Wow, if that's not the definition of "loser" . . .
on
Pay to Play
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· Score: -1
I've been paying $30.00 a month (three accounts) for nearly two years to play EverQuest. Some games are just worth it. EQ would be incredibly boring as a single player game, but as a MMORPG it's unbeatable.
You certainly like to jump to conclusions, don't you, you PAPIST FAGGOT. How's it feel to be a member of the largest Paedophile Dating Service on the planet?
Christianity is a trick of the Jews. The perversity of the Catholics Church is what the Jews envisioned when they foisted Christiantiy upon Europe. Protestanism is a step forward. That is, it brings Christianity more in line with the White Man's values and history. That said, all Christianity is bad for the White Man.
My mind is unfettered by any form of the Jewish pollution that is Christianity.
Now, an honest word to a potential brother:
If you are of Nordic ancestry, it is possible you could still be saved. Abandon the Papist/Jewish lunacy that is Catholicism and act like a White Man. But if you are from Italy, or Spain, or Mexico, you are probably screwed either way, and I'd like to say FUCK YOU.
FUCK YOU! It's papist scum like you, in collaboration with the Jewish element, that has been trying to destroy our country. The White Man creates. The Negro and Muslim freeloads. The Jew and Catholic destroys.
In closing, I'd like to quote Hate Society, a great band out of Germany. I highly recommend this band to my white racialist brethren. This is from their song "Rahowa":
There's a war outside
You scum you better hide
There's a war outside
You scum you better hide
...
now it's time for revolution
what we want is a final solution
...
swastika in every country
because our flame never dies
...
we've had enough, we're not going to take it no more,
here comes a racial holy war
My ancestors come from the land of the ice and snow.
Niggers and Muslims are harmless children compared to Jews and Catholics. Without the Jews and Catholics, Niggers and Muslims would Know Their Place. Niggers and Muslims are easily controlled and occasionally even productive once the Jewish and Catholic agitators are removed.
(Note, I'm only bashing the Catholics here because everyone already knows about the treacherous nature of Jews)
So, you've heard how Catholics are de-facto slaves to the Pope's will. But do you know how strong a hold the Pope has over his mind-controlled followers? Think about this.
Since the time they're about 7, every Catholic gives a weekly confession of all their misdeeds (and for Catholics, this involves massive amounts of perversion, evil, illegality, and so-forth). Now, do you think a power-hungry, expansionist organization like the Papacy would just let this valuable information fall by the wayside. NO! Of course not.
Since time immemorial, the Catholic Church has been storing the confessions of its followers to be used in case a given follower refuses to carry out the Pope's orders. With the threat of blackmail, the Pope can rule with an iron fist.
Computerization made this type of mass blackmailing much easier. In fact, I have it on good authority that the Pope's Blackmail Database was created using Oracle 9i for its scalabilty and security. Somebody ought to tell the Pope about this new lapse.
(Note, I'm only bashing the Catholics here because everyone already knows about the treacherous nature of Jews)
So, you've heard how Catholics are de-facto slaves to the Pope's will. But do you know how strong a hold the Pope has over his mind-controlled followers? Think about this.
Since the time they're about 7, every Catholic gives a weekly confession of all their misdeeds (and for Catholics, this involves massive amounts of perversion, evil, illegality, and so-forth). Now, do you think a power-hungry, expansionist organization like the Catholic church would just let this valuable information fall by the wayside. NO! Of course not.
Since time immemorial, the Catholic Church has been storing the confessions of its followers to be used in case a given follower refuses to carry out the Pope's orders. With the threat of blackmail, the Pope can rule with an iron fist.
Computerization made this type of mass blackmailing much easier. In fact, I have it on good authority that the Pope's Blackmail Database is a Java application run under FreeBSD for its scalabilty and security.
Chinese-Made Ammo in al Qaeda Caves Confirms DEBKAfile's October 6 Expose of Chinese Aid to Bin Laden 17 December: DEBKAfile was the first publication to reveal that China had sent thousands of armed men into Afghanistan in support of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Our first story came out on October 6, 2001, one day before the US went to war in Afghanistan.
