What footprint? Anyone who would go to all the trouble to make this monstrosity would certainly figure out a way to hang it on a wall and make the necessary cables into a "web."
Congratulations, Dig, you just rediscovered ...
on
Iceman Otzi was a Fighter
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Rorschach blots. There have been a billion studies of exactly this question, and the answer is...
we see what we want to. And what we want are heroes, not villians. Given an unknown, we want that unknown to be Vin Diesel fighting the good fight, not Ted Bundy making of with a co-ed.
First, that water went over the bridge with the invention of the bandage. We are by nature the animal that defies Nature through the use of technology.
By definition, our medical tools are part and parcel of the evolutionary process. Would you say that the birds are "cheating" because they used wings? Or that the lungfish were cheating by getting their oxygen straight from the atmosphere?
Second, we're not thwarting evolution. We're giving the victims their life back after accidents that Nature never intended. At what point did the Discover channel do a special on "the Drunk Driver's Place in the Ecosystem?" And what natural defense do you propose we evolve to counter this risk? Adamantium skeletons?
Third, if you've personally ever received any sort of serious medical intervention, then you're a raging hypocrite. An injection of any kind qualifies as "serious intervention." If you haven't received any serious medical attention, then you're either very young or rather sheltered. My guess would be both.
Last, and this is the point I really want to make, WHAT KIND OF FREAKISHLY UNFEELING JACKASS ARE YOU THAT THIS THOUGHT WOULD EVEN ENTER YOUR HEAD? Most of the candidates for this surgery are burn victims who survived a perfect glimpse of Hell, only to discover that young children run screaming from them in terror now, that even their families flinch before touching them.
Your job here is to sit down, shut up, applaud the surgeons who are dedicating their lives to alleviating suffering, and pray that nothing ever happens to you that would make you too terrified to look in the mirror.
Although, after a post like that, I would hope you'd avoid mirrors for a while anyway out of decent sense of shame.
even though I'm called a bit "cruel" or "callous" by others, I strongly believe in Darwinism in all aspects of life.
Unless you were born in a hovel at the bottom end of Bangladesh or Rwanda, you simply have no idea what you're talking about.
Taking a wild guess, I'd say you were probably born in a civilized nation with reasonably strong rule of law. Furthermore, since you're posting from a computer, and I'm assuming there isn't blood from its previous owner splashed across the keyboard and monitor, you were probably born into a reasonably affluent place.
I don't care how hard you think you've worked. Unless you spent your childhood stealing food every day, then you've been the beneficiary of some form of charity in your life.
Assuming you're not a Hindu, then you must understand that where you were born was a matter of blind, dumb luck, and if you've worked hard and studied diligently, then all you've done is realize the potential of the massive amount of charity you were gifted with.
What you are is a manicured pink poodle who's been taken to the zoo by your owner who calls you "Pookums" and carries you in her purse. You smirck at the tigers and wolves in their cages and lecture the lions on the virtues of "Survival of the Fittest," and even try to give them advice on how to be cuter so that maybe one day some woman might put them in her purse and take them home.
And every so often, that woman drops her purse, with you in it, inside one of the cages. And poodles like you are the first ones to start squealing and whining and crying about "police protection" and "the rule of law" and "can't we all get along" and "That's not fair!"
Of course, I could be wrong. You might actually be half the badass you think you are. So, lets put this hypothesis to a test. I encourage you to visit the nearest maximum security prison and prove your superiority by dominating that substandard population. With your remarkable mental prowess matched against their mere clumsy brute force, you should have them all begging to be your bitch within days.
Until you do, though, please spare those of us at the grown-ups' table your adolescent delusions of grandeur.
Jesus was a carpenter, remember? As a fellow Christian, let me assure you that our Holy Father would have had no problem whatsoever with sending these people a bill. Same with Paul, who was a tentmaker and also sent out invoices.
I had to set up an academic departmental lab in Japan once. It was a bunch of disparate systems, figured I'd get everything running linux, apache, etc. This meant I needed to download a bunch of stuff. Notice that this isn't Tokyo or Osaka, so the nearest store that stocks RedHat is literally two hours away and charges triple. If you wanted a copy of YellowDog retail, you had to get on a plane.
