More stuff for all of us - 19 May 2010
May. 20th, 2010 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptSalutations, people who rock the house with their words and their RIGHTEOUS FISTS. You can guess where this is going - a Saudi woman thrashed a Virtue Policeman after he asked her and the man she was with whether they were allowed to socialize together. The man fainted, the woman beat on the policeman. Expect a repressive snap back for this, but still, if this suddenly became widespread...
Out in the world today, Portugal arrives in the Century of the Fruitbat, legalizing marriage between LGBT folk, continuing to point out how even countries more conservative than the United States still manage to outpace the U.S. on basic issues.
New sanctions against Iran were introduced in the United Nations today by the United States. Not that such things mean a whit to the conservative comment squad we’re used to, as they’re busy blasting the President for staying diplomatic instead of glassing Iran at the first sign of enriched uranium.
Back here in the United States, in the primaries so far, candidates of both parties that have the small of the establishment are taking a drubbing, including the nomination of Rand Paul in Kentucky and Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania. One might almost think the electorate that put big Democratic majorities into power expected them to get stuff done, and will pitch the lot of them out and try again in the midterms. Then it becomes a question of who can successfully pin the obstructionist blame on the other. The parallel narrative, the one that conservatives like, is that everyone, including Democratic candidates, hates Obama and wants to run against him. And as campaign season heats up, expect people who normally would be able to thrive on ambiguity to be cast in much sharper relief, especially on issues where the opposition thinks they can make hay.
Congress finds out that agencies so not like to play nice with each other on intelligence, and so the place that was supposed to collect all that intelligence couldn't piece it together to stop the Pants On Fire bomber before he had his opportunity. They’ve found this out before, as noted in the article. To further increase your paranoia, the failed Times Square bomber may have had multiple targets in mind.
The health care bill's benefit provisions are being accelerated toward implementation, possibly in attemtps to raise the approval of the bill, possibly to give Democrats new talking points for the elections, or perhaps because the Administration wants to cut down on the wait period and the red tape. Maybe they could also take a few moments to decide whether sodas and other non-alcoholic carbonated drinks should be subject to some taxation so as to help pay for the potential efects widespread cheap soda has on people’s health.
Speaking of not wanting to spend time in delay or wait, Majority Leader Reid pushed for cloture on the Wall Street reform bill, declaring that he's not going to let teh debate drag out much further, and now getting to the task of amsassing sufficient votes to break the already-promised Republican filibuster. It would appear that the Congressional Democrats have learned a thing or two about letting bills drag and another thing or two about how much their opposition wants to cooperate and how much they just want to delay or slow-walk the bills.
The technology and sciences section is booming today! We start with a very preliminary result that suggests the smallpox vaccine may also confer increased resistance to HIV, move from there to a study suggesting those who care for people with dementia have an increased risk at developing dementia themselves, the development of programs that can learn how to do tasks by watching humans doing it and extrapolating to new situations, MIT developing the designs for a plane that would have more cabin room than a Boeing 737 and burn anywhere from 50 to 70 percent less fuel than those jets, a company that suggests they can get about 100 miles/gallon from their prototype petroleum-fuel engine, which, if true, and affordable, could extend the life of oil and gas engines until the hybrids and pure electrics take over, while also reducing gas bills for consumers, preservation work being done so that future generations know how to read ancient digital data, and QB, a remote-presence robot that would allow co-workers of a telecommuter to have something physical to interact with.
We leave the section with a letter about the staying power of polygraphs and other pseudoscience from someone who knows a thing or two about beating them, and what they're really useful for, and a chat where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tells the media to stop being slavish to any one platform, as the best of journalists will find themselves censored if distribution only goes through one mechanism.
In opinions, Ms. McDonnell accuses the United States of betraying the women if Iran by not calling for a formal vote and letting Iran take a seat on the Sommission on the Status of Women. This apparently gives legitimacy to all the atrocities that “Shariah” commits against women, and the U.S. and other Western nations should feel that they have the blood of any women hurt in Iran on its hands for not stopping the election.
On health care, something that hasn’t been in the opinions for a while, Mr. Gottlieb says the President's promise that people can keep their health care plans will not be kept because the industrires involved in health care are already changing things to reflect the new reality. Consolidation and changes in doctor availabilty and networks and insurance company changes will change how people relate to their plan, and all of this should be apparently laid at the feet of the people who passed the legislation, instead of the companies who feel they have to react to the changing market. It seems a bit chicken-and-egg, but if things go wrong or less affordable on plans, I would think the companies that decided on premiums and availablilty should be at fault, not the legislators pushing for everyone to have better ehalth care. Of course, we could just decide to scrap it all and go straight to a single-payer system.
