{"id":13019,"date":"2008-08-15T14:41:32","date_gmt":"2008-08-15T21:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/08\/15\/potpourri-of-sad-things.html"},"modified":"2008-08-15T14:41:32","modified_gmt":"2008-08-15T21:41:32","slug":"potpourri_of_sad_things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/15\/potpourri_of_sad_things.html","title":{"rendered":"Potpourri of Sad Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More stuff I&#8217;ve been gathering up in the side bar of late.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li> <a title=\"Deserving More Attention: \u2018Great Wall of Duh\u2019\" href=\"http:\/\/www.blogula-rasa.com\/2008\/08\/07\/deserving-more-attention-great-wall-of-duh\/\">Deserving More Attention: \u2018Great Wall of Duh\u2019<\/a>: It certainly seems like the GOP leadership and political&nbsp;pundits have decided that stupidity and ignorance are far better tactics than intelligence and nuance. Never mind the myriad costs to the country &#8230;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Dildos at the Supreme Court?\" href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/dispatches\/2008\/08\/dildos_at_the_supreme_court.php#comment-1047836\">Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Dildos at the Supreme&#8230;<\/a>: Tell me again why a state should be allowed to block the <em>sale <\/em>of something that it is not illegal to <em>possess<\/em>? Especially something that doesn&#8217;t harm anyone else because it, literally, only, um, affects the owner?<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"Cenk Uygur: How is John McCain's Affair Different from John Edwards'?\" href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/cenk-uygur\/why-doesnt-john-mccains-a_b_117811.html\">Cenk Uygur: How is John McCain&#8217;s Affair Different&#8230;<\/a>: Edwards is no better, no worse, than McCain in this. But I guess McCain&#8217;s adultery has gone past the political statute of limitations. Y&#8217;know, it&#8217;d almost be worth seeing Edward picked as Obama&#8217;s running mate, and any time someone brings up his betrayal of his wife, they launch into a laundry list of GOP\/Conservatives who&#8217;ve done exactly the same thing, with McCain at the top of the queue. Not that it would make it right, but it would make it damned uncomfortable.<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"Mukasey Refuses To Prosecute Officials Who Politicized DOJ: \u2018Negative  Publicity\u2019 Is Sufficient Punishment\" href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2008\/08\/12\/mukasey-prosecute\/\">Mukasey Refuses To Prosecute Officials Who Politicized&#8230;<\/a>: Well, if they&#8217;ve been hurt by &#8220;negative publicity&#8221; over their breaking of the law, who could have the heart to actually take legal action against them? I mean, let&#8217;s not get all &#8220;justicey&#8221; over them, right?<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"Oliver Willis: Barack Obama Joins 2.5 Million Fellow Americans In Vacation Elitism\" href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/oliver-willis\/barack-obama-joins-25-mil_b_118078.html#\">Oliver Willis: Barack Obama Joins 2.5 Million Fellow&#8230;<\/a>: Yeah, because the guy who married into a massive fortune, is the 4th richest man in the Senate, and has a &#8220;compound&#8221; to vacation in is less of an elitist than a guy who goes to Hawaii for a vacation.<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"We\u2019re Not Against Christians; We\u2019re Against Ignorance\" href=\"http:\/\/friendlyatheist.com\/3940\/were-not-against-christians-were-against-ignorance\/\">We\u2019re Not Against Christians; We\u2019re Against Ignorance<\/a>: If you openly declare that your science textbooks are based on religion not science, and that in any conflict between the two&nbsp;they will present as true what&#8217;s in the Bible, then don&#8217;t be surprised when your curriculum is not accepted as, well, <em>science<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"Guest Columnist - Optimism in Evolution - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/08\/13\/opinion\/13judson.html?ex=1219377600&amp;en=ffa8a516a8054ad1&amp;ei=5070&amp;emc=eta-1\">Guest Columnist &#8211; Optimism in Evolution &#8211; Op-Ed -&#8230;<\/a>: Along the same note, it is utterly insane that we, in 2008, are still having to argue about the reality of the evolutionary process and why it&#8217;s beneficial (not to mention necessary) to teach it in school.<\/li>\n<li> <a title='\"&quot;&quot;&quot;The Peace of the Gun.&quot;&quot;&quot;\"' href=\"http:\/\/www.unscrewingtheinscrutable.com\/node\/2012\">&#8220;The Peace of the Gun.&#8221;<\/a>: Another step in the &#8220;we&#8217;re more than happy to trade off (a little more) liberty for (an unproven amount of) security.&#8221; Total curfews? Explaining to the police why you&#8217;re out at night? Next thing you know, some guy in a German accent will be asking for your papers, like in the old movies. Of course, given how the mayor of this burg handled the animal shelter problem, it&#8217;s not surprising he&#8217;s blissfully ignorant of what is or isn&#8217;t constitutional. What&#8217;s surprising is that people are letting him get away with it.<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"You Still Can't Write about Muhammad.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.unscrewingtheinscrutable.com\/node\/2002\">You Still Can&#8217;t Write about Muhammad.<\/a>: I don&#8217;t necessarily think that Random House is being &#8220;craven&#8221; here &#8212; but it is a sad and infuriating situation.<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"Little League's Not For Atheists\" href=\"http:\/\/recursed.blogspot.com\/2008\/08\/little-leagues-not-for-atheists.html\">Little League&#8217;s Not For Atheists<\/a>: Sorry &#8212; tell me again why Little League has a pledge, and why &#8220;belief in God&#8221; is a key pledging part of playing baseball? Yeah, sure, it&#8217;s an artifact of the 50s\/60s, and nobody wants to be the one to edit out God &#8212; so why not just get rid of a pledge that <em>nobody actually uses?<\/em><\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"Focus Tries to Hide Its \u201cPray for Rain\u201d Video\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/2008\/08\/focus_tries_to.html\">Focus Tries to Hide Its \u201cPray for Rain\u201d Video<\/a>: What Would Jesus Do? I don&#8217;t recall him ordering a rain storm to defeat his political opponents &#8212; not even as &#8220;a joke.