I cannot describe how frustrating it is to watch your downloads max out at 1.2K as your deadlines approach because the children in the next building want to listen to the latest drek cranked out by the likes of GLAY. I literally had to drive an hour back to my home so I could download and burn the CDs I needed.
I hate the RIAA too, and I mourn for Napster, but I would have blocked all those ports in a second at the college I worked for.
Heard from him lately? He's still crankin' out tunes. Sells them over the net, too. Gets no radio time. Only gets publicity when he publishes a major treatise on what I guess was supposed 2 b compression ciphers. Currently starring in that major motion picture "Where are they now?"
Son, let me get this straight. You invited a pretty girl "out to see the stars." She said "yes." She actually went out there with you. And you spent the time actually trying to look at the SKY?!
Boy, I hate to say this, but if you don't get it in gear you ain't never gona have any stories to tell your grandkids, an' the grandkids part is might iffy right about now.
Japanese appliances that are manufactured and sold for their domestic market... well, let's just say they don't perform nearly as well as their American counterparts. Actually, it would be closer to say that you're trying to get by with tools that are roughly equivalent to "EZ-Bake" ovens and Barbie Dreamhouse appliances.
I dearly miss my American kitchen. I dearly miss my American laundry. "Energy-saving" appliances stupidly trade your personal aggravation for a few watts of electricity.
The answer to the problem is not conservation. It's never conservation. All conservation ever does is buy you some time. The answer to the problem is to get other technologies working. I'll cheerfully give up my SUV when Ballard Technologies can offer me a better one.
Yeah, I know. Oil's bad. Amen. The answer is not to use less oil. The answer is not to use oil at all. Quit wasting your time trying to use less and start trying to find a way to use something different.
However, wait two years for another administration, a year to get another antitrust suit going, two more years for the trial, two more years for the judgement, two more years for the appeal, wait a year for the Supremes, another year for the actual enforcement...
Either free software will have commoditized common computing applications by then or it will have been far too late long ago.
Dammit. Yet another cool site I'd love to see, but predictably slashdotted into the depths of hell.
Sheesh. How hard is this? Quietly prepare a mirror of the site. Post the story. When their poor little server goes screaming into the abyss, shoot them an email that says, "Hi. Sorry we depthcharged your site. Would you like us to point our link to a mirror?" They say "Hell, yes."
Problem solved. Well, OK, maybe warning them in advance would work better.
Admittedly, I am far from the sharpest crayon in the box, and yes, this adds a layer of administration and screwups, but how is that any worse than the subject of almost every single story being unavailable?
We're supposed to be a bunch of smart geeks here. Slashdotting sites into the next millenium is a technical problem. Why can't we fix this?
Yeah, saw it from Tagawa. The tinge I saw might have been a reflection, filtered through smog, or a million other things. It might very well mean I need to go clean my contacts.
Other than being a pretty spectacular shooting star, it looked pretty normal to me.
It's not like it had "Abandon All Hope" scratched on the side. (Serious geek bonus points if you get the obscure scifi tv reference.)
About that same time, I saw one from Fukuoka, Japan. The tail looked just a bit green with some orange. But other than being a big, pretty shooting star with a green tinge, it looked pretty much exactly like every other shooting star I've ever seen. I forgot to even mention it to my wife when I got home.
I mean, it's not like it slowed down or reversed direction.
You, Swillden, are a reasonable person, and if the world were filled with reasonable people, then wars would cease, brutal poverty would disappear, and the only trouble in the world would come from those times when Mother Nature tried to kill us with earthquakes and avalanches.
And I am profoundly uncomfortable being on this side of the argument. I want to live in a John Lennon/Paul McCartney "Ebony and Ivory" world. I want to believe in the Brotherhood of Men. I want to believe that conflict comes from misunderstanding, that the majority of the Arab world basically want to spend their days raising their kids, planning barbecues and scheming for a pay raise.