Monday, December 17, Pentagon officials aboard the plane taking US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Brussels, revealed that large quantities of Chinese-manufactured ammo were discovered in the Tora Bora cave hideouts of al Qaeda.
They were speaking to CNN's senior defense correspondent James McIntyre, who ran the story with close-up shots of the cache. It was shown to include mortar shells, anti-tank rockets and ammunition for various types of automatic rifles and machine guns of Chinese manufacture, abandoned by fleeing al Qaeda men.
DEBKAfile continued to run with the story through different stages of the Afghanistan War.
Follow-ups, verified by other media, appeared on October 20 and November 15. In the first, we reported 15 Chinese fighters found dead in Kandahar. They were part of an escort convoy for one of bin Laden's senior lieutenants, Basir al Masri, commander of the Arab contingents in Jalalabad, which came under US bombing as it left Kandahar.
In the second, David Chater of Sky television attested to the presence of Chinese fighting alongside the Taliban and al Qaeda in the battles of Konduz and Khanabad in northern Afghanistan.
Now comes the CNN report, which confirms that Beijing sent to bin Laden, not only men but also quantities of weapons.
Click here for three articles in DEBKAfile's China section John Stanton, in a feature article in the December issue of National Defense Magazine, reports that "DEBKA caused a stir several weeks ago when it published an unconfirmed report that Chinese troops were fighting alongside the Taliban..."
Chinese-Made Ammo in al Qaeda Caves Confirms DEBKAfile's October 6 Expose of Chinese Aid to Bin Laden 17 December: DEBKAfile was the first publication to reveal that China had sent thousands of armed men into Afghanistan in support of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Our first story came out on October 6, 2001, one day before the US went to war in Afghanistan.
Monday, December 17, Pentagon officials aboard the plane taking US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Brussels, revealed that large quantities of Chinese-manufactured ammo were discovered in the Tora Bora cave hideouts of al Qaeda.
They were speaking to CNN's senior defense correspondent James McIntyre, who ran the story with close-up shots of the cache. It was shown to include mortar shells, anti-tank rockets and ammunition for various types of automatic rifles and machine guns of Chinese manufacture, abandoned by fleeing al Qaeda men.
DEBKAfile continued to run with the story through different stages of the Afghanistan War.
Follow-ups, verified by other media, appeared on October 20 and November 15. In the first, we reported 15 Chinese fighters found dead in Kandahar. They were part of an escort convoy for one of bin Laden's senior lieutenants, Basir al Masri, commander of the Arab contingents in Jalalabad, which came under US bombing as it left Kandahar.
In the second, David Chater of Sky television attested to the presence of Chinese fighting alongside the Taliban and al Qaeda in the battles of Konduz and Khanabad in northern Afghanistan.
Now comes the CNN report, which confirms that Beijing sent to bin Laden, not only men but also quantities of weapons.
Click here for three articles in DEBKAfile's China section John Stanton, in a feature article in the December issue of National Defense Magazine, reports that "DEBKA caused a stir several weeks ago when it published an unconfirmed report that Chinese troops were fighting alongside the Taliban..."
Also, some of us have expressed interest in knowing about Rob Malda's love life. Could you expand a little upon that in the future?
Okay, here's what (I think) I know about Malda's love life. He's going out with a girl named Sarcasta who has large teeth and is kind of funny looking. I can't tell you much more than that.
I've also heard that Rob "dated" a Canadian prostitute at one point, but that rumour is unconfirmed.
TORA BORA, Afghanistan (news - web sites) (AP) - Tribal fighters and U.S. special forces chased al-Qaida guerrillas through the mountains Monday after conquering their complex of caves and tunnels. Some tearful al-Qaida fighters surrendered, pleading with their captors not to turn them over to the Americans.
How's that for fearless jihadi?
I want to send this message out to all you arab terrorists: we will come for you; we will smoke you out of your holes; we will torture you, execute you, and bury you in pig skin shrouds. Your tears will not deflect our wrath, you effeminate scum.
That's a bit inflammatory, no? Didn't anyone ever tell you that not all Arabs are terrorists? This is exactly the type of division Osama wanted to achieve.
