A 19 August Cuppa Life

So I’m sitting again with the morning cuppa, all strung out after a dozen cover letters and needing an unwind.  Cue the news, my everlasting source of succor, my fortress of turpitude.  Wham!  First thing that strikes my eye:

Apple Faces South Korean Lawsuit – Now I really don’t have anything against Apple, short of a pro-PC sort of prejudice and a striking distaste for hep electronics.  But seeing this story (much like the iPad factory explosion of ages past) makes me all apple-cheeked and heart-warmy.  The tradeoff for all this gadgetry, for all this technological paraphernalia of our day, is essentially our freedom of localized conspicuity.  Of being able to say on a daily basis, “nobody knows I’m here except for my neighbors, my dog, and passersby on the street.”  Of being able to sign up for a service without having your phone number and email address sold off to telemarketers or hacked by cybervandals (because terrorist really is too strong a word).  Et cetera.  I’ve nothing against voluntarily signing oneself up for information-sharing or global tracking (actually, I’m hoping to get into the quake-catcher network sometime), but Apple is finally being hoisted by its own close-system, ask-no-favors petard.  Pending the lawsuit, of course.

US Military Develops ‘Bigger Bang’ Explosive Material – This new advent in pyrotechnic death (or ‘catastrophic kill,’ as the nomenclature goes) has promising potential for anti-missile missilery, more potent bombs (just what our drones need), and explosive bullets, among other exuberances.  And it comes at three or four times the price tag of current munitions!  And conservatives are complaining about SOCIAL SECURITY and the FDA!!  Jesus Christ, but I need another cup of coffee...

This Week’s Immigration News – Including allegations of racism and abuse of loosened probable cause interpretation that borders on the incontinent, and the possible waiving of 300,000 deportations of individuals deemed ‘not a risk’ have both caught my eye and hijacked my musings.  Should they stay or should they go, the irritating game of eating and keeping the cake.  I suppose part of the problem lies in the wide difference of opinions within America’s divide; the difference between reality (both good and bad) and prejudice (both preferential and discriminatory), and the inherent inability to make a decision that sits well with anybody.  Like America’s prison system, or the goddamn budget….  Getting more coffee.

Is the World Facing Fundamental Changes? – More doom and gloom about the finances, so I find myself backtracking and instead find Basketball Brawl: China and Georgetown Make Amends – Makes my heart glad to see fans and athletes closing in for the kill.  From different countries, no less!  I wonder if we could start investing in basketball (or hockey?) rather than HDRM, begin fighting our wars thattaway.  Really though, makes me chuckle.

At the day's end, what more does a body need than a warm bevvy (or five) and the occasional laugh?  Well... maybe A Recap of Former Soviet Republics.

Straw Dogs in the Political Manger

So in an admittedly underwhelming bit of news, Michele Bachmann won the first of many symbolic rites of passage for Republican presidential hopefuls, an ever-expanding array of candidates including Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, libertarian pillar Ron Paul, gourmand and restaurateur Herman Cain, and the recently-added Texas governor and Bush sound-alike, Rick Perry.

Bachmann celebrates her hard-won triumph as 
Ames locals prepare their autumnal wicker man.
(photo from http://images.politico.com/global/news/110813_bachmann6_reut_328.jpg) 

At the risk of chiming in with the rest of the online world, I wonder aloud what's so damned fascinating about today's Iowa straw poll.  Boiling it down, it's essentially been a glad-handing affair involving a dozen thousand of the GOP's staunchest fans, more than half of whom singled out Tea Party frontispiece Bachmann and fringe-politician Ron Paul as their top choice.  Comparing this to national poll ratings, it places this majority of straw poll voters proportionally into a much narrower subgroup of actual, national voters.  Also taking into consideration Bachmann calls Iowa home, it's little wonder she took the victory ('narrowly' at that, says CNN).

Anyway, all I'm saying is that the media romance with Iowa (and yes, New Hampshire) should come to an end.  Not only are the states woefully unreflective of the nation as a voting whole (and relatively unimportant electorally), but using this flawed mechanism to weed out the candidates (adieu, Tim Pawlenty) in this day and age of instant telecommunication is our Old Sarum of the American political edifice.  It's a goddamn bit of misinformation and a colorful one at that, and like all misleading flashes of color it's the thing latently interested people look to first.