CBR: Permanent Damage - Oct 14, 2009

[CBR News]

What comics art lacks most today, and what it needs the most; this week's Congressional sneak attack, why, and what you can do about it; fun with the Bible, in comics and other places; plus APE, San Diego cosplay, and more


Full article here.

[Charles RB]

Ireland passed the Lisbon Treaty this time due to two main factors:

a) Some concessions and opt-outs were made to address some of the previous complaints (i.e. now Ireland can keep banning abortions)

b) The Irish economy crashed.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Well that new Bible translation was certainly hilarious - I'm surprised you went past the example of liberal distortion that's in Luke where Jesus forgives the (Jewish) people who killed them for not knowing what they did.
Let's face it, that's probably what this new translation all about.

But after reading that, I couldn't help but swing by the conservapedia's statistics page - the last time I checked it out, the top five were for sexually transmitted diseases common amongst gay males - though I'm sure that was a temporary blip caused during the month after an over night Young Republicans convention.
Homosexuality is only the third most looked up term now. Palin is the seventh, beating Hitler at eighth.

But it was number six which caught my eye Conservapedia's Law, a law with as much real math and logic behind as Intelligent Design has hard science behind it.

Apparently, conservativeness doubles each century.

This law is based on the 'fact' that conservative terms double each century.
(That's their only backing for it by the way - so don't get excited by their claims that it proves that society will become conservative regardless of the liberals best efforts).

Brilliantly though, they provide a list of Best New Conservative Words.
Don't be too put off by the fact the first 'best new conservative word' on the list was coined in 1794, or that the second is from 1693...

If you can make it past claims of bias that 'anti-christian' isn't in the Websters Dictionary (I'd imagine that by having the word 'Christian' and the word/prefix 'Anti' in the dictionary people could figure it out for themselves...), or the claim that 'biased' is a conservative word, 'Big Brother' makes the list as a conservative term.
Which made me laugh.
It has the description - "government constantly watching its citizens; George Orwell first coined this term in his classic, 1984".
So they consider 1984 a classic, but are happy to own the term Big Brother, and claim it as a conservative one.
What message did they take from that book?

(It's up there with the time the 'Sydney Morning Herald' had a positive article on technology - a 'see what's coming our way' type piece - with a small part on the increases in surveillance technology. It's positive end to the piece was '... makes it seem like the world of 1984 is just around the corner!' Fantastic).

They also claim 'Claptrap' is an anti liberal term, 'Can-do' a conservative one (at least Kipling is closer to conservative than Orwell), and 'cross examination' listed as "the most effective tool against liberal deceit, better than even the requirement of an oath ".

'Double Standard' another conservative term is given the description "applying harsher criticism against one group, such as churchgoers or conservatives, than against another group, such as atheists or liberals; recognition of a double standard by the Prodigal Son led him to repent and convert ".

I haven't made it the full way down - it requires close reading - in fact I'm only at the 'D's, but the only true conservative terms I've seen are 'Bork', 'Death Tax' and 'De-regulation'.

I love Conservapedia.

[cdulla]

The opt-outs mentioned above where a significant factor in Ireland's voting yes on the Lisbon Treaty this time and give Ireland some gurantees on the issues of neutrality and abortion but these gurantees were only political statements and can in reality be revoked at any time.

The major reason the Irish changed their minds was due to the amount of people who are now unemployed in Ireland and the Yes campaign saying that a No vote will make the situation even worse and doom the country/a Yes vote will return us to the golden era of the 1990's.

[Charles RB]

I liked hearing that some of the Yes campaigners were grimly hinting that if there was a No vote, Ireland would fall under the influence of... Britain. DUN DUN DUNNNNN.

Which is a bit funny when Yes means Ireland comes more under the influence of the far bigger EU.

re opt-out revokes - whether the EU would actually do that is debatable. Ireland's not the only country that had opt-outs, and none of the member-states want the EU to make too many demands of them; on top of that, the EU would need Ireland to enforce any changes of law in Ireland, they can't say "fuck you we'll send the French in to do it" (and not just because everyone else who isn't France will go "WHAT now?" and France would likely say "fuck off").

[Dave Hudson]

Ireland have been a member of the EU since 1973 and a Federalist Europe is not happening anytime soon (if at all).

The Lisbon Treaty is more an attempt to streamline the (recently expanded) EU and it's heavily bureaucratic machinery than it is an attempt to create a Federal States of Europe.

The Telegraph (and much of the British press) regularly have scare stories about whatever the EU is up to, not really the place to look for an impartial view of the situation.

