More Stuff - 06-07 August 02011
Aug. 8th, 2011 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptUp at the very top, a memory of the use of nuclear weapons against another country. A use that may have happened after the target country had already repeatedly sued for peace and been refused by the United States President...which would make it a preventable atrocity. More generally on war, if you follow Christian ethics and morals, pay attention to the justifications given - most of the time, Just War is only War and has forgotten the Just part.
Spiraling forward into the current undeclared war of The Rich and The Corporations against The People, if one sees an organization called ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is involved, know that it is going to screw you over as much as possible. The Republican politicans that are the patsies and thoroughly-bought sycophants of this and other organizations believe themselves to be part of the elite that will escape when the United States becomes Galt's Paradise. Despite supposedly being elected by you, the people, to make your lives better. Austerity measures and attempts to make you believe the government is incompetent and wastes money frivoulously are the way to prevent tax increases or actual regulation of the private sector - which is just the way the Rich and The Corporations want it.
And then there's the Don't Be Evil front, where![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
denise points out that Real Name policies do not confer any of their promised benefits, and carry all of the negatives and more. So Google Plus/Minus is creating all sorts of havoc without any appreciable benefits to the user base.
The United States Army is lowering the length of deployment from 15 months to 9 and increasing the amount of guaranteed time at home between combat zone deployments. And maybe, just maybe, we'll stop the Two Land Wars in Asia, too?
Domestically, Republican Governor Christie says the fearmongering that Sharia will take over American law is crap, and he's tired of dealing with it. This is in response to accusations against a nominee of his for the bench that the Muslim judge would rule by Sharia. Unfortunately, Governor Christie appears to be in a minority, as many people who choose sense and logic in his party are.
After the manufactured crisis and the posturing, one of the major credit rating firms downgraded the credit rating of the United States anyway, which will hopefully be seen as the threat that stops further nonsense from happening again. The administration and government reacted to the news by saying the data was bad and the conclusions were worse.
In technology, a microfluidics test for HIV / syphilis - one drop of blood, fifteen minutes, one dollar (or so), and you know. If for no other reason than to be able cheaply test the populations where HIV is a pandemic. Now, if only the anti-retrovirals could be manufactured and distributed for that kind of cost.
In opinions, When someone cries "Think of the children", more often than not, it's not the children they have in mind.
Mr. Tapson lets his own prejudices cloud him, while also assuming that because someone else can see an upcoming movie as an allegory for recent events, it must have been intended that way. I don't think there's anything in that column that doesn't have the tinge of "Because it's Someone I Don't Like, it must be made in such a way as to be Everything I Don't Like."
Mr. Rove not only praises Republican brinksmanship on the debt ceiling, but indicates that the manufactured crisis was necessary for the Republicans to get their way and that he thinks the GOP will do better in the next election because they did things this way. I suspect if there were a button simply marked "Throw the Bums Out", that would win by a long shot. It might be because the prominent voices all seem to be demanding that spending is the only place that anyone should look to take care of the debt, because Taxes Are Bad.
Mr. Greenfield writes off Afghanistan as a forever-backward tribal country made even worse by the violence and misogyny that Islam layers on top of it, because Islam is the Evil, Bloodthirsty Religion. So, bring the troops home, apparently, and leave the barbarians to themselves. One almost wishes they were this cynical and dismissive at the outset so that the war didn't happen, rather than deciding this nearly ten years afterward. Not that the insult is warranted, but it would have at least kept the troops out.
Finally, Ms. Andersen says the federal government should not interfere with Alabama's immigration laws, because immigrants need to be properly indoctrinated in the conservative version of American history and culture before they should be allowed into the country, and thus harsh laws to keep the undocumented out are the way to ensure everyone gets their proper jingoism before coming in.
Last for today, The first woman 10th degree black belt in judo, Sensei Keiko Fukuda, achieving the highest degree possible in judo.
Spiraling forward into the current undeclared war of The Rich and The Corporations against The People, if one sees an organization called ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is involved, know that it is going to screw you over as much as possible. The Republican politicans that are the patsies and thoroughly-bought sycophants of this and other organizations believe themselves to be part of the elite that will escape when the United States becomes Galt's Paradise. Despite supposedly being elected by you, the people, to make your lives better. Austerity measures and attempts to make you believe the government is incompetent and wastes money frivoulously are the way to prevent tax increases or actual regulation of the private sector - which is just the way the Rich and The Corporations want it.
And then there's the Don't Be Evil front, where
denise points out that Real Name policies do not confer any of their promised benefits, and carry all of the negatives and more. So Google Plus/Minus is creating all sorts of havoc without any appreciable benefits to the user base.The United States Army is lowering the length of deployment from 15 months to 9 and increasing the amount of guaranteed time at home between combat zone deployments. And maybe, just maybe, we'll stop the Two Land Wars in Asia, too?
Domestically, Republican Governor Christie says the fearmongering that Sharia will take over American law is crap, and he's tired of dealing with it. This is in response to accusations against a nominee of his for the bench that the Muslim judge would rule by Sharia. Unfortunately, Governor Christie appears to be in a minority, as many people who choose sense and logic in his party are.
After the manufactured crisis and the posturing, one of the major credit rating firms downgraded the credit rating of the United States anyway, which will hopefully be seen as the threat that stops further nonsense from happening again. The administration and government reacted to the news by saying the data was bad and the conclusions were worse.
In technology, a microfluidics test for HIV / syphilis - one drop of blood, fifteen minutes, one dollar (or so), and you know. If for no other reason than to be able cheaply test the populations where HIV is a pandemic. Now, if only the anti-retrovirals could be manufactured and distributed for that kind of cost.
In opinions, When someone cries "Think of the children", more often than not, it's not the children they have in mind.
Mr. Tapson lets his own prejudices cloud him, while also assuming that because someone else can see an upcoming movie as an allegory for recent events, it must have been intended that way. I don't think there's anything in that column that doesn't have the tinge of "Because it's Someone I Don't Like, it must be made in such a way as to be Everything I Don't Like."
Mr. Rove not only praises Republican brinksmanship on the debt ceiling, but indicates that the manufactured crisis was necessary for the Republicans to get their way and that he thinks the GOP will do better in the next election because they did things this way. I suspect if there were a button simply marked "Throw the Bums Out", that would win by a long shot. It might be because the prominent voices all seem to be demanding that spending is the only place that anyone should look to take care of the debt, because Taxes Are Bad.
Mr. Greenfield writes off Afghanistan as a forever-backward tribal country made even worse by the violence and misogyny that Islam layers on top of it, because Islam is the Evil, Bloodthirsty Religion. So, bring the troops home, apparently, and leave the barbarians to themselves. One almost wishes they were this cynical and dismissive at the outset so that the war didn't happen, rather than deciding this nearly ten years afterward. Not that the insult is warranted, but it would have at least kept the troops out.
Finally, Ms. Andersen says the federal government should not interfere with Alabama's immigration laws, because immigrants need to be properly indoctrinated in the conservative version of American history and culture before they should be allowed into the country, and thus harsh laws to keep the undocumented out are the way to ensure everyone gets their proper jingoism before coming in.
Last for today, The first woman 10th degree black belt in judo, Sensei Keiko Fukuda, achieving the highest degree possible in judo.
