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silveradeptGood day, everyone, and an especially happy hello to those poor suckers at Aperture Science, who will find university undergraduates taking the experiments as part of an "Enduring Questions" course. The enduring question, of course, in this case, being whether a)the cake is a l---urrrrrrk...
...and b) whether or not GlaDOS Is Still Al---hngrrrk!
The management wants you to know that those responsible for the two previous jokes have been sacked. And then beaten, and then sent off to run the trials at the Black Mesa facility, because frankly, Aperture Science won’t have them.
More seriously, so very totally to promote our own horn, read this excellent opinion about the great services that libraries provide to their populations, including all the public outcry that happens when governments consider cutting the library budget. In these times, the people know just what kind of stuff we do for them, and that’s really cool! Ah, and in case you wondered about how the job prospects of working in libraries look, well, check this out - an entry-level librarian's assistand position at the Tacoma Public Library, a city-based library system, drew 309 applicants in the single week the job was posted. One to four positions. Three hundred nine applicants. Anyone else want to say that “the unemployed are lazy, because the jobs are there”? Because they’re starting down the rhetorical equivalent of an S-Mart boomstick and thinking they can play roulette with it. The bridges of the country could be repaired with the labor of the unemployed and the monies of the Money Pool, and while it may not be the most efficient way of doing things, it’s still better than millions unemployed and crumbling infrastructure.
Working on that same line, although focusing their attention on the 20-somethings who don’t obediently graduate college with a wife and career in hand, the NYT magazine spends time wondering whether we'll create something like "emerging adulthood" as a developmental stage and then create assistance for people in that stage to finally make their way into adulthood, whether the early 20s should be treated as a stage where brains are still being developed, and work toward that, or whether we’re stuck in a curious blip of no jobs and early 20s people who feel the world opening up before them, but then have no real idea how to proceed into that world, and that it will pass as the economy picks up and we can once again reasonably expect those recent college grads to just find a job and move out, lest they be become a basement-dweller for the rest of their lives.
Out in the world today, I’m not sure whether we’re supposed to be afraid of this, take it as an irony, or what sort of conclusions should be drawn, but Time is devoting space to highlighting that Russia is returning to Afghanistan to help with the U.S./NATO effort, a place where the Man Named Petraeus claims that the momentum of the Taliban has been reversed, from surge to dropoff. And thus we begin again the campaign to show that we’re winning and just need more time.
In Canada, when the fundamentalists come out to preach about the sins of the gay couple living at a hosue, the neighbors tell them to go away and stop harassing the people. Could use a bit more of that down here.
Finally, some insight into the workings of how the rape charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange were created, fanned to a media more than willing to run with them, and then shut down once the review by a supervisor was completed, as well as the actors, like the Pentagon, that will beenfit from running this and would have put a similar plan into place, as part of their straetgy to discredit WikiLeaks.
Domestically, the “Manufactured Controversy” department highlights an apparent flap over the fact that a park containing a military memorial has dogs that come through and do doggie doo-doo in the memorial park.
On the matter of the still-occurring Deepwater Horizon disaster, the federal government, in new documents released today, understood quite well what sort of impact a moratorium would have on the jobs in the industry, and went ahead anyway, citing that the disaster possibility of another Deepwater Horizon outweighed the more than 20,000 jobs that would be lost for the duration of the moratorium. In terms of raw economic damage, the government is right. In terms of potential environmental catastrophe, the government is right. In terms of not letting a corrupted and ineffective regulator continue their shoddy work, the government is right. Until we can demonstrate both that the government will regulate and the platforms will be safe, then it’s a good decision to not let them run.
The chair of the Debt comission from the Obama administration described the Social Security program as "a milk cow with 310 million tits", clearly indicating his belief that the program is unsustainable and will have to be “reformed”, most likely by being privatized. I'm getting very irritated at the insistence that only entitlement spending has to be reduced if we want the debt to be reduced, and there are no other sectors that are bloated and spending lots. All their dollars are totally justified, because of [VAGUE FOREIGN MILITARY THREAT], [YOU WANT THE TERRORISTS TO WIN], or [TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH ARE TOTALLY STIMULATIVE], and [WELFARE RECIPIENTS ARE LAZY], [GOVERNMENT ENTITLEMENTS ARE INHERENTLY INFERIOR], or [BILLIONAIRE COMPANIES DESERVE SUBSIDIES]. Or some other thing that means the other sectors of the economy are off the table, at least for now.
The state of Minnesota will be paying out a $165,000USD settlement to zombies arrested for their protest of mindless consumerism, having been told they were carrying things that looked like weapons of mass destruction. The zombies always win.
