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silveradeptGreetings, people who delight (or facepalm) in the PR disasters of others. Today’s client? George Rekers, strident leader of the Chrisitan Right, anti-LGBT activist extraordinaire, caught on camera with a call boy whom he just spent ten days in Europe with. Mind you, nobody admits to any sort of sex going on between the two, and The General points out all the credentials the man has to make him a upright model for the Christian Right, so he couldn’t have hired him for sex. As for Mr. Rekers’ defense, he claims that he's a minister to the sick and the LGBT, convincing them they want to turn straight. By hiring them from websites that have lots of NSFW pictures and profiles. Well, I have to admit, it’s a pretty good save. About the only thing worse would have been getting caught with his pants down.
In the United States, today was also a National Day of Prayer (and all the troubling governemnt endorsement of religion questions that entails). Here, then, is the Slacktivist's take on what the nation should be praying for today - that those who follow certain religions will follow the teachings of the major prophet they have, isntead of ignoring him in favor of the prophets of older times.
Web sites recommending and discussing books like GoodReads are likely blocked in Iran. This may be because of Genre Savvy, for once, instead of bone-crushing stupidity, because books and their ideas, and especially open discussion of both, is anathema to totalitarian dictatorship-type government. It’s still horribly wrong and unethical of them to do it, but it does at least indicate they have learned a few things.
Out in the world today, all couples in Denmark can apply for adoption now, instead of being restricted only to heterosexual couples. Fruit Bat power, yo.
The Chinese government continues to try and unmangle English translations of Chinese, so as not to have giggle-worthy signage, a task that has some linguists and analysts worried, because they see malapropisms and mistranslations as useful tools for looking into the brain of the translator and figuring out how the concepts relate to each other across translation.
Domestically, in the “Pot, meet Kettle” department, the CEO of Massey Energy, the repeatedly-fined-and-cited-for-safety-violations company that owned the Upper Big Branch mine that recently caved in, called his critics "evil people". That takes stones to do - in your gentials, and where your brain should be. He continued by demonizing union presidents and representatives, safety regulations he considers useless, and several legislators and the President for listening to those union types. So who are you going to believe, then, the guy in charge of the company cited for safety violations as a chronic pattern, or the people who give those violations out to the company?
A report from Mental Disability Rights International accuses the Judge Rotenburg Center, located in Massachusettes, with violations of the United Nations Conventions against torture because of their disciplinary measures involving restraint boards, isolation and deprivation, and backpacks the students must wear that administer them electric shocks several times the amperage of a standard stun gun. I thought we had gone past that point in our mental health history.
Significant amoutns of protests occurred in Arizona on 5 May to protest Arizona's Papers Please law, while at least one poll indicates those who live in Arizona like the law and want to keep it. There’s a disconnect somewhere, I’m certain, but I don’t know what it is yet.
More information appears about the person who has confessed to the Times Square bombing plot - apparent links to another attacker who attempted to bomb the New York subway system and the attacker's own admission of having received training in Pakistan, although in this case, either student or teacher wasn’t very good at their task. And praise for how the system worked from the WSJ, except when it charged him in a civilian court. That was wrong, because he’s an enemy combatant and shouldn’t be allowed the protections. Oh, and the fact that this worked totally vindicates everything the Bush Administration ever did in the anme of anti-terrorism, we love you, Xs and Os, the Wall Street Journal. (Gag.)
Ah, and one other thing - Senator Lieberman thinks that if you have ties to sketchy organizations, the State Department should be able to revoke your citizenship, so they can then arrest you and send you off to military tribunals. Of course, your right to buy weapons and explsoives, even if you are on a terrorist watch list, is sacrosanct. Remember the part where we accuse people of selectively reading the Bible? It seems that the opposition (and people like Lieberman) have finally taken the next logical step forward and are sleectively reading the Constitution.
Elsewhere, a former CIA lawyer considered showing photographs of possibly under cover agents to terror suspects at Guantanamo bay to be a bigger security breach than the deliberate outing of Valerie Plame to the news media.
Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have received significant campaign contributions from British Petroleum, with Politico setting it up as a possible attack venue for the opposition when the hammer comes down on BP for the current Deep Horizons well incident. Later on, the article also notes that BP is fairly indiscriminate in giving money, but it likes to concentrate on lobbying members of Congress who are near oil deposits. I wonder what Citizens United will let BP do in this upcoming cycle...
