Article: Vox Day & co. don’t get satire or basic decency | Preliator pro Causa

Vox Day & co. don't get satire or basic decency | Preliator pro Causa
http://preliatorcausa.blogspot.com/2012/10/27-vox-day-co-dont-get-satire-or-basic-decency-3892.html

So, an underformed fetus is considered a "human being" now? I'd like to know what criteria Vox is basing that on. It can't be the physiology; most abortions take place before the fetus looks like anything more than a mutated gerbil. It can't be neurological or psychological attributes, either; most abortions happen long before the neural pathways necessary for any thought at all are even formed. It can't be the mere presence of Homo sapiens DNA; by that logic, any rock you spit or piss on would immediately be considered "human" by virtue of possessing the human genome. And any talk about "souls" or other oogie-boogie silliness would just defeat the argument altogether.

So, really, Vox, what makes a fetus not merely a developing human, but a full-fledged "human being" deserving of the same rights and protections granted to walking, talking and thinking persons? Be specific.

---SPSmith

Article: How the Mighty Are Fallen

How the Mighty Are Fallen
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/how-the-mighty-are-fallen-or-wheres-my-friend/

Sent via Flipboard

---SPSmith

HP's Carly Fiorina era is finally over...good riddance | Business Tech - CNET News

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20094769-92/hps-carly-fiorina-era-is-finally-over...good-riddance/


---SPSmith

Article: Colbert to Trump: I'll pay $1M to your favorite charity if you let me put my balls in your mouth

Colbert to Trump: I'll pay $1M to your favorite charity if you let me put my balls in your mouth
http://boingboing.net/2012/10/25/colbert-to-trump-ill-pay-1.html

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---SPSmith

Obama Campaign Presses Mitt Romney To Fully Disown Richard Mourdock For Rape Comments

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/obama-romney-mourdock_n_2014935.html

Richard Mourdock, send over your wife, mistress, and daughters, and will give them some repeated gifts from god.

---SPSmith

Check out: 'Finally, a Presidential Debate Tackles Climate Change, Drones, Drugs, and Civil Liberties' on Slate

I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:

Finally, a Presidential Debate Tackles Climate Change, Drones, Drugs,
and Civil Liberties
By Will Oremus
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/10/24/third_party_candidates_debate_jill_stein_gary_johnson_talk_climate_change.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad


---SPSmith

Trekking the Grand Canyon for Google Maps | Official Google Blog

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/trekking-grand-canyon-for-google-maps.html


---SPSmith

Microsoft Surface RT Review: This Is Technological Heartbreak

http://gizmodo.com/5953866

Should you buy it?

No. The Surface, with an obligatory Touch Cover, is $600. That's a lot of money. Especially given that it's no laptop replacement, no matter how it looks or what Microsoft says. It's a tablet-plus, priced right alongside the iPad and in most ways inferior.

---SPSmith

Article: Hidden Within New Govt. Facial Recognition Guidelines, The Dreaded ‘Opt-In’ Rule

Hidden Within New Govt. Facial Recognition Guidelines, The Dreaded 'Opt-In' Rule
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/24/hidden-within-new-govt-facial-recognition-guidelines-the-dreaded-opt-in-rule/

Sent via Flipboard

---SPSmith

Article: Failures in Romney's Economic Proposals: Legitimate Market Transactions

Failures in Romney's Economic Proposals: Legitimate Market Transactions
http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2012/10/failures-in-romneys-economic-proposals_24.html

Sent via Flipboard

---SPSmith

U.S. Government Has a History Supporting Emerging Industries | Debate Club | US News Opinion

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-the-government-invest-in-green-energy/us-government-has-a-history-supporting-emerging-industries

Throughout our history, the federal government has played an important
role in supporting emerging industries critical to American prosperity
and security, from airplanes to agriculture to information
technologies. Investments in research and development are incredibly
important to our competitiveness in clean energy, but so are
investments that help grow the domestic clean energy industry and let
our innovators, entrepreneurs, and businesses know there is a market
for their products.

