to the road, and the possibility of using crowdsourcing tools to disguise one's true intent, making an harmless-looking image-matching task into unwittingly identifying dissidents and protesters, for example.
In education, cognitive science helps young children learn things they previously weren't thought capable of knowing, which makes our childhood less of prodigy-ness and more of good teaching, for which we say “w00t.”
In the opinions, The WSJ complains about the closure of Guantanamo Bay, saying that Yemen is far too terrorist-friendly to accept detainees and Illinois runs an unacceptable risk that those persons would be tried by the court system, while also savoring the idea that the current administrator is now defending policies like that previous administrator’s because he thought and declared rashly. We’re still waiting for the day when someone expresses enough confidence in the legal system to actually try terror suspects.
The WSJ's editors complain about the phasing-out of a voucher program in Washington, D.C., claiming all the benefits gathered by the voucher students that attend a properly funded school will be lost by sending them back to public schools, and blaming the NEA as the reason why the successful program was killed. We’re also still waiting for the day when someone agitates to fund the public education system properly nationwide so that all schools can acces the resources of private schools. Clearly, success is possible. Why aren’t more people clamoring for it?
Not that the President is being assailed only from the right side of the spectrum - disillusionment and anger over broken promises fuels much of the criticism from the left, although one could argue that the President still has a few years to play on that regard. The disappointemnt from all sides leads to circulating postings like a suggested Congressional Reform Act of 2010 that would limit terms and pay raises, dump the Congresscritters into Social Security, remove their Congressional pension, and require them to navigate the rapids of private health insurance coverage like everyone else, which would hopefully result in the passing of real robust health care reform, shore up Social Security, and put in power people who want to work for the people that elected them, while avoiding the generation of a career politician. That it relies on Congresscritters willingly shooting themselevs in the foot, however, dooms it from being anything more than a chain e-mail.
Last for tonight - thankfully, the myth that suicide rates rise in December is still a myth. Oh, and we finally had soemone show some images of the fancomic that genderbends Alan Moore. Good artistic style. Should be interesting to watch unfold.
Out in the world today, lest we think that our problems are ever only in America, there is at least one pastor in the United Kingdom who thinks death for homosexuals is a swell idea. And there are parents who will fly in genital multilators for their children, despite the illegality of the practice in the UK.
More tamely, although perhaps more ideologically interesting, is Benedict moves Pius XII and John Paull II closer to sainthood. JPII, no complaints, but Pius was the Pope during the madman’s reign in Germany and was frequently accused of not doing a whole lot to stop his pogrom against Jews.
And remember, the actions of one madman or group do not change the meaning of a symbol as old as a swastika.
Finally, as expected by this point, Iran pooh-poohs a deadline sset for them regarding a deal to swap enriched uranium for civilian nuclear reactor fuel.
In domestic news, a new Representative switched his party affiliation to the Republicans after indicating his frustration with the way the Democratic Party was running the show and their apparent indifference to the cries of the people. We appreciate any Congresscritter showing honesty and siding with the people they feel are closest to their own ideology.
A suburban chicagho library user believes it inappropriate that another user tagged Ann Coulter's books in the catalogue as "hate speech" and the library didn't immediately remove it. His argument is that it looks like the library itself tagged the books, instead of a user, and thus is making political speech in a place they shouldn’t. Greater deliniation between library and user-generated content is agood suggestion to make, sure. And, as was mentioned, there is no restriction on that user tagging the books with something more positive or with tagging other pundits with negative tags.
Fact-checking the current administrator, despite his denials that he didn't campaign for the public option, a quick scour of the Intarwebs says he did. Lots. Elsewhere on possible health care reform, after the cloture vote passed, with the opposition claiming this was all moving too quickly and Democrats wanted to pass soemthing before the population knew what was in it, there was concern that perhaps the imprecatory prayers had boomeranged onto a different Senator, who was fine, thank ye very much. Nowadays, though, the idea of a bill that's moving too fast, without bipartisanship, without listening to anyone in the medical industries, will reduce choice, institute government control, and raise premiums passed by thuggery and intimidation is the main argument against passage (and they’re not happy that it’s happening right around the holiday break so they’re stuck working when they could be elsewhere), having exhausted just about every other tactic to stop it.
A candidate for governor of Idaho is holding rallies open only to male Mormons, ostensibly to discuss issues that only those who have good priesthood standing in the church would be able to hear and understand. To the rest of the country, though, that looks suspiciously like willingly excluding a significant amount of your possible base to cater to your religious affiliation.
Our dumb criminals file points, laughs, at Ted Klaudt, the former lawmaker convicted of rape of his foster daughter, attempting to copyright his own name so he can demand his permission be granted before news organizations run articles or stories about him. Yeah... that’s not going to go very far.
Furthermore, The WaPo commits a journalism failure by squelching an on-the-scene report made by a staffer in favor of the official police line, despite evidence already available that refutes that line, and later having to correct the errors. Why not just file the report from the person who watched it unfold? Or at least study the already-available material on hand?
Last out, according to The New Republic, our business schools are turning out more financial wizards and asset managers rather than people who are interested in making the manufacturing process and the products they produce better. Thus, even if we went back to a heavy manufacturing base, the article suggests we don’t have the managers to truly take advantage of it.
In technology, Microsoft loses its case, will have to remake Word 2003 and 2007 so as to remove infringing XML-reading code, efficiency technology makes bandwidth nearly 10 percent better, gains of traffic capacity possible from the addition of more computer-controlled cars to the road, and the possibility of using crowdsourcing tools to disguise one's true intent, making an harmless-looking image-matching task into unwittingly identifying dissidents and protesters, for example.
In education, cognitive science helps young children learn things they previously weren't thought capable of knowing, which makes our childhood less of prodigy-ness and more of good teaching, for which we say “w00t.”
In the opinions, The WSJ complains about the closure of Guantanamo Bay, saying that Yemen is far too terrorist-friendly to accept detainees and Illinois runs an unacceptable risk that those persons would be tried by the court system, while also savoring the idea that the current administrator is now defending policies like that previous administrator’s because he thought and declared rashly. We’re still waiting for the day when someone expresses enough confidence in the legal system to actually try terror suspects.
The WSJ's editors complain about the phasing-out of a voucher program in Washington, D.C., claiming all the benefits gathered by the voucher students that attend a properly funded school will be lost by sending them back to public schools, and blaming the NEA as the reason why the successful program was killed. We’re also still waiting for the day when someone agitates to fund the public education system properly nationwide so that all schools can acces the resources of private schools. Clearly, success is possible. Why aren’t more people clamoring for it?
Not that the President is being assailed only from the right side of the spectrum - disillusionment and anger over broken promises fuels much of the criticism from the left, although one could argue that the President still has a few years to play on that regard. The disappointemnt from all sides leads to circulating postings like a suggested Congressional Reform Act of 2010 that would limit terms and pay raises, dump the Congresscritters into Social Security, remove their Congressional pension, and require them to navigate the rapids of private health insurance coverage like everyone else, which would hopefully result in the passing of real robust health care reform, shore up Social Security, and put in power people who want to work for the people that elected them, while avoiding the generation of a career politician. That it relies on Congresscritters willingly shooting themselevs in the foot, however, dooms it from being anything more than a chain e-mail.
Last for tonight - thankfully, the myth that suicide rates rise in December is still a myth. Oh, and we finally had soemone show some images of the fancomic that genderbends Alan Moore. Good artistic style. Should be interesting to watch unfold.