Back at the media grind - 24-25 May 02011
May. 26th, 2011 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptSince it is 25 May, an obligatory question - do you know where your towel is?
Up top - the courtroom setting of the Los Angeles United School District, the lawyers involved, and the dirty tricks being stooped to so that the district can dismiss as many librarians as it can.
Out in the world today, while not officially acknowledging he's there, China has repeatedly allowed North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to examine the methods in which China is blending state socialism with limited free-market zones, apparently in hopes that the North Korean leader will do the same and stabilize his country.
A leaked diplomatic cable indicates that Pakistan trains military officers with deeply anti-United States statements, which simply continues to highlight the frienemy relationship between the two countries...almost like politics in required schooling. Smiles and nods all around in public, but knives and daggers planted in backs with regularity. (Also, more serious consequences.)
NATO launched a severe airstrike against Tripoli, which reminds us that there is still a...something going on in Libya, with the rebellion still trying to unseat the dictator. Funny how things like that fall off the news radar...
Domestically, major storms in several states meant a lot of tornadoes, a lot of damage, and more deaths. If someone pissed off Mother Nature, I hope that we can appease her reasonably quickly before more tornadoes strike.
at least one paper ran the announcement of Tim Pawlenty for President in a section normally reserved for telling about those whose run at living has ended. Snarky editorial commentary or innocent coincidence? You decide. The keyboarders in conservative columns, however, are desperate for a candidate that has some sort of ability to deliver the lines and make people believe them, although, if given the choice between a dullard and a Democrat, they'll take the dullard every time. Since the keyboarders are convinced that the voting populace will repudiate President Obama, all the Republicans need is someone with the necessary charisma and experience to be seen as an actual leader. They can just run on the President's record and they'll be swept in with open arms. So where is this mysterious challenger? I doubt we'll see him (and I expect it to be a him) until the very end of this year.
The Supreme Court of the United States told the Defense Department that if they want to sue someone to recoup losses on a project that involves state secrets, they have ot disclose those secrets so the defense can prepare adequately. No fair claiming damages and then shortchanging the defense on what they need to dispute it.
A GOP representative laid out the Republican plan for Medicare - you're on your own. If you haven't planned in such a way so as to be able to take care of yourself and your family by the time you retire and your employer withdraws their health care, it sucks to be you.
The Defense Secretary cast shadows of an America that isn't the World Police, where the forces of THEM will fill the gaps, in trying to shore up enough funding to make sure the military gets everything it wants. Elsewhere, the commanders of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve are contemplating changes in their missions, possibly including longer stints of humanitarian work in other countries.
A review of stimulus spending indicated that several contractors with known amounts of taxes owed received stimulus money for their projects, some engineering it so that they received state grants and could bypass the federal government. For some Republicans, it's an avenue to rehash how awful a failure the stimulus spending was, that it went out to the undeserving, but for most of the people involved, it's seen as a wake-up to get the IRS out and collecting on those who owe taxes and aren't paying them.
Finally, conservatives worried about brown people taking over found a sympathetic judge to stop the renaming of a street in San Antonio to honor Cesar Chavez. Is this what it's going to look like across the country when the Caucasians that have been so comfortable as a majority for most of their existence suddenly realize they're at best a player that has to form a coalition to get majority support? Will we suddenly start seeing the return of some things we thought we were past, as the majority scrambles to hold on to whatever it thought it had in the first place? What happens when they decide to escalate past street renaming? When you can see problems developing along racial and class lines in organizations that are supposed to be about advancing causes for everyone in a particualr group, what happens when the blinders and the gloves come off and the choice is to embrace diversity in its entirety or be relegated to the status of minority yourself? Will our future return to our past?
In technology, Square is rolling out new technology to expand their ability to not only process credit card info with smartphones, but to also let consumers keep the equivalent of loyalty cards in thir own smartphones and to give the merchants even better data and tools to conduct transactions with.
The use of infrared cameras suggests the locations of several pieces of ancient Egyptian society that left no visible above-ground markers, bu ttha tmight be remarkably intact under our current ground.
The vaunted wisdom of the crowd turns into groupthink when you start showing people what other people think is the right answer to a question, and worse, tends toward the wrong answers.
Adam Savage, of the Mythbusters, demonstrates the principles of a Faraday cage in dance, while Tesla Coil instrumentation provides a familiar theme.
In opinions, I wonder if anyone notices when they say "The proof that I'm right is because everyone avoids me or only engages me on biased terms", they've basically stated that they should be avoided, because nothing is going to be able to convince them they might be objectively wrong?