Unfortunately, I no longer believe that, and that's where you and I disagree. Painting in ridiculously broad strokes, I believe the Arab world is filled with embittered people scapegoating the US for all their problems. While I don't believe the US has clean hands in this part of the world, and I would cheerfully send dozens of CIA agents to prison for the support of the Shah and other crimes, I believe the scapegoating has gone beyond all reason. I believe the leaders of the Arab world encourage this scapegoating because it distracts the populace from their own incompetence.
I don't believe the average Arab male is interested in such concepts as equality before the law. I don't believe the average Arab male is interested in the idea of "tolerance," instructions from the Koran about "People of the Book" notwithstanding.
And though it disturbs me greatly, I have come to believe that if the Arab world were strong and the US were weak, if the situation were reversed, that the Arab world would oppress my people beyond description.
You, of course, disagree with me here. I, in fact, want to disagree with me here. I am fully aware that all I have to support my position is anecdotal evidence and a subjective point of view.
Furthermore, since I have a brother-in-law in Manhattan who saw the towers fall with his own eyes, and I had to watch my dear mother-in-law wait a few hours wondering to hear if her only son were still alive in a faraway land, I am no longer a detached observer.
I'm tainted, I'm biased and I am fighting to hear "It's a Small World" in the background.
Of course, what we really need to settle our argument, is for an organization like Gallup to go and take a statistically rigorous poll of the area. Publish the results, get an open debate, watch the polls, sift through the tea leaves of the election results.
I notice this sort of thing happens in Isreal all the time.
But, oddly enough, this doesn't happen in Saudi Arabia. Nor Syria. Nor Iran. Nor any other "moderate" member of the Arab world. I'll spare you the straw men of such extreme elements as Libya. I will grant you that Turkey is the brightest picture going.
Hmmm. The Arab world doesn't seem to have much in the way of a "free" press. Reporters Without Borders reports that expressing an unpopular opinion in the Middle East is a good way to find yourself imprisoned or worse. Reform movements in Iran have found brutal opposition from the clergy, and will require a full-blown revolution now to survive.
Ah, but Islam is the religion of peace and justice isn't it? Isn't justice one the the Pillars of Islam? I see a woman in Pakistan sentenced to be gang-raped for simply being seen with another caste member. I see a woman in Nigeria sentenced to being buried up to her neck in the dirt and then having her skull bashed in with rocks.
Now, yes I know that both cases had intervention after the fact in the face of international disapproval. I just don't believe these are anomalous points on the graph. These were not cases of Rodney King being beaten by cops or some poor man being shot to death by bigots in blue. These were the considered, debated decisions from jurists on the bench after time for deliberation. I think it's reasonable to believe that these decisions reflect community standards for the area.
If you want to know a man's character, look at how he treats those below him. If you want to measure a business associate, watch how he treats waiters. If you ever find yourself at a disadvantage to him, that's how you'll be treated.
How does the Arab world treat its women and children? In the hottest places on Earth, the women are draped under curtains appropriate for Alaskan climates. When asked why, the gentle members of the Arab world reply that it is to protect them from rape, that a woman in a mere business suit invites attack. In the face of bared knees, it is apparently unreasonable to expect men to restrain themselves.
To further this protection, paid policemen in many Arab countries wander the streets and attack women who aren't properly shrouded. Even our "ally" Saudi Arabia insists that American combat soldiers should wear these curtains to protect them from assault by their own religious policemen.
But beyond clothes, the Arab world buys and sells their daughters in a way that would not seem out of place in the Antebellum South. Girls are told who to marry. They are routinely left uneducated and segregated in public places. Speaking their mind is an open invitation to part with their teeth. Women are property.
And that, I'm afraid, is their vision for us. Bought. Sold. Told where to go. Told what to do. Forbidden to speak. Beaten at will. What the Arab world wants... is dominion. While the West cues up speeches from Martin Luther King and fights court cases to extend Jefferson's legacy, the Muslim world dreams of bringing Sharia law to all, one world under the crescent, one world bowing to Mecca.
And for those who disagree, Daniel Pearl stands as a warning and admonition.
