links: abuse, censorship, torture; military, Afghanistan; mustardgate

[mindstalk]

Dark
* Bishops were covering up for abusive priests back in 1957. here and here (pdf).
* And the current Pope led much of the obstruction of justice.

* The high costs
of being poor

* Man pleads guilty to manga porn. Also, and Neil Gaiman.
* Inverse correlations between rapes and porn; rape rates have apparently declined, either modestly or drastically.

* David Brooks: "Cheney lost to Bush". Says the high point of torture was in the early years, and the policies Cheney is publicly defending now were largely backed away from in the Rice years, with Obama continuing those policies.
* Conservative Erich Muller calls waterboarding torture after 7 seconds of exposure. That's him and Chris Hitchens. Torture defenders say "we waterboard our troops". Yes, in torture resistance school.

* Permission slips required for schoolgirl to give a talk on Harvey Milk

* Headline: "U.S. EPA to rely more on scientists for air rules". (As opposed to the political appointees of the Bush administration.)

Cool
* Military not as Republican or polarized as thought, though old officers kind of are.
* Obama's security speech
* Southern contraction of the GOP
* Where a Marine friend will be leading troops in Afghanistan.
* Back to manual trades?

Silly
* David Frum on mustardgate. This is a Bush speechwriter calling the thing silly.

Comments

[sraun]

The article on being poor is depressing. It's something I've known for years - I've been lucky that when I was poor, there were some reasonably-convenient-on-public-transit grocery stores. And the same was true for other shopping, plus I had not-poor friends who liked to shop, and I could tag along with them.

Being poor is really depressing.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and of course there's Pratchett's version (http://board.jokeroo.com/famous-quotes/104399-sam-vimes-boots-theory-socio-economic-unfairness.html). (That quote doesn't include Sibyl living on about what half he did, because she had tons of clothes and furniture that wouldn't wear out. Though she probably spent more on servants. Realistically.)

And I don't think my article included old stuff like using pay phones because you can't afford a monthly phone bill; costs more per minute, and if you're unlucky, costs more in the end, not to mention the inconvenience.

Depressing thing for me is that the supermarkets in Bloomington are somewhat more expensive than their "good" prices. Small town effect, perhaps... I remember thinking NYC seemed pretty cheap when I visited, apart from the housing. Sure, you could blow money at expensive bars or restaurants, but every corner store had tall fresh OJ for $3, and street food seemed cheap. Transit was pricey compared to San Francisco but so much better... OTOH I didn't look into supermarkets, and I hear they suck in Manhattan.

[mlc23.livejournal.com]

Yeah I saw the poor article too and I think its really dead on. We had a very poor phase of my childhood, including not having a car so a lot rings true.

Your observation about NYC is interesting. I think the same thing about Hawaii. Other than housing and some food items it doesn't seem outrageous to me. Though some of its just adaptation like eating rice over potatoes and pineapple instead of apples (or in my case mango from the backyard!).

[mlc23.livejournal.com]

I liked the article about military and political party (and of course will borrow). It confirms everything I've said about Military Times polling data. There was an ABC article that came to similar conclusions.

1) I have yet to bother investigating his source material, but Frank Schaffer's book suggests that even those who self-identify as Republican in the military tend to be in actuality more libertarian when it comes to specific issues.

2)The comment section was interesting for me in terms of speculation about service specific differences. One person suggests the USAF would be more liberal and two more people refute that (one with actual data). I find it interesting that somehow because the air force is less "military" people assume its less conservative when in actuality the opposite is the case (as a sorta military insider my perception is that the USAF is dominated by right wing religious, glad to see some confirmation).

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Libertarians have their problems but IMO beat theocons any day.

Didn't read the comments. My only knowledge of the USAF is from all the reports of evangelical control of their academy, but yeah.
Don't women get to be combat pilots? That'd suggest "more liberal" to some. And more intellectual seeming over all, vs. manly grunting of grunts. Of course, opposite that is the hot shot pilot thing, and "aren't you rationally replaceable by a missile?"

[mlc23.livejournal.com]

Women can be combat pilots in the other services too. We have a female friend who missed out on Marine jet training only because she was too short. She's now a CH-46 pilot (and probably sees more action than anyone in the AF). I think the only real ban for women now is actual assignment to combat arms occupational specialties (infantry, artillery, etc.).

I think you're also making the common mistake of confusing "more technical" with "more intellectual." There's some great serious intellectual discussion going on in the Army right now between mid and senior officers who have PhDs from places like Stanford and Oxford about counterinsurgency.

And the Marine Corps, while putting less emphasis on formal education, is quite cutting edge in terms of military thinking. As Ricks put it in The Gamble "The Marine Corps tolerates outliers and even downright eccentrics much more than the Army."

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I'm not making the mistake, I'm passing on the mistaken perception. :p "intellectual seeming" And most civilians don't think much about pilots in non-Air Force branches, or military theory developments.

[mlc23.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I should have known you would know better :)

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

BTW, belated happy birthday to Z!