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silveradeptOdd things abound with us. According to shiokku, LiveJournal has been spying on nominally-protected entires, vengefully deleting accounts, and acting otherwise in violation of their own Terms of Service with regard to at least one incident involving vicious rumors. I recall some time ago where the staffers at DW also mentioned that they can in fact use their staff powers to go in and look at entries or delete them, and of course they have suspension power, but they then told us, I believe, for what purposes they would do such things. Transparency is a good thing, and I do believe that many of these difficulties on LJ with the Abuse team and others started after the sale to SixApart (did that happen in 2006?), which, if this account is substantiated, seems to be a confirmation that the corporate philosophy of "so long as they give us wnough money, we don't have to care" has taken over and rooted in.
The brilliant fraternity of Sigma Chi at Harvard has decided a little appropriation is not beyond them and have put up a "Conquistabros and Navajos" theme party...one might guess this trips the failure lines in several very probelmatic ways.
And then one that would make a cobra spread the hood and hiss. Although not out of fear, but the desire to inject venom into the speaker - Maura Kelly originally opined that fat people should be shuffled away where nobody has to watch them do anything, much less make out on television. Since the inital reaction, which consist of singificant parts of snark, aggravation, venom, and cluemallet-wielding, the original post has been amended with an apology and a walkback as to the intent of the post, as well as admitting that the writer's own struggles with eating disorders may have prejudiced her view. It's not giving her a pass, but that she's forthright in admitting what is influencing her and that she apologized for the sheer cluelessness and damage resulting from what she said is making it a little less wince-inducing.
Finally, a petition to the government for the redress of the grievance of slavery written by children receives a personal response form President Lincoln urging them to trust that God will grant what he cannot do by his own fiat.
Out in the world today, it's decision time for those who want to glass Iran before it brings a nuclear reactor on-line - the Bushehr plant is beginning loading of its nuclear fuel.
The long-time aide of Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz, was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in persecution of Shiite Muslims under Saddam. His lawyer has called the sentence a politically motivated one in an attempt to distract from the information in the Wikileaks release showing the complicity of Iraqi orces in the torture of civilians.
While much of the United States has to deal with storms brought on by weather patterns, Indonesia must deal witht he aftermath of a tsunami that has killed 113 so far.
Domestically, A Rand Paul supporter stomped the head of a MoveOn.org activist who attempted to give Rand Paul a fake award from a fake GOP company. If we're at this kind of point in the discourse, where it's considered acceptable to do violence to someone else (and this follows on the "arrest" of the reporter by hired goons), then we're in deep shit and should be very worried about a segment of the population taking Sharron Angle at her word and exercising "Second Amendment Remedies". On whatever handy excuse they can find, be it immigrants or other things. (So much so that they're taking images out of their context so as to present brown people as the scary people invading the country.) Remember, these are the people who will happily demolish the public school system, even though they won't openly advocate for it, and will follow their chosen talking heads all the way into violence and lawlessness.
Credit for ingenuity, but rubbish on execution - a New York man was ordered to return from Hawaii after he tried to sign up with the military, get training, go to Iraq and then desert to join the insurgency.
Following on the idea that the Democrats are not getting credit for their achievements, the Democratic party did shrink the deficit this year, which I think I've mentioned before. Still lots of deficit spending, but less now than there was before.
Finally, excerpted from a book about rogue history, Mr. Russell lists out seven things that made America better and that we can thank organized crime families and cartels for - jazz, the repeal of Prohibition, Broadway, Las Vegas, Hollywood, racial integration, and the gay and lesbian rights movement. All because peopel who got rich flaunting the law and using their connections to the mob also invested in several things that would make them richer without regard to what the social norms were at the time.
In science and technology, bees are apparently naturals at solving a complex mathematical problem involving finding an optimum route between various points. Even if they discover their points in different orders, bees are swiftly able to ascertain the shortest route that touches all of them.
The sheer cost of paper textbooks for colleges may end up forcing a switch to their electronic versions. Which will hopefully be a lot cheaper and either tradeable or sellable for more than what current students get now on buybacks.
High Fructose Corn Syrup has even more fructose in it than previously claimed, making it that much worse for you than before. Perhaps they will be banking on successful trials of a gel that would encourage the regeneration of teeth that have cavities already developed?
Apple is offering a way of preventing their iProducts from sending R-rated words in text or other messages, which means, in the same way one tries to make things foolproof, will only result in the creation of better slang that will pass the censors. And the Doctorow future continues - school identification badges now contain tracking chips.