I don't want to believe this, but Islam has left me no choice. They outlaw the free press that might bring hard numbers to our discussion, forcing us to duel with unreliable anecdotal evidence. They oppress their women and lower castes in ways that make me blanch, and that example promises me that if they ever gain influence over my life, I can expect the same.
They follow callow, corrupt leaders like Arafat, and when men like Sadat appear on the scene, they assassinate them. They take hostages like Terry Anderson and use them as tools of statecraft. They send their children out strapped with explosives and nails into civilian centers. They use jetliners as weapons and target international places of business.
The Arab world is aware of its reputation. They watch Hollywood movies. They know what we think of them. Where have their leaders insisted Hollywood was wrong? Where are the fierce denials about the status of women? Why haven't the religious police been dismantled? Why aren't the girls sent to school? Why is it that the only exchange students from the Middle East I've met have been men?
But you're right. I really don't know what I'm talking about. I've never lived in the Middle East. The soldiers and roughneck oil workers I've talked to who have are perhaps not the most scholarly of observers. It's probable that the journalists are just chasing the most juicy stories.
You and I are walking along a hot highway in West Texas, and we come upon a box dropped off a truck. We can't see directly into the box, but when we listen to it, the box rattles.
I reach for a shotgun. You tell me I'm overreacting, that the box most likely is filled with toys or clocks. Put the gun away before you blow your foot off.
Back in college, I had my bicycle stolen. The bike was my only means of transportation, and the thief left me literally walking miles at a time in Texas heat. The thief caused me great harm.
On the other hand, if the thief had simply looked at my bicycle very hard, or even ran a scanner over it, and then made a copy of it to ride away on, I wouldn't have cared.
Oh, but I hear you say, then Schwinn would have lost a sale! No, they didn't. This guy probably didn't have the money to buy a bike, hence the theft.
But, but, but, if he doesn't have the money, he doesn't deserve a bicycle. Schwinn has a right to maximize their profits.
Um, no. Schwinn is a corporation, and in their corporate charter they swore to benefit society. (Yeah, they did. Look it up.) That was the deal. We the People give them immunity from liability and a bunch of tax breaks, and they promise to benefit society at large.
This means if Schwinn ever figures out a way to manufacture bicycles for ten cents each, they have an obligation to do so -- because they promised to. If Schwinn wants to charge a million dollars per bicycle, they are free to do so as Sole Proprietorship or Partnership.
Now, about copyright law. Yes, the Music Industry holds copyright on a great deal of music. But part of copyright law is the simple fact that if you use copyright to abuse the market, then your copyright is void. (Look it up. It's black letter federal law.)
What this means is that if our courts and legislature weren't being distorted by floods of illegitimate contributions, the RIAA would have had their copyrights revoked long ago.
So please, spare me the "It's shoplifting" talk. It's not shoplifting. It's certainly not murder, pillage and rape on the high seas.
What it really is, is poetic justice.
Had the Entertainment Industry at large listened to the screaming back in 1990 about the coming digital era and actually figured out a way to accommodate the Internet market, they might have had my sympathy. However, since they've spent the last ten years doing nothing but trying to fight the tide, leaving hobbyists to do the job they were obligated to do themselves, I have a very hard time shedding any tears for them.
The minstrel industry died, as did carnies and vaudeville. When Hollywood and the LA music industry join them on the slag heap, I'm not going to care.
They just haven't been doing their job.
You're not getting "conflicting" information
on
Resume Tips For Jobs
·
· Score: 1
You're getting different reports from different sources who are looking at different perspectives of the same overall situation.
Slashdot Mirror
What footprint? Anyone who would go to all the trouble to make this monstrosity would certainly figure out a way to hang it on a wall and make the necessary cables into a "web."
we see what we want to. And what we want are heroes, not villians. Given an unknown, we want that unknown to be Vin Diesel fighting the good fight, not Ted Bundy making of with a co-ed.
http://www.toms.net/rb/
First, that water went over the bridge with the invention of the bandage. We are by nature the animal that defies Nature through the use of technology.
