News, some good, some bad.
Sep. 29th, 2004 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsWell, the good news today is that SpaceShipOne successfully completed its mission. I just shut down the feed from NASA TV after watching the little craft come in for a perfect landing. I'm hearing that there were some scary moments at the top of the ride, but if the pilot keeps his head on he's got a lot of time to get the ship back under control. It is, after all, 100km to the bottom.
Baldrick on the worst jobs in history. The actor who played Baldrick on the old BBC series Black Adder now has his own little series. Number one worst job: Master of the King's Stool. You work it out.
"Your rage is useless in a capitalist culture. It will merely be packaged and sold back to you. As entertainment." I said that once to some ranting lefty, and it seems that I was right. The book Why Culture Can't be Jammed works through the thesis that capitalism can embrace progressivism and sell it back to the progressives. There is some criticism that the authors never really engage in a distinction between "progressivism" and "counterculturalism" which I perceive as legitimate, but I don't really see an effective progressive movement these days.
Outsourcing torture: A bill before the U.S. Congress proposes legalizing extraordinary rendition. Extraordinary Rendition is a legalistic term for turning over someone to a nation that uses torture. It's illegal under international treaties we signed, but in the name of our "fight against terrorism," we're considering ignoring it. Lovely.
And The World Health Organization disses multiculturalism. While mouthing multiculturalist platitudes on the one hand, the WHO admits finally that some cultures are simply better than others; some serve the needs of the people who live within them, and some don't, and makes sweeping statements about the need for reform. Huzzah!
And if you want to see just how batshit crazy the right-wing can be, read this. Just read it, okay? I'm gonna go cower under my desk, thinking that I have to breathe the same air and vote in the same election as this guy.
Baldrick on the worst jobs in history. The actor who played Baldrick on the old BBC series Black Adder now has his own little series. Number one worst job: Master of the King's Stool. You work it out.
"Your rage is useless in a capitalist culture. It will merely be packaged and sold back to you. As entertainment." I said that once to some ranting lefty, and it seems that I was right. The book Why Culture Can't be Jammed works through the thesis that capitalism can embrace progressivism and sell it back to the progressives. There is some criticism that the authors never really engage in a distinction between "progressivism" and "counterculturalism" which I perceive as legitimate, but I don't really see an effective progressive movement these days.
Outsourcing torture: A bill before the U.S. Congress proposes legalizing extraordinary rendition. Extraordinary Rendition is a legalistic term for turning over someone to a nation that uses torture. It's illegal under international treaties we signed, but in the name of our "fight against terrorism," we're considering ignoring it. Lovely.
And The World Health Organization disses multiculturalism. While mouthing multiculturalist platitudes on the one hand, the WHO admits finally that some cultures are simply better than others; some serve the needs of the people who live within them, and some don't, and makes sweeping statements about the need for reform. Huzzah!
And if you want to see just how batshit crazy the right-wing can be, read this. Just read it, okay? I'm gonna go cower under my desk, thinking that I have to breathe the same air and vote in the same election as this guy.
