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silveradeptHello, hello. Welcome once again to our publication, delayed significantly thanks to windstorms dislodging electrical transmission lines in the area, where we look at an interesting piece advocating for the use of real names attached to articles, questions, and suggestions where it wouldn't end up with firing, career stagnation, or where the name and title of the person would interfere with the article or idea being taken on its own merits.
The Dead Pool welcomes Mr. Theodore Kheel, negotiator and arbitrator of note, at 96 years of age.
The Assistant Attorney General of Michigan who targeted a gay teenager and then did actions "unbecoming a state employee" against him has been fired. After being initially defended by his boss on his anti-gay speech, he was subsequently sacked after it came to light that he used his position and work time to further that agenda. For those who would like to work somewhere friendlier, an infographic here compares the top 100 of the Fortune 500 list on their friendliness to QUILTBAG employees and their partners. Elsewhere, the Supreme Court overturned a stay order issued on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law while the government appeals the order to overturn the law.
Additionally, if you are, say, Alan West, taking heat for hiring a radio host that has openly advocated for guns to be used if conservatives don't get their way, playing the race and sexism cards aren't going to work. For one thing, what she said is on the record and on tape, for another, where's your proof that people said racist and sexist things about her? At least Sarah Palin could point to stupid stuff being said about her.
When writing or drawing particulr characters, there are certain tests that should be followed. One of them, asmegwrites elaborates, is the costume test - when designing clothing for your character, give a thought to actual practicality. No, really. If you choose instead, to follow the Stripperific trope without subversion, expect to be point-laughed at by those people that know what practical costuming means and snarled at by those people who will accuse you of playing to the Male Gaze. (You might also receive fan mail about your fap material from those who like that male gaze.)
Finally, on the need to ask the right questions about religion, which is not "Is there a God", but how should I live my life, and what obligations and responsibilites do I have to others, in past, present, and future, for example. On those subjects, fundamentalists and militants advocating for any philosophy in an imperialist, surrender-your-culture-to-mine way are doing it entirely wrong. Wouldn't it be better to evaluate precepts on their own terms and whether they've produced good or evil for their followers by being followed? Surely we can find room in our religions for people who produce good in their lives by following the teachings, even if they don't follow the forms all the way down to the letter? The Christianity that most people profess has the main prophet doing precisely that and holding it up as a model to be emulated. Besides, the codex that people think of as infallible is provably compiled from different sources and says different things about the same situations. One would think that such things would have been ironed out if consistency were what was being aimed for. Perhaps, instead, the message is to take the message and use it?
Out in the world today, the ruins of Pompeii are becoming significantly more ruined, as neglect and inadequate preservation funding are taking their toll. One hopes that a similar fate does not befall the newly unearthed sphinxes in Luxor, Egypt.
Egypt, spurred on by media and sectarian groups, is being set up for a major Muslim-Chrisitan fault line begging for an explosive touchpoint.
Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, as the President of the country wants the United States be less visible in their operations.
With noises like the possibility of China's purchasing power eclipsing the United States, commentary wondering if the U.S. superpower is beginning to set in the west, and calls for the United States to return to manufacturing and production for itself, instead of trying to capture more foreign-made goods, the refusal of the G-20 to assist the United States in pressuring China to revalue their currency upwards is probably going to have some interesting consequences.
Domestically, Barack Obama at least made noises that he was against the rampant lawlessness of the last administration, before demonstraing that he wanted to keep those powers and expand upon them. This is one of those places where the argument that liberals were projecting themselves onto Barack Obama holds water and weight (and water weight is nothing to be sneezed at). Despite that, he continues to get the same kind of pass that the previous administrator often got when defending his decision to be lawless. Said previous administrator is secure enough in his work that he mentions it in his memoir, and commentators can probably routinely mention that the United States pretends to live under the rule of its laws. Although, depending on whether or not bills like COICA pass, it could be that commenting on such things simply means you get censored by the government (well, by the ISPs the government has threatened to bully them into compliance, assuming they haven't been willingly participating the whole way...) and then you have to wonder about whether the rocket launcher solution is the only solution.