Mr. Sowell lectures on the evils of having politicians decide when you've made enough money, because politicians invariably then decide they know better about all of your rights, and after that, it’s Nazi time, or French Revolution time, or any other mass slaughter time. The rest of the column is dedicated to how Rockefeller was awesome for us all through his ambition, greed, and that when he turned to philanthropy, it was his choice and not because some bureaucrat decided he’s earned enough money. Well, Mr. Sowell, why not encourage that philanthropic idea. Why not campaign that people should stop looking at their lives in terms of dollar signs and start looking at it in terms of Americans helped. Most people might be able to afford helping one, but I’m sure a lot of our rich overlords would enjoy the bragging rights that came with “helped 1 million Americans and 100 million Africand climb out of poverty”. Then, maybe, once there’s a system in place that funnels the money to where it is needed most, people can advocate for government to get out of the welfare business. Otherwise, instead of “1 million Americans helped” it could easily be “1 million Americans dead, 100 million Africans dead from poverty and lack of assistance.”
Summing it all up, Mr. Solway declares that Barack Obama is the most dangerous figure of our political times, because of his choices of foreign policy, and especially the inability of anyone to get a handle on what kind of politician he really is (because they keep looking for themselves in him and are invariably surprised to find that he is not them). He then turns around and says the President is dangerous because of all of his policies and associations, from Ayers to cap-and-trade and the debt crisis. The man is inscrutable, but we know exactly who he is through his policies (and they’re all policies we know are empirically bad). You cannot have it both ways. Either you must indulge the paranoid fantasies of the “Empty Suit”, the Birthers, the Secret Muslim devotees, the “Great Hoax”, and those that think he’s a naif, or you have to indulge the paranoid fantasies that say he’s a Marxist-Socialist-Fascist that intends on bringign the government into every aspect of your life, taxing you to death and frittering that money away on welfare queens and people who don’t deserve assistance, telling freedom to take a hike as he cuddles up to dictators and worse, and diminishing the great jingoistic belief in America, Fuck Yeah, Light of the World and Last Bastion of Freedom, the only superpower left and putting the doubt in the people’s mind that America might not be #1 at everything. When it comes to voting, of course, both groups will unite against the President, but the dissonance needed to believe that Obama is both everything and nothing must be impressive.
Out of opinions, the Slacktivist comments on the difference between test-score genius of the Mensa variety and applied genius of the solving-the-world's-problems or creating something that lasts variety.
Last for tonight, The Big Picture goes back to Mt. St. Helens, 1980, when an earthquake moved the volcano, and the volcano blew its top in response.
Out in the world today, Portugal arrives in the Century of the Fruitbat, legalizing marriage between LGBT folk, continuing to point out how even countries more conservative than the United States still manage to outpace the U.S. on basic issues.
New sanctions against Iran were introduced in the United Nations today by the United States. Not that such things mean a whit to the conservative comment squad we’re used to, as they’re busy blasting the President for staying diplomatic instead of glassing Iran at the first sign of enriched uranium.
Back here in the United States, in the primaries so far, candidates of both parties that have the small of the establishment are taking a drubbing, including the nomination of Rand Paul in Kentucky and Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania. One might almost think the electorate that put big Democratic majorities into power expected them to get stuff done, and will pitch the lot of them out and try again in the midterms. Then it becomes a question of who can successfully pin the obstructionist blame on the other. The parallel narrative, the one that conservatives like, is that everyone, including Democratic candidates, hates Obama and wants to run against him. And as campaign season heats up, expect people who normally would be able to thrive on ambiguity to be cast in much sharper relief, especially on issues where the opposition thinks they can make hay.
Congress finds out that agencies so not like to play nice with each other on intelligence, and so the place that was supposed to collect all that intelligence couldn't piece it together to stop the Pants On Fire bomber before he had his opportunity. They’ve found this out before, as noted in the article. To further increase your paranoia, the failed Times Square bomber may have had multiple targets in mind.
The health care bill's benefit provisions are being accelerated toward implementation, possibly in attemtps to raise the approval of the bill, possibly to give Democrats new talking points for the elections, or perhaps because the Administration wants to cut down on the wait period and the red tape. Maybe they could also take a few moments to decide whether sodas and other non-alcoholic carbonated drinks should be subject to some taxation so as to help pay for the potential efects widespread cheap soda has on people’s health.
Speaking of not wanting to spend time in delay or wait, Majority Leader Reid pushed for cloture on the Wall Street reform bill, declaring that he's not going to let teh debate drag out much further, and now getting to the task of amsassing sufficient votes to break the already-promised Republican filibuster. It would appear that the Congressional Democrats have learned a thing or two about letting bills drag and another thing or two about how much their opposition wants to cooperate and how much they just want to delay or slow-walk the bills.
