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silveradeptGreetings, verifiers, fact-checkers, and people who look for the truth - have a story of Good Jackie and Bad Jackie, what happens when confronted with the decision to admit you were misled or to insist on your rightness even when you are provably wrong.
After that, cleanse your palate with the sight of Wil Wheaton riding a unicorn pegasus kitten, armed with a spear he intends to drive into an Orc Scalzi. It will set you up in the proper frame of mind to read about the pope's astronomer saying that aliens are welcome to come and be baptized into the Catholic church. He also dismissed intelligent design as "bad theology" that had been hijacked by fundamentalists.
Take a look at the differences in gender stereotypes and gender roles in advertisements here in the United States versus what you will find in the IKEA catalog. Lots of interesting data there - American ads reinforcing the idea that females are caregivers and males are there for play, or are buffoons, or are otherwise unsuited for child care.
Finally, a bronze bust of Frank Zappa was unveiled in Baltimore. If you have not heard the work of Zappa, I highly recommend him. Sooner or later, everyone ends up listening to Zappa...
Out in the world today, the situation has gotten so bad in Mexico that papers are publishing front-page editorials asking the drug cartels to tell them what they want, to be published and not published, so that they will stop killing journalists.
An article-length peer into the practice of turning young women into young men in Afghanistan by dressing them and keeping their hair short as boys. Usually, when puberty hits and it becomes obvious, the boys are then shifted swiftly back into being girls and women, with all the fun of arranged marriages and the like that entails. I think something like this could be a book and still not get deep enough.
A vindication of why Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (here in the United States) is important - a Canadian is suing the government for discriminating against her because the federal government website in Canada is not accessible through screen reader and other assistive technology. For as much as people might bitch about section 508 compliance, it's preferable to a lawsuit, and this proves that people who use assistive technology want to be involved in government and other services just as much as the abled. Do it right.
In the Land Wars in Asia department, Afghanistan has a CIA-trained special forces unit, which might make people think of a parallel in the CIA-funded and trained destablizers when the USSR held Afghanistan...and how well that turned out. Elsewhere, the headline says that Saddam Hussein was delighted by terror attacks against the United States. The first sentence says he also had no interest in partnering with them. Context is a useful, useful thing, people. why not use it more often. Finally, the requisite threat from Iran that war with them will be total should their nuclear facility be hit and blaming foreign roots on what are likely domestic terror attacks. Well, at least Russia's decided not to sell them more arms.
Domestically, the hits keep coming for Delaware Tea Party Darling and Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell - claims that she made that scientists were creating chimera mice with fully functioning human brains as well as a claim filed with the Federal Election Commission that she used campaign donations to pay her private rent and that she stiffed her staff of their paychecks. Oh, and you've probably heard the one where she claimed the media-nicknamed "czars" were a violation of the Constitution's prohibition on conferring titles of nobility.
On better matters, six new items of the health care bill go into effect today, mandating the dropping of lifetime limits from insurance plans, forbidding the dropping of coverage when the insured get sick, forbidding the denial of coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions, allowing those children to stay on their parents insurance until the age of 26, mandating high risk pools, and forbidding the charging of customers for preventative services such as colonoscopies and mammograms. In response to those new mandates, expect significant rate hikes and, if you're a member of some of the largest companies, child-only plans will vanish because those companies believe parents will wait until their children are extremely sick and then buy them health insurance, which those companies will be forced to pay out on. The onyl reason I can see that happening is if the parents couldn't afford the package up until the point that they had to decide between going bankrupt of losing their child. That still means its on you, insurance companies, to make a product people want to buy.
Former President Jimmy Carter is back in the limelight with a new book that reveals several new attacks and defenses about his presidency and post-presidential work. If the normal protocol is that you don't comment about things after you're gone, then something is seriously off the mark for a former President to continually make commentary on it. Although, by doing so, you invite people to make comparisons between your administration and the current one, because they like the narrative lines of popular presidents getting shot down.
Despite the flap over her anti-Muslim, immigrants assimilate-now posting, WisCon has decided to retain Elizabeth Moon as a guest of honor and hopes that the panelists and others will turn it into a learning opportunity and make for an open dialogue about the matter while at the convention. The other Guest of Honor for the convention says, Come on down and see us anyway! Let's do the celebration thing, and not get bogged down in 101 conversations where the minorities have to do the heavy lifting on education.