It's true, many arabs, including most of the arabs in America, sympathize with Osama Bin Laden, and perhaps raise funds for his al-Qaeda organization. But we can't let ourselves prejudge people just because they're muslim.
Steven Spielberg a GOOD director?
on
Immersive HDTV
·
· Score: 0
HA!
I don't know why I'm responding to such a blatant troll. Maybe I feel the need to educate some of the clueless slashbots who might otherwise be taken in by your misinformation.
Steven Spielberg is a horrible director. AI is a terrible film. Spielberg's cheap, heavy-handed attempts at manipulating the viewer's emotions are tiresome examples of anything BUT good direction.
Spielberg is to Good Directing as John Grisham is to Great Literature. HTH.
Aggressive abstraction, storage irrelevance, and just-in-time binding are all great. But an operating system will need robust native support for teledildonics to prevail in the 21st century. Without teledildonics support, everything else becomes irrelevant.
That is classic. The funny thing is, I actually believe it.
The Internet Will Never Be Successfully Regulated
on
Taming the Web
·
· Score: -1, Troll
It is folly to attempt to regulate the Internet. Look at the facts:
- The internet has been around for more than two decades, during which time it has managed to elude being regulated in any meaningful way, anywhere in the world.
- The internet stretches across national boundaries. For regulation to be successfully carried out, an international body would need to be involved.
- Now that we have web servers in space, even international bodies will be powerless to censor the internet.
- The skills of hackers and crackers will summarily overcome any attempts by government to lock-down the internet. If hackers can infiltrate the most secure military computers of the greatest nation on earth, how will the US, but more especially, the rest of the world, ever regulate the internet?
The facts are there. Attempts to regulate the web will always fail. The internet is new and different, PERIOD! Those who would attempt to govern it in the current, obsolete way are forever doomed to disappointment.
Yet another example of destructive capitalism in action.
The trojan room coffee pot is exactly the type of object that should be in a museum somewhere. The fact that, instead of seeing that it's preserved on-display for eternity, the short-sighted "owners" of the pot would rather auction it off for a cheap buck, speaks volumes about the nefarious influence of capitalism, and it's sister philosophy, "property rights".
Hopefully, whoever bought this totemic item, will show some responsibility and donate it to a public institution, where professional curators will be able to see that it is well-maintained.
Different Cultures: Europe vs. the USA
on
The Assembly In Review
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I'm glad to see the demo scene finally mentioned in an article on Slashdot. I was starting to think that Slashdot was only interested in covering topics of interest USian readers.
The demo scene is much more important than people and Americans generally acknowledge. It is, truly, the last subculture where people code for the love of it. This explains the strength of the scene in Europe, and its nonexistence in America.
The culture in the US leaves no room for movements like the demo scene to evolve and thrive. Coders in the US are too focused on monetary rewards or political posturing. This is unfortunate. America really needs to pay attention to the Europeans here, and learn from them.
Europeans are driven by ideals, not greed. At the same time, they are sophisticated enought not to allow their valuable coding skills to be coopted by strident political organizations like the FSF.
Unfortunately, America is exporting it's culture to Europe at an alarming rate. Soon, Europe may even beging to enforce American software patents. Under these circumstances, the demo scene is in a precarious postition. For example, I can forsee a day when all the skilled European coders will have been bought up by American corporations. Even worse, once software patents go into effect in the EU, it's only a matter of time before the scene is forced underground by lawsuits from American game companies. I really hope the EU doesn't let this happen, but it may be too late.
True, they had water craft with sails. But they are polynesians, which means they have absolutely nothing to do with sailing! Next thing, you're going to tell me that the yahoo down at the reservoir in his power boat is sailing too.
So, a catamaran, or trimaran for that matter, is not a real sail boat! To early polynesians, the catamaran was the equivalent of a family station-wagon. Today, the fiberglass catamaran represents the unhealthy democratisation of a once meaningful pasttime. First skiing, now this?
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
What everyone seems to be forgetting is that England has instituted the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP). This piece of legislation gave the British government the wholesale right to monitor all electronic communications in Britain and the EU. They can't legally monitor your phonecalls without a warrant, but they can monitor all your internet activity.
