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* Anyone surprised that Assad has plowed through the cease fire deadline still bombing and strafing fleeing civilians? Anyone? just the Russians still pretending to be surprised, huh? Anyway, they are still using tanks and artillery in places like Homs. 145 civilians were murdered yesterday. Over a hundred were murdered today. 9000-11000 civilians have been murdered since Assad started to make war on his own people.
* Zimmerman's lawyers gave a peculiar press conference suggesting that Zimmerman is mentally unstable and that he'd already fled Florida if not the country, then quit. It sounds like other lawyers think this is not only ill advised, but possibly professionally troublesome as it seems to involve violating attorney/client privilege. The prosecution has announced they are giving a press conference within the next few days.
* Santorum dropped out today. The theory is he was expected to lose in his home state of Pennsylvania what with him being wildly unpopular there, so it was better for him in the long term to drop out first. There is a competing theory that it was because his daughter Bella is really sick and he wanted to be with her.
* Romney is now accusing the President of Atheism, as that is the only thing less popular than Islam in a politician with voters. he also was condescending about the war on women. After all, it's all in the heads of silly hysterical women, right? It's not like the Republicans have been passing laws not only allowing, but requiring Doctors to lie to women, taking health care decisions away from women so that politicians and employers can make them for the women; repealing equal pay laws at the state level; and trying to deny women basic health care like cancer screening, right? Oh wait, they have, but what women really want is not things like health care and equal treatment as citizens and human beings, but even bigger tax cuts for the rich! Fuck you Willard Romney. Fuck you, Reince Priebus.
* Mitt Romney also wants you to know that the 14% tax rate he is currently paying is way too high, so you should give up Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, Pell Grants, Head Start and if you are poor pay a higher tax rate so he can pay even less. After all, that is what the "marvelous" Ryan plan he is campaigning for does. why campaign so hard for it and endorse it so glowingly if he doesn't want you to know what's in it.
* Doing the math on Republican economics: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/
* Colbert on Steve King:
* John Stewart looks at some of the hypocrisy behind the President vs. Supreme Court scandal and the Trayvon Martin Murder coverage: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-9-2012/the-splice-channel
* "Beer and Bling in Iron Age Europe:" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120319163710.htm
* Afghan DNA analysis:" http://phys.org/news/2012-03-afghans-unique-genetic-heritage-dna.html
* Reassessing US Civil War mortality upward: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17604991
* Handel and Lead poisoning: http://galvestondailynews.com/story/303958
I notice that they repeat the lie that Romans drank water from lead pipes, even though we know that the sewer pipes were lead, but the drinking water pipes were not. Yes, people used to think that, but archeology has come a long way since then. The only way you'd have gotten lead poison from the water is if you were drinking out of the sewage pipes in preference to water fountains, which is pretty fucking illogical. Romans were extremely careful about keeping feces out of their drinking water in a way that Westerners in general weren't again until the mid to late 19th century. (The Chinese and the Japanese figured out municipal sanitation early in their respective development and maintained it as they went on to make bigger and bigger cities. If you had a choice between drinking water from the 16th century from any city in any country in eurasia, pick one from Japan or China. I'm not kidding. It's part of the reason the average survival rate for an English family in English cities was 3 generations from arrival to totally wiped out). There was lead used to season wine, so that bit is accurate.
* A two part thing on Machiavelli: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/mar/26/machiavelli-prince-power-good-evil http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/apr/02/machiavelli-humanism-history-prince
* I think Machiavelli is pretty seriously misunderstood, in part because hardly anyone reads his Discourses on Livy, and in part because most people don't read the Prince carefully. As a result they tend to miss things like context and nuance. He was a patriot who's city state was under constant threat by invading armies. From the Discourses, it's pretty obvious he'd have been happier in a Republic, but his choices were a Princedom or in a subject state. Under those circumstances a strong local ruler with a well run city state was the better choice, hence the Prince. If you read carefully, you'll notice that he favours the people over the nobles and justice where it's possible. He's a pragmatist, though, and picks better over the worst when the best isn't a choice. Don't get me wrong, he says some pretty horrible things, but he also thinks it's a good idea to feed your people and use a citizen army over mercenaries, and a lot of his advise is quite sensible. Hell, if W. had been Machiavellian instead of a neo-con puppet, we'd be better off. Context matters both for the books and within the books. So much is framed as x and y is the best combination of things but if you can only have one, which should you do/be? Anyway, it's not specific to the above, but just my take on Machiavelli himself.
* Why we evolved so that temperature changes taste: http://www.livescience.com/19288-room-temperature-coffee-taste.html
* It turned out the hyacinth just wasn't up to full smell. I'm not longer disappointed, though I'd rather have had three or four.
* The TV now turns off normally, I'm guessing there's a loos wire somewhere, but I'm just grateful for it to be working as it's the nicest TV I've had access to my whole life.
* So my current post organization goes loosely like this: Important news and world news on top, followed by political stuff, followed by editorial news related stuff (like Stewart clips or links to other people's rants), followed by science/history/archeology news, my life, books/movies/lighter stuff, dragon cave and other extras. I say loosely, because I make posts in snippets over the course of hours and things get out of order sometimes. Also, lines can be fuzzy. For example, do I put a rant about a book or movie from an LGBTQ justice perspective in with the editorials or the books? I'm still not all that consistent.