And the Fear, Fear, Terror, Fear department wants you to be worried about the likelihood of small scale, hard-to-detect terrorism in the United States, the kind that has always been a possibility and that authorities work to defeat daily.
A would-be robber who claimed he had a bomb was fast-talked instead into filling out a loan application to get the money he was demanding. That information was then turned into the police to arrest the man. Sounds like a dumb criminal file, but I wonder whether the man had just exhausted all his other ways that he could think of to help his friend stay afloat.
Speaking of the recession and the economy, there's something wrong with the picture when you can see the bread line form at Wal-Mart, and to pay for helping save jobs, you are forced to cut the social safety net...but one political party insists that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans be passed without offsets or any cuts in spending at all.
Last out, a mother is refusing to sign a consent form for blood transfusion for her infant&aposs; surgery because her religious denomination forbids them. One can admire the strength of the belief, but one hopes that at some point, an overriding consideration about the life of one's child would kick in.
Science and technology - To ensure that Humes survive the destruction of Terra, several prominent scientists say we need to develop cyborgs that can be sent on deep-space colonization missions. And no, we did not need to consult the Science Tarot to make that prediction.
A possible way to get even the staunchest of conservatives on board with working on green energy issues - China seems to be doing quite well creating jobs and healthier living conditions by going greener. If I recall correctly, China is still one of the boogeymen you can wave around about economics and competition in the world...
If you're interested in technology in the classroom, The NYT Sunday Magazine devoted an issue to it on 19 Sepetmber, talking about novel ways to teach, to take ntoes, and other technology enablers. Some which come with their own problems, like recording in-class gossip along with lecture.
Some of the unintended consequences of technology and privacy - a dog stolen from his owner in 2007 cannot find out where the dog is now because the company that microchipped the dog is refusing to turn over the name and address that was submitted as a request to add to their database, citing the Data Privacy Act.
And finally, a robot intends to make a 500 kilometer walk running by remote control and batteries that will be charged once a day.
Opinions open with Mr. Krugman talking about the Rage of the Rich, who cannot believe that someone would increase their tax burdens, even as the poor suffer, get laid off, and struggle, and who will go back to demanding their tax burdens be lessened through the cutting of the social safety net once they get their way. those kind of people? complain that their $450,000/year salary does not make them rich, because they can't get by on it, which, if you look closer, you see all sorts of places to cut expenses and pay down debt and live within their ample means. They are not the people who really do have to worry that if they're cut loose from their job, they will not be able to recover, or the people who know what being poor really is. If you make 10 times the median salary, you are rich, and any problems you have with managing that wealth are entirely your own. Most of us would be able to set our affairs in order for many years if we had but one year of that salary.
Staying on salaries and pensions, Ms. Malkin alleges that GM and the Obama administration conspired to rewared UAW workers by making sure their pensions were fully funded with bailout money while shafting the nonunion workers at Delphi out of theirs by dumping their pensions on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Mr. Thomas has our requisite Islam is the Bloodthirsty, Evil Religion and must be purged column, with Mr. Kuilpatrick adding on the requisite "Woe are us Christians, we are so oppressed in America, while Those Muslims continue to advance their political agenda" addendum, complete with "Sharia is a legal code in conflict with the Constitution, so Islam is already outlawed because it outlaws things Sharia endorses" nonsense. How many Christians in America eat cheeseburgers, despite the prohibition commonly interpreted by the rabbis (or which Jesus was one) to mean that meat and milk should not be mixed? Or what about the other mitzvot that christians routinely quote? There's clearly a legal system embedded in those religions, some of which is in contradiction with United States law, as it too likes stoning, yet nobody says Christians and Jews shouldn't be able to practice their religion because their legal code is in conflict.
If you want a nice example that allows a conservative to claim both that Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion and that American academics aren't actually interested in the plight of gay men and lesbians around the world, observe the following letter used as proof of the double standard of academics - it was sent to academics that did sign a letter condemning Israel's human rights abuses earlier, and the response percentage was predictably low. Considering that the letter made sure to point out all the justifications in Islam to kill gays and lesbians, beat women, mutilate them, and said explicitly that it was just a letter to let people know who signed on to these ideas, instead of calling for anyone to do anything, I can see where someone might decide this particular exercise is bait for a trap and pass on it. Not to say that all the things mentioned aren't true - there is widespread discrimination, and some clerics and lawmakers in Middle Eastern countries do invoke the religion in condemning them to death (as weould-be culture warriors do here), and there is much that needs to be done about stopping those practices. But signing a letter with no action behind it isn't one of those things that helps out. If you know what's going on Over There, why not do concrete things to stop it, instead of making empty political and rhetorical flourishes so you can alienate people who would likely help you?