And finally, a look into a scientist who makes it his work to check other people's work, as science should, and he finds that most of the stuff that we report on, hear from our doctors, or remember is wrong.
Into opinions, where former President Jimmy Carter says that the United States is not better off today than it has been in the last thirty years, and that today's president doesn't even get any of the bipartisan support that he had when he was in charge. The Speaker of the House continues in this theme, saying that the accomplishments of the Democrats have not been recognized by the voting populace, which says much about the big failures that have come to dominate the discourse. It doesn't help, too, that one of their signature items is one that Democrats and especially conservaDems are trying to distance themselves from - Mr. Moran assures us that the albatross of ObamaCare will sink the Democrats, and they know it - because they've been running from it ever since it was passed. The over-simplification that's usually in statements like that is the whys. There are some people that beleive it should be repealed in its entirety, sure, but I suspect that it's because they uncritically believe the things they hear about how horrible it is. Most people believe there are good bits, but they're not all that keen about being forced to spend money on something that they know full well is controlled by people that do not have their interests at heart. Or they're being told by their employers that they can expect to have their coverage dropped because it's "too expensive" for them to keep the staff enrolled. They've got a lot of reasons to oppose the bill, but almost none, excepting the individual insurance mandate, of them have to do with what the bill does, it has to do with what's being done to them by others because of the bill. So if someone talks about bigger costs, ask them whether it's because the insurance companies are consolidating and putting the squeeze on their doctors and hospitals so as to protect their profits or whether there's something intrinsically in the bill that raises costs. Where the real genius is is that those people have managed to successfully convince the Republican Party to go to bat for them, and they can now dump the airwaves full of their own points of view and blame it on the government. It's a slick deal, honestly.
Tait Trussel snarls at the EPA for revoking an already-issued coal mining permit, claiming that this sets an uncomfortable precedent and gives the EPA too much power. On that point, he has solid footing. On the other point he tries to put in there, that the type of mining where you blow up part of the mountain to get to the coal is the safest and best kind, (at least, I think that's what he means by "mountaintop" mining), he's waaaay off. I have no data on whether or not heavily mining coal would actually get rid of foreign oil dependence, but it's sort of trading one problem for another, yeah?
It must be a slow day...or there's a dog-whistle in this article that I'm not hearing properly, because devoting an entire column to how dismissal of voter intimidation charges against three dudes shows off some sort of racial animus toward white people...oh, I get it. Forgot that the whistle was "Barack Obama doesn't care about white people" and that these jokers who claimed to be a New Black Panther Party are just the scapegoats needed to promote the idea of some far-ranging "revenge against whitey" conspiracy in the government. Because he's black. And the Attorney General is black, too.
Speaking of dog-whistles, one of the previous Christine O'Donnell campaign managers has offered a reward for anyone who can show him the phrase "separation of church and state" in the Constitution, believing that there is significant political hay to be made in favor of the Junior Anti-Sex League candidate by interpreting the establishment and free exercise clauses to arrive at a conclusion that because the government is forbidden from telling anyone that they can't bring their religion with them to their office, the idea of separation of church and state is totally invalid. Based on that interpretation and established law that says schools are allowed to teach about religion, he says intelligent design deserves a place at the table along with established science. The only thing missing is somehow twisting the establishment clause to mean that the government can favor one religion over another just so long as it doesn't create a state religion.
And out of opinions, Mr. Whiton says the government should be treating Wikileaks as criminals and aggressively pursuing them for releasing classified documents, because they're a threat to national security, and they're trying to influence policy through their releases. Because releasing data that shows how much the government has been lying to you over the last decade should be a punishable offense. Mr. Whiton says Julian Assange and Wikileaks should be classed as enemy combatants and have all the extrajudicial powers of the United States brought to bear against them, including frozen assets, electronic DDoS attacks against them and anyone associated with them, charges of espionage, and making sure to scare anyone else in the country who might have that information into sitting on it.
Last for tonight, more paintings of monsters from Japanese folklore, if you're looking for new ideas to frighten people on your block with. And speaking of times past, apparently, if you go back far enough, you find that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin share an ancestor.
shiokku, LiveJournal has been spying on nominally-protected entires, vengefully deleting accounts, and acting otherwise in violation of their own Terms of Service with regard to at least one incident involving vicious rumors. I recall some time ago where the staffers at DW also mentioned that they can in fact use their staff powers to go in and look at entries or delete them, and of course they have suspension power, but they then told us, I believe, for what purposes they would do such things. Transparency is a good thing, and I do believe that many of these difficulties on LJ with the Abuse team and others started after the sale to SixApart (did that happen in 2006?), which, if this account is substantiated, seems to be a confirmation that the corporate philosophy of "so long as they give us wnough money, we don't have to care" has taken over and rooted in.The brilliant fraternity of Sigma Chi at Harvard has decided a little appropriation is not beyond them and have put up a "Conquistabros and Navajos" theme party...one might guess this trips the failure lines in several very probelmatic ways.