The WSJ is amazed that Tim Pawlenty is on the record as being against ethanol subsidies, considering Iowa's presidential primary is the first on record, and they're all about maize. I think they're complimenting him for being Bold! - even though everyone else has already passed on him because he has no apparent charisma.
Mr. Brownfield revists an older position, claiming that President Obama should still be apologizing to the United States for not favoring Britain as more special than everyone else as an ally. Which ties in nicely with the commentary saying the President is abandoning Israel, the other really staunch ally of the United States, and That's Wrong. And not only is it wrong, it's the specter of Jimmy Carter, Liberal Mindset-in-Flesh, and Worst President Ever on the clear and present dangers of The Bloodthirsty Religion.
Heritage puts out a count of foiled terror plots, and some lessons they believe those plots impart to us. Some of them are sensible, like "Airport security as it is now in not effective", others, not so much, like "Renew USAPATRIOT because the only way to stop terrorist plots is to use supercharged police powers" or "Continue on this Bush-inspired path, because it works, and damn any sense of morals or rightness. the only thing that matters is that the terrorists are stopped." On the whole, though, it looks relatively sober and serious. It's kind of weird. Because when the columnist says that retreating from Afghanistan would be opening the door to terrorism and al-Qaeda, it's in the realm of hyperbolic-or-close-to-it, but the report also says that Afghanistan is an important part and not to retreat from it, either, which is increasingly looking like a losing position. Maybe it's because it's supposed to be an in-depth piece.
Dr. Owens believes that the U.S. Constitution has failed, because Progressives have successfully subverted the 9th and 10th Amendments and rendered them inoperable, paving the way for the federal government to do whatever it wants with no checks on its unlimited power. It is always the fault of the Progressives, of course, and not of any parties, that, say, want to extend the National Security apparatus so far that urination will be catalogued and monitored for signs of bio-terrorism. Or that would like to ensure that no woman have sex without getting pregnant and bringing the child to term. Or that asserted their right to hold people indefinitely without formal charges because they happened to be in the wrong plave at the wrong time. It's clearly all the Progressives' fault, with their social programs and desire to make sure that the rich cannot plunder everything and send it overseas. The only way back from the brink is to take away all the powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution and give them to the states.
Otherwise, of course, you allow dependency on government, which results in an ever-increasing amount of revenues stolen from John Galt to be given to the undeserving poor, who really aren't poor at all, because they have televisions, motor vehicles, mobile phones, and air conditiong, all obviously luxuries that the poor could go without, and the money used to feed their basic necessities, should the matter arise. The elderly are the richest people, so they don't need any help. Even in poor neighborhoods, people aren't stealing bread to feed their families, so they must be doing fine, and besides, they're all overweight anyway, so we can cut government subsidies to them without any ill effects at all. Just think of all the money we can save and send back to Mr. Galt, and all the politicians who will find their power over people broken as they are able to become self-sufficient and refuse the onrush of the welfare state.
Riiight. Air conditioning may be a luxury in Forks, Washington, where the temperature doesn't get all that high, but in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the middle of a desert, you die if you don't have air conditioning. Heat in Forks is a necessity, though, but I'll bet "government dependence" like heating assistance programs can clearly be cut in that columnist's world. Mobile phones are a necessity for someone who has to be available to pick up extra shifts, or actual work, on short notice. And how do they get there? Motor vehicles - many of them purchased for a small amount of money, knowing full well they're going to die completely in a bit and another vehicle will have to be bought. Want to apply for a job? Internet access is a necessity. Now, it's true that transport can be handled by, say, the bus, where the bus goes. The public library has Internet, but often in a regulated amount of time per day. And as for overweight poor people, go check the prices of liters of sugar and HFCS-filled soda versus the equivalent volume in milk. Observe the amount of time it takes to cook a preservative-laden unhealthy item in a microwave oven, versus the preparation time required to combine the fresh ingredients into the same meal. Assuming, of course, that one has the means to store those ingredients, too. Divide that income by the amount of members of the family being fed, and it quickly becomes apparent that the only way to ensure that everyone eats over the course of the week is to buy the cheapest crap possible. So, sure, they'll be free of government "dependence", and they will curse your name every single day of their lives for condemning them to a hell from which they are unlikely to escape. The kind that you've likely read about, and the kind that inspires the sharpening of the headsman's axe every time they hear "The poor are doing fine, because they have these necessities, and besides, they can afford to lose a few pounds anyway, can't they?"
At the end, some letters of note - one from Mr. Alan Rickman about the very end of his current career as Severus Snape and the journey that it's been working with all of the other cast, and one from Mr. Ken Kesey, responding to criticisms and defenses of a play adaptation of his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that described the adaptation as unrealistic. To the contrary, he says, the players have it down exactly.