Mr. Sowell alleges racial resentment going on in Washington D.C. that led to an otherwise-competent mayor being shown the door, because he apparently wasn't helping black people out enough. Despite diverse appointments, higher test scores, union-busting in education, and lower murder rates, he was forced out, and it's all because the teachers who were fired were mostly black and the black contractors complained about not getting contracts and the race hustlers got the black people to vote against him while all the white people voted for him. I'm betting that if we scratched the surface, we'd see a lot more than what we're being told. Cracking down on crime and hoodlums...mostly black and minority kids receiving the brunt? Union-busting in education with mostly black teachers fired? Seems fishy to people, even if all the metrics line up behind the decision. Mr. Sowell may or may not be right on race resentment, but the person he describes as being defeated shouldn't have had trouble with re-election. What else went on?
The WSJ reiterates their claims that the slow recovery of our own is based on new regulations and taxes spooking businesses and economic engine-drivers, rather than the financial mess having major shocks and that stimulus spending is how we avoid the major potholes. Combined with the Heritage assertion that the government can fix all its spending problems and return to a balanced budget just by going back to the Reagan era of spending and you have the conservative position on the economy going into the midterms. While they tap-dance around the fact that cutting spending in that manner is going to hurt people on safety net programs, but is also going to have to kill the land wars being fought in Asia dead and draw down military personnel to a more sustainable point after doing so. And that's just a balanced budget, we note - expenditures equal income. To actually make progress on the deficit and debt, there would have to be more spending cuts. On the other side, if Mr. Lind's comparison of the modern Tea Partiers to the previous Whisky Rebellion, protesting over taxes and things that would ultimately benefit them in the end by paying down debt and the like, then the Republican elites pulling the strings on the astroturf group have achieved the same position - able to send an ignorant populace out to protest things that would help them in the long run while simultaneously pushing for things that will help their fellow elites out now as "alternatives" to what the mob is protesting.
A consequence of the health care bill will be the destruction of physician-owned hospitals, alleges Tait Trussel, and with it, destruction of excellent care.
Mr. Sowell returns, this time to say that we should always be willing to pay the cost of locking criminals up, even if it is expensive, because probation and other alternatives are more expensive because of recidivism while on probation. Plus, he reasons, arrogant elites are telling us that we don't need to punish criminals by offering these things, as well as probation, parole, good behavior, and concurrent sentences. No, says he, the only code that is acceptable to me is Hammurabi's, or something reasonably similar to it. No leniency ever, anywhere. I wonder if he also believes that locking people up in jail for first time drug offenses is a good idea. If so, I hope he's willing to advocate for the funding that we need to build prisons big enough to house everyone sentenced.
A new book by Bob Woodward will provide plenty of red meat for the "Obama is weak on national security and a coward on fighting proper wars" department, if Mr. Carrol's "See? See! He was totally anti-war, is totally a defeatist who wants to lose and withdraw prematurely from Afghanistan, and the troops are paying the price for it!" piece is any indication. On the other front that conservatives seem to care about most, Israel, Ms. Glick alleges that Lebanon will soon become, like Iraq and Syria, an Iranian proxy to continue their proxy war against Israel, because the leader of Lebanon will bow to the pressure of joining them because the alternative is assassination and death. Ms. Glick wants the U.S. to give Israel the support it needs to steamroll over all the threats around them.
Ah, but before we get out tonight, Mr. Ackerman, concerned at the increasing use of fictions and justifications from Presidents to get tehir appointees in place without Senate confirmations, hopes to strike a bargain - the Senate will pass legislation that says they will give an up or down vote on a Presidential appointee within sixty days of the nomination and that the president will agree to put all his major position nominees through the Senate approval process. He hopes this will remove the delay incentive that Senators have to kill appointments without killing them, and that the President will stop running around them because they will take up his appointees. It will probably kill some of the problems, but when you hit a Senate dead-set on rejecting anyone you send for them, I suspect the legal fictions will return, regardless of the rules or laws just passed.
Last for tonight, a pyramid scheme designed to take advantage of Tea Party gullibility, and a huckster looking to portray the governemnt as a Them that takes your hard-earned money.