And then one that would make a cobra spread the hood and hiss. Although not out of fear, but the desire to inject venom into the speaker - Maura Kelly originally opined that fat people should be shuffled away where nobody has to watch them do anything, much less make out on television. Since the inital reaction, which consist of singificant parts of snark, aggravation, venom, and cluemallet-wielding, the original post has been amended with an apology and a walkback as to the intent of the post, as well as admitting that the writer's own struggles with eating disorders may have prejudiced her view. It's not giving her a pass, but that she's forthright in admitting what is influencing her and that she apologized for the sheer cluelessness and damage resulting from what she said is making it a little less wince-inducing.
Finally, a petition to the government for the redress of the grievance of slavery written by children receives a personal response form President Lincoln urging them to trust that God will grant what he cannot do by his own fiat.
Out in the world today, it's decision time for those who want to glass Iran before it brings a nuclear reactor on-line - the Bushehr plant is beginning loading of its nuclear fuel.
The long-time aide of Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz, was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in persecution of Shiite Muslims under Saddam. His lawyer has called the sentence a politically motivated one in an attempt to distract from the information in the Wikileaks release showing the complicity of Iraqi orces in the torture of civilians.
While much of the United States has to deal with storms brought on by weather patterns, Indonesia must deal witht he aftermath of a tsunami that has killed 113 so far.
Domestically, A Rand Paul supporter stomped the head of a MoveOn.org activist who attempted to give Rand Paul a fake award from a fake GOP company. If we're at this kind of point in the discourse, where it's considered acceptable to do violence to someone else (and this follows on the "arrest" of the reporter by hired goons), then we're in deep shit and should be very worried about a segment of the population taking Sharron Angle at her word and exercising "Second Amendment Remedies". On whatever handy excuse they can find, be it immigrants or other things. (So much so that they're taking images out of their context so as to present brown people as the scary people invading the country.) Remember, these are the people who will happily demolish the public school system, even though they won't openly advocate for it, and will follow their chosen talking heads all the way into violence and lawlessness.
Credit for ingenuity, but rubbish on execution - a New York man was ordered to return from Hawaii after he tried to sign up with the military, get training, go to Iraq and then desert to join the insurgency.
Following on the idea that the Democrats are not getting credit for their achievements, the Democratic party did shrink the deficit this year, which I think I've mentioned before. Still lots of deficit spending, but less now than there was before.
Finally, excerpted from a book about rogue history, Mr. Russell lists out seven things that made America better and that we can thank organized crime families and cartels for - jazz, the repeal of Prohibition, Broadway, Las Vegas, Hollywood, racial integration, and the gay and lesbian rights movement. All because peopel who got rich flaunting the law and using their connections to the mob also invested in several things that would make them richer without regard to what the social norms were at the time.
In science and technology, bees are apparently naturals at solving a complex mathematical problem involving finding an optimum route between various points. Even if they discover their points in different orders, bees are swiftly able to ascertain the shortest route that touches all of them.
The sheer cost of paper textbooks for colleges may end up forcing a switch to their electronic versions. Which will hopefully be a lot cheaper and either tradeable or sellable for more than what current students get now on buybacks.
High Fructose Corn Syrup has even more fructose in it than previously claimed, making it that much worse for you than before. Perhaps they will be banking on successful trials of a gel that would encourage the regeneration of teeth that have cavities already developed?
Apple is offering a way of preventing their iProducts from sending R-rated words in text or other messages, which means, in the same way one tries to make things foolproof, will only result in the creation of better slang that will pass the censors. And the Doctorow future continues - school identification badges now contain tracking chips.
And finally, a look into a scientist who makes it his work to check other people's work, as science should, and he finds that most of the stuff that we report on, hear from our doctors, or remember is wrong.