The technology and sciences section is booming today! We start with a very preliminary result that suggests the smallpox vaccine may also confer increased resistance to HIV, move from there to a study suggesting those who care for people with dementia have an increased risk at developing dementia themselves, the development of programs that can learn how to do tasks by watching humans doing it and extrapolating to new situations, MIT developing the designs for a plane that would have more cabin room than a Boeing 737 and burn anywhere from 50 to 70 percent less fuel than those jets, a company that suggests they can get about 100 miles/gallon from their prototype petroleum-fuel engine, which, if true, and affordable, could extend the life of oil and gas engines until the hybrids and pure electrics take over, while also reducing gas bills for consumers, preservation work being done so that future generations know how to read ancient digital data, and QB, a remote-presence robot that would allow co-workers of a telecommuter to have something physical to interact with.
We leave the section with a letter about the staying power of polygraphs and other pseudoscience from someone who knows a thing or two about beating them, and what they're really useful for, and a chat where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tells the media to stop being slavish to any one platform, as the best of journalists will find themselves censored if distribution only goes through one mechanism.
In opinions, Ms. McDonnell accuses the United States of betraying the women if Iran by not calling for a formal vote and letting Iran take a seat on the Sommission on the Status of Women. This apparently gives legitimacy to all the atrocities that “Shariah” commits against women, and the U.S. and other Western nations should feel that they have the blood of any women hurt in Iran on its hands for not stopping the election.
On health care, something that hasn’t been in the opinions for a while, Mr. Gottlieb says the President's promise that people can keep their health care plans will not be kept because the industrires involved in health care are already changing things to reflect the new reality. Consolidation and changes in doctor availabilty and networks and insurance company changes will change how people relate to their plan, and all of this should be apparently laid at the feet of the people who passed the legislation, instead of the companies who feel they have to react to the changing market. It seems a bit chicken-and-egg, but if things go wrong or less affordable on plans, I would think the companies that decided on premiums and availablilty should be at fault, not the legislators pushing for everyone to have better ehalth care. Of course, we could just decide to scrap it all and go straight to a single-payer system.
Mr. Sowell lectures on the evils of having politicians decide when you've made enough money, because politicians invariably then decide they know better about all of your rights, and after that, it’s Nazi time, or French Revolution time, or any other mass slaughter time. The rest of the column is dedicated to how Rockefeller was awesome for us all through his ambition, greed, and that when he turned to philanthropy, it was his choice and not because some bureaucrat decided he’s earned enough money. Well, Mr. Sowell, why not encourage that philanthropic idea. Why not campaign that people should stop looking at their lives in terms of dollar signs and start looking at it in terms of Americans helped. Most people might be able to afford helping one, but I’m sure a lot of our rich overlords would enjoy the bragging rights that came with “helped 1 million Americans and 100 million Africand climb out of poverty”. Then, maybe, once there’s a system in place that funnels the money to where it is needed most, people can advocate for government to get out of the welfare business. Otherwise, instead of “1 million Americans helped” it could easily be “1 million Americans dead, 100 million Africans dead from poverty and lack of assistance.”
Summing it all up, Mr. Solway declares that Barack Obama is the most dangerous figure of our political times, because of his choices of foreign policy, and especially the inability of anyone to get a handle on what kind of politician he really is (because they keep looking for themselves in him and are invariably surprised to find that he is not them). He then turns around and says the President is dangerous because of all of his policies and associations, from Ayers to cap-and-trade and the debt crisis. The man is inscrutable, but we know exactly who he is through his policies (and they’re all policies we know are empirically bad). You cannot have it both ways. Either you must indulge the paranoid fantasies of the “Empty Suit”, the Birthers, the Secret Muslim devotees, the “Great Hoax”, and those that think he’s a naif, or you have to indulge the paranoid fantasies that say he’s a Marxist-Socialist-Fascist that intends on bringign the government into every aspect of your life, taxing you to death and frittering that money away on welfare queens and people who don’t deserve assistance, telling freedom to take a hike as he cuddles up to dictators and worse, and diminishing the great jingoistic belief in America, Fuck Yeah, Light of the World and Last Bastion of Freedom, the only superpower left and putting the doubt in the people’s mind that America might not be #1 at everything. When it comes to voting, of course, both groups will unite against the President, but the dissonance needed to believe that Obama is both everything and nothing must be impressive.
Out of opinions, the Slacktivist comments on the difference between test-score genius of the Mensa variety and applied genius of the solving-the-world's-problems or creating something that lasts variety.
Last for tonight, The Big Picture goes back to Mt. St. Helens, 1980, when an earthquake moved the volcano, and the volcano blew its top in response.
