News and other stupid stuff
Jan. 9th, 2004 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsFirst, the scary news: A man in Texas has been arrested for possession of 65 pipe bombs and remotely detonated explosives, along with 800 grams of pure sodium cyanide and dispersal agents, and 500,000 rounds of ammunition. The tipster who turned him in claimed he was only "collecting" these things.
If the man had had a name like Jamal or Mohammed, you can bet this would have been front page news. But no, he's a bigoted white-supremacist who doesn't fit the BushCo script for "what is a terrorist," so he's being quietly swept under the rug.
Well, here's a fun one. A court in Nashville, TN, has ordered a man that, in order to comply with his child visitation agreement, he may not be gay in front of his child. I'm not sure how one does that. Reading among the lines, the court is definitely relying on the canard that being gay is a choice, that the dad chose to be gay, that this was an inherently immoral decision, and that immoral acts should not be visited upon children.
A part time judge in the small town of Hunter Village, NY, has resigned after telling a woman that domestic violence cases are a waste of the court's time and that women asked to get "smacked around" now and then.
Timothy Durmouchel is an unhappy man. His wife has gained 50 pounds in the past four years, and he's no lean and mean machine himself anymore. Even his kids are pudgy. So what does he do?
He sues the cable company. That's right. He claims that television is so compellingly addictive that he couldn't stop watching it, and neither could his family.
Back in March, the U.S. Treasury Department solicited comments from the public regarding whether or not the federal tax on malt liquors should be raised. They did so declaring that the comments would be made public, but personal information such as e-mail addresses, home addresses, and phone numbers would be cleared before they did so.
They lied. The volume of letters was so great, they claim, that they could not hold to their promise and "keep the public informed in a timely manner" regarding the content of the letters.
Aren't there automated scripts to handle 99.9% of this crap?
And now one near and dear to my heart: The International Network for Cultural Policy is soon going to put forth a treaty stating that "cultural goods and services" are distinct from ordinary goods and services and should be exempt from free trade agreements. This is nothing more than protectionism. The list of things that can be made "cultural good and services" is endless: Italian wines, French cheese, Swiss chocolate.
But what this really amounts to is protection for local entertainment markets. American movies and music will be subject to outrageous taxation to defend "local cultural expression," and if the treaty goes through there won't be a damned thing we can do about it.
If the man had had a name like Jamal or Mohammed, you can bet this would have been front page news. But no, he's a bigoted white-supremacist who doesn't fit the BushCo script for "what is a terrorist," so he's being quietly swept under the rug.
Well, here's a fun one. A court in Nashville, TN, has ordered a man that, in order to comply with his child visitation agreement, he may not be gay in front of his child. I'm not sure how one does that. Reading among the lines, the court is definitely relying on the canard that being gay is a choice, that the dad chose to be gay, that this was an inherently immoral decision, and that immoral acts should not be visited upon children.
A part time judge in the small town of Hunter Village, NY, has resigned after telling a woman that domestic violence cases are a waste of the court's time and that women asked to get "smacked around" now and then.
Timothy Durmouchel is an unhappy man. His wife has gained 50 pounds in the past four years, and he's no lean and mean machine himself anymore. Even his kids are pudgy. So what does he do?
He sues the cable company. That's right. He claims that television is so compellingly addictive that he couldn't stop watching it, and neither could his family.
Back in March, the U.S. Treasury Department solicited comments from the public regarding whether or not the federal tax on malt liquors should be raised. They did so declaring that the comments would be made public, but personal information such as e-mail addresses, home addresses, and phone numbers would be cleared before they did so.
They lied. The volume of letters was so great, they claim, that they could not hold to their promise and "keep the public informed in a timely manner" regarding the content of the letters.
Aren't there automated scripts to handle 99.9% of this crap?
And now one near and dear to my heart: The International Network for Cultural Policy is soon going to put forth a treaty stating that "cultural goods and services" are distinct from ordinary goods and services and should be exempt from free trade agreements. This is nothing more than protectionism. The list of things that can be made "cultural good and services" is endless: Italian wines, French cheese, Swiss chocolate.
But what this really amounts to is protection for local entertainment markets. American movies and music will be subject to outrageous taxation to defend "local cultural expression," and if the treaty goes through there won't be a damned thing we can do about it.