Up top - the courtroom setting of the Los Angeles United School District, the lawyers involved, and the dirty tricks being stooped to so that the district can dismiss as many librarians as it can.
Out in the world today, while not officially acknowledging he's there, China has repeatedly allowed North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to examine the methods in which China is blending state socialism with limited free-market zones, apparently in hopes that the North Korean leader will do the same and stabilize his country.
A leaked diplomatic cable indicates that Pakistan trains military officers with deeply anti-United States statements, which simply continues to highlight the frienemy relationship between the two countries...almost like politics in required schooling. Smiles and nods all around in public, but knives and daggers planted in backs with regularity. (Also, more serious consequences.)
NATO launched a severe airstrike against Tripoli, which reminds us that there is still a...something going on in Libya, with the rebellion still trying to unseat the dictator. Funny how things like that fall off the news radar...
Domestically, major storms in several states meant a lot of tornadoes, a lot of damage, and more deaths. If someone pissed off Mother Nature, I hope that we can appease her reasonably quickly before more tornadoes strike.
at least one paper ran the announcement of Tim Pawlenty for President in a section normally reserved for telling about those whose run at living has ended. Snarky editorial commentary or innocent coincidence? You decide. The keyboarders in conservative columns, however, are desperate for a candidate that has some sort of ability to deliver the lines and make people believe them, although, if given the choice between a dullard and a Democrat, they'll take the dullard every time. Since the keyboarders are convinced that the voting populace will repudiate President Obama, all the Republicans need is someone with the necessary charisma and experience to be seen as an actual leader. They can just run on the President's record and they'll be swept in with open arms. So where is this mysterious challenger? I doubt we'll see him (and I expect it to be a him) until the very end of this year.
The Supreme Court of the United States told the Defense Department that if they want to sue someone to recoup losses on a project that involves state secrets, they have ot disclose those secrets so the defense can prepare adequately. No fair claiming damages and then shortchanging the defense on what they need to dispute it.
A GOP representative laid out the Republican plan for Medicare - you're on your own. If you haven't planned in such a way so as to be able to take care of yourself and your family by the time you retire and your employer withdraws their health care, it sucks to be you.
The Defense Secretary cast shadows of an America that isn't the World Police, where the forces of THEM will fill the gaps, in trying to shore up enough funding to make sure the military gets everything it wants. Elsewhere, the commanders of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve are contemplating changes in their missions, possibly including longer stints of humanitarian work in other countries.
A review of stimulus spending indicated that several contractors with known amounts of taxes owed received stimulus money for their projects, some engineering it so that they received state grants and could bypass the federal government. For some Republicans, it's an avenue to rehash how awful a failure the stimulus spending was, that it went out to the undeserving, but for most of the people involved, it's seen as a wake-up to get the IRS out and collecting on those who owe taxes and aren't paying them.
Finally, conservatives worried about brown people taking over found a sympathetic judge to stop the renaming of a street in San Antonio to honor Cesar Chavez. Is this what it's going to look like across the country when the Caucasians that have been so comfortable as a majority for most of their existence suddenly realize they're at best a player that has to form a coalition to get majority support? Will we suddenly start seeing the return of some things we thought we were past, as the majority scrambles to hold on to whatever it thought it had in the first place? What happens when they decide to escalate past street renaming? When you can see problems developing along racial and class lines in organizations that are supposed to be about advancing causes for everyone in a particualr group, what happens when the blinders and the gloves come off and the choice is to embrace diversity in its entirety or be relegated to the status of minority yourself? Will our future return to our past?
In technology, Square is rolling out new technology to expand their ability to not only process credit card info with smartphones, but to also let consumers keep the equivalent of loyalty cards in thir own smartphones and to give the merchants even better data and tools to conduct transactions with.
The use of infrared cameras suggests the locations of several pieces of ancient Egyptian society that left no visible above-ground markers, bu ttha tmight be remarkably intact under our current ground.
The vaunted wisdom of the crowd turns into groupthink when you start showing people what other people think is the right answer to a question, and worse, tends toward the wrong answers.
Adam Savage, of the Mythbusters, demonstrates the principles of a Faraday cage in dance, while Tesla Coil instrumentation provides a familiar theme.
In opinions, I wonder if anyone notices when they say "The proof that I'm right is because everyone avoids me or only engages me on biased terms", they've basically stated that they should be avoided, because nothing is going to be able to convince them they might be objectively wrong?
The WSJ is amazed that Tim Pawlenty is on the record as being against ethanol subsidies, considering Iowa's presidential primary is the first on record, and they're all about maize. I think they're complimenting him for being Bold! - even though everyone else has already passed on him because he has no apparent charisma.
