mindstalk: (robot)
mindstalk ([personal profile] mindstalk) wrote2009-05-23 02:48 pm

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

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.

[identity profile] mindstalk.livejournal.com 2009-05-23 08:04 pm (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] mlc23.livejournal.com 2009-05-24 05:42 am (UTC)(link)
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!).