With internet enabled park benches, Microsoft and the British government are gearing up to obsolete the telephone in Britain. After all, who would bother making phone calls when they have free internet access at every park bench?
It's a win-win situation. Microsoft expands their monolopy, while the British government tightens its iron grip on its subjects.
While there is a certain rah-rah for technology aspect to this story, we must not forget the issues of corporate power involved here. Personally, I'm ok with the UK government doing whatever it needs to reduce crime. I'm most vehemently opposed to Microsoft's involvement. Microsoft is getting cocky now that Bush is in office. I just hope it doesn't get to the point where Microsoft has totally coopted the power of the world's democratic governments and turned us all into its consumerist slaves. KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
For the same reason photovoltaic cells do. There is no pre-existing infrastructure. It's easier and cheaper to use cell-phones than to run phone-lines. KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
Golfing is Environmentally Unsound
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 1
Yet another example of leftist ignorance and hypocrisy. The fact that they would torch SUV dealerships at the same time they play golf.
In fact, the existence of golf courses is less environmentally sound than driving SUVs, by a tremendous margin. The amount of pesticide runoff alone makes that obvious. And I'm not even counting all the emissions from petroleum burning vehicles used to mow the acres and acres of grass continually. Or the emissions from golf carts. Or all the energy and petroleum that goes to produce golf clubs, balls, bags, and the like. Or the amount of over-processed food consumed by the groundskeepers and and caddies who wouldn't even exist if it weren't for golf-courses. KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
I'm sorry, but I can't let this line go without comment:
He earned a black belt in tae kwon do with less than four years of training.
I am so fuming mad after reading this line, I can't even read the rest of the article.
The problem with modern martial arts is the tendency to emphasize the art instead of the martial. The men who developed those "styles" centuries ago were warriors, and that's why the military remains among the best sources for practical hand-to-hand training. Founders of the martial arts were also often killers: Chinese organized crime still contains some of the best kung-fu masters alive. When warriors and killers trained, they trained to fight.
But nowadays the Self-Esteem Academy at every other strip mall is a place for little Jennifer and Kelly to spend a few hours until Mommy arrives in her minivan. Those kids -- the typical martial arts student in modern America -- may learn self-discipline, build confidence, and gain a certain amount of fitness on their ways to black belts.
But can they fight?
I've known a handful of black belts whom I wouldn't attempt to tackle with anything less than a 12-gauge. I've also known plenty of others whom I could take with a teaspoon. Face facts: a black belt used to mean that the man wearing it was hell in any back alley brawl, but nowadays cripples, old ladies, and kids wear them.
Through the popularity of this column, I get correspondence from all over the country. And the most commonly asked question is, "How long does it take to get a black belt?"I don't know how this question is answered in other schools, but my students know that asking such a question in my dojo would set them back several years in their training. It would be a disaster.
Most people would be overjoyed if I would say it takes just a couple of years to get a black belt, but unfortunately it does not. And though I am afraid most people would not be happy with my answer, I think the general misconceptions about "what is a black belt?" should be clarified as much as possible. This is not a popular subject to discuss in the way I am going to. Indeed, I warn my students not to ask the question in the first place. The answer is not what they want to hear.
How do you get a black belt? You find a competent teacher and a good school, begin training and work hard. Someday, who knows when, it will come. It is not easy, but it's worth it. It may take one year; it may take ten years. You may never achieve it. When you come to realize that the black belt is not as important as the practice itself, you are probably approaching black belt level. When you realize that no matter how long or how hard you train, there is a lifetime of study and practice ahead of you until you die, you are probably getting close to a black belt.
At whatever level you achieve, if you think you "deserve" a black belt, or if you think you are now "good enough" to be a black belt, you are way off the mark, and, indeed a very long way from reaching your black belt. Train hard, be humble, don't show off in front of your teacher or other students, don't complain about any task and do your best in everything in your life. This is what it means to be a black belt. To be overconfident, to show off your skill, to be competitive, to look down on others, to show a lack of respect, and to pick and chose what you do and don't do (believing that some jobs are beneath your dignity) characterize the student who will never achieve black belt. What they wear around their waist is simply a piece of merchandise brought for a few dollars in a martial arts supply store. The real black belt, worn by a real black belt holder, is the white belt of a beginner, turned black by the colour of his blood and sweat.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
You may find this surprising, but GW Bush is the most tech-savvy president we've had to date. Basically, up until he became president, I believe, he always built and maintained his own computers.