In technology, we’re assuming that requisite checks for accuracy and actuality were done on this story before it was posted, because of the group (Something Awful) involved, but it looks like some Danish amateur scientists have constructed a rocket that they plan on launching to get a person up into suborbital space, using a sea-based launch platform towed out by a submarine that they built as a project before. I’d like to see a success story here, and all their data published for scrutiny, so that we can see what kind of resources it would take to put a private citizen up in a rocket.
In the opinions, meet the net reason to spend money on the military unabated, same as the last reason to spend money on the military unabated - China, and the possibility that they might decide to project power in the Pacific Ocean. There will always be someone else, whether al-Qaeda, or China, or the Soviet Union, or the Imperial Army of Japan. At some point you have to stop and asess whether or not it’s actually wotrthwhile to stay in the perpetual arms race. It’s supposed to be how we broke the Soviet Union. Are we cognizant that someone else might try and use it to break us?
On Iran, Mr. Ladeen paints a picture of a country that is rotting from the inside as more and more opposition builds up and takes action against the government - and then closes by admonishing the West for not supporting and encouraging this opposition. Why waste money and capital openly supporting something that seems to be doing quite well on its own, and is beyond accusations that they’re puppets of another regime sent in to destablize the government? Let nature take its course, the opposition bring down the tyrants, and then make your move, if you would be a kingmaker. Much cheaper, and in many ways, easier, to accomplish your task that way.
Appreciate the fine cognitive dissonance at work in the following opinion - the Fed can only create money, and the private sector is sitting on huge amounts of money, but it's entirely the fault of the Obama administration's legislation that things aren't gettign better, because that legislation is robbing the private sector of resources. It would have been better to stay on the stated position earlier that the new legislation creates “uncertainty” that stops the private sector from hiring, because they’re afraid of what sort of costs will be associated with hiring. That’s at least logically consistent. If the private sector’s afraid to hire, then maybe the government should step in for them and start with the massive public works and infrastructure upgrade projects, not only to fix the problems with the infrastructure, but to cut the unemployment rate and to prove that government can do good.
I’m not sure which is better, though - dissonance that’s right on the surface and thus easily noticeable, or stating outright the predetermined conclusion of your opinion within the first sentence, making it easy to know which glasses to put on to read it with and destroying the chance that someone might read the opinion about the dismissal of a UCLA professor allegedly for publishing research that was out of step with the official line on pollutants with an open mind. The allegation itself would be scandalizing, if it is true, and would give more credibility to the insistence that scientific communities shut down dissenting voices instead of examining their work. too bad the writer casts themselves in with the climate change denial lot right at the beginning and thus eliminates the chances that they will be taken seriously by anyone who might actually need to read the work and incestigate the story behind it.
I’m guessing both of them can veer off into conspiracy territory, though, which is where we get accusations that Muslims are committing fake hate crimes against themselves, and then publicizing them widely as part of a fake epidemic, so as to get organizations and the government to believe that there's "Islamophobia", so they can push their own political agenda and deligitimize their opponents. The column writer also sprinkles his piece with examlpes of the fake hate crimes, hoping you’ll make the logical leap of assuming these examples are exemplars. Working against him, though, is the manufactured controversy over the Park 51 project, which is entirely about whether one should be very afraid of Muslims building a community center near a place of national tragedy. If it were for any other religion than that, I don’t think they’d have a problem. Plus, troll the commentary sections and the columnists, and you’ll find plenty of evidence of The Bloodthirsty Religion that wants to kill you, white man, enslave your white wife, force your white children to worship as Muslims, instead of the Christians they should be, and usurp the rule of law and the legitimate government to install their own theocracy. You want Islamophobia? You’ve got it all right there. that is, unless you’re willing to admit that all of this is a cheap political stunt intended to engender fears in the populace so they’ll vote for your party. If you're known demagogue Glenn Beck, you should admit this as soon as possible, considering that you have gone on record before saying that moderate Muslim voices are being drowned out in the rush to make all Muslims terrorists.
But if you want the most definitive voice on the matter, one who calls out all the bullshit for what it is, you have to turn to none other than...Ron Paul, libertarian badass, easily finding the real cause for the manufactured controversy and calling for his conservative brothers and sisters to actually uphold the beliefs they profess about property rights and the Constitution. Consistent libertarianism, in this case, produces an incisive commentary on the whole matter. Rock on, Mr. Paul. Yet another instance of where politics makes for some strange alliances. I doubt most progressives would say they’re in agreement with Ron Paul on the issue.
Last, if you think that once all the other foreign religions are gone that you’ll live in peace and harmony, remember that there are plenty of sectarians who would love to see their specific sect in power and everyone else denied their rights.
