Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2013-08-18 05:08 pm
silveradept) wrote2013-08-18 05:08 pm
The newsiness never stops - 1 August - 17 August 02013
New month, new news. New Doctor, too.
Ah, and Area 51 officially exists now. Conspiracy theories undeterred, of course, but the Central Intelligence Agency does acknowledge it officially and without redaction.
Let's start with a gel that can replace a water shower, sold inexpensively, and which might be able to help with sanitary issues in developing countries.
Despite what the press hoped as as major shift in tone, the Bishop of Rome did not make any doctrinal changes to Catholicism's stance toward gay or lesbian people. "Who am I to judge?" is a refreshing position, and one more in line with the teachings, compared to Francis's predecessors, but it does not actually change much. And considering some of their more Protestant compatriots are reading the verses in very antisocial ways, there's still a long way to go for Christians as a whole to accept people they are commanded to accept.
Pennsylvania State University insists that all their employees meet arbitrary definitions of healthy or face a $100 USD penalty every month they fail.
Despite the fact that anti-sodomy statutes have been unconstitutional in the United States for ten years, East Baton Rouge deputies are regularly propositioning (for consensual private sex) and then arresting gay men under a "crimes against nature" law whose anti-sodomy section was invalidated in 2003. The Sheriff's Office insists that they are just enforcing the laws on the books in the state and that it's up to the courts to decide whether those laws apply. We are neither impressed not amused.
Things get worse in Russia, though, where violence is rampant and gay people are called the same name as pedophiles and almost 75 percent of people in the country believe gay people shouldn't exist in society.
On good news, The California state Supreme Court dismissed the latest challenge against the overturning of Proposition 8, ruling the federal order still applied statewide, even though the suit itself was not brought as a class action. Not that this will discourage the people who believe firmly that God mandates for all of us who we can and cannot enter into civil contracts with.
Parenting a possibly trans* person, done properly. Ware the comments, unless you like wading through concern trolling, trans* phobia, gender binary enforcement, and insistence that a child couldn't possibly know what pronouns he wants to be called at a young age.
The political reasons Republicans oppose the health care law - it gives the Democrats a giant advantage in elections. Even Newt Gingrich is telling the Republicans they have to have an alternative plan if they want to beat things like the Affordable Care Act.
Said party certainly isn't helping their case any by voting to blacklist NBC and CNN from moderating or hosting any Republican Party candidate debate for 2016, ostensibly because of a documentary featuring Hillary Clinton scheduled to air on both networks. In their place, the RNC thinks it would be a good idea to let the most venomous personalities of right-wing radio and television be the moderators instead. What could possibly go wrong?
Governor Christie of New Jersey vetoes a bill that would prohibit civilians from owning weapons originally marketed as excellent for bringing down jets and helicopters.
Finally, perspective often sucks, especially when perspective is telling you that you're still fighting the same fight from decades ago. And nowhere is that more apparent than North Carolina, where not only are precints being collapsed in heavily student and minority areas, new requirements put in place regarding acceptable identification intended to exclude students and minorities, but the local election board, handpicked by Republicans, has ruled that a student at a historically black college cannot run for city council because his collegiate address is not considered residency in the city. Oh, and since the requirements for voting are the same as running, he is getting his voting right challenged on the same ground. The entity responsible for this stunt thinks it will play well throughout the state, considering the makeup of most elections boards resemble the one in the experimental county. If only we had a federal law that required historically discriminatory places to run their voting law changes by the Justice Department...
In technology, A lock with a reprogrammable set of tumblers finds itself vulnerable to physical attacks. And our cars are increasingly hackable because we're giving them all sorts of wireless technologies. That is, when the recycling bins aren't collecting your smartphone data without telling you. (The company involved says they are only collecting aggregate data, but the city of London told them to stop anyway. One good hack would be enough to make it do much less aggregation and much more surveillance.)
Ah, did we also mention the National Security Agency violated the privacy of American citizens several thousand times last year, according to internal documents leaked by Snowden. I don't believe that even accounts for PRISM, either.
Speaking of privacy, Google doesn't believe it's violating privacy when all incoming email is processed so as to have targeted ads delivered with the mail. Google says it believes that the ad process is the same as processes like spam filtering or virus scanning, which happen routinely in email these days.