By definition, our medical tools are part and parcel of the evolutionary process. Would you say that the birds are "cheating" because they used wings? Or that the lungfish were cheating by getting their oxygen straight from the atmosphere?
Second, we're not thwarting evolution. We're giving the victims their life back after accidents that Nature never intended. At what point did the Discover channel do a special on "the Drunk Driver's Place in the Ecosystem?" And what natural defense do you propose we evolve to counter this risk? Adamantium skeletons?
Third, if you've personally ever received any sort of serious medical intervention, then you're a raging hypocrite. An injection of any kind qualifies as "serious intervention." If you haven't received any serious medical attention, then you're either very young or rather sheltered. My guess would be both.
Last, and this is the point I really want to make, WHAT KIND OF FREAKISHLY UNFEELING JACKASS ARE YOU THAT THIS THOUGHT WOULD EVEN ENTER YOUR HEAD? Most of the candidates for this surgery are burn victims who survived a perfect glimpse of Hell, only to discover that young children run screaming from them in terror now, that even their families flinch before touching them.
Your job here is to sit down, shut up, applaud the surgeons who are dedicating their lives to alleviating suffering, and pray that nothing ever happens to you that would make you too terrified to look in the mirror.
Although, after a post like that, I would hope you'd avoid mirrors for a while anyway out of decent sense of shame.
Unless you were born in a hovel at the bottom end of Bangladesh or Rwanda, you simply have no idea what you're talking about.
Taking a wild guess, I'd say you were probably born in a civilized nation with reasonably strong rule of law. Furthermore, since you're posting from a computer, and I'm assuming there isn't blood from its previous owner splashed across the keyboard and monitor, you were probably born into a reasonably affluent place.
I don't care how hard you think you've worked. Unless you spent your childhood stealing food every day, then you've been the beneficiary of some form of charity in your life.
Assuming you're not a Hindu, then you must understand that where you were born was a matter of blind, dumb luck, and if you've worked hard and studied diligently, then all you've done is realize the potential of the massive amount of charity you were gifted with.
What you are is a manicured pink poodle who's been taken to the zoo by your owner who calls you "Pookums" and carries you in her purse. You smirck at the tigers and wolves in their cages and lecture the lions on the virtues of "Survival of the Fittest," and even try to give them advice on how to be cuter so that maybe one day some woman might put them in her purse and take them home.
And every so often, that woman drops her purse, with you in it, inside one of the cages. And poodles like you are the first ones to start squealing and whining and crying about "police protection" and "the rule of law" and "can't we all get along" and "That's not fair!"
Of course, I could be wrong. You might actually be half the badass you think you are. So, lets put this hypothesis to a test. I encourage you to visit the nearest maximum security prison and prove your superiority by dominating that substandard population. With your remarkable mental prowess matched against their mere clumsy brute force, you should have them all begging to be your bitch within days.
Until you do, though, please spare those of us at the grown-ups' table your adolescent delusions of grandeur.
What would Jesus have done?
Jesus was a carpenter, remember? As a fellow Christian, let me assure you that our Holy Father would have had no problem whatsoever with sending these people a bill. Same with Paul, who was a tentmaker and also sent out invoices.
Oh, yea and amen, brother. Sincerely. Preach on.
But this wasn't some good deed he performed for some poor soul in need. This was a person who allowed himself to be taken advantage of.
Like he said, I don't even think the woman had the common decency to say "Thank You" and "Please."
I know you mean well, but you just wrote an algorithm for producing the most vicious form of corporate political games imaginable.
I had to set up an academic departmental lab in Japan once. It was a bunch of disparate systems, figured I'd get everything running linux, apache, etc. This meant I needed to download a bunch of stuff. Notice that this isn't Tokyo or Osaka, so the nearest store that stocks RedHat is literally two hours away and charges triple. If you wanted a copy of YellowDog retail, you had to get on a plane.
I cannot describe how frustrating it is to watch your downloads max out at 1.2K as your deadlines approach because the children in the next building want to listen to the latest drek cranked out by the likes of GLAY. I literally had to drive an hour back to my home so I could download and burn the CDs I needed.