Last for tonight, though, a voice teacher listens to the foundign voices of metal, and provides her comments on their technique and range. Which is pretty cool. And a letter describing how different Star Trek: The Next Generation could have been, based on who might have been cast.
...and b) whether or not GlaDOS Is Still Al---hngrrrk!
The management wants you to know that those responsible for the two previous jokes have been sacked. And then beaten, and then sent off to run the trials at the Black Mesa facility, because frankly, Aperture Science won’t have them.
More seriously, so very totally to promote our own horn, read this excellent opinion about the great services that libraries provide to their populations, including all the public outcry that happens when governments consider cutting the library budget. In these times, the people know just what kind of stuff we do for them, and that’s really cool! Ah, and in case you wondered about how the job prospects of working in libraries look, well, check this out - an entry-level librarian's assistand position at the Tacoma Public Library, a city-based library system, drew 309 applicants in the single week the job was posted. One to four positions. Three hundred nine applicants. Anyone else want to say that “the unemployed are lazy, because the jobs are there”? Because they’re starting down the rhetorical equivalent of an S-Mart boomstick and thinking they can play roulette with it. The bridges of the country could be repaired with the labor of the unemployed and the monies of the Money Pool, and while it may not be the most efficient way of doing things, it’s still better than millions unemployed and crumbling infrastructure.
Working on that same line, although focusing their attention on the 20-somethings who don’t obediently graduate college with a wife and career in hand, the NYT magazine spends time wondering whether we'll create something like "emerging adulthood" as a developmental stage and then create assistance for people in that stage to finally make their way into adulthood, whether the early 20s should be treated as a stage where brains are still being developed, and work toward that, or whether we’re stuck in a curious blip of no jobs and early 20s people who feel the world opening up before them, but then have no real idea how to proceed into that world, and that it will pass as the economy picks up and we can once again reasonably expect those recent college grads to just find a job and move out, lest they be become a basement-dweller for the rest of their lives.
Out in the world today, I’m not sure whether we’re supposed to be afraid of this, take it as an irony, or what sort of conclusions should be drawn, but Time is devoting space to highlighting that Russia is returning to Afghanistan to help with the U.S./NATO effort, a place where the Man Named Petraeus claims that the momentum of the Taliban has been reversed, from surge to dropoff. And thus we begin again the campaign to show that we’re winning and just need more time.
In Canada, when the fundamentalists come out to preach about the sins of the gay couple living at a hosue, the neighbors tell them to go away and stop harassing the people. Could use a bit more of that down here.
Finally, some insight into the workings of how the rape charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange were created, fanned to a media more than willing to run with them, and then shut down once the review by a supervisor was completed, as well as the actors, like the Pentagon, that will beenfit from running this and would have put a similar plan into place, as part of their straetgy to discredit WikiLeaks.
Domestically, the “Manufactured Controversy” department highlights an apparent flap over the fact that a park containing a military memorial has dogs that come through and do doggie doo-doo in the memorial park.
On the matter of the still-occurring Deepwater Horizon disaster, the federal government, in new documents released today, understood quite well what sort of impact a moratorium would have on the jobs in the industry, and went ahead anyway, citing that the disaster possibility of another Deepwater Horizon outweighed the more than 20,000 jobs that would be lost for the duration of the moratorium. In terms of raw economic damage, the government is right. In terms of potential environmental catastrophe, the government is right. In terms of not letting a corrupted and ineffective regulator continue their shoddy work, the government is right. Until we can demonstrate both that the government will regulate and the platforms will be safe, then it’s a good decision to not let them run.
The chair of the Debt comission from the Obama administration described the Social Security program as "a milk cow with 310 million tits", clearly indicating his belief that the program is unsustainable and will have to be “reformed”, most likely by being privatized. I'm getting very irritated at the insistence that only entitlement spending has to be reduced if we want the debt to be reduced, and there are no other sectors that are bloated and spending lots. All their dollars are totally justified, because of [VAGUE FOREIGN MILITARY THREAT], [YOU WANT THE TERRORISTS TO WIN], or [TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH ARE TOTALLY STIMULATIVE], and [WELFARE RECIPIENTS ARE LAZY], [GOVERNMENT ENTITLEMENTS ARE INHERENTLY INFERIOR], or [BILLIONAIRE COMPANIES DESERVE SUBSIDIES]. Or some other thing that means the other sectors of the economy are off the table, at least for now.
The state of Minnesota will be paying out a $165,000USD settlement to zombies arrested for their protest of mindless consumerism, having been told they were carrying things that looked like weapons of mass destruction. The zombies always win.
In technology, we’re assuming that requisite checks for accuracy and actuality were done on this story before it was posted, because of the group (Something Awful) involved, but it looks like some Danish amateur scientists have constructed a rocket that they plan on launching to get a person up into suborbital space, using a sea-based launch platform towed out by a submarine that they built as a project before. I’d like to see a success story here, and all their data published for scrutiny, so that we can see what kind of resources it would take to put a private citizen up in a rocket.
