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silveradeptGood morning, seekers and the curious of mind. Peer into our collective selves as we explore that after 75 years of Alcoholics Anonymous...we're still not quite sure how it works.
Getting away from weighty matters, Happy Birthday, Bruce Campbell. Celebrate in style with some Bruce Campbell's soup.
To get your historical research senses going, a new movie about the supposedly female Pope Joan reignites interest in whether a woman had managed to become the Pontiff, only to be betrayed by giving birth during a public procession.
And then, good things, good things - President Obama included LGBT youth as a target audience in his new plan to stop youth homelessness by 2020, which, discounting the continued sting of ballot initiatives toward LGBT marraige (something he can't really directly influence), makes the President one of the most progressive with regard to visibility, inclusion, and action. If all of those seem like fairly small things, maybe the question to be asked is "Why are the bars set so low that a whole lot of small things makes someone the most progressive ever?"
Out in the world today, Australia's Labor party elevated the Deputy Prime Minister to Prime Minister after she successfully called a leadership ballot, making Julia Gillard the first female prime minsiter of the country.
Demonstrating a solid example of the speck-plank problem, the Prime Minister of Israel said that human rights activists should be sailing to Iran instead of the Gaza strip. Iran has severe human rights problems, no doubt, but Mr. Netanyahu should be very careful about his characterization, lest the evidence of settlers threatening to evict residents with PMC force makes his look hypocritical, and then the way the judgment that requires the mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardic students at a religious school is handled - first, arresting those who will not turn themselves in for their contempt of the court's ruling, which is good, then deciding that some of the women who refuse to report won't be jailed, becasue they have children to raise, which is reasonable, if, y'know, they were going to go to jail after the dads got out so the kids were taken care of. More importantly, though, despite the order, the people involved are casting it as faith versus heresy, True Believers versus Evil Darkness, and upping the rhetoric, and as such a holy thing, it can't be discriminatory. Sounds kind of familiar, like some of the things Muslims supposedly believe and are the reason why they should be exterminated by those who have the True Faith. When they justify their actions that way, though, of course, it's cause for much anger and cries of discrimination. Speck. Plank. And then there's the requisite demonization of the liberal, more tolerant wing of politics, as having a distorted view of what is right and proper. It does make you wonder whether it would take a large-scale thwacking, like a boycott, before Israel paid attention to what it is doing.
Leaving aside the Christian stories about loving one's neighbor, let's step back into Torah, where stories and commands abound about how the chosen people of YHWH are supposed to be hospitable to people with differences and take care of those they are responsible for, even people they've subjected into slavery. One would think they'd be all for a course that teaches students about prejudice against Others, in this case, the LGBT, but instead, some chose to storm out and complain that their children will be taught about "lewd and evil" things and told a pride march they couldn't use the route they were planning, shunting them back to the route they approved last year, citing unnamed "security" concerns as the reason. This while, we note, they reinstitued a course looking to inspire jingoism, nationalism, and Jewish religiosity in students.
Anyway, lest we spend all our time on one place, five Americans were convicted and jailed by Pakistan as terrorists. The men used the Internet to attempt to find terror organizations in Pakistan so they could be trained.
Russian President Medvedev will be in the United States to continue talks getting their shared aims back in sync and their relationships back to normal.
And one more thing, namely 11 hours, 5 minutes, over three days, five sets, 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68, Isner wins the marathon match. A lot of records broken in this match, including time, aces, games played, and the rest. And then there's the rest of the Wimbledon tournament. Both players and the umpire who officiated the match were given gifts from the tournament, and much gentlemanly praise for all who participated was given.
Domestically, Rolling Stone proves itself a capable news magazine once again, providing a candid profile of General McChrystal, the person most recently in charge of Afghanistan operations, printing several remarks of the General and his aides that indicate dissatisfaction with the civilian leadership, the counterinsurgency strategy in place in Afghanistan, and other non-military duties of his position. For those very printable remarks, the General tendered his regisnation, whcih was accepted. General David Petraeus, known for his work on counterinsurgency in Iraq, will replace him. We can also expect to see some ink and debate as to whether the counterinsurgency strategy is correct, or even possible, for the military to achieve in Afghanistan, but for the moment, the appointment of Petraeus and the remarks of the President seem to indicate there will be no review or debate of the main strategy taking place at all. That sets up Mr. Berman bringing the past forward and blaming the President for not having a wholehearted commitment to Afghanistan, and The Washington Times declaring that the general's remarks are based in facts, so it's the President's fault the General would need to say such things as a counterpart to the idea that the General's remarks were impolitic, but not necessarily requiring his removal. Some have already moved on and started their commentary about what the President needs to do to make this second Petraeus assignment a success.