Despite their public commitment to open government, the Obma Administration has mixed results when it comes to fulfilling requests for information. As with most agencies, the ones that probably have the juciest data are the ones least likely to release unredacted, if they release at all.
Last out, Congressman Obey of Wisconsin says he's not seeking re-election this year, and uses his newfound freedom to rip into the entire political process in Washington, criticizing the usage of procedures and rules to obstruct progress, the last president’s insistence that he would only pay for so much improvement of agencies after the 11 September attacks, and the short-sightedness of legislators who do not want to make “long-term investments in ”education, science, health and energy that are necessary to modernize our economy, and at the same time decline to raise the revenue needed to pay for those [investments].“ The Republican Party took the announcement as cause for celebration and a victory lap, proving the President’s point about polarization and lack of civility being prevalent.
Welcome to technology, where night vision could be added on as a feature to most objects, using optical light-emitting diodes, people who take excess doses of antioxidant supplements may end up increasing their risk of developing cancer, using deteriorations in our handwriting to diagnose certain brain and motor related illnesses, and a camera that can keep everything in focus, even if one of those objects is 6 inches away from the lens and the other is twenty meters away.
The United States Federal Communications Commission will reclassify Internet Service Providers as "common carriers" rather than "information services", bringing them under the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction and allowing the FCC to enforce net neutrality, requiring ISPs to treat all data equally, instead of using ”traffic shaping“ measures that give high-bandwidth applications the lowest priority in getting through their servers.
And last out, a nice timeline for the evolution of life, where one inch represents millions of years.
When it comes to opinions, there’s always a good chunk available - the ones that lambast the President for not believing in American exceptionalism, not because he said he didn't believe in it, but that he believed that everyone believed their country was exceptional, and how this lack of jingoism puts the United States on the path to European socialism and decline, instead of choosing to defend Freedom through giving defense spending and the military whatever they want. They pair up nicely with the people complaining that the traditionally special relationships don't seem to be as special any more. And then, for extra specialness, put the cherry on top of a prominent United States Republican politician explicitly saying that America is objectively better than everyone else in the world, and I think you’ve got the measure of them. Almost like they feel they failed when a black guy got elected to the office, whose history is one of persecution, and he decided to acknowledge the faults that were apparent to everyone else, instead of pretending they don’t exist.
There’s also Mr. Stephens telling us that believing in things like the NPT only delays the real thinking we need to engage in - how to live in a world where rogue state nuclear actors will use their bombs, even when the CW says its suicidal.
Mr. Dhume says the only way for Pakistan to move forward is to abandon its Islamic roots and hope of worldwide Islam in favor of nationalism and developing an identity as a nation, instead of as a religious group. Find: Islam/Islamic. Replace: Christianity/Christian. Find: Pakistan. Replace: United States. Read opinion again. Would Mr. Dhume be so swift to tell us to get rid of our beliefs in worldwide Christianity and focus on our American nationalism? And what kind of stink would he raise (or what kind of dirty names would he be called), here in america, where most conservatives fiercely believe that both of those goals - worldwide Americanism and worldwide Christianity - are essential?
Mr. Barnes claims the President has been ignoring the populace in his drive to get stuff done, and that the Democrats and the President are now trying to do as much ramming through of their unpopular agenda before The People vote them out. Mr. Barnes insists that if it’s unpopular and the Republicans don’t support it, then it must be evil and should be stopped. A lot of columnists of his like were praising the previous President for ramming through unpopular things as well, but that was bold and decisive leadership.
Mr. Fund accuses the government of being caught flat-footed by not having equipment the law requries them to have on hand to combat oil spills.
Then there are the better ones, like Mr. Phillips encouraging a 26 year-old to run for Congress, extolling her Republican virtues and the fact that she’s homegrown and well-known to make her an excellent candidate against machine politics. She might also help inject some life into the Republican Party if they elect her precisely because of her youth and energy.
Remarkably, Mr. Sowell gets one right by decrying the practice of hating someone because they started at the bottom and made good on themselves and achieved. He might have found a calling - perhaps he’ll get off the worrisome path of calling the President a racist and stick to this kind of social commentary. Admittedly, it is somewhat of an Anti-Kitten Brigade column, but the point he makes still stands.
