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silveradeptGreetings, persons who wish for more good Muppet material! Enjoy the knowledge that Fraggle Rock will be coming to comic form, with a preview of what is to come. (And ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ldragoon is a writer in the second volume. Approved by Brian Henson! Nice!) I hope the comic book stays true to what Jim wanted with the Fraggles.
Also, of interest to us professionally, perhaps as a new possible model for many of our libraries, the San Francisco Library has hired a full-time social worker to assist the homeless and mentally ill that come to use the library. Wouldn't that be a great spot for a partnership between a city/county social net and their library system? Considering a lot of people come to the library to get information as well as a place where they can be without being shooed along during the day, it seems like the social worker would be just the person to have on staff. Remember, librarians are not the stereotype, and they perform a lot of very useful roles.
Internationally, the Anglican communion may be inching closer the Century of the Fruitbat soon, with clergy in favor of letting homosexuals complete civil partnerships in their churches, while maintaining the wider ban on marriage between homosexuals. On that wider front, though, Ms. Bennet suggests that civil partnerships have made homosexuals more "just like everyone else", so the whole marriage thing shouldn't be that much more of a step, right?
On the domestic front, Mr. Richard Cheney returns to the hospital, complaining of chest pains. While it might seem tempting to invoke imprecatory prayer on him, the high road would be appreciated.
The Defense Department has moved to lift a restriction on women serving on submarines, meaning that life underwater is going to get a little bit more complicated logistically.
Reuters reports on the statistic that nearly one in five persons in the American workforce in the United States is either unemployed or underemployed, even with our official statistic of unemployment at a little less than half that. Despite all of that unemployment, executives of several major companies received twenty billion USD in bonuses for 2009, which makes the people down here on the bottom wonder whether anyone will be able to re-set the priorities to something more friendly to them. Persons employed by the Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods company, however, got that priority re-setting in spades - they now own the company.
The United States State Department lifted a ban on exporting night-vision goggles and other technologies, over the warnings that such a move would imperil national security, because we're not particularly good at monitoring whether we're selling sensitive technology overseas or not. (One might say that corporations don't really care about that...)
Talking about some ways that those who claim to be pro-life are actually rather against it, Utah is considering a measure that will make miscarriages potentially illegal, based on the loose standard of whether the woman was doing an "intentional, knowing, or reckless act" that lead to the death of her child. Going to get an abortion is still legal for the moment, but in any other case, the fetus trumps the mother in all ways - the mother must do everything for the benefit of the fetus or be prosecuted for doing something that resulted in a miscarriage.
Elsewhere, A Virginia State Delegate insists that G-d punishes women who have abortions of their first children by giving them children with birth defects when they want to have kids later. So, Ms. Palin, have anything to say about the slur just leveled at you? Furthermore, because they provide this evil abortion and the even more evil contraception thing, the State Delegate also wants to have all the state funding pulled from Planned Parenthood. Well, if the funding is gone and those services aren't available, then maybe he will see an increase in those defective children, because of back-alley abortions that cause damage and complicate the next pregnancy, assuming they don't kill the mother.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California expects the Tea Party movement to wink out of existence once the economy improves, because the Tea Party doesn't seem to be putting forward solutions. He's certainly got solid backing - when times are good, people don't seem to care nearly as much about spending or big government. Despite the sorts of problems in good times that produced the bad times (and how many of them were facilitated by lack of government...), we'll probably forget all about it once the stock market says we're recovered. Maybe by them there will be solutions, but they will probably be absorbed by Republicans or libertarians.
The American Conservative runs a piece on the myth of immigrants and illegal aliens being responsible for a significant portion of lawlessness in America. Considering said Tea Party and other far-right persons above, the magazine might be taking a big risk with its subscriber base by running the article. Still, it is nice to see a prominent conservative publication attempting this endeavour. The article does have lots of statistics and statistical manipulations, though, so there's plenty of chances for the Lies and Damned Lies accusations.
In technology, engineering avian flu hybrids to see if any of their mutant strains might become harmful and contagious in humans,
Suggestions that universities start testing their students for "smart" drugs that increase alertness and attention...because they think that boosting one's natural capacity in such a manner is cheating? It's not cribbing notes or stealing tests, and while there is "competition" among students, it's not in a zero-sum game style, for the most part. What the article seems to really be getting at is that we need to start thinking about the ethics of using those drugs and whether they will be used for out benefit or be compulsory so that our corporate overlords will benefit more from us.