I hate the RIAA too, and I mourn for Napster, but I would have blocked all those ports in a second at the college I worked for.
Heard from him lately? He's still crankin' out tunes. Sells them over the net, too. Gets no radio time. Only gets publicity when he publishes a major treatise on what I guess was supposed 2 b compression ciphers. Currently starring in that major motion picture "Where are they now?"
Son, let me get this straight. You invited a pretty girl "out to see the stars." She said "yes." She actually went out there with you. And you spent the time actually trying to look at the SKY?!
Boy, I hate to say this, but if you don't get it in gear you ain't never gona have any stories to tell your grandkids, an' the grandkids part is might iffy right about now.
...I find a post I'd use them all on. Thanks. This is a great tip.
Listen you mangy little girly tiger. Either you get your furry little butt out to the sled, or you're banned from G.R.O.S.S.
And stay away from my hot chocolate. Mom made it for me, not you.
President-Dictator-For-Life Calvin
Sorry, I've lived in Japan for seven years now...
... well, let's just say they don't perform nearly as well as their American counterparts. Actually, it would be closer to say that you're trying to get by with tools that are roughly equivalent to "EZ-Bake" ovens and Barbie Dreamhouse appliances.
Japanese appliances that are manufactured and sold for their domestic market
I dearly miss my American kitchen. I dearly miss my American laundry. "Energy-saving" appliances stupidly trade your personal aggravation for a few watts of electricity.
The answer to the problem is not conservation. It's never conservation. All conservation ever does is buy you some time. The answer to the problem is to get other technologies working. I'll cheerfully give up my SUV when Ballard Technologies can offer me a better one.
Yeah, I know. Oil's bad. Amen. The answer is not to use less oil. The answer is not to use oil at all. Quit wasting your time trying to use less and start trying to find a way to use something different.
Yea and amen to that brother.
However, wait two years for another administration, a year to get another antitrust suit going, two more years for the trial, two more years for the judgement, two more years for the appeal, wait a year for the Supremes, another year for the actual enforcement...
Either free software will have commoditized common computing applications by then or it will have been far too late long ago.
Dammit. Yet another cool site I'd love to see, but predictably slashdotted into the depths of hell.
Sheesh. How hard is this? Quietly prepare a mirror of the site. Post the story. When their poor little server goes screaming into the abyss, shoot them an email that says, "Hi. Sorry we depthcharged your site. Would you like us to point our link to a mirror?" They say "Hell, yes."
Problem solved. Well, OK, maybe warning them in advance would work better.
Admittedly, I am far from the sharpest crayon in the box, and yes, this adds a layer of administration and screwups, but how is that any worse than the subject of almost every single story being unavailable?
We're supposed to be a bunch of smart geeks here. Slashdotting sites into the next millenium is a technical problem. Why can't we fix this?
And no, dammit, this is not off-topic.
Yeah, saw it from Tagawa. The tinge I saw might have been a reflection, filtered through smog, or a million other things. It might very well mean I need to go clean my contacts.
Other than being a pretty spectacular shooting star, it looked pretty normal to me.
It's not like it had "Abandon All Hope" scratched on the side. (Serious geek bonus points if you get the obscure scifi tv reference.)
About that same time, I saw one from Fukuoka, Japan. The tail looked just a bit green with some orange. But other than being a big, pretty shooting star with a green tinge, it looked pretty much exactly like every other shooting star I've ever seen. I forgot to even mention it to my wife when I got home.
I mean, it's not like it slowed down or reversed direction.
"And in that, Slick Henry, I'll see the shape."
Suffering whiplash from seeing a Gibson story become a real-live Slashdot post.
Just use the one concept applicable to all three fields:
The Fibonacci Series.
You, Swillden, are a reasonable person, and if the world were filled with reasonable people, then wars would cease, brutal poverty would disappear, and the only trouble in the world would come from those times when Mother Nature tried to kill us with earthquakes and avalanches.