A school in the United Kingdom went to as much Linux on their desktops as they could. Once year on, it's still going well, although the learning curve was steep in figuring out how to get it to work correctly.
After more than six years of fighting with the IRS, a project to open-source voting software finally received its tax-exemption status.
In opinions, The dogmas of the progressive causes can be just as limiting as the dogmas of the conservatives. They do have the benefit, though, of not insisting that the world around them is wrong to criticize them for sheer ignorance. Usually.
Richard Dawkins is not a great person to be the face of atheism, based on his bigotry toward Muslims. And quite a few other blind spots involving women, too.
A letter explaining rape culture and how horribly triggering and consent-violating it is for a man to randomly hug and squeeze women at conventions without asking.
Last for tonight, you''re never too old to have toys or dolls.
Ah, and Area 51 officially exists now. Conspiracy theories undeterred, of course, but the Central Intelligence Agency does acknowledge it officially and without redaction.
Let's start with a gel that can replace a water shower, sold inexpensively, and which might be able to help with sanitary issues in developing countries.
Despite what the press hoped as as major shift in tone, the Bishop of Rome did not make any doctrinal changes to Catholicism's stance toward gay or lesbian people. "Who am I to judge?" is a refreshing position, and one more in line with the teachings, compared to Francis's predecessors, but it does not actually change much. And considering some of their more Protestant compatriots are reading the verses in very antisocial ways, there's still a long way to go for Christians as a whole to accept people they are commanded to accept.
Pennsylvania State University insists that all their employees meet arbitrary definitions of healthy or face a $100 USD penalty every month they fail.
Despite the fact that anti-sodomy statutes have been unconstitutional in the United States for ten years, East Baton Rouge deputies are regularly propositioning (for consensual private sex) and then arresting gay men under a "crimes against nature" law whose anti-sodomy section was invalidated in 2003. The Sheriff's Office insists that they are just enforcing the laws on the books in the state and that it's up to the courts to decide whether those laws apply. We are neither impressed not amused.
Things get worse in Russia, though, where violence is rampant and gay people are called the same name as pedophiles and almost 75 percent of people in the country believe gay people shouldn't exist in society.
On good news, The California state Supreme Court dismissed the latest challenge against the overturning of Proposition 8, ruling the federal order still applied statewide, even though the suit itself was not brought as a class action. Not that this will discourage the people who believe firmly that God mandates for all of us who we can and cannot enter into civil contracts with.
Parenting a possibly trans* person, done properly. Ware the comments, unless you like wading through concern trolling, trans* phobia, gender binary enforcement, and insistence that a child couldn't possibly know what pronouns he wants to be called at a young age.
The political reasons Republicans oppose the health care law - it gives the Democrats a giant advantage in elections. Even Newt Gingrich is telling the Republicans they have to have an alternative plan if they want to beat things like the Affordable Care Act.
Said party certainly isn't helping their case any by voting to blacklist NBC and CNN from moderating or hosting any Republican Party candidate debate for 2016, ostensibly because of a documentary featuring Hillary Clinton scheduled to air on both networks. In their place, the RNC thinks it would be a good idea to let the most venomous personalities of right-wing radio and television be the moderators instead. What could possibly go wrong?
Governor Christie of New Jersey vetoes a bill that would prohibit civilians from owning weapons originally marketed as excellent for bringing down jets and helicopters.
Finally, perspective often sucks, especially when perspective is telling you that you're still fighting the same fight from decades ago. And nowhere is that more apparent than North Carolina, where not only are precints being collapsed in heavily student and minority areas, new requirements put in place regarding acceptable identification intended to exclude students and minorities, but the local election board, handpicked by Republicans, has ruled that a student at a historically black college cannot run for city council because his collegiate address is not considered residency in the city. Oh, and since the requirements for voting are the same as running, he is getting his voting right challenged on the same ground. The entity responsible for this stunt thinks it will play well throughout the state, considering the makeup of most elections boards resemble the one in the experimental county. If only we had a federal law that required historically discriminatory places to run their voting law changes by the Justice Department...
In technology, A lock with a reprogrammable set of tumblers finds itself vulnerable to physical attacks. And our cars are increasingly hackable because we're giving them all sorts of wireless technologies. That is, when the recycling bins aren't collecting your smartphone data without telling you. (The company involved says they are only collecting aggregate data, but the city of London told them to stop anyway. One good hack would be enough to make it do much less aggregation and much more surveillance.)