The continued new things in the TSA security line have resulted in a call to opt out of the backscatter scanners and the enhanced pat-downs on the 24th of Novermber, generally considered one of the busiest flying travel days in the United States, and the calls and threats to stop flying have gotten the attention of the Homeland Security Director. In favor of the need to stop assaulting passengers, a man refused the enhanced pat-down and was ejected from the airport, as others passed through the standard metal detector without being subjected to the "groin check". He captured the audio with his cell phone, and from the sounds of all the people who came through, the reaction to a citizen asserting that he doesn't need to have his genitals fondled for the TSA to do their job was intimidation, assertion that he had no right to challenge them, and more intimidation. While others apparently didn't trip the need for extra searching. Inconsistency makes nobody happy, so there needs to be some decisions made about whether the TSA really does want to apply the "groin check" to everyone who refuses to be photographed naked. And whether it's really wise to use their wands and check the turbans of Sikhs.
Really, though, when the head of the pilots' union says the TSA is going too far and recommends all pilots opt-out and have their pat-down done in a private area, they're well past the line.
Bank of America may be round two of Too Big To Fail, according to Alternet and people trying to figure out what numbers, if any, of Bank of America's to believe. That seems like a bigger thing to be tackled in the upcoming months, but it seems instead that our incoming power-brokers will want to focus more on making sure that the right figures are used in the impending trial of NPR. One can only hope that they are more fair to them than they were to ACORN...and we're also hoping that the now-twice-wrong propagandist and his thoroughly-discredited partner, Breitbart, don't produce another video supposedly concluding what the Republicans want to hear, because watching something like that happen a third time would be enough to insist that a sanity test be administered to all members of Congress immediately.
Oh, and that oil spill we were talking about some time ago - It's not over. Coastal residents claim they're being sickened by the chemical dispersants, some oil components entered the food web of the coastal area, which, while supposedly not harmful to the food web, does make you wonder where the rest of it went... and if we really want to talk oil, at least one official says we've hit the peak point and are on the slide downward.
All of these things move people to declare that the time for revolution is now, to stop the takeover and decline into corporate power before it becomes absolute. That extra edge might be applied by the consistent ability of corporatists to get the religious right to vote for their policies, with indications that they've pretty well perfected it showing up in the last election.
Mr. Emanuel cements his run for mayor of Chicago by announcing his official candidacy.
Finally, the Mayor of San Francsico vetoed the recently-passed regulatory scheme that would require meals served with toys to meet minimum nutrition standards, claiming it was governemntal overreach. He may be overridden by the city Board of Supervisors, who originally passed the plan. Perhaps they will also present research indicating chemicals used to greaseproof paper products showing up in the food they were wrapped around.
Oh, and one other thing - Oklahoma' "No furrners allowed in our courts" ballot initiative may have also prevented First Nation tribal law from being considered in those courts. That could have very immediate and negative consequences.
Into technology, a Geminoid F robot is being used as an actor in a play, which Time seems to think is all weird, when as anyone knows, robots have been used in film for years now. What exactly did you think "animatronics" were?
Science may have found a way of rapidly developing stem cell technology and knowledge - by using it to replace breast tissue. Since mammaries do not usually run the risk of the patient dying if the stem cell regenerative therapy doesn't take, lots of therapies and knowledge could be developed and then applied to those places where it does matter.
Last out, How Lightning Works, a good read and caption for the following video, which captures a lightning discharge at 300x slower than the normal split-second timing.
Into opinions, where we have a simple, yet effective solution for how to fix the debt and deficit problem: Cure diabetes. Make a serious investment now in curing diabetes, with serious money now, and then reap the rewards later on as people who would have had diabetes end up not draining Medicare and Medicaid with their expensive treatments, allowing both programs to be financially stable and to stop adding to the debt - plus all the fringe benefits and profits rolling in from all the technology developed to try and cure diabetes, which could provide revenue that can be used to pay off that deficit spending. On the other side, Mr. Carrol simply recommends all states drop out of Medicaid to avoid federal mandates destroyign their budgets. Not exactly providing a solution to all those people that are still going to be sick and poor, there, are we?
Mr. Will is unimpressed with the Chevrolet Volt, calling it meddling by the government and saying that all the incentives accompanying it are merely bribes, as well as the car not actually being all that useful.