A federal judge overturned the moratorium on deep-water drilling, characterizing the man-made, safety-shortcutted disaster as something more akin to an accident, and saying the government is being overbearing in forcing everyone to shut down because one rig blew up. Even as every day since the beginning, we've been told, "Well, we've never tried this at this depth before" by the companies operating the well. Their plans have failed, so they don't know how to fix the well until they've drilled the relief well. The best solution to a problem like this should not be "Wait three months while we drill a relief well." If we don't know how to fix the problem swiftly and well, perhaps we shouldn't be allowing drilling at that depth and with those designs. It seems that even the smallest, lowest-tech of solutions is not being implemented properly, so why should we trust that they can do things properly in the dangerous areas?
Oh, and the bit about raining oil earlier? Apparently not as possible as YouTube might show us.
The Slacktivist ties the two stories above together into a criticism that the conclusions being drawn about both of them are not really correct, even though they sound pretty good. On a different note, Mr. Brownfield concludes these indicate the fears that the President doesn't know how to lead are entirely justified, and Mr. Tyrrell says we should be happy about his advisory circle, because they occasionally show flashes of competence.
To keep your hackles up, the Tiger Beatdown highlights a 911 operator who wouldn't grasp the severity of the situation they were being called about and kept insisting the caller conform to their model instead of sending someone out to help her. From the comment squad there, it is apparently not an isolated incident, which is even more aggravating.
Elsewhere, A planned Korean War Memorial building in Springfield, Illinois, may be shuttering before it even broke ground for lack of funds. Those who have money around that they wish to donate can do so through visiting the website of the memorial.
And, of course, confidence and polling says the country doesn't really feel like Barack Obama can lead. Because Americans have always expected the President to be able to do the impossible - fix problems and stay within Constitutional authority. Mr. Rove indicates his belief that low approval ratings means the President cannot use one of his favored tactics - campaigning - to give Democrats a boost in their election contests, because his endorsement won't count for much.
In the sciences and technologies, NASA worries that solar flare power will cause significant disruption to the power grid and other systems vulnerable to EM interference.
We also have cool mashups, like a map overlaid with the positions of all the trains running on London's Underground system.
And then, research indicating the size of various brain structures correspond to certain personality types being expressed, using smartphones and a specific eyepiece to administer low-cost eye tests, and sight restored to 82 people through the use of stem cells.
Finally, the complete not-coolness of using lawsuits to force modifications of scientific papers critical of one's method. Science is all about the criticism and review - if you stifle that with lawsuits, you get incomplete pictures or someone successfully hides the negative parts of their studies. It becomes PR, not science.
And in opinions (not related to the stuff above, anyway), Mr. Trzupek claims that President Obama is convinced there are no moderate Muslims and that moderates can't be separated from their radical fellows, but then apparently concludes that the way to go in dealing with them is to appease them. He offers no evidence for this other than speculation that the administration might want to negotiate with Hezbollahand cover it as "building up the mdoerate elements" and meanders off somewhere that Obama as an academic believes that words have power and can be used to get radicals to give up their aims. Not exactly laying out a solid article, there. Marginally better is Mr. Spencer's assertion that the mainstream media still refuses to admit the truth that Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion and is out to kill us all, using Faisal Shahzad's explanation of his actions as the definitive evidence and then pooh-poohing anyone who might have alternative explanations or additional factors that drove Mr. Shahzad to his attack as people completely convinced that Muslims can't be anything but victims. What we should be doing, he says, is demanding that Muslims prove themselves to be non-fanatical and submit themselves to all sorts of requirements before we assume they're all terrorists again when something happens that the attacker claims is in the name of Islam. My, that sounds familiar...
Last out of opinions, the head of the John Birch Society calls all the presidential predecessors of President Obama at least partially socialist, and expresses his support and endorsement of SB 1070 while also letting on about a new conspiracy - one where the United States willingly gives up parts or wholes of its southern states back to Mexico after being overrun with immigrants.