In the opinions, The Washington Times highlights the length of time between formal press conferences, while also criticizing the President for the amount of interviews he's given in the intervening time. It sounds like trying to further the idea that the administration that trumpets transparency is hiding, afraid of a press that will be critical of him and expose him as a charlatan or an emmpty suit. Of course, this could be happening because there's work to be done and there really hasn't been anything, in terms of legislation, for press conferences to be held on. That's what happens when The Tarantino is applied everywhere without fail.
Speaking of spin, the Times also attempts to paint the difficult slog in southern Afghanistan as NATO's fault for not being able to be everywhere and prevent everything. Well, there is still that second land war in Asia that's been sucking resources ever since 2003...
...but that is obviously not the things that's causing problems. the Times Editorial Board says the federal work force is too big and needs to have a pay freeze instituted, and then 10 percent of its workforce cut, because on average, government workers get pay-and-benefits packages more than twice their private-sector counterparts, and there are some people getting both pension from the military and salary from the Defense Department, and federal workers continue to get raises while everyone else gets laid off. All of this is, of course, deficit spending that will run out at some point. Um... if we're including bonuses and salary from the entirety of the private sector, and the averages still turn out this way, what does that say about the private sector employees? How many does that say are working at minumum wage with no benefits at all to bring the averages down to the point where the many millions managing to find work only make to half that of the 1.5 million federal employees? How many at the bottom are being squeezed past the point of survival to make this average happen? Where is the is the populist outrage? Oh, that's right, it's there, but it's being redirected toward the government or justified that CEOs and executives deserve that kind of money, brought on by layoffs. Because believing in wage parity or a basic income is socialist, and We Can't Have That.
On the other point, government does more than employ people, of course. Some of those things they're spending deficit money on could also be cut, like spending on weapons the Pentagon itself says they don't need, or just cutting spending on warmaking tools in general. But that makes us Weak on Security, and so We Can't Have That, either. How about health care? We could insitute a system that would be much more cost-effective and relieve a significant burden on the American household. But that's Socialism, once again. So what's left? Cutting education budgets, taking away funding for libraries, and complaining about defecit spending and the power foreign governments have because they're holding American debt, while turning a very blind eye to all the things that could be cut or actively obstructing efforts to reform them. Dysfunction brought to you by special interests that prefer to profit off your misery and the Congresscritters they've bought.
Mr. Chesser attempts a victory dance of "I told you so" in relation to what he perceives as the world no longer believing in climate change, saying scientists brought it all on themselves by fudging data and using a sycophantic media to their advantage over "realists" who said there was no climate change. His advice is that climate scientists apologize for what they've done, or nobody will take them seriously in the future. Mr. Cheeser enjoys his ability to cherry-pick examples that help make his case, but if he really wanted to put forth something like that, he should be willing to examine all the cases, not just the ones that prove his theories. That would be proper scientific refutation, I would think. And it would take far more time than it does to pen a column. Mr. Will does a better job, although he, too prefers things that help his cause instead of the whole picture. The both of them also refer to it as "global warming industry", trying to evoke the negative connotations most Americans already have about corporate control of their lives. There is an industry there, they're right, but one would think they'd be more interested in putting people to work to produce more efficient things, as that is what industry does. Especially in this recession.
The beauty of any movement, liberal or conservative, is that given a wide enough swath of people as part of it, you will find they hold contradictory positions while both claiming to be members of that group. It is an even better thing when those peopel are part of the same group. Example: Editorial 1, Washington Times, on how the President avoids hard choices, especially in reference to his budget numbers, because there are bigger deficits there than the last administration had in their budgets. (Is that counting all the supplemental and off-the-books spending for wars?) So the President is a weak-minded fool who doesn't make hard decisions. However, in Editorial 2, also of the Washington Times, the President is doing his damndest to get around Congress in any way that he can, using executive orders and powers to circumvent the Congress standing in his way. Thus, the President is both unable to make hard choices and barreling ahead with his agenda in the face of a Congress that won't help him pass policies that are horrible for the nation. He cannot be both without a spine, unable to suck it up and make cuts to spending and his ambitious liberal agenda and unwilling to make any compromises and cuts on his ambitious liberal agenda because he's an immovable ideologue. (We note that current conservative thinking seems to favor option two, the ideological idiot, rather than option one.)
Last for today in opinions, however, the current Supreme Court majority does not seem to like the protections given by the Miranda warning, first saying that being released from interrogation back into the general prison population means that someone has to re-invoke their Miranda rights if interrogated again, because they are apparently not put back into a "police-dominated atmosphere" and return to the (highly limited) degree of control over their own lives they have in pison. Uhh... at what point is prison not a police-dominated environment? Second, however, making statements that could be misconstrued to mean something very different than the Miranda rights will still satisfy the requirements of advising someone of said rights, if one could interpret those statements as giving them the correct information.