---SPSmith

Mitt Romney, Language Cop

http://prospect.org/article/mitt-romney-language-cop

Romney seems to believe foreign policy is made by saying things and
saying them strongly, it makes sense that he wants to see Ahmadinejad
indicted for saying mean things about Israel.

---SPSmith

‘How To Be Secular’ Traces a Philosophical History, From Martin Luther to Earl Warren – Tablet Magazine

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/109560/the-secular-revival

Secularism, he argues, is not synonymous with democracy; rather, it is
the soil in which democracy is planted.

---SPSmith

2012 presidential debate: President Obama and Mitt Romney’s remarks at Lynn University on Oct. 22 (running transcript) - The Washington Post

2012 presidential debate: President Obama and Mitt Romney’s remarks at Lynn University on Oct. 22 (running transcript) - The Washington Post:

Romney: "We can't kill our way out of this mess." Two minutes later: "Well, my strategy is pretty straightforward, which is to go after the bad guys, to make sure we do our very best to interrupt them, to -- to kill them, to take them out of the picture."

Conservative Cavalry Bayonets A Straw Man | Blog | Media Matters for America

Conservative Cavalry Bayonets A Straw Man | Blog | Media Matters for America:

Fox News tries to falsify Obama's "fewer bayonets" claim by saying that the military still uses bayonets... even though Obama didn't say that the navy doesn't still use bayonets... he said they use FEWER horses and bayonets. (mediamatters.org)

FACT CHECK: Flunking geography, history - WFSB Channel 3

http://www.wfsb.com/story/19886827/fact-check-missteps-in-final-presidential-debate?clienttype=printable

THE FACTS: Romney has indeed repeatedly and wrongly accused the president of traveling the world early in his presidency and apologizing for U.S. behavior. Obama didn't say "sorry" in those travels. But in this debate, Romney at last explained the context of his accusation: not that Obama apologized literally, but that he had been too deferential in his visits to Europe, Latin America and the Muslim world.

Obama said while abroad that the U.S. acted "contrary to our traditions and ideals" in its treatment of terrorist suspects, that "America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy," that the U.S. "certainly shares blame" for international economic turmoil and has sometimes "shown arrogance and been dismissive, even divisive" toward Europe. Yet he also praised America and its ideals.

---SPSmith

2012 presidential debate: President Obama and Mitt Romney’s remarks at Lynn University on Oct. 22 (running transcript) - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/2012-presidential-debate-president-obama-and-mitt-romneys-remarks-at-lynn-university-on-oct-22-running-transcript/2012/10/22/be8899d6-1c7a-11e2-9cd5-b55c38388962_print.html

But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works.

You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

OBAMA: And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting slips. It's what are our capabilities. And so when I sit down with the Secretary of the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs in a way that also keeps faith with our troops, that also makes sure that our veterans have the kind of support that they need when they come home.

OBAMA: And that is not reflected in the kind of budget that you're putting forward because it just doesn't work.

SCHIEFFER: All right.

OBAMA: And, you know, we visited the website quite a bit and it still doesn't work.

---SPSmith

Your vagina is not a car | rape culture

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/your-vagina-is-not-a-car-20121022-28102.html


---SPSmith

Presidential Debate Fact-Checks and Updates - Live Coverage - Election 2012 - NYTimes.com

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/debates/presidential/2012-10-22?smid=tw-nytimes#fact-checks


---SPSmith

Shining and art

blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2012/10/the_keycard_to_room_237.html

The puzzle aspect of "Last Year at Marienbad" and "Certified Copy" may finally be the least interesting thing about them, but it's probably the most interesting and important thing about a cynical piece of non-art like "Memento," which is possibly what makes that film such a cherished cult item and fetish object in certain Anglo-American circles. One way of removing the threat and challenge of art is reducing it to a form of problem-solving that believes in single, Eureka-style solutions. If works of art are perceived as safes to be cracked or as locks that open only to skeleton keys, their expressive powers are virtually limited to banal pronouncements of overt or covert meanings -- the notion that art is supposed to say something as opposed to do something.

Which takes us back around to that idea that Roger Ebert has phrased as: "A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it." Same goes for criticism.

---SPSmith