Last for tonight, a letter from the teacher that went up in the Challenger, responding to a student's inquiry about UFOs, and the things we need to learn that they didn't teach us in school.
Getting away from weighty matters, Happy Birthday, Bruce Campbell. Celebrate in style with some Bruce Campbell's soup.
To get your historical research senses going, a new movie about the supposedly female Pope Joan reignites interest in whether a woman had managed to become the Pontiff, only to be betrayed by giving birth during a public procession.
And then, good things, good things - President Obama included LGBT youth as a target audience in his new plan to stop youth homelessness by 2020, which, discounting the continued sting of ballot initiatives toward LGBT marraige (something he can't really directly influence), makes the President one of the most progressive with regard to visibility, inclusion, and action. If all of those seem like fairly small things, maybe the question to be asked is "Why are the bars set so low that a whole lot of small things makes someone the most progressive ever?"
Out in the world today, Australia's Labor party elevated the Deputy Prime Minister to Prime Minister after she successfully called a leadership ballot, making Julia Gillard the first female prime minsiter of the country.
Demonstrating a solid example of the speck-plank problem, the Prime Minister of Israel said that human rights activists should be sailing to Iran instead of the Gaza strip. Iran has severe human rights problems, no doubt, but Mr. Netanyahu should be very careful about his characterization, lest the evidence of settlers threatening to evict residents with PMC force makes his look hypocritical, and then the way the judgment that requires the mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardic students at a religious school is handled - first, arresting those who will not turn themselves in for their contempt of the court's ruling, which is good, then deciding that some of the women who refuse to report won't be jailed, becasue they have children to raise, which is reasonable, if, y'know, they were going to go to jail after the dads got out so the kids were taken care of. More importantly, though, despite the order, the people involved are casting it as faith versus heresy, True Believers versus Evil Darkness, and upping the rhetoric, and as such a holy thing, it can't be discriminatory. Sounds kind of familiar, like some of the things Muslims supposedly believe and are the reason why they should be exterminated by those who have the True Faith. When they justify their actions that way, though, of course, it's cause for much anger and cries of discrimination. Speck. Plank. And then there's the requisite demonization of the liberal, more tolerant wing of politics, as having a distorted view of what is right and proper. It does make you wonder whether it would take a large-scale thwacking, like a boycott, before Israel paid attention to what it is doing.
Leaving aside the Christian stories about loving one's neighbor, let's step back into Torah, where stories and commands abound about how the chosen people of YHWH are supposed to be hospitable to people with differences and take care of those they are responsible for, even people they've subjected into slavery. One would think they'd be all for a course that teaches students about prejudice against Others, in this case, the LGBT, but instead, some chose to storm out and complain that their children will be taught about "lewd and evil" things and told a pride march they couldn't use the route they were planning, shunting them back to the route they approved last year, citing unnamed "security" concerns as the reason. This while, we note, they reinstitued a course looking to inspire jingoism, nationalism, and Jewish religiosity in students.
Anyway, lest we spend all our time on one place, five Americans were convicted and jailed by Pakistan as terrorists. The men used the Internet to attempt to find terror organizations in Pakistan so they could be trained.
Russian President Medvedev will be in the United States to continue talks getting their shared aims back in sync and their relationships back to normal.
And one more thing, namely 11 hours, 5 minutes, over three days, five sets, 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68, Isner wins the marathon match. A lot of records broken in this match, including time, aces, games played, and the rest. And then there's the rest of the Wimbledon tournament. Both players and the umpire who officiated the match were given gifts from the tournament, and much gentlemanly praise for all who participated was given.
Domestically, Rolling Stone proves itself a capable news magazine once again, providing a candid profile of General McChrystal, the person most recently in charge of Afghanistan operations, printing several remarks of the General and his aides that indicate dissatisfaction with the civilian leadership, the counterinsurgency strategy in place in Afghanistan, and other non-military duties of his position. For those very printable remarks, the General tendered his regisnation, whcih was accepted. General David Petraeus, known for his work on counterinsurgency in Iraq, will replace him. We can also expect to see some ink and debate as to whether the counterinsurgency strategy is correct, or even possible, for the military to achieve in Afghanistan, but for the moment, the appointment of Petraeus and the remarks of the President seem to indicate there will be no review or debate of the main strategy taking place at all. That sets up Mr. Berman bringing the past forward and blaming the President for not having a wholehearted commitment to Afghanistan, and The Washington Times declaring that the general's remarks are based in facts, so it's the President's fault the General would need to say such things as a counterpart to the idea that the General's remarks were impolitic, but not necessarily requiring his removal. Some have already moved on and started their commentary about what the President needs to do to make this second Petraeus assignment a success.
