Jay Lake talks about the ideas that will sink a story. Not ideas that have the massive weight of suck in the same way the Higgs Boson transfers mass to matter, but ideas that are too transformative. I find these more often in SF than in F, but as Jay points out, there's plenty to go around.
There's new research showing that cancer tumors have cancerous stem cells. Good thing we halted all that stem cell research back with Bush II. Oh, wait a sec, we outlawed stem cell research so now only the outlaws have stem cells! Or, something like that. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
New news about American space launches. NASA has award some contracts and it looks like we may be launching humans into space earlier than scheduled. (Grokked from Shawn Powers)
Ever wonder what "survival of the fittest" actual means? "'Babe,' I said, 'we must follow the quest for knowledge wherever it leads us.'" SCIENCE! (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Why are progressive Christian voices irrelevant? Because the lunatics have taken control of the asylum. Because what those leaders were saying wasn't controversial, it wasn't framed as a "culture war", and what they're advocating for doesn't affect the rich. And those leaders are shepherds of their people, not attention seeking media sluts. Those would be my guesses.
About the Chik-Fil-A thing, "But none of that (the hard struggle for equality) effected me as much as coming out of my office yesterday and seeing a line stretching down the block of people waiting to get into Chick-Fil-A… People waiting with excitement and pride to show that they do not support equality. I suddenly felt like an alien in my own town, surrounded by people that i see everyday who jumped at the chance to show their evil side." I wonder if we'll come to view those chopper video images in the same we we now view the photo postcards of lynchings. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
"Verily, they hath understanding out the wazoo." Fred Clark's musing about the Tea Party and whether they're "far right" or "constitutional". These past few years have proved my initial skepticism about the Tea Party movement. Some people may have started within the party to hold to its ideal (and mythologized) roots. But as I could sit it was quickly hijacked by the social conservatives who don't really give a good goddamn about what the Tea Party was telling everybody it was about (lower spending, lower taxes). The interesting part is the conflation of "Tea Party" and "Evangelical" with "teavangelicals". It's been my experience that the Tea Party side knows as much of the Constitution as those types of Evangelicals know about the Bible.
"Who do they think they're fooling?… Mitt should have just said that Ann's horse is competing and the family is very excited and hopes he brings home the Gold for the USA. Jesus, how hard is it for this guy to be a human being?" This is a little beyond amateur hour. This is his campaign trying to reform Mitt into "Joe Six-Pack." He's not, and their attempts just make him look out of touch with his own life (let alone being able to relate to the rest of us). So, I wonder when his campaign will start talking about Teddy Roosevelt, who came is as a man of the rich and became one of the poor's strongest advocates. There's a template, there's a story. Too bad the conservatives have trashed Theodore Roosevelt's reputation. (Grokked from Jay lake)
"That's because, for the GOP, the truth died. Everything they say about health care is a lie." In this case, about Obamacare (I wonder when conservatives will start saying ACA?), "CBO and JCT estimate, repealing the ACA would increase federal budget deficits by $109 billion over the 2013–2022 period. Repealing the coverage provisions discussed in this report would save $1,171 billion over that period, but repealing the rest of the act would increase direct spending and reduce revenues by a total of $1,280 billion." I actually think that the truth (as compared to The Truth) has just become not relevant to the conservatives. Note how conservatives agreed to the sequestration, and now seem to want to say, "we weren't a part of that." See Friday's link to Sen. Sessions being "offended" by being shown conclusively that he is wrong. I could keep this up all day. Not that my side doesn't deny the reality of some things, but it's often a minority and fringe opinion that holds to that denial in the face of the facts being known. This isn't "spin", this isn't "turning it to look good" or anything. This is about constructing a false reality and refusing to work outside of the lies you've spun for yourself. Like how the intransigence of conservatives in Washington is dragging out economy right back to 2008. And the insistence by the presumptive nominee to go back to the failed conservative policies that got us into these mess. With what little we know of the Romney economic plan there's absolutely no way for him to balance the budget. So for the party shouting "end deficits", they have candidate with no plan to do so. And then there is the completely delusional meme of Obama being a Muslim that continues to grow in conservative circles. They killed irony in the last election. Now they're putting a stake in truth. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Alligator Quotient: All these alligators are worn out. I wonder if I can trade them in for all new ones?
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