Oh, and Brutus Buckeye on the receiving end of a few tackles.
Special Comment to follow on major events that seem conspicuously absent from this news post.
After that, cleanse your palate with the sight of Wil Wheaton riding a unicorn pegasus kitten, armed with a spear he intends to drive into an Orc Scalzi. It will set you up in the proper frame of mind to read about the pope's astronomer saying that aliens are welcome to come and be baptized into the Catholic church. He also dismissed intelligent design as "bad theology" that had been hijacked by fundamentalists.
Take a look at the differences in gender stereotypes and gender roles in advertisements here in the United States versus what you will find in the IKEA catalog. Lots of interesting data there - American ads reinforcing the idea that females are caregivers and males are there for play, or are buffoons, or are otherwise unsuited for child care.
Finally, a bronze bust of Frank Zappa was unveiled in Baltimore. If you have not heard the work of Zappa, I highly recommend him. Sooner or later, everyone ends up listening to Zappa...
Out in the world today, the situation has gotten so bad in Mexico that papers are publishing front-page editorials asking the drug cartels to tell them what they want, to be published and not published, so that they will stop killing journalists.
An article-length peer into the practice of turning young women into young men in Afghanistan by dressing them and keeping their hair short as boys. Usually, when puberty hits and it becomes obvious, the boys are then shifted swiftly back into being girls and women, with all the fun of arranged marriages and the like that entails. I think something like this could be a book and still not get deep enough.
A vindication of why Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (here in the United States) is important - a Canadian is suing the government for discriminating against her because the federal government website in Canada is not accessible through screen reader and other assistive technology. For as much as people might bitch about section 508 compliance, it's preferable to a lawsuit, and this proves that people who use assistive technology want to be involved in government and other services just as much as the abled. Do it right.
In the Land Wars in Asia department, Afghanistan has a CIA-trained special forces unit, which might make people think of a parallel in the CIA-funded and trained destablizers when the USSR held Afghanistan...and how well that turned out. Elsewhere, the headline says that Saddam Hussein was delighted by terror attacks against the United States. The first sentence says he also had no interest in partnering with them. Context is a useful, useful thing, people. why not use it more often. Finally, the requisite threat from Iran that war with them will be total should their nuclear facility be hit and blaming foreign roots on what are likely domestic terror attacks. Well, at least Russia's decided not to sell them more arms.
Domestically, the hits keep coming for Delaware Tea Party Darling and Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell - claims that she made that scientists were creating chimera mice with fully functioning human brains as well as a claim filed with the Federal Election Commission that she used campaign donations to pay her private rent and that she stiffed her staff of their paychecks. Oh, and you've probably heard the one where she claimed the media-nicknamed "czars" were a violation of the Constitution's prohibition on conferring titles of nobility.
On better matters, six new items of the health care bill go into effect today, mandating the dropping of lifetime limits from insurance plans, forbidding the dropping of coverage when the insured get sick, forbidding the denial of coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions, allowing those children to stay on their parents insurance until the age of 26, mandating high risk pools, and forbidding the charging of customers for preventative services such as colonoscopies and mammograms. In response to those new mandates, expect significant rate hikes and, if you're a member of some of the largest companies, child-only plans will vanish because those companies believe parents will wait until their children are extremely sick and then buy them health insurance, which those companies will be forced to pay out on. The onyl reason I can see that happening is if the parents couldn't afford the package up until the point that they had to decide between going bankrupt of losing their child. That still means its on you, insurance companies, to make a product people want to buy.
Former President Jimmy Carter is back in the limelight with a new book that reveals several new attacks and defenses about his presidency and post-presidential work. If the normal protocol is that you don't comment about things after you're gone, then something is seriously off the mark for a former President to continually make commentary on it. Although, by doing so, you invite people to make comparisons between your administration and the current one, because they like the narrative lines of popular presidents getting shot down.
Despite the flap over her anti-Muslim, immigrants assimilate-now posting, WisCon has decided to retain Elizabeth Moon as a guest of honor and hopes that the panelists and others will turn it into a learning opportunity and make for an open dialogue about the matter while at the convention. The other Guest of Honor for the convention says, Come on down and see us anyway! Let's do the celebration thing, and not get bogged down in 101 conversations where the minorities have to do the heavy lifting on education.
And the Fear, Fear, Terror, Fear department wants you to be worried about the likelihood of small scale, hard-to-detect terrorism in the United States, the kind that has always been a possibility and that authorities work to defeat daily.