A federal judge overturned the moratorium on deep-water drilling, characterizing the man-made, safety-shortcutted disaster as something more akin to an accident, and saying the government is being overbearing in forcing everyone to shut down because one rig blew up. Even as every day since the beginning, we've been told, "Well, we've never tried this at this depth before" by the companies operating the well. Their plans have failed, so they don't know how to fix the well until they've drilled the relief well. The best solution to a problem like this should not be "Wait three months while we drill a relief well." If we don't know how to fix the problem swiftly and well, perhaps we shouldn't be allowing drilling at that depth and with those designs. It seems that even the smallest, lowest-tech of solutions is not being implemented properly, so why should we trust that they can do things properly in the dangerous areas?
Oh, and the bit about raining oil earlier? Apparently not as possible as YouTube might show us.
The Slacktivist ties the two stories above together into a criticism that the conclusions being drawn about both of them are not really correct, even though they sound pretty good. On a different note, Mr. Brownfield concludes these indicate the fears that the President doesn't know how to lead are entirely justified, and Mr. Tyrrell says we should be happy about his advisory circle, because they occasionally show flashes of competence.
To keep your hackles up, the Tiger Beatdown highlights a 911 operator who wouldn't grasp the severity of the situation they were being called about and kept insisting the caller conform to their model instead of sending someone out to help her. From the comment squad there, it is apparently not an isolated incident, which is even more aggravating.
Elsewhere, A planned Korean War Memorial building in Springfield, Illinois, may be shuttering before it even broke ground for lack of funds. Those who have money around that they wish to donate can do so through visiting the website of the memorial.
And, of course, confidence and polling says the country doesn't really feel like Barack Obama can lead. Because Americans have always expected the President to be able to do the impossible - fix problems and stay within Constitutional authority. Mr. Rove indicates his belief that low approval ratings means the President cannot use one of his favored tactics - campaigning - to give Democrats a boost in their election contests, because his endorsement won't count for much.
In the sciences and technologies, NASA worries that solar flare power will cause significant disruption to the power grid and other systems vulnerable to EM interference.
We also have cool mashups, like a map overlaid with the positions of all the trains running on London's Underground system.
And then, research indicating the size of various brain structures correspond to certain personality types being expressed, using smartphones and a specific eyepiece to administer low-cost eye tests, and sight restored to 82 people through the use of stem cells.
Finally, the complete not-coolness of using lawsuits to force modifications of scientific papers critical of one's method. Science is all about the criticism and review - if you stifle that with lawsuits, you get incomplete pictures or someone successfully hides the negative parts of their studies. It becomes PR, not science.
And in opinions (not related to the stuff above, anyway), Mr. Trzupek claims that President Obama is convinced there are no moderate Muslims and that moderates can't be separated from their radical fellows, but then apparently concludes that the way to go in dealing with them is to appease them. He offers no evidence for this other than speculation that the administration might want to negotiate with Hezbollahand cover it as "building up the mdoerate elements" and meanders off somewhere that Obama as an academic believes that words have power and can be used to get radicals to give up their aims. Not exactly laying out a solid article, there. Marginally better is Mr. Spencer's assertion that the mainstream media still refuses to admit the truth that Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion and is out to kill us all, using Faisal Shahzad's explanation of his actions as the definitive evidence and then pooh-poohing anyone who might have alternative explanations or additional factors that drove Mr. Shahzad to his attack as people completely convinced that Muslims can't be anything but victims. What we should be doing, he says, is demanding that Muslims prove themselves to be non-fanatical and submit themselves to all sorts of requirements before we assume they're all terrorists again when something happens that the attacker claims is in the name of Islam. My, that sounds familiar...
Last out of opinions, the head of the John Birch Society calls all the presidential predecessors of President Obama at least partially socialist, and expresses his support and endorsement of SB 1070 while also letting on about a new conspiracy - one where the United States willingly gives up parts or wholes of its southern states back to Mexico after being overrun with immigrants.
Last for tonight, a letter from the teacher that went up in the Challenger, responding to a student's inquiry about UFOs, and the things we need to learn that they didn't teach us in school.