* Zimmerman's lawyers gave a peculiar press conference suggesting that Zimmerman is mentally unstable and that he'd already fled Florida if not the country, then quit. It sounds like other lawyers think this is not only ill advised, but possibly professionally troublesome as it seems to involve violating attorney/client privilege. The prosecution has announced they are giving a press conference within the next few days.
* Santorum dropped out today. The theory is he was expected to lose in his home state of Pennsylvania what with him being wildly unpopular there, so it was better for him in the long term to drop out first. There is a competing theory that it was because his daughter Bella is really sick and he wanted to be with her.
* Romney is now accusing the President of Atheism, as that is the only thing less popular than Islam in a politician with voters. he also was condescending about the war on women. After all, it's all in the heads of silly hysterical women, right? It's not like the Republicans have been passing laws not only allowing, but requiring Doctors to lie to women, taking health care decisions away from women so that politicians and employers can make them for the women; repealing equal pay laws at the state level; and trying to deny women basic health care like cancer screening, right? Oh wait, they have, but what women really want is not things like health care and equal treatment as citizens and human beings, but even bigger tax cuts for the rich! Fuck you Willard Romney. Fuck you, Reince Priebus.
* Mitt Romney also wants you to know that the 14% tax rate he is currently paying is way too high, so you should give up Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, Pell Grants, Head Start and if you are poor pay a higher tax rate so he can pay even less. After all, that is what the "marvelous" Ryan plan he is campaigning for does. why campaign so hard for it and endorse it so glowingly if he doesn't want you to know what's in it.
* Doing the math on Republican economics: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* Colbert on Steve King:
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
* John Stewart looks at some of the hypocrisy behind the President vs. Supreme Court scandal and the Trayvon Martin Murder coverage: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-9-2012/the-splice-channel
* "Beer and Bling in Iron Age Europe:" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120319163710.htm
* Afghan DNA analysis:" http://phys.org/news/2012-03-afghans-unique-genetic-heritage-dna.html
* Reassessing US Civil War mortality upward: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17604991
* Handel and Lead poisoning: http://galvestondailynews.com/story/303958
I notice that they repeat the lie that Romans drank water from lead pipes, even though we know that the sewer pipes were lead, but the drinking water pipes were not. Yes, people used to think that, but archeology has come a long way since then. The only way you'd have gotten lead poison from the water is if you were drinking out of the sewage pipes in preference to water fountains, which is pretty fucking illogical. Romans were extremely careful about keeping feces out of their drinking water in a way that Westerners in general weren't again until the mid to late 19th century. (The Chinese and the Japanese figured out municipal sanitation early in their respective development and maintained it as they went on to make bigger and bigger cities. If you had a choice between drinking water from the 16th century from any city in any country in eurasia, pick one from Japan or China. I'm not kidding. It's part of the reason the average survival rate for an English family in English cities was 3 generations from arrival to totally wiped out). There was lead used to season wine, so that bit is accurate.
* A two part thing on Machiavelli: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/mar/26/machiavelli-prince-power-good-evil http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/apr/02/machiavelli-humanism-history-prince
* I think Machiavelli is pretty seriously misunderstood, in part because hardly anyone reads his Discourses on Livy, and in part because most people don't read the Prince carefully. As a result they tend to miss things like context and nuance. He was a patriot who's city state was under constant threat by invading armies. From the Discourses, it's pretty obvious he'd have been happier in a Republic, but his choices were a Princedom or in a subject state. Under those circumstances a strong local ruler with a well run city state was the better choice, hence the Prince. If you read carefully, you'll notice that he favours the people over the nobles and justice where it's possible. He's a pragmatist, though, and picks better over the worst when the best isn't a choice. Don't get me wrong, he says some pretty horrible things, but he also thinks it's a good idea to feed your people and use a citizen army over mercenaries, and a lot of his advise is quite sensible. Hell, if W. had been Machiavellian instead of a neo-con puppet, we'd be better off. Context matters both for the books and within the books. So much is framed as x and y is the best combination of things but if you can only have one, which should you do/be? Anyway, it's not specific to the above, but just my take on Machiavelli himself.
* Why we evolved so that temperature changes taste: http://www.livescience.com/19288-room-temperature-coffee-taste.html
* It turned out the hyacinth just wasn't up to full smell. I'm not longer disappointed, though I'd rather have had three or four.
* The TV now turns off normally, I'm guessing there's a loos wire somewhere, but I'm just grateful for it to be working as it's the nicest TV I've had access to my whole life.
* So my current post organization goes loosely like this: Important news and world news on top, followed by political stuff, followed by editorial news related stuff (like Stewart clips or links to other people's rants), followed by science/history/archeology news, my life, books/movies/lighter stuff, dragon cave and other extras. I say loosely, because I make posts in snippets over the course of hours and things get out of order sometimes. Also, lines can be fuzzy. For example, do I put a rant about a book or movie from an LGBTQ justice perspective in with the editorials or the books? I'm still not all that consistent.