A would-be robber who claimed he had a bomb was fast-talked instead into filling out a loan application to get the money he was demanding. That information was then turned into the police to arrest the man. Sounds like a dumb criminal file, but I wonder whether the man had just exhausted all his other ways that he could think of to help his friend stay afloat.
Speaking of the recession and the economy, there's something wrong with the picture when you can see the bread line form at Wal-Mart, and to pay for helping save jobs, you are forced to cut the social safety net...but one political party insists that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans be passed without offsets or any cuts in spending at all.
Last out, a mother is refusing to sign a consent form for blood transfusion for her infant&aposs; surgery because her religious denomination forbids them. One can admire the strength of the belief, but one hopes that at some point, an overriding consideration about the life of one's child would kick in.
Science and technology - To ensure that Humes survive the destruction of Terra, several prominent scientists say we need to develop cyborgs that can be sent on deep-space colonization missions. And no, we did not need to consult the Science Tarot to make that prediction.
A possible way to get even the staunchest of conservatives on board with working on green energy issues - China seems to be doing quite well creating jobs and healthier living conditions by going greener. If I recall correctly, China is still one of the boogeymen you can wave around about economics and competition in the world...
If you're interested in technology in the classroom, The NYT Sunday Magazine devoted an issue to it on 19 Sepetmber, talking about novel ways to teach, to take ntoes, and other technology enablers. Some which come with their own problems, like recording in-class gossip along with lecture.
Some of the unintended consequences of technology and privacy - a dog stolen from his owner in 2007 cannot find out where the dog is now because the company that microchipped the dog is refusing to turn over the name and address that was submitted as a request to add to their database, citing the Data Privacy Act.
And finally, a robot intends to make a 500 kilometer walk running by remote control and batteries that will be charged once a day.
Opinions open with Mr. Krugman talking about the Rage of the Rich, who cannot believe that someone would increase their tax burdens, even as the poor suffer, get laid off, and struggle, and who will go back to demanding their tax burdens be lessened through the cutting of the social safety net once they get their way. those kind of people? complain that their $450,000/year salary does not make them rich, because they can't get by on it, which, if you look closer, you see all sorts of places to cut expenses and pay down debt and live within their ample means. They are not the people who really do have to worry that if they're cut loose from their job, they will not be able to recover, or the people who know what being poor really is. If you make 10 times the median salary, you are rich, and any problems you have with managing that wealth are entirely your own. Most of us would be able to set our affairs in order for many years if we had but one year of that salary.
Staying on salaries and pensions, Ms. Malkin alleges that GM and the Obama administration conspired to rewared UAW workers by making sure their pensions were fully funded with bailout money while shafting the nonunion workers at Delphi out of theirs by dumping their pensions on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Mr. Thomas has our requisite Islam is the Bloodthirsty, Evil Religion and must be purged column, with Mr. Kuilpatrick adding on the requisite "Woe are us Christians, we are so oppressed in America, while Those Muslims continue to advance their political agenda" addendum, complete with "Sharia is a legal code in conflict with the Constitution, so Islam is already outlawed because it outlaws things Sharia endorses" nonsense. How many Christians in America eat cheeseburgers, despite the prohibition commonly interpreted by the rabbis (or which Jesus was one) to mean that meat and milk should not be mixed? Or what about the other mitzvot that christians routinely quote? There's clearly a legal system embedded in those religions, some of which is in contradiction with United States law, as it too likes stoning, yet nobody says Christians and Jews shouldn't be able to practice their religion because their legal code is in conflict.
If you want a nice example that allows a conservative to claim both that Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion and that American academics aren't actually interested in the plight of gay men and lesbians around the world, observe the following letter used as proof of the double standard of academics - it was sent to academics that did sign a letter condemning Israel's human rights abuses earlier, and the response percentage was predictably low. Considering that the letter made sure to point out all the justifications in Islam to kill gays and lesbians, beat women, mutilate them, and said explicitly that it was just a letter to let people know who signed on to these ideas, instead of calling for anyone to do anything, I can see where someone might decide this particular exercise is bait for a trap and pass on it. Not to say that all the things mentioned aren't true - there is widespread discrimination, and some clerics and lawmakers in Middle Eastern countries do invoke the religion in condemning them to death (as weould-be culture warriors do here), and there is much that needs to be done about stopping those practices. But signing a letter with no action behind it isn't one of those things that helps out. If you know what's going on Over There, why not do concrete things to stop it, instead of making empty political and rhetorical flourishes so you can alienate people who would likely help you?