Mr. Brownfield revists an older position, claiming that President Obama should still be apologizing to the United States for not favoring Britain as more special than everyone else as an ally. Which ties in nicely with the commentary saying the President is abandoning Israel, the other really staunch ally of the United States, and That's Wrong. And not only is it wrong, it's the specter of Jimmy Carter, Liberal Mindset-in-Flesh, and Worst President Ever on the clear and present dangers of The Bloodthirsty Religion.
Heritage puts out a count of foiled terror plots, and some lessons they believe those plots impart to us. Some of them are sensible, like "Airport security as it is now in not effective", others, not so much, like "Renew USAPATRIOT because the only way to stop terrorist plots is to use supercharged police powers" or "Continue on this Bush-inspired path, because it works, and damn any sense of morals or rightness. the only thing that matters is that the terrorists are stopped." On the whole, though, it looks relatively sober and serious. It's kind of weird. Because when the columnist says that retreating from Afghanistan would be opening the door to terrorism and al-Qaeda, it's in the realm of hyperbolic-or-close-to-it, but the report also says that Afghanistan is an important part and not to retreat from it, either, which is increasingly looking like a losing position. Maybe it's because it's supposed to be an in-depth piece.
Dr. Owens believes that the U.S. Constitution has failed, because Progressives have successfully subverted the 9th and 10th Amendments and rendered them inoperable, paving the way for the federal government to do whatever it wants with no checks on its unlimited power. It is always the fault of the Progressives, of course, and not of any parties, that, say, want to extend the National Security apparatus so far that urination will be catalogued and monitored for signs of bio-terrorism. Or that would like to ensure that no woman have sex without getting pregnant and bringing the child to term. Or that asserted their right to hold people indefinitely without formal charges because they happened to be in the wrong plave at the wrong time. It's clearly all the Progressives' fault, with their social programs and desire to make sure that the rich cannot plunder everything and send it overseas. The only way back from the brink is to take away all the powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution and give them to the states.
Otherwise, of course, you allow dependency on government, which results in an ever-increasing amount of revenues stolen from John Galt to be given to the undeserving poor, who really aren't poor at all, because they have televisions, motor vehicles, mobile phones, and air conditiong, all obviously luxuries that the poor could go without, and the money used to feed their basic necessities, should the matter arise. The elderly are the richest people, so they don't need any help. Even in poor neighborhoods, people aren't stealing bread to feed their families, so they must be doing fine, and besides, they're all overweight anyway, so we can cut government subsidies to them without any ill effects at all. Just think of all the money we can save and send back to Mr. Galt, and all the politicians who will find their power over people broken as they are able to become self-sufficient and refuse the onrush of the welfare state.
Riiight. Air conditioning may be a luxury in Forks, Washington, where the temperature doesn't get all that high, but in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the middle of a desert, you die if you don't have air conditioning. Heat in Forks is a necessity, though, but I'll bet "government dependence" like heating assistance programs can clearly be cut in that columnist's world. Mobile phones are a necessity for someone who has to be available to pick up extra shifts, or actual work, on short notice. And how do they get there? Motor vehicles - many of them purchased for a small amount of money, knowing full well they're going to die completely in a bit and another vehicle will have to be bought. Want to apply for a job? Internet access is a necessity. Now, it's true that transport can be handled by, say, the bus, where the bus goes. The public library has Internet, but often in a regulated amount of time per day. And as for overweight poor people, go check the prices of liters of sugar and HFCS-filled soda versus the equivalent volume in milk. Observe the amount of time it takes to cook a preservative-laden unhealthy item in a microwave oven, versus the preparation time required to combine the fresh ingredients into the same meal. Assuming, of course, that one has the means to store those ingredients, too. Divide that income by the amount of members of the family being fed, and it quickly becomes apparent that the only way to ensure that everyone eats over the course of the week is to buy the cheapest crap possible. So, sure, they'll be free of government "dependence", and they will curse your name every single day of their lives for condemning them to a hell from which they are unlikely to escape. The kind that you've likely read about, and the kind that inspires the sharpening of the headsman's axe every time they hear "The poor are doing fine, because they have these necessities, and besides, they can afford to lose a few pounds anyway, can't they?"
At the end, some letters of note - one from Mr. Alan Rickman about the very end of his current career as Severus Snape and the journey that it's been working with all of the other cast, and one from Mr. Ken Kesey, responding to criticisms and defenses of a play adaptation of his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that described the adaptation as unrealistic. To the contrary, he says, the players have it down exactly.
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