Mr. Moran takes objections from the G-20 nations about the Federal Reserve decision to inject more money into the money supply and says it's entirely the fault of Barack Obama, who has not managed to magically resurrect the economy and the workforce in two short years from the crash that preceded his entry into office that was at least four times as long in the making. At least the WSJ does a better job of it, saying that the world is on their way to recovery and thus doesn't want to let the United States do things that would hurt them. They still blame Obama policies for why the economy hasn't recovered in two years, but they're doing it better.
Similarly, Mr. Brown continues to harp on the mockery of the United Nations Human Rights Council, where violators sit and praise other violators and disparage the United States and Israel for their own violations, adopting the argument that the body couldn't possibly have any authority on what it was talking about because its members have a skewed point of view. Which nicely allows him to dismiss the idea that the United States commits human rights violations, because there isn't a credible source in that particular body. Despite the clear evidence that the United States has and continues to commit human rights violations. It's a slick trick, but a bad one to employ.
Mr. Trzupek sees the resurgence of the police state in the Russian Federation, with the likely outcome that journalists attempting to tell the truth about the country around them will end up beaten or dead, with courts and police looking the other way. Elsewhere, Ms. Wente says that humanitarian aid to African zones in crisis often ends up hurting the people it is supposed to help by allowing rebels to continue feeding themselves and fighting.
Mr. Root says that liberals cannot be both for and against federalism when it suits them, and that they must either believe the federal government should have all powers or stop attacking other people who promote the idea that the feds do not have all powers, even when those promotions happen against the liberal policy orthodoxy.
Not that it's too soon to start thinking about campaigning, but already the speculations begin as to who may be challenging President Obama for his election in 2012.
And last out of opinions, Mr. Bosco says that moderate Muslims must do more to be unequivocally and vocally against the violent extremists, or he's going to believe they might support them somewhere in their hearts. It's a canard - "You must do more to denounce your extremists!" "So how much is enough?" "When we say it's enough! When you believe as we do! And even then, you'll need more!"
Last out for tonight, why just adding points and achievements to mundane activities won't replicate the experiences of a game, because games require choices to be meaningful, and they also present the possibility of failing conditions to be overcome.
As a postscript, A letter from one Mr. Marx about the fantastic time he had at and after a theater premiere.
The Dead Pool welcomes Mr. Theodore Kheel, negotiator and arbitrator of note, at 96 years of age.
The Assistant Attorney General of Michigan who targeted a gay teenager and then did actions "unbecoming a state employee" against him has been fired. After being initially defended by his boss on his anti-gay speech, he was subsequently sacked after it came to light that he used his position and work time to further that agenda. For those who would like to work somewhere friendlier, an infographic here compares the top 100 of the Fortune 500 list on their friendliness to QUILTBAG employees and their partners. Elsewhere, the Supreme Court overturned a stay order issued on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law while the government appeals the order to overturn the law.
Additionally, if you are, say, Alan West, taking heat for hiring a radio host that has openly advocated for guns to be used if conservatives don't get their way, playing the race and sexism cards aren't going to work. For one thing, what she said is on the record and on tape, for another, where's your proof that people said racist and sexist things about her? At least Sarah Palin could point to stupid stuff being said about her.
When writing or drawing particulr characters, there are certain tests that should be followed. One of them, as
megwrites elaborates, is the costume test - when designing clothing for your character, give a thought to actual practicality. No, really. If you choose instead, to follow the Stripperific trope without subversion, expect to be point-laughed at by those people that know what practical costuming means and snarled at by those people who will accuse you of playing to the Male Gaze. (You might also receive fan mail about your fap material from those who like that male gaze.)Finally, on the need to ask the right questions about religion, which is not "Is there a God", but how should I live my life, and what obligations and responsibilites do I have to others, in past, present, and future, for example. On those subjects, fundamentalists and militants advocating for any philosophy in an imperialist, surrender-your-culture-to-mine way are doing it entirely wrong. Wouldn't it be better to evaluate precepts on their own terms and whether they've produced good or evil for their followers by being followed? Surely we can find room in our religions for people who produce good in their lives by following the teachings, even if they don't follow the forms all the way down to the letter? The Christianity that most people profess has the main prophet doing precisely that and holding it up as a model to be emulated. Besides, the codex that people think of as infallible is provably compiled from different sources and says different things about the same situations. One would think that such things would have been ironed out if consistency were what was being aimed for. Perhaps, instead, the message is to take the message and use it?