Last for today more generally is exploding head syndrome, where one is awoken from sleep by a loud sound that exists only between the space of one's ears.
ldragoon is a writer in the second volume. Approved by Brian Henson! Nice!) I hope the comic book stays true to what Jim wanted with the Fraggles.Also, of interest to us professionally, perhaps as a new possible model for many of our libraries, the San Francisco Library has hired a full-time social worker to assist the homeless and mentally ill that come to use the library. Wouldn't that be a great spot for a partnership between a city/county social net and their library system? Considering a lot of people come to the library to get information as well as a place where they can be without being shooed along during the day, it seems like the social worker would be just the person to have on staff. Remember, librarians are not the stereotype, and they perform a lot of very useful roles.
Internationally, the Anglican communion may be inching closer the Century of the Fruitbat soon, with clergy in favor of letting homosexuals complete civil partnerships in their churches, while maintaining the wider ban on marriage between homosexuals. On that wider front, though, Ms. Bennet suggests that civil partnerships have made homosexuals more "just like everyone else", so the whole marriage thing shouldn't be that much more of a step, right?
On the domestic front, Mr. Richard Cheney returns to the hospital, complaining of chest pains. While it might seem tempting to invoke imprecatory prayer on him, the high road would be appreciated.
The Defense Department has moved to lift a restriction on women serving on submarines, meaning that life underwater is going to get a little bit more complicated logistically.
Reuters reports on the statistic that nearly one in five persons in the American workforce in the United States is either unemployed or underemployed, even with our official statistic of unemployment at a little less than half that. Despite all of that unemployment, executives of several major companies received twenty billion USD in bonuses for 2009, which makes the people down here on the bottom wonder whether anyone will be able to re-set the priorities to something more friendly to them. Persons employed by the Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods company, however, got that priority re-setting in spades - they now own the company.
The United States State Department lifted a ban on exporting night-vision goggles and other technologies, over the warnings that such a move would imperil national security, because we're not particularly good at monitoring whether we're selling sensitive technology overseas or not. (One might say that corporations don't really care about that...)
Talking about some ways that those who claim to be pro-life are actually rather against it, Utah is considering a measure that will make miscarriages potentially illegal, based on the loose standard of whether the woman was doing an "intentional, knowing, or reckless act" that lead to the death of her child. Going to get an abortion is still legal for the moment, but in any other case, the fetus trumps the mother in all ways - the mother must do everything for the benefit of the fetus or be prosecuted for doing something that resulted in a miscarriage.
Elsewhere, A Virginia State Delegate insists that G-d punishes women who have abortions of their first children by giving them children with birth defects when they want to have kids later. So, Ms. Palin, have anything to say about the slur just leveled at you? Furthermore, because they provide this evil abortion and the even more evil contraception thing, the State Delegate also wants to have all the state funding pulled from Planned Parenthood. Well, if the funding is gone and those services aren't available, then maybe he will see an increase in those defective children, because of back-alley abortions that cause damage and complicate the next pregnancy, assuming they don't kill the mother.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California expects the Tea Party movement to wink out of existence once the economy improves, because the Tea Party doesn't seem to be putting forward solutions. He's certainly got solid backing - when times are good, people don't seem to care nearly as much about spending or big government. Despite the sorts of problems in good times that produced the bad times (and how many of them were facilitated by lack of government...), we'll probably forget all about it once the stock market says we're recovered. Maybe by them there will be solutions, but they will probably be absorbed by Republicans or libertarians.
The American Conservative runs a piece on the myth of immigrants and illegal aliens being responsible for a significant portion of lawlessness in America. Considering said Tea Party and other far-right persons above, the magazine might be taking a big risk with its subscriber base by running the article. Still, it is nice to see a prominent conservative publication attempting this endeavour. The article does have lots of statistics and statistical manipulations, though, so there's plenty of chances for the Lies and Damned Lies accusations.
In technology, engineering avian flu hybrids to see if any of their mutant strains might become harmful and contagious in humans,
Suggestions that universities start testing their students for "smart" drugs that increase alertness and attention...because they think that boosting one's natural capacity in such a manner is cheating? It's not cribbing notes or stealing tests, and while there is "competition" among students, it's not in a zero-sum game style, for the most part. What the article seems to really be getting at is that we need to start thinking about the ethics of using those drugs and whether they will be used for out benefit or be compulsory so that our corporate overlords will benefit more from us.
In the opinions, The Washington Times highlights the length of time between formal press conferences, while also criticizing the President for the amount of interviews he's given in the intervening time. It sounds like trying to further the idea that the administration that trumpets transparency is hiding, afraid of a press that will be critical of him and expose him as a charlatan or an emmpty suit. Of course, this could be happening because there's work to be done and there really hasn't been anything, in terms of legislation, for press conferences to be held on. That's what happens when The Tarantino is applied everywhere without fail.