And then, of course, we have the worser ones - Ms. Schlafly misrepresents the bill regarding Puerto Rico, calling it a bill to force statehood on them and then decrying that plot as a Democratic one to pander to Hispanics, make the nation officially bilingual, and give Democrats more power and control than 24 states currently have. Well, Ms. Schlafly, once you set up a false premise, you can draw whatever conclusion you would like from it. It’s even more egregious when you say what the bill actually does after making your wild claims, making it fairly easy to say, ”You were wrong just a minute ago.“
Mr. Stossel fights for the right to have unpaid interns, because paid interns means less interns, according to the dictates of The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) and the federal government is trying to bully employers by suggesting unpaid interns are exploited. Interns do get valuable experience, but unpaid internships closes off a significant swath of the population from being able to take advantage of them. The person he caricatures as someone who doesn’t get it has valid points that companies should really be building internships into their budgets so they can attract a wider pool of talent, and/or colleges and federal work study programs should also leverage their monies to make sure that interns get paid for the work they do. And they do work. Anyone who would be Dark Apprenticing in my profession would be doing the work - they deserve to get paid for it. Now we know where Mr. Stossel stands - corporations should be able to use interns to get free labor, and interns should be so grateful that they’re getting a chance to work that they should willingly prostrate themselves and humbly beg not to be paid for it.
Worse than that, Reverend Graham the Younger swings his Muslim Conspiracy bat, claiming the President is giving Islam a pass while advocating to make Christian evangelism classed as hate speech. Swing, batter, batter, and please refer yourself to my Special comment last week about pompous self-absorbed clerics who believe Islam is going to take over.
But really the worst, in many ways, including evasion of questions without answering, as well as the standard lines of ”socialist President, entitlements are all waste, but national defense is sacred“, but most especially for calling moderates ”people with no core convictions“ and accusing liberals of lacking patriotism, something that can apparently be measured, because ”You do not love this country. You are embarrassed by us...those of us in fly over country are the real americans“, is Judson Philips, founder of the Tea Party Nation, who took questions from Washington Post readers about his group and Tea Partiers in general. The coasts apparently don’t count. So, all the liberals in the Midwest, kindly raise your hands. And the union supporters? What about the people who like their Social Security or Medicare? Congratulations, you’re at least part liberal, and luckily for us, you count!
On the question of whether the Tea Partiers are lacking in diversity, he said ”Go to a rally.“ On whether they’re racist, he said ”Media smears.“ And on what they mean by smaller government and cutting waste, he said ”Everything but national security and defense have waste, especially entitlements. Cut those.“
Last for tonight, the best opinion expressed to us in this cycle - how conservative thinking paved the paradise of the Gulf Coast and put up a parking lot, expecting us to applaud them for it every step of the way, excepting for the terrible tragedy of things going different than their plan, even if the result was the same.
And six people we don't know but we should all thank for saving our lives.
In the United States, today was also a National Day of Prayer (and all the troubling governemnt endorsement of religion questions that entails). Here, then, is the Slacktivist's take on what the nation should be praying for today - that those who follow certain religions will follow the teachings of the major prophet they have, isntead of ignoring him in favor of the prophets of older times.
Web sites recommending and discussing books like GoodReads are likely blocked in Iran. This may be because of Genre Savvy, for once, instead of bone-crushing stupidity, because books and their ideas, and especially open discussion of both, is anathema to totalitarian dictatorship-type government. It’s still horribly wrong and unethical of them to do it, but it does at least indicate they have learned a few things.
Out in the world today, all couples in Denmark can apply for adoption now, instead of being restricted only to heterosexual couples. Fruit Bat power, yo.
The Chinese government continues to try and unmangle English translations of Chinese, so as not to have giggle-worthy signage, a task that has some linguists and analysts worried, because they see malapropisms and mistranslations as useful tools for looking into the brain of the translator and figuring out how the concepts relate to each other across translation.
Domestically, in the “Pot, meet Kettle” department, the CEO of Massey Energy, the repeatedly-fined-and-cited-for-safety-violations company that owned the Upper Big Branch mine that recently caved in, called his critics "evil people". That takes stones to do - in your gentials, and where your brain should be. He continued by demonizing union presidents and representatives, safety regulations he considers useless, and several legislators and the President for listening to those union types. So who are you going to believe, then, the guy in charge of the company cited for safety violations as a chronic pattern, or the people who give those violations out to the company?
A report from Mental Disability Rights International accuses the Judge Rotenburg Center, located in Massachusettes, with violations of the United Nations Conventions against torture because of their disciplinary measures involving restraint boards, isolation and deprivation, and backpacks the students must wear that administer them electric shocks several times the amperage of a standard stun gun. I thought we had gone past that point in our mental health history.