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"Anthrax is in the News, But Which Bacteria Should We Fear?\" href=\"http:\/\/thepumphandle.wordpress.com\/2008\/08\/11\/anthrax-is-in-the-news\/\">Anthrax is in the News, But Which Bacteria Should&#8230;<\/a>: Hmmmmmm &#8230; sexy bioweapon that causes Massive Terror Headlines? Or simple disease-resistent bacteria that could kill zillions from a variety of mundane causes? Yeah, guess which one gets all the press time (and research money).<\/li>\n<li> <a title=\"In a Generation, Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority - NYTimes.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/08\/14\/washington\/14census.html?ei=5070&amp;en=a59e68571fdc2ab6&amp;ex=1219377600&amp;adxnnl=1&amp;emc=eta-1&amp;adxnnlx=1218729663-AXLY28cFi\/3qCe0\/qDr9QQ\">In a Generation, Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority&#8230;<\/a>: Actually this is neither &#8220;good&#8221; nor &#8220;bad,&#8221; it just &#8220;is.&#8221; It will only be &#8220;bad&#8221; if some folks decide to make a big brouhaha about it. Generally speaking, the more you get angry at demographics, the more they bite you in the butt.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More stuff I&#8217;ve been gathering up in the side bar of late. Deserving More Attention: \u2018Great Wall of Duh\u2019: It certainly seems like the GOP leadership and political&nbsp;pundits have decided&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54,17,14,9,16,27,46,6,67,26,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2008","category-homeland-security","category-love-and-marriage","category-politics-law","category-potpourri","category-religion","category-school-daze","category-science","category-media-sports","category-travel","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133705,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/19\/tweetizen-trump-2017-06-19-potpourri-for-325-million-alex.html","url_meta":{"origin":13019,"position":0},"title":"Tweetizen Trump &#8211; 2017-06-19: &quot;Potpourri for 325 Million, Alex!&quot;","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 19-Jun-17 8:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's Monday, Donald! After such a tweetery weekend, what's on your mind today (and since I last swung by yesterday afternoon)? Looks like a little of this, a little of that ...===You retweeted the comedy team (I assume) of Diamond and Silk:\u25ba The Media Says: The President Should Stop Tweeting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Donald2BTrump2Bsworn2Bin2Bas2Bpresident5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Donald2BTrump2Bsworn2Bin2Bas2Bpresident5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Donald2BTrump2Bsworn2Bin2Bas2Bpresident5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":128363,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/19\/state-of-the-google-collections.html","url_meta":{"origin":13019,"position":1},"title":"State of the Google+ Collections","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 19-Oct-15 10:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Follower counts for my account's Collections:1,444 -- My Google+ Account (in general)6,728 -- \"Geekery & Nerditude\" Collection1,548 -- \"Serious Stuff\" Collection1,476 -- \"Family & Personal Potpourri\" CollectionNot quite sure what that means, except I think the Google+ Collection mechanism is working as intended.Oh, and that people vastly prefer squeeful Star\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Google-Collections5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Google-Collections5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Google-Collections5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19079,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/02\/election-potpourri.html","url_meta":{"origin":13019,"position":2},"title":"Election Potpourri","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 2-Nov-10 10:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I am still trying to figure out why Kentucky vote Rand Paul (R\/TP) as their new Senator. How he will represent the people of Kentucky remains a mystery to me. On the other hand, it looks like we won't have any (known) SS war re-enactors in Congress this year, nor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Elections 2010&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2010","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2010"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/vote.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20570,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/26\/unblogged-bits-sat-26-mar-11-2331.html","url_meta":{"origin":13019,"position":3},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Sat. 26-Mar-11 2331)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 26-Mar-11 11:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... 'Proof of Creation' Dino Drawing Just a Mud Stain : Discovery News - Of course. Duh. Afraid to Watch the News, Millions Turn to Fox - Heh. The moral of the story: don't elect\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Potpourri&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20237,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/16\/unblogged-bits-wed-16-feb-11-1630.html","url_meta":{"origin":13019,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Wed. 16-Feb-11 1630)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Feb-11 4:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... TOM THE DANCING BUG: Judge Scalia Spans the Time\/Space Continuum! - Remember, it's all about balls and strikes! Just like the Founding Fathers would have played! The unintended consequences of fixing non-existent problems -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Potpourri&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132501,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/04\/tweetizen-trump-2017-01-04-potpourri-for-200-alex.html","url_meta":{"origin":13019,"position":5},"title":"Tweetizen Trump &#8211; 2017-01-04 &quot;Potpourri for $200, Alex!&quot;","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 4-Jan-17 9:04am","format":false,"excerpt":"Donald, you've been on the warpath the last 24 hours, hitting all sorts of Big Topics. Let's look at your shouts into the darkness ...===\u25ba With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}