Into opinions, where former President Jimmy Carter says that the United States is not better off today than it has been in the last thirty years, and that today's president doesn't even get any of the bipartisan support that he had when he was in charge. The Speaker of the House continues in this theme, saying that the accomplishments of the Democrats have not been recognized by the voting populace, which says much about the big failures that have come to dominate the discourse. It doesn't help, too, that one of their signature items is one that Democrats and especially conservaDems are trying to distance themselves from - Mr. Moran assures us that the albatross of ObamaCare will sink the Democrats, and they know it - because they've been running from it ever since it was passed. The over-simplification that's usually in statements like that is the whys. There are some people that beleive it should be repealed in its entirety, sure, but I suspect that it's because they uncritically believe the things they hear about how horrible it is. Most people believe there are good bits, but they're not all that keen about being forced to spend money on something that they know full well is controlled by people that do not have their interests at heart. Or they're being told by their employers that they can expect to have their coverage dropped because it's "too expensive" for them to keep the staff enrolled. They've got a lot of reasons to oppose the bill, but almost none, excepting the individual insurance mandate, of them have to do with what the bill does, it has to do with what's being done to them by others because of the bill. So if someone talks about bigger costs, ask them whether it's because the insurance companies are consolidating and putting the squeeze on their doctors and hospitals so as to protect their profits or whether there's something intrinsically in the bill that raises costs. Where the real genius is is that those people have managed to successfully convince the Republican Party to go to bat for them, and they can now dump the airwaves full of their own points of view and blame it on the government. It's a slick deal, honestly.
Tait Trussel snarls at the EPA for revoking an already-issued coal mining permit, claiming that this sets an uncomfortable precedent and gives the EPA too much power. On that point, he has solid footing. On the other point he tries to put in there, that the type of mining where you blow up part of the mountain to get to the coal is the safest and best kind, (at least, I think that's what he means by "mountaintop" mining), he's waaaay off. I have no data on whether or not heavily mining coal would actually get rid of foreign oil dependence, but it's sort of trading one problem for another, yeah?
It must be a slow day...or there's a dog-whistle in this article that I'm not hearing properly, because devoting an entire column to how dismissal of voter intimidation charges against three dudes shows off some sort of racial animus toward white people...oh, I get it. Forgot that the whistle was "Barack Obama doesn't care about white people" and that these jokers who claimed to be a New Black Panther Party are just the scapegoats needed to promote the idea of some far-ranging "revenge against whitey" conspiracy in the government. Because he's black. And the Attorney General is black, too.
Speaking of dog-whistles, one of the previous Christine O'Donnell campaign managers has offered a reward for anyone who can show him the phrase "separation of church and state" in the Constitution, believing that there is significant political hay to be made in favor of the Junior Anti-Sex League candidate by interpreting the establishment and free exercise clauses to arrive at a conclusion that because the government is forbidden from telling anyone that they can't bring their religion with them to their office, the idea of separation of church and state is totally invalid. Based on that interpretation and established law that says schools are allowed to teach about religion, he says intelligent design deserves a place at the table along with established science. The only thing missing is somehow twisting the establishment clause to mean that the government can favor one religion over another just so long as it doesn't create a state religion.
And out of opinions, Mr. Whiton says the government should be treating Wikileaks as criminals and aggressively pursuing them for releasing classified documents, because they're a threat to national security, and they're trying to influence policy through their releases. Because releasing data that shows how much the government has been lying to you over the last decade should be a punishable offense. Mr. Whiton says Julian Assange and Wikileaks should be classed as enemy combatants and have all the extrajudicial powers of the United States brought to bear against them, including frozen assets, electronic DDoS attacks against them and anyone associated with them, charges of espionage, and making sure to scare anyone else in the country who might have that information into sitting on it.
Last for tonight, more paintings of monsters from Japanese folklore, if you're looking for new ideas to frighten people on your block with. And speaking of times past, apparently, if you go back far enough, you find that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin share an ancestor.
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Date: 2010-10-27 06:27 pm (UTC)i'm SO glad i got out of there when i did... while i don't normally do the sorts of things that people have been getting suspended or deleted for, the fact that they're apparently as irrational and random as they are would constantly have me looking over my shoulder...
another LJ friend of mine has been experiencing what i perceive to be some drastic irregularities with her "locked" entries: despite the fact that they're "locked", and i am not logged in to LJ, i still get her supposedly "locked" entries in my RSS aggregator. when i try to view them, or reply to them on the web, i am given a "you must log in to see this locked entry" page, despite the fact that i have been reading it in my RSS aggregator 2 seconds before...
my opinion is that LJ has gone downhill pretty dramatically since i left, and it's just a matter of time before it goes the way of SixDegrees... 8/