Significant amoutns of protests occurred in Arizona on 5 May to protest Arizona's Papers Please law, while at least one poll indicates those who live in Arizona like the law and want to keep it. There’s a disconnect somewhere, I’m certain, but I don’t know what it is yet.
More information appears about the person who has confessed to the Times Square bombing plot - apparent links to another attacker who attempted to bomb the New York subway system and the attacker's own admission of having received training in Pakistan, although in this case, either student or teacher wasn’t very good at their task. And praise for how the system worked from the WSJ, except when it charged him in a civilian court. That was wrong, because he’s an enemy combatant and shouldn’t be allowed the protections. Oh, and the fact that this worked totally vindicates everything the Bush Administration ever did in the anme of anti-terrorism, we love you, Xs and Os, the Wall Street Journal. (Gag.)
Ah, and one other thing - Senator Lieberman thinks that if you have ties to sketchy organizations, the State Department should be able to revoke your citizenship, so they can then arrest you and send you off to military tribunals. Of course, your right to buy weapons and explsoives, even if you are on a terrorist watch list, is sacrosanct. Remember the part where we accuse people of selectively reading the Bible? It seems that the opposition (and people like Lieberman) have finally taken the next logical step forward and are sleectively reading the Constitution.
Elsewhere, a former CIA lawyer considered showing photographs of possibly under cover agents to terror suspects at Guantanamo bay to be a bigger security breach than the deliberate outing of Valerie Plame to the news media.
Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have received significant campaign contributions from British Petroleum, with Politico setting it up as a possible attack venue for the opposition when the hammer comes down on BP for the current Deep Horizons well incident. Later on, the article also notes that BP is fairly indiscriminate in giving money, but it likes to concentrate on lobbying members of Congress who are near oil deposits. I wonder what Citizens United will let BP do in this upcoming cycle...
Despite their public commitment to open government, the Obma Administration has mixed results when it comes to fulfilling requests for information. As with most agencies, the ones that probably have the juciest data are the ones least likely to release unredacted, if they release at all.
Last out, Congressman Obey of Wisconsin says he's not seeking re-election this year, and uses his newfound freedom to rip into the entire political process in Washington, criticizing the usage of procedures and rules to obstruct progress, the last president’s insistence that he would only pay for so much improvement of agencies after the 11 September attacks, and the short-sightedness of legislators who do not want to make “long-term investments in ”education, science, health and energy that are necessary to modernize our economy, and at the same time decline to raise the revenue needed to pay for those [investments].“ The Republican Party took the announcement as cause for celebration and a victory lap, proving the President’s point about polarization and lack of civility being prevalent.
Welcome to technology, where night vision could be added on as a feature to most objects, using optical light-emitting diodes, people who take excess doses of antioxidant supplements may end up increasing their risk of developing cancer, using deteriorations in our handwriting to diagnose certain brain and motor related illnesses, and a camera that can keep everything in focus, even if one of those objects is 6 inches away from the lens and the other is twenty meters away.
The United States Federal Communications Commission will reclassify Internet Service Providers as "common carriers" rather than "information services", bringing them under the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction and allowing the FCC to enforce net neutrality, requiring ISPs to treat all data equally, instead of using ”traffic shaping“ measures that give high-bandwidth applications the lowest priority in getting through their servers.
And last out, a nice timeline for the evolution of life, where one inch represents millions of years.
When it comes to opinions, there’s always a good chunk available - the ones that lambast the President for not believing in American exceptionalism, not because he said he didn't believe in it, but that he believed that everyone believed their country was exceptional, and how this lack of jingoism puts the United States on the path to European socialism and decline, instead of choosing to defend Freedom through giving defense spending and the military whatever they want. They pair up nicely with the people complaining that the traditionally special relationships don't seem to be as special any more. And then, for extra specialness, put the cherry on top of a prominent United States Republican politician explicitly saying that America is objectively better than everyone else in the world, and I think you’ve got the measure of them. Almost like they feel they failed when a black guy got elected to the office, whose history is one of persecution, and he decided to acknowledge the faults that were apparent to everyone else, instead of pretending they don’t exist.
There’s also Mr. Stephens telling us that believing in things like the NPT only delays the real thinking we need to engage in - how to live in a world where rogue state nuclear actors will use their bombs, even when the CW says its suicidal.
