Monday Open Thread
*Sigh* It’s Monday. I wasn’t quite ready for the weekend to end, but the weekend is always too short. At least it’s time for your open thread, so that means your Monday is already half over! What’s on your mind?
George Will admits that conservatives want activist judges. They want the right kind of activist judge – one that overturns laws conservatives don’t like.
On ABC’s This Week, conservative columnist George Will criticized conservatives for saying that they want judges who will strictly follow the law while simultaneously cheering decisions that overturn the work of elected officials:
There’s another test, and it’s wielded by my conservatives, and I think it’s mistaken. And that is, they say they’re against judicial activism. By which they mean they want the court to defer to the elected political branches of government. But if you look at what’s happened recently, the decision that most outraged conservatives was the Kelo decision on eminent domain. … The court did defer to the city government in Connecticut and it enraged conservatives. The recent decision that most pleased conservatives — Citizens United, overturning part of McCain-Feingold — was the court not deferring to the Senate.
That Mike Huckabee is quite a charmer. He gave an interview to a college newspaper and stated that gay adoption is an experiment and that gay marriage is like drug use, incest and polygamy.
“I think this is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family,” Huckabee told The Perspective, a magazine at The College New Jersey. “And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults.”
“Children are not puppies,” he said. “This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?”
…
“You don’t go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal,” he said. “That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them.”
At least if Huckabee runs for president again, we don’t have to worry about his superficial charm. His basic character is now out in the open for everyone to see.
Tags: Open Thread
The Horror! Carlsberg employees in Copenhagen are striking because they aren’t allowed to drink beer while working anymore. Now they will only be allowed to drink their free beer at lunch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/weekinreview/11grist.html
Cory Doctorow on Why He Won’t Buy an iPad. This is an interesting perspective — that the iPad reduces your experience to consuming only. I don’t have an iPad and am waiting to see how this all shakes out before thinking about one. I don’t have an e-book reader, either. But so far no e-reader or the iPad looks compelling enough to invest in.
I like Cory D on most stuff but he is all wet about thi steampunk bullshit.
Not sure about how Cory’s POV here counts as steampunk.
There’s no doubt that this looks shiny and fun, but I have plenty of venues by which to consume (and share) media and can’t quite get why this should be added to everything else I cart around from airport to airport. Frankly, I think that the iPad fun is going to be in watching how other devices get set up to compete with it.
My advice to people who don’t like apple’s business model: don’t buy an iPad. Cory D goes into steampunk bullshit rappture over crappy shit that is less crappy (in his view) because it is put together with screws. Big whoop. He sounds like a straight up douche bag in that post, and I am a big fan.
Our iPad should be here in approx. 8 days. I’ll report back.
My 16 year old has bought one – I can’t wait to get my hands on it. But, we are a Mac household – 2 MacBooks, iPod, iTouch, and just ordered an iPhone. You know what they say… once you go Mac, you never go back. 😉
People like Cory D would say that they won’t buy a Mercedes because they can’t install a Chevy engine in it.
I think that Cory is pretty clear that he was taking Jason’s advice before Jason gave it. And I still don’t get what is steampunk about Cory’s attitude towards this thing, but hey.
My computer attitude is largely shaped by the work I have to get done and Macs simply weren’t built to run the models or AutoCad we needed. So I’m more interested in getting stuff done which apparently joining the cult wouldn’t have helped. 🙄
I swore years ago not to buy any device that requires its own data plan. I have an Internet connection at home, and I have a cell phone. That is all the monthly billing they are getting out of me.
The purpose of my cell phone is to make phone calls. Well, I guess it is also a pocket watch, and sometimes a flashlight.
I don’t feel the weird compulsion to play games or look up sports scores on my cell phone while real life people are trying to make eye contact and talk to me. It is an epidemic.
Computers are cheap; software is free. No need to make it any more complicated than that.
We are part of the cult.
Here’s the biggest issue to me: The Mac is so easy and intuitive. I end up using it more than I ever used our PC.
Cassandra, now I see why you fluster some commenters. Cory holds up the steampunk ethos as an ideal in that post. It isn’t me reading between the lines. Stop acting like I pulledthe steam punk thing out of my ass. Also, check out the title of the post. Is that your idea of “live and let live”. Or is it “listen to me bcause I’m smart and you are a fool.” ?
I do know Cory Doctorow’s works, and I know about steampunk, which is pretty much about re-imagining the world (using your own ingenuity) as Jules Verne might have created it. And that would be where you build machines to help you manage the world. Cory’s larger points here are about an attenuated experience with a machine that delivers information to you — and less about the DIYers vs. the Factories.
Not sure what to do with the “live and let live” part since Cary pretty clearly thinks that the iPad certainly does not let you do that.
Local teabaggers have to be reminded not to bring racist signs to the teabag event. The best part is the reasoning: because if it gets in the press it might make them look bad:
The way things are going, they might have to go back to meeting in the barn at midnight.
Huckabee better shut the fuck up about puppies, unless he wants to remind people how his kid treats them, meaning molesting, torturing and killing poor defenseless animals.
Nice values, guv’nor!
That message makes me want to show up at that thing with a sign that says – Obama, Bring back Matlock!!
That message from the head DE teabagger is comedy gold. He quotes John Dickinson and the movie Galaxy Quest.
I am on the line now w/ one of those Tom Carper town hall meetings about HCR….
I’m on also.
Wasn’t “Ryan” rude?
I hate guys named Ryan. (Girls named Ryan are worse though)