... is dominion. While the West cues up speeches from Martin Luther King and fights court cases to extend Jefferson's legacy, the Muslim world dreams of bringing Sharia law to all, one world under the crescent, one world bowing to Mecca.
And I am profoundly uncomfortable being on this side of the argument. I want to live in a John Lennon/Paul McCartney "Ebony and Ivory" world. I want to believe in the Brotherhood of Men. I want to believe that conflict comes from misunderstanding, that the majority of the Arab world basically want to spend their days raising their kids, planning barbecues and scheming for a pay raise.
Unfortunately, I no longer believe that, and that's where you and I disagree. Painting in ridiculously broad strokes, I believe the Arab world is filled with embittered people scapegoating the US for all their problems. While I don't believe the US has clean hands in this part of the world, and I would cheerfully send dozens of CIA agents to prison for the support of the Shah and other crimes, I believe the scapegoating has gone beyond all reason. I believe the leaders of the Arab world encourage this scapegoating because it distracts the populace from their own incompetence.
I don't believe the average Arab male is interested in such concepts as equality before the law. I don't believe the average Arab male is interested in the idea of "tolerance," instructions from the Koran about "People of the Book" notwithstanding.
And though it disturbs me greatly, I have come to believe that if the Arab world were strong and the US were weak, if the situation were reversed, that the Arab world would oppress my people beyond description.
You, of course, disagree with me here. I, in fact, want to disagree with me here. I am fully aware that all I have to support my position is anecdotal evidence and a subjective point of view.
Furthermore, since I have a brother-in-law in Manhattan who saw the towers fall with his own eyes, and I had to watch my dear mother-in-law wait a few hours wondering to hear if her only son were still alive in a faraway land, I am no longer a detached observer.
I'm tainted, I'm biased and I am fighting to hear "It's a Small World" in the background.
Of course, what we really need to settle our argument, is for an organization like Gallup to go and take a statistically rigorous poll of the area. Publish the results, get an open debate, watch the polls, sift through the tea leaves of the election results.
I notice this sort of thing happens in Isreal all the time.
But, oddly enough, this doesn't happen in Saudi Arabia. Nor Syria. Nor Iran. Nor any other "moderate" member of the Arab world. I'll spare you the straw men of such extreme elements as Libya. I will grant you that Turkey is the brightest picture going.
Hmmm. The Arab world doesn't seem to have much in the way of a "free" press. Reporters Without Borders reports that expressing an unpopular opinion in the Middle East is a good way to find yourself imprisoned or worse. Reform movements in Iran have found brutal opposition from the clergy, and will require a full-blown revolution now to survive.
Ah, but Islam is the religion of peace and justice isn't it? Isn't justice one the the Pillars of Islam? I see a woman in Pakistan sentenced to be gang-raped for simply being seen with another caste member. I see a woman in Nigeria sentenced to being buried up to her neck in the dirt and then having her skull bashed in with rocks.
Now, yes I know that both cases had intervention after the fact in the face of international disapproval. I just don't believe these are anomalous points on the graph. These were not cases of Rodney King being beaten by cops or some poor man being shot to death by bigots in blue. These were the considered, debated decisions from jurists on the bench after time for deliberation. I think it's reasonable to believe that these decisions reflect community standards for the area.
If you want to know a man's character, look at how he treats those below him. If you want to measure a business associate, watch how he treats waiters. If you ever find yourself at a disadvantage to him, that's how you'll be treated.
How does the Arab world treat its women and children? In the hottest places on Earth, the women are draped under curtains appropriate for Alaskan climates. When asked why, the gentle members of the Arab world reply that it is to protect them from rape, that a woman in a mere business suit invites attack. In the face of bared knees, it is apparently unreasonable to expect men to restrain themselves.
To further this protection, paid policemen in many Arab countries wander the streets and attack women who aren't properly shrouded. Even our "ally" Saudi Arabia insists that American combat soldiers should wear these curtains to protect them from assault by their own religious policemen.
But beyond clothes, the Arab world buys and sells their daughters in a way that would not seem out of place in the Antebellum South. Girls are told who to marry. They are routinely left uneducated and segregated in public places. Speaking their mind is an open invitation to part with their teeth. Women are property.