Speaking of spin, the Times also attempts to paint the difficult slog in southern Afghanistan as NATO's fault for not being able to be everywhere and prevent everything. Well, there is still that second land war in Asia that's been sucking resources ever since 2003...
...but that is obviously not the things that's causing problems. the Times Editorial Board says the federal work force is too big and needs to have a pay freeze instituted, and then 10 percent of its workforce cut, because on average, government workers get pay-and-benefits packages more than twice their private-sector counterparts, and there are some people getting both pension from the military and salary from the Defense Department, and federal workers continue to get raises while everyone else gets laid off. All of this is, of course, deficit spending that will run out at some point. Um... if we're including bonuses and salary from the entirety of the private sector, and the averages still turn out this way, what does that say about the private sector employees? How many does that say are working at minumum wage with no benefits at all to bring the averages down to the point where the many millions managing to find work only make to half that of the 1.5 million federal employees? How many at the bottom are being squeezed past the point of survival to make this average happen? Where is the is the populist outrage? Oh, that's right, it's there, but it's being redirected toward the government or justified that CEOs and executives deserve that kind of money, brought on by layoffs. Because believing in wage parity or a basic income is socialist, and We Can't Have That.
On the other point, government does more than employ people, of course. Some of those things they're spending deficit money on could also be cut, like spending on weapons the Pentagon itself says they don't need, or just cutting spending on warmaking tools in general. But that makes us Weak on Security, and so We Can't Have That, either. How about health care? We could insitute a system that would be much more cost-effective and relieve a significant burden on the American household. But that's Socialism, once again. So what's left? Cutting education budgets, taking away funding for libraries, and complaining about defecit spending and the power foreign governments have because they're holding American debt, while turning a very blind eye to all the things that could be cut or actively obstructing efforts to reform them. Dysfunction brought to you by special interests that prefer to profit off your misery and the Congresscritters they've bought.
Mr. Chesser attempts a victory dance of "I told you so" in relation to what he perceives as the world no longer believing in climate change, saying scientists brought it all on themselves by fudging data and using a sycophantic media to their advantage over "realists" who said there was no climate change. His advice is that climate scientists apologize for what they've done, or nobody will take them seriously in the future. Mr. Cheeser enjoys his ability to cherry-pick examples that help make his case, but if he really wanted to put forth something like that, he should be willing to examine all the cases, not just the ones that prove his theories. That would be proper scientific refutation, I would think. And it would take far more time than it does to pen a column. Mr. Will does a better job, although he, too prefers things that help his cause instead of the whole picture. The both of them also refer to it as "global warming industry", trying to evoke the negative connotations most Americans already have about corporate control of their lives. There is an industry there, they're right, but one would think they'd be more interested in putting people to work to produce more efficient things, as that is what industry does. Especially in this recession.
The beauty of any movement, liberal or conservative, is that given a wide enough swath of people as part of it, you will find they hold contradictory positions while both claiming to be members of that group. It is an even better thing when those peopel are part of the same group. Example: Editorial 1, Washington Times, on how the President avoids hard choices, especially in reference to his budget numbers, because there are bigger deficits there than the last administration had in their budgets. (Is that counting all the supplemental and off-the-books spending for wars?) So the President is a weak-minded fool who doesn't make hard decisions. However, in Editorial 2, also of the Washington Times, the President is doing his damndest to get around Congress in any way that he can, using executive orders and powers to circumvent the Congress standing in his way. Thus, the President is both unable to make hard choices and barreling ahead with his agenda in the face of a Congress that won't help him pass policies that are horrible for the nation. He cannot be both without a spine, unable to suck it up and make cuts to spending and his ambitious liberal agenda and unwilling to make any compromises and cuts on his ambitious liberal agenda because he's an immovable ideologue. (We note that current conservative thinking seems to favor option two, the ideological idiot, rather than option one.)
Last for today in opinions, however, the current Supreme Court majority does not seem to like the protections given by the Miranda warning, first saying that being released from interrogation back into the general prison population means that someone has to re-invoke their Miranda rights if interrogated again, because they are apparently not put back into a "police-dominated atmosphere" and return to the (highly limited) degree of control over their own lives they have in pison. Uhh... at what point is prison not a police-dominated environment? Second, however, making statements that could be misconstrued to mean something very different than the Miranda rights will still satisfy the requirements of advising someone of said rights, if one could interpret those statements as giving them the correct information.
Last for today more generally is exploding head syndrome, where one is awoken from sleep by a loud sound that exists only between the space of one's ears.