He also used email extensively, at least until privacy concerns caused him to stop recently. KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
Slashdot Mirror
My God! Please, seek counseling.
I'm sorry, but FUCK YOU.
You certainly like to jump to conclusions, don't you, you PAPIST FAGGOT. How's it feel to be a member of the largest Paedophile Dating Service on the planet?
Christianity is a trick of the Jews. The perversity of the Catholics Church is what the Jews envisioned when they foisted Christiantiy upon Europe. Protestanism is a step forward. That is, it brings Christianity more in line with the White Man's values and history. That said, all Christianity is bad for the White Man.
My mind is unfettered by any form of the Jewish pollution that is Christianity.
Now, an honest word to a potential brother:
If you are of Nordic ancestry, it is possible you could still be saved. Abandon the Papist/Jewish lunacy that is Catholicism and act like a White Man. But if you are from Italy, or Spain, or Mexico, you are probably screwed either way, and I'd like to say FUCK YOU.
"You scum you better hide."
In closing, I'd like to quote Hate Society, a great band out of Germany. I highly recommend this band to my white racialist brethren. This is from their song "Rahowa":
My ancestors come from the land of the ice and snow.
Niggers and Muslims are harmless children compared to Jews and Catholics. Without the Jews and Catholics, Niggers and Muslims would Know Their Place. Niggers and Muslims are easily controlled and occasionally even productive once the Jewish and Catholic agitators are removed.
(Note, I'm only bashing the Catholics here because everyone already knows about the treacherous nature of Jews)
So, you've heard how Catholics are de-facto slaves to the Pope's will. But do you know how strong a hold the Pope has over his mind-controlled followers? Think about this.
Since the time they're about 7, every Catholic gives a weekly confession of all their misdeeds (and for Catholics, this involves massive amounts of perversion, evil, illegality, and so-forth). Now, do you think a power-hungry, expansionist organization like the Papacy would just let this valuable information fall by the wayside. NO! Of course not.
Since time immemorial, the Catholic Church has been storing the confessions of its followers to be used in case a given follower refuses to carry out the Pope's orders. With the threat of blackmail, the Pope can rule with an iron fist.
Computerization made this type of mass blackmailing much easier. In fact, I have it on good authority that the Pope's Blackmail Database was created using Oracle 9i for its scalabilty and security. Somebody ought to tell the Pope about this new lapse.
(Note, I'm only bashing the Catholics here because everyone already knows about the treacherous nature of Jews)
So, you've heard how Catholics are de-facto slaves to the Pope's will. But do you know how strong a hold the Pope has over his mind-controlled followers? Think about this.
Since the time they're about 7, every Catholic gives a weekly confession of all their misdeeds (and for Catholics, this involves massive amounts of perversion, evil, illegality, and so-forth). Now, do you think a power-hungry, expansionist organization like the Catholic church would just let this valuable information fall by the wayside. NO! Of course not.
Since time immemorial, the Catholic Church has been storing the confessions of its followers to be used in case a given follower refuses to carry out the Pope's orders. With the threat of blackmail, the Pope can rule with an iron fist.
Computerization made this type of mass blackmailing much easier. In fact, I have it on good authority that the Pope's Blackmail Database is a Java application run under FreeBSD for its scalabilty and security.
The Matrix was a terrible movie. I can only imagine Matrix 2 will elevate the pseudo-intellectual, 'action'-packed sci-fi film to a new level.
Also, some of us have expressed interest in knowing about Rob Malda's love life. Could you expand a little upon that in the future?
Okay, here's what (I think) I know about Malda's love life. He's going out with a girl named Sarcasta who has large teeth and is kind of funny looking. I can't tell you much more than that.