And that, I'm afraid, is their vision for us. Bought. Sold. Told where to go. Told what to do. Forbidden to speak. Beaten at will. What the Arab world wants
And for those who disagree, Daniel Pearl stands as a warning and admonition.
I don't want to believe this, but Islam has left me no choice. They outlaw the free press that might bring hard numbers to our discussion, forcing us to duel with unreliable anecdotal evidence. They oppress their women and lower castes in ways that make me blanch, and that example promises me that if they ever gain influence over my life, I can expect the same.
They follow callow, corrupt leaders like Arafat, and when men like Sadat appear on the scene, they assassinate them. They take hostages like Terry Anderson and use them as tools of statecraft. They send their children out strapped with explosives and nails into civilian centers. They use jetliners as weapons and target international places of business.
The Arab world is aware of its reputation. They watch Hollywood movies. They know what we think of them. Where have their leaders insisted Hollywood was wrong? Where are the fierce denials about the status of women? Why haven't the religious police been dismantled? Why aren't the girls sent to school? Why is it that the only exchange students from the Middle East I've met have been men?
But you're right. I really don't know what I'm talking about. I've never lived in the Middle East. The soldiers and roughneck oil workers I've talked to who have are perhaps not the most scholarly of observers. It's probable that the journalists are just chasing the most juicy stories.
You and I are walking along a hot highway in West Texas, and we come upon a box dropped off a truck. We can't see directly into the box, but when we listen to it, the box rattles.
I reach for a shotgun. You tell me I'm overreacting, that the box most likely is filled with toys or clocks. Put the gun away before you blow your foot off.
You're right, of course.
But that box is still rattling.
...the one you know best how to use.
Do yourself a huge favor. Go buy a split keyboard that feels "right" to you. Give it two weeks. You'll never go back.
God, I hate Microsoft. But their "natural" keyboards and oversized ergonomic mice are a godsend.
Back in college, I had my bicycle stolen. The bike was my only means of transportation, and the thief left me literally walking miles at a time in Texas heat. The thief caused me great harm.
On the other hand, if the thief had simply looked at my bicycle very hard, or even ran a scanner over it, and then made a copy of it to ride away on, I wouldn't have cared.
Oh, but I hear you say, then Schwinn would have lost a sale! No, they didn't. This guy probably didn't have the money to buy a bike, hence the theft.
But, but, but, if he doesn't have the money, he doesn't deserve a bicycle. Schwinn has a right to maximize their profits.
Um, no. Schwinn is a corporation, and in their corporate charter they swore to benefit society. (Yeah, they did. Look it up.) That was the deal. We the People give them immunity from liability and a bunch of tax breaks, and they promise to benefit society at large.
This means if Schwinn ever figures out a way to manufacture bicycles for ten cents each, they have an obligation to do so -- because they promised to. If Schwinn wants to charge a million dollars per bicycle, they are free to do so as Sole Proprietorship or Partnership.
Now, about copyright law. Yes, the Music Industry holds copyright on a great deal of music. But part of copyright law is the simple fact that if you use copyright to abuse the market, then your copyright is void. (Look it up. It's black letter federal law.)
What this means is that if our courts and legislature weren't being distorted by floods of illegitimate contributions, the RIAA would have had their copyrights revoked long ago.
So please, spare me the "It's shoplifting" talk. It's not shoplifting. It's certainly not murder, pillage and rape on the high seas.
What it really is, is poetic justice.
Had the Entertainment Industry at large listened to the screaming back in 1990 about the coming digital era and actually figured out a way to accommodate the Internet market, they might have had my sympathy. However, since they've spent the last ten years doing nothing but trying to fight the tide, leaving hobbyists to do the job they were obligated to do themselves, I have a very hard time shedding any tears for them.
The minstrel industry died, as did carnies and vaudeville. When Hollywood and the LA music industry join them on the slag heap, I'm not going to care.
They just haven't been doing their job.
You're getting different reports from different sources who are looking at different perspectives of the same overall situation.