Mr. Sowell alleges racial resentment going on in Washington D.C. that led to an otherwise-competent mayor being shown the door, because he apparently wasn't helping black people out enough. Despite diverse appointments, higher test scores, union-busting in education, and lower murder rates, he was forced out, and it's all because the teachers who were fired were mostly black and the black contractors complained about not getting contracts and the race hustlers got the black people to vote against him while all the white people voted for him. I'm betting that if we scratched the surface, we'd see a lot more than what we're being told. Cracking down on crime and hoodlums...mostly black and minority kids receiving the brunt? Union-busting in education with mostly black teachers fired? Seems fishy to people, even if all the metrics line up behind the decision. Mr. Sowell may or may not be right on race resentment, but the person he describes as being defeated shouldn't have had trouble with re-election. What else went on?
The WSJ reiterates their claims that the slow recovery of our own is based on new regulations and taxes spooking businesses and economic engine-drivers, rather than the financial mess having major shocks and that stimulus spending is how we avoid the major potholes. Combined with the Heritage assertion that the government can fix all its spending problems and return to a balanced budget just by going back to the Reagan era of spending and you have the conservative position on the economy going into the midterms. While they tap-dance around the fact that cutting spending in that manner is going to hurt people on safety net programs, but is also going to have to kill the land wars being fought in Asia dead and draw down military personnel to a more sustainable point after doing so. And that's just a balanced budget, we note - expenditures equal income. To actually make progress on the deficit and debt, there would have to be more spending cuts. On the other side, if Mr. Lind's comparison of the modern Tea Partiers to the previous Whisky Rebellion, protesting over taxes and things that would ultimately benefit them in the end by paying down debt and the like, then the Republican elites pulling the strings on the astroturf group have achieved the same position - able to send an ignorant populace out to protest things that would help them in the long run while simultaneously pushing for things that will help their fellow elites out now as "alternatives" to what the mob is protesting.
A consequence of the health care bill will be the destruction of physician-owned hospitals, alleges Tait Trussel, and with it, destruction of excellent care.
Mr. Sowell returns, this time to say that we should always be willing to pay the cost of locking criminals up, even if it is expensive, because probation and other alternatives are more expensive because of recidivism while on probation. Plus, he reasons, arrogant elites are telling us that we don't need to punish criminals by offering these things, as well as probation, parole, good behavior, and concurrent sentences. No, says he, the only code that is acceptable to me is Hammurabi's, or something reasonably similar to it. No leniency ever, anywhere. I wonder if he also believes that locking people up in jail for first time drug offenses is a good idea. If so, I hope he's willing to advocate for the funding that we need to build prisons big enough to house everyone sentenced.
A new book by Bob Woodward will provide plenty of red meat for the "Obama is weak on national security and a coward on fighting proper wars" department, if Mr. Carrol's "See? See! He was totally anti-war, is totally a defeatist who wants to lose and withdraw prematurely from Afghanistan, and the troops are paying the price for it!" piece is any indication. On the other front that conservatives seem to care about most, Israel, Ms. Glick alleges that Lebanon will soon become, like Iraq and Syria, an Iranian proxy to continue their proxy war against Israel, because the leader of Lebanon will bow to the pressure of joining them because the alternative is assassination and death. Ms. Glick wants the U.S. to give Israel the support it needs to steamroll over all the threats around them.
Ah, but before we get out tonight, Mr. Ackerman, concerned at the increasing use of fictions and justifications from Presidents to get tehir appointees in place without Senate confirmations, hopes to strike a bargain - the Senate will pass legislation that says they will give an up or down vote on a Presidential appointee within sixty days of the nomination and that the president will agree to put all his major position nominees through the Senate approval process. He hopes this will remove the delay incentive that Senators have to kill appointments without killing them, and that the President will stop running around them because they will take up his appointees. It will probably kill some of the problems, but when you hit a Senate dead-set on rejecting anyone you send for them, I suspect the legal fictions will return, regardless of the rules or laws just passed.
Last for tonight, a pyramid scheme designed to take advantage of Tea Party gullibility, and a huckster looking to portray the governemnt as a Them that takes your hard-earned money.
Oh, and Brutus Buckeye on the receiving end of a few tackles.
Special Comment to follow on major events that seem conspicuously absent from this news post.