I've also heard that Rob "dated" a Canadian prostitute at one point, but that rumour is unconfirmed.
How's that for fearless jihadi?
I want to send this message out to all you arab terrorists: we will come for you; we will smoke you out of your holes; we will torture you, execute you, and bury you in pig skin shrouds. Your tears will not deflect our wrath, you effeminate scum.
That's a bit inflammatory, no? Didn't anyone ever tell you that not all Arabs are terrorists? This is exactly the type of division Osama wanted to achieve.
It's true, many arabs, including most of the arabs in America, sympathize with Osama Bin Laden, and perhaps raise funds for his al-Qaeda organization. But we can't let ourselves prejudge people just because they're muslim.
I don't know why I'm responding to such a blatant troll. Maybe I feel the need to educate some of the clueless slashbots who might otherwise be taken in by your misinformation.
Steven Spielberg is a horrible director. AI is a terrible film. Spielberg's cheap, heavy-handed attempts at manipulating the viewer's emotions are tiresome examples of anything BUT good direction.
Spielberg is to Good Directing as John Grisham is to Great Literature. HTH.
Aggressive abstraction, storage irrelevance, and just-in-time binding are all great. But an operating system will need robust native support for teledildonics to prevail in the 21st century. Without teledildonics support, everything else becomes irrelevant.
Check out the google cache of the page. The images are indeed interesting. I'm thinking of using one of them for my Windows wallpaper.
That is classic. The funny thing is, I actually believe it.
- The internet has been around for more than two decades, during which time it has managed to elude being regulated in any meaningful way, anywhere in the world.
- The internet stretches across national boundaries. For regulation to be successfully carried out, an international body would need to be involved.
- Now that we have web servers in space, even international bodies will be powerless to censor the internet.
- The skills of hackers and crackers will summarily overcome any attempts by government to lock-down the internet. If hackers can infiltrate the most secure military computers of the greatest nation on earth, how will the US, but more especially, the rest of the world, ever regulate the internet?
The facts are there. Attempts to regulate the web will always fail. The internet is new and different, PERIOD! Those who would attempt to govern it in the current, obsolete way are forever doomed to disappointment.
The trojan room coffee pot is exactly the type of object that should be in a museum somewhere. The fact that, instead of seeing that it's preserved on-display for eternity, the short-sighted "owners" of the pot would rather auction it off for a cheap buck, speaks volumes about the nefarious influence of capitalism, and it's sister philosophy, "property rights".
Hopefully, whoever bought this totemic item, will show some responsibility and donate it to a public institution, where professional curators will be able to see that it is well-maintained.
The demo scene is much more important than people and Americans generally acknowledge. It is, truly, the last subculture where people code for the love of it. This explains the strength of the scene in Europe, and its nonexistence in America.
The culture in the US leaves no room for movements like the demo scene to evolve and thrive. Coders in the US are too focused on monetary rewards or political posturing. This is unfortunate. America really needs to pay attention to the Europeans here, and learn from them.
Europeans are driven by ideals, not greed. At the same time, they are sophisticated enought not to allow their valuable coding skills to be coopted by strident political organizations like the FSF.
Unfortunately, America is exporting it's culture to Europe at an alarming rate. Soon, Europe may even beging to enforce American software patents. Under these circumstances, the demo scene is in a precarious postition. For example, I can forsee a day when all the skilled European coders will have been bought up by American corporations. Even worse, once software patents go into effect in the EU, it's only a matter of time before the scene is forced underground by lawsuits from American game companies. I really hope the EU doesn't let this happen, but it may be too late.
So, a catamaran, or trimaran for that matter, is not a real sail boat! To early polynesians, the catamaran was the equivalent of a family station-wagon. Today, the fiberglass catamaran represents the unhealthy democratisation of a once meaningful pasttime. First skiing, now this?
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
What everyone seems to be forgetting is that England has instituted the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP). This piece of legislation gave the British government the wholesale right to monitor all electronic communications in Britain and the EU. They can't legally monitor your phonecalls without a warrant, but they can monitor all your internet activity.
With internet enabled park benches, Microsoft and the British government are gearing up to obsolete the telephone in Britain. After all, who would bother making phone calls when they have free internet access at every park bench?