In the opinions, meet the net reason to spend money on the military unabated, same as the last reason to spend money on the military unabated - China, and the possibility that they might decide to project power in the Pacific Ocean. There will always be someone else, whether al-Qaeda, or China, or the Soviet Union, or the Imperial Army of Japan. At some point you have to stop and asess whether or not it’s actually wotrthwhile to stay in the perpetual arms race. It’s supposed to be how we broke the Soviet Union. Are we cognizant that someone else might try and use it to break us?
On Iran, Mr. Ladeen paints a picture of a country that is rotting from the inside as more and more opposition builds up and takes action against the government - and then closes by admonishing the West for not supporting and encouraging this opposition. Why waste money and capital openly supporting something that seems to be doing quite well on its own, and is beyond accusations that they’re puppets of another regime sent in to destablize the government? Let nature take its course, the opposition bring down the tyrants, and then make your move, if you would be a kingmaker. Much cheaper, and in many ways, easier, to accomplish your task that way.
Appreciate the fine cognitive dissonance at work in the following opinion - the Fed can only create money, and the private sector is sitting on huge amounts of money, but it's entirely the fault of the Obama administration's legislation that things aren't gettign better, because that legislation is robbing the private sector of resources. It would have been better to stay on the stated position earlier that the new legislation creates “uncertainty” that stops the private sector from hiring, because they’re afraid of what sort of costs will be associated with hiring. That’s at least logically consistent. If the private sector’s afraid to hire, then maybe the government should step in for them and start with the massive public works and infrastructure upgrade projects, not only to fix the problems with the infrastructure, but to cut the unemployment rate and to prove that government can do good.
I’m not sure which is better, though - dissonance that’s right on the surface and thus easily noticeable, or stating outright the predetermined conclusion of your opinion within the first sentence, making it easy to know which glasses to put on to read it with and destroying the chance that someone might read the opinion about the dismissal of a UCLA professor allegedly for publishing research that was out of step with the official line on pollutants with an open mind. The allegation itself would be scandalizing, if it is true, and would give more credibility to the insistence that scientific communities shut down dissenting voices instead of examining their work. too bad the writer casts themselves in with the climate change denial lot right at the beginning and thus eliminates the chances that they will be taken seriously by anyone who might actually need to read the work and incestigate the story behind it.
I’m guessing both of them can veer off into conspiracy territory, though, which is where we get accusations that Muslims are committing fake hate crimes against themselves, and then publicizing them widely as part of a fake epidemic, so as to get organizations and the government to believe that there's "Islamophobia", so they can push their own political agenda and deligitimize their opponents. The column writer also sprinkles his piece with examlpes of the fake hate crimes, hoping you’ll make the logical leap of assuming these examples are exemplars. Working against him, though, is the manufactured controversy over the Park 51 project, which is entirely about whether one should be very afraid of Muslims building a community center near a place of national tragedy. If it were for any other religion than that, I don’t think they’d have a problem. Plus, troll the commentary sections and the columnists, and you’ll find plenty of evidence of The Bloodthirsty Religion that wants to kill you, white man, enslave your white wife, force your white children to worship as Muslims, instead of the Christians they should be, and usurp the rule of law and the legitimate government to install their own theocracy. You want Islamophobia? You’ve got it all right there. that is, unless you’re willing to admit that all of this is a cheap political stunt intended to engender fears in the populace so they’ll vote for your party. If you're known demagogue Glenn Beck, you should admit this as soon as possible, considering that you have gone on record before saying that moderate Muslim voices are being drowned out in the rush to make all Muslims terrorists.
But if you want the most definitive voice on the matter, one who calls out all the bullshit for what it is, you have to turn to none other than...Ron Paul, libertarian badass, easily finding the real cause for the manufactured controversy and calling for his conservative brothers and sisters to actually uphold the beliefs they profess about property rights and the Constitution. Consistent libertarianism, in this case, produces an incisive commentary on the whole matter. Rock on, Mr. Paul. Yet another instance of where politics makes for some strange alliances. I doubt most progressives would say they’re in agreement with Ron Paul on the issue.
Last, if you think that once all the other foreign religions are gone that you’ll live in peace and harmony, remember that there are plenty of sectarians who would love to see their specific sect in power and everyone else denied their rights.
Last for tonight, though, a voice teacher listens to the foundign voices of metal, and provides her comments on their technique and range. Which is pretty cool. And a letter describing how different Star Trek: The Next Generation could have been, based on who might have been cast.
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Date: 2010-08-26 06:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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