Out in the world today, the ruins of Pompeii are becoming significantly more ruined, as neglect and inadequate preservation funding are taking their toll. One hopes that a similar fate does not befall the newly unearthed sphinxes in Luxor, Egypt.
Egypt, spurred on by media and sectarian groups, is being set up for a major Muslim-Chrisitan fault line begging for an explosive touchpoint.
Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, as the President of the country wants the United States be less visible in their operations.
With noises like the possibility of China's purchasing power eclipsing the United States, commentary wondering if the U.S. superpower is beginning to set in the west, and calls for the United States to return to manufacturing and production for itself, instead of trying to capture more foreign-made goods, the refusal of the G-20 to assist the United States in pressuring China to revalue their currency upwards is probably going to have some interesting consequences.
Domestically, Barack Obama at least made noises that he was against the rampant lawlessness of the last administration, before demonstraing that he wanted to keep those powers and expand upon them. This is one of those places where the argument that liberals were projecting themselves onto Barack Obama holds water and weight (and water weight is nothing to be sneezed at). Despite that, he continues to get the same kind of pass that the previous administrator often got when defending his decision to be lawless. Said previous administrator is secure enough in his work that he mentions it in his memoir, and commentators can probably routinely mention that the United States pretends to live under the rule of its laws. Although, depending on whether or not bills like COICA pass, it could be that commenting on such things simply means you get censored by the government (well, by the ISPs the government has threatened to bully them into compliance, assuming they haven't been willingly participating the whole way...) and then you have to wonder about whether the rocket launcher solution is the only solution.
The continued new things in the TSA security line have resulted in a call to opt out of the backscatter scanners and the enhanced pat-downs on the 24th of Novermber, generally considered one of the busiest flying travel days in the United States, and the calls and threats to stop flying have gotten the attention of the Homeland Security Director. In favor of the need to stop assaulting passengers, a man refused the enhanced pat-down and was ejected from the airport, as others passed through the standard metal detector without being subjected to the "groin check". He captured the audio with his cell phone, and from the sounds of all the people who came through, the reaction to a citizen asserting that he doesn't need to have his genitals fondled for the TSA to do their job was intimidation, assertion that he had no right to challenge them, and more intimidation. While others apparently didn't trip the need for extra searching. Inconsistency makes nobody happy, so there needs to be some decisions made about whether the TSA really does want to apply the "groin check" to everyone who refuses to be photographed naked. And whether it's really wise to use their wands and check the turbans of Sikhs.
Really, though, when the head of the pilots' union says the TSA is going too far and recommends all pilots opt-out and have their pat-down done in a private area, they're well past the line.
Bank of America may be round two of Too Big To Fail, according to Alternet and people trying to figure out what numbers, if any, of Bank of America's to believe. That seems like a bigger thing to be tackled in the upcoming months, but it seems instead that our incoming power-brokers will want to focus more on making sure that the right figures are used in the impending trial of NPR. One can only hope that they are more fair to them than they were to ACORN...and we're also hoping that the now-twice-wrong propagandist and his thoroughly-discredited partner, Breitbart, don't produce another video supposedly concluding what the Republicans want to hear, because watching something like that happen a third time would be enough to insist that a sanity test be administered to all members of Congress immediately.
Oh, and that oil spill we were talking about some time ago - It's not over. Coastal residents claim they're being sickened by the chemical dispersants, some oil components entered the food web of the coastal area, which, while supposedly not harmful to the food web, does make you wonder where the rest of it went... and if we really want to talk oil, at least one official says we've hit the peak point and are on the slide downward.
All of these things move people to declare that the time for revolution is now, to stop the takeover and decline into corporate power before it becomes absolute. That extra edge might be applied by the consistent ability of corporatists to get the religious right to vote for their policies, with indications that they've pretty well perfected it showing up in the last election.
Mr. Emanuel cements his run for mayor of Chicago by announcing his official candidacy.
Finally, the Mayor of San Francsico vetoed the recently-passed regulatory scheme that would require meals served with toys to meet minimum nutrition standards, claiming it was governemntal overreach. He may be overridden by the city Board of Supervisors, who originally passed the plan. Perhaps they will also present research indicating chemicals used to greaseproof paper products showing up in the food they were wrapped around.
Oh, and one other thing - Oklahoma' "No furrners allowed in our courts" ballot initiative may have also prevented First Nation tribal law from being considered in those courts. That could have very immediate and negative consequences.