It's a win-win situation. Microsoft expands their monolopy, while the British government tightens its iron grip on its subjects.
While there is a certain rah-rah for technology aspect to this story, we must not forget the issues of corporate power involved here. Personally, I'm ok with the UK government doing whatever it needs to reduce crime. I'm most vehemently opposed to Microsoft's involvement. Microsoft is getting cocky now that Bush is in office. I just hope it doesn't get to the point where Microsoft has totally coopted the power of the world's democratic governments and turned us all into its consumerist slaves.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
For the same reason photovoltaic cells do. There is no pre-existing infrastructure. It's easier and cheaper to use cell-phones than to run phone-lines.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
In fact, the existence of golf courses is less environmentally sound than driving SUVs, by a tremendous margin. The amount of pesticide runoff alone makes that obvious. And I'm not even counting all the emissions from petroleum burning vehicles used to mow the acres and acres of grass continually. Or the emissions from golf carts. Or all the energy and petroleum that goes to produce golf clubs, balls, bags, and the like. Or the amount of over-processed food consumed by the groundskeepers and and caddies who wouldn't even exist if it weren't for golf-courses.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
He earned a black belt in tae kwon do with less than four years of training.
I am so fuming mad after reading this line, I can't even read the rest of the article.
The problem with modern martial arts is the tendency to emphasize the art instead of the martial. The men who developed those "styles" centuries ago were warriors, and that's why the military remains among the best sources for practical hand-to-hand training. Founders of the martial arts were also often killers: Chinese organized crime still contains some of the best kung-fu masters alive. When warriors and killers trained, they trained to fight.
But nowadays the Self-Esteem Academy at every other strip mall is a place for little Jennifer and Kelly to spend a few hours until Mommy arrives in her minivan. Those kids -- the typical martial arts student in modern America -- may learn self-discipline, build confidence, and gain a certain amount of fitness on their ways to black belts.
But can they fight?
I've known a handful of black belts whom I wouldn't attempt to tackle with anything less than a 12-gauge. I've also known plenty of others whom I could take with a teaspoon. Face facts: a black belt used to mean that the man wearing it was hell in any back alley brawl, but nowadays cripples, old ladies, and kids wear them.
To quote from What does a black belt really mean?:
Through the popularity of this column, I get correspondence from all over the country. And the most commonly asked question is, "How long does it take to get a black belt?"I don't know how this question is answered in other schools, but my students know that asking such a question in my dojo would set them back several years in their training. It would be a disaster.
Most people would be overjoyed if I would say it takes just a couple of years to get a black belt, but unfortunately it does not. And though I am afraid most people would not be happy with my answer, I think the general misconceptions about "what is a black belt?" should be clarified as much as possible. This is not a popular subject to discuss in the way I am going to. Indeed, I warn my students not to ask the question in the first place. The answer is not what they want to hear.
How do you get a black belt? You find a competent teacher and a good school, begin training and work hard. Someday, who knows when, it will come. It is not easy, but it's worth it. It may take one year; it may take ten years. You may never achieve it. When you come to realize that the black belt is not as important as the practice itself, you are probably approaching black belt level. When you realize that no matter how long or how hard you train, there is a lifetime of study and practice ahead of you until you die, you are probably getting close to a black belt.
At whatever level you achieve, if you think you "deserve" a black belt, or if you think you are now "good enough" to be a black belt, you are way off the mark, and, indeed a very long way from reaching your black belt. Train hard, be humble, don't show off in front of your teacher or other students, don't complain about any task and do your best in everything in your life. This is what it means to be a black belt. To be overconfident, to show off your skill, to be competitive, to look down on others, to show a lack of respect, and to pick and chose what you do and don't do (believing that some jobs are beneath your dignity) characterize the student who will never achieve black belt. What they wear around their waist is simply a piece of merchandise brought for a few dollars in a martial arts supply store. The real black belt, worn by a real black belt holder, is the white belt of a beginner, turned black by the colour of his blood and sweat.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.
He also used email extensively, at least until privacy concerns caused him to stop recently.
KTS:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Utensil.