Mr. Dhume says the only way for Pakistan to move forward is to abandon its Islamic roots and hope of worldwide Islam in favor of nationalism and developing an identity as a nation, instead of as a religious group. Find: Islam/Islamic. Replace: Christianity/Christian. Find: Pakistan. Replace: United States. Read opinion again. Would Mr. Dhume be so swift to tell us to get rid of our beliefs in worldwide Christianity and focus on our American nationalism? And what kind of stink would he raise (or what kind of dirty names would he be called), here in america, where most conservatives fiercely believe that both of those goals - worldwide Americanism and worldwide Christianity - are essential?
Mr. Barnes claims the President has been ignoring the populace in his drive to get stuff done, and that the Democrats and the President are now trying to do as much ramming through of their unpopular agenda before The People vote them out. Mr. Barnes insists that if it’s unpopular and the Republicans don’t support it, then it must be evil and should be stopped. A lot of columnists of his like were praising the previous President for ramming through unpopular things as well, but that was bold and decisive leadership.
Mr. Fund accuses the government of being caught flat-footed by not having equipment the law requries them to have on hand to combat oil spills.
Then there are the better ones, like Mr. Phillips encouraging a 26 year-old to run for Congress, extolling her Republican virtues and the fact that she’s homegrown and well-known to make her an excellent candidate against machine politics. She might also help inject some life into the Republican Party if they elect her precisely because of her youth and energy.
Remarkably, Mr. Sowell gets one right by decrying the practice of hating someone because they started at the bottom and made good on themselves and achieved. He might have found a calling - perhaps he’ll get off the worrisome path of calling the President a racist and stick to this kind of social commentary. Admittedly, it is somewhat of an Anti-Kitten Brigade column, but the point he makes still stands.
And then, of course, we have the worser ones - Ms. Schlafly misrepresents the bill regarding Puerto Rico, calling it a bill to force statehood on them and then decrying that plot as a Democratic one to pander to Hispanics, make the nation officially bilingual, and give Democrats more power and control than 24 states currently have. Well, Ms. Schlafly, once you set up a false premise, you can draw whatever conclusion you would like from it. It’s even more egregious when you say what the bill actually does after making your wild claims, making it fairly easy to say, ”You were wrong just a minute ago.“
Mr. Stossel fights for the right to have unpaid interns, because paid interns means less interns, according to the dictates of The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) and the federal government is trying to bully employers by suggesting unpaid interns are exploited. Interns do get valuable experience, but unpaid internships closes off a significant swath of the population from being able to take advantage of them. The person he caricatures as someone who doesn’t get it has valid points that companies should really be building internships into their budgets so they can attract a wider pool of talent, and/or colleges and federal work study programs should also leverage their monies to make sure that interns get paid for the work they do. And they do work. Anyone who would be Dark Apprenticing in my profession would be doing the work - they deserve to get paid for it. Now we know where Mr. Stossel stands - corporations should be able to use interns to get free labor, and interns should be so grateful that they’re getting a chance to work that they should willingly prostrate themselves and humbly beg not to be paid for it.
Worse than that, Reverend Graham the Younger swings his Muslim Conspiracy bat, claiming the President is giving Islam a pass while advocating to make Christian evangelism classed as hate speech. Swing, batter, batter, and please refer yourself to my Special comment last week about pompous self-absorbed clerics who believe Islam is going to take over.
But really the worst, in many ways, including evasion of questions without answering, as well as the standard lines of ”socialist President, entitlements are all waste, but national defense is sacred“, but most especially for calling moderates ”people with no core convictions“ and accusing liberals of lacking patriotism, something that can apparently be measured, because ”You do not love this country. You are embarrassed by us...those of us in fly over country are the real americans“, is Judson Philips, founder of the Tea Party Nation, who took questions from Washington Post readers about his group and Tea Partiers in general. The coasts apparently don’t count. So, all the liberals in the Midwest, kindly raise your hands. And the union supporters? What about the people who like their Social Security or Medicare? Congratulations, you’re at least part liberal, and luckily for us, you count!
On the question of whether the Tea Partiers are lacking in diversity, he said ”Go to a rally.“ On whether they’re racist, he said ”Media smears.“ And on what they mean by smaller government and cutting waste, he said ”Everything but national security and defense have waste, especially entitlements. Cut those.“
Last for tonight, the best opinion expressed to us in this cycle - how conservative thinking paved the paradise of the Gulf Coast and put up a parking lot, expecting us to applaud them for it every step of the way, excepting for the terrible tragedy of things going different than their plan, even if the result was the same.
And six people we don't know but we should all thank for saving our lives.