[Charles RB]

a Federalist Europe is not happening anytime soon (if at all).

For a start, everyone in the EU would have to agree on stuff.

We can't even sort out a common Rapid Reaction Force, trying to get a federal state would take centuries.

The Telegraph (and much of the British press) regularly have scare stories about whatever the EU is up to

Of course. They're foreigners.

[cfutino]

Mr Grant,

do you have a link to the demonstration by Microsoft and T-Mobile on cloud computing? I'd really like to show it to some colleagues of mine.

[Steven Grant]

Mr Grant,

do you have a link to the demonstration by Microsoft and T-Mobile on cloud computing? I'd really like to show it to some colleagues of mine.

It wasn't a demostration. They screwed up bad last week and lost tons of user data. I think they're giving everyone who lost data $100 and a free month of phone service...

- Grant

[jmyoung]

Cloud Computing is seriously the most counter-intuitive and no-value-add concept I have ever heard.

It beats out Twitter. At least with Twitter I can see someone being present at a non-broadcast live event (although how many of those are there if you include the WWW) or updates on someone's status while undergoing a process or procedure, etc.

I can buy 1.5 TB harddrives for $200. Why would anyone entrust anything valuable that they want to be able quickly to be at an off-site location?

I guess this all part of the digital jukebox in the sky concept that's been going around since the 90s, where we own nothing and rent everything.

[cfutino]

Cloud Computing is seriously the most counter-intuitive and no-value-add concept I have ever heard.

It beats out Twitter. At least with Twitter I can see someone being present at a non-broadcast live event (although how many of those are there if you include the WWW) or updates on someone's status while undergoing a process or procedure, etc.

I can buy 1.5 TB harddrives for $200. Why would anyone entrust anything valuable that they want to be able quickly to be at an off-site location?

I guess this all part of the digital jukebox in the sky concept that's been going around since the 90s, where we own nothing and rent everything.

Actually, cloud computing does have it's uses. In a corporate environment, the use of scalable distributed processing power (see amazon EC2, for an example) is very usefull.
For the end user, though, I think cloud computing isn't worth it's risks and problems (have you ever thought about privacy? How private can my document be if Google or Microsoft have it?).

[jmyoung]

Actually, cloud computing does have it's uses. In a corporate environment, the use of scalable distributed processing power (see amazon EC2, for an example) is very usefull.
For the end user, though, I think cloud computing isn't worth it's risks and problems (have you ever thought about privacy? How private can my document be if Google or Microsoft have it?).

Obviously, I agree with you on a personal level, but in a corporate environment why wouldn't you buy multiple processors? All aspects of computing are relatively cheap. I suppose for a smaller business, starting out there may be not insignificant cost savings to be had.

[uthor]

I think cloud computing has its place. I like keeping my e-mails for Google so I can easily access them from home, work, my phone, and my family's computers, for example. Plus, that's much easier than buying a new desktop so I can setup my own server and running that 24/7 in order to distance myself from Google.

Still, I only have one PC, and it's a laptop, so I can easily store everything locally and have it available whenever I need it. If I were to go with a desktop/netbook combo that is popular with many people I know, cloud computing makes more sense. It's either that or setting up a program for syncing the two computers together (which is also probably easy, but I've always had a problem getting to work right).

I try to strike a balance between the two. For example, I keep all my important photos on my hard drive and I put interesting photos on Flickr. Something that I wish to share, but will really not care about in the future stays on Flickr only while something I wish to keep but have little interest sharing with others stays on my hard drive only.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Actually, cloud computing does have it's uses. In a corporate environment, the use of scalable distributed processing power (see amazon EC2, for an example) is very usefull.

I dunno, it's painful enough getting hiccups or something on the shared server at my work as it is - having it happen off-site, and not knowing what's happening to your documents at all, would just be a nightmare.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Well, Crumb got himself a good bit of advertising thanks to some god-botherer denouncing the book.

It was on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald website, meaning it got print in the paper, and I saw a similar article in the free afternoon paper given out to commuters.

Why would they possibly feel the need to give him the advertising? - those upset that is, not the paper.

Earlier in the week my nearby comic shop had one copy on their shelf, not even highlighted as a new release - they could probably shift a few now.

I just don't get why this one chap felt the need to denounce a book that would have passed unnoticed by most people, and one that doesn't seem to bother those in higher standing in the Church than himself.
Self-promotion perhaps? To be seen taking a stand?
Either way, pretty funny if it's as literal an adapation as suggested.