Into technology, a Geminoid F robot is being used as an actor in a play, which Time seems to think is all weird, when as anyone knows, robots have been used in film for years now. What exactly did you think "animatronics" were?
Science may have found a way of rapidly developing stem cell technology and knowledge - by using it to replace breast tissue. Since mammaries do not usually run the risk of the patient dying if the stem cell regenerative therapy doesn't take, lots of therapies and knowledge could be developed and then applied to those places where it does matter.
Last out, How Lightning Works, a good read and caption for the following video, which captures a lightning discharge at 300x slower than the normal split-second timing.
Into opinions, where we have a simple, yet effective solution for how to fix the debt and deficit problem: Cure diabetes. Make a serious investment now in curing diabetes, with serious money now, and then reap the rewards later on as people who would have had diabetes end up not draining Medicare and Medicaid with their expensive treatments, allowing both programs to be financially stable and to stop adding to the debt - plus all the fringe benefits and profits rolling in from all the technology developed to try and cure diabetes, which could provide revenue that can be used to pay off that deficit spending. On the other side, Mr. Carrol simply recommends all states drop out of Medicaid to avoid federal mandates destroyign their budgets. Not exactly providing a solution to all those people that are still going to be sick and poor, there, are we?
Mr. Will is unimpressed with the Chevrolet Volt, calling it meddling by the government and saying that all the incentives accompanying it are merely bribes, as well as the car not actually being all that useful.
Mr. Moran takes objections from the G-20 nations about the Federal Reserve decision to inject more money into the money supply and says it's entirely the fault of Barack Obama, who has not managed to magically resurrect the economy and the workforce in two short years from the crash that preceded his entry into office that was at least four times as long in the making. At least the WSJ does a better job of it, saying that the world is on their way to recovery and thus doesn't want to let the United States do things that would hurt them. They still blame Obama policies for why the economy hasn't recovered in two years, but they're doing it better.
Similarly, Mr. Brown continues to harp on the mockery of the United Nations Human Rights Council, where violators sit and praise other violators and disparage the United States and Israel for their own violations, adopting the argument that the body couldn't possibly have any authority on what it was talking about because its members have a skewed point of view. Which nicely allows him to dismiss the idea that the United States commits human rights violations, because there isn't a credible source in that particular body. Despite the clear evidence that the United States has and continues to commit human rights violations. It's a slick trick, but a bad one to employ.
Mr. Trzupek sees the resurgence of the police state in the Russian Federation, with the likely outcome that journalists attempting to tell the truth about the country around them will end up beaten or dead, with courts and police looking the other way. Elsewhere, Ms. Wente says that humanitarian aid to African zones in crisis often ends up hurting the people it is supposed to help by allowing rebels to continue feeding themselves and fighting.
Mr. Root says that liberals cannot be both for and against federalism when it suits them, and that they must either believe the federal government should have all powers or stop attacking other people who promote the idea that the feds do not have all powers, even when those promotions happen against the liberal policy orthodoxy.
Not that it's too soon to start thinking about campaigning, but already the speculations begin as to who may be challenging President Obama for his election in 2012.
And last out of opinions, Mr. Bosco says that moderate Muslims must do more to be unequivocally and vocally against the violent extremists, or he's going to believe they might support them somewhere in their hearts. It's a canard - "You must do more to denounce your extremists!" "So how much is enough?" "When we say it's enough! When you believe as we do! And even then, you'll need more!"
Last out for tonight, why just adding points and achievements to mundane activities won't replicate the experiences of a game, because games require choices to be meaningful, and they also present the possibility of failing conditions to be overcome.
As a postscript, A letter from one Mr. Marx about the fantastic time he had at and after a theater premiere.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 01:54 am (UTC)Although, if pressured on that point, he might state something to the effect of "the fact that it's a pseudonym means that it can be abandoned at whatever point the author wants to, if, after having a good track record, they say something that gets the ire of the Internet raised against them" (the flounce defense) and/or "even if persistent, there's no guarantee that the pseudonymous writer actually believes anything that they're saying" (the Colbert defense).
It's not a great argument by any standards, (why, precisely, would I abandon a pseudonym that I've spent time and effort on and that has amassed some amount of following/capital/"cred", again?) but it would be consistent.