Ah, did we also mention the National Security Agency violated the privacy of American citizens several thousand times last year, according to internal documents leaked by Snowden. I don't believe that even accounts for PRISM, either.
Speaking of privacy, Google doesn't believe it's violating privacy when all incoming email is processed so as to have targeted ads delivered with the mail. Google says it believes that the ad process is the same as processes like spam filtering or virus scanning, which happen routinely in email these days.
A school in the United Kingdom went to as much Linux on their desktops as they could. Once year on, it's still going well, although the learning curve was steep in figuring out how to get it to work correctly.
After more than six years of fighting with the IRS, a project to open-source voting software finally received its tax-exemption status.
In opinions, The dogmas of the progressive causes can be just as limiting as the dogmas of the conservatives. They do have the benefit, though, of not insisting that the world around them is wrong to criticize them for sheer ignorance. Usually.
Richard Dawkins is not a great person to be the face of atheism, based on his bigotry toward Muslims. And quite a few other blind spots involving women, too.
A letter explaining rape culture and how horribly triggering and consent-violating it is for a man to randomly hug and squeeze women at conventions without asking.
Last for tonight, you''re never too old to have toys or dolls.
no subject
Some weeks, your round-ups are the closest I get to interacting with world news.
♥
no subject
no subject
The one on progressive dogma is really good. Every side has a tendency to assume they have a monopoly on truth, IME.
Re: too old for toys, I would hope not. XD I may play differently with my models nowadays, but I love them every bit as much.
The bit about the lock is interesting. I wondered why someone wouldn't just restructure the lock around whatever key they want. The answer is: no reason. Sigh.
no subject
I still have to prefer progressive dogma, because it seems less likely to ignore reality in its quest to create its own truth.
I still play with toys and dolls - just professionally now instead of having to do it on my own time.
Sure, the combinations aren't easily doable, but why bother with the combination when you can go straight to the tumblers...
no subject
I won't argue with that. XD I tend to prefer it because it permits and encourages more people to act in accordance with their true selves, instead of stifling difference in the name of ease, which is a major anger trigger for me.
I still play with toys and dolls - just professionally now instead of having to do it on my own time.
That sounds awesome!
no subject
There are a few nice things about the profession, and one of them is definitely not having to put aside the things of childhood and focus solely on appearing like my job is always Srs Bzns.
no subject
OTOH, I think that separating church and state and keeping God out of politics is something that more liberal religious people would agree with and share the concern for. I don't really see a need to de-emphasize those in a progressive platform, as the article seems to claim... maybe just the way that they're emphasized needs to be approached carefully, so as to not step in xenophobia?
no subject
State secularism can still be successfully argued, but only from the perspective that when your faction is out of power, you really don't want the other guy's zealots to do to you what you'd like to do to them. This argument generally fails against people who believe in the Permanent Majority, because they can't conceive of the idea that they might ever be out of power. (For an example of reality intruding and the poor reactions to the same, note the behavior of conservative-aligned factions with regard to immigration, voting rights, and other privileges that a majority-minority society could theoretically use to oppress white people.)
What would likely be the best progressive fusion would be to advocate for state secularism on all matters regarding law, equality, and the privileges and rights of government (the position of the First Amendment) while co-opting the progressive elements of the shared faiths of the country (mostly Abrahamic, but not exclusively so) to drive a social agenda toward helping everyone live a comfortable life. The opposition has been able to successfully pair up the regressive elements of the religion to their desire to oppress and exploit people, so it's certainly due. Perhaps after the social safety net were correctly established and solidified, one could remove the religious scaffolding and be able to argue their merits empirically with observed data, but until then, progressive causes really have to piggyback on religious discourse and imagery.
At least, in my opinion, and only here for the United States.
no subject
Regarding trans people, my wife had a college dormmate who was a full herm, two complete sets of reproductive organs and massively screwed up hormones. Her father always used male pronouns referring to Beth, my wife always used female pronouns, it led to very confusing conversations when Beth's parents came to visit. Beth is now fully female after a trip or few to Europe for reassignment surgery and is apparently doing well, though she's legally blind from the hormone problems.