There's nothing quite as pagan as dressing up in robes, then chanting as a group to turn a wafer into the body of a man who died around 2000 years ago.
Here, drink some of his blood.
If God has reason to be angry with this country, it's because we continue to support people like Falwell and Robertson.
Talk about irony.... I've been driving around with a huge flag on a pole duct taped to the rollbar on the back of my Jeep. It's amazing to see the reactions you get from people, from waves to peace signs to fists of solidarity, etc.
But I pulled up in front of a store, and an older gentleman was standing next to his car. He saw the flag and started to say something to me....
Then he looked me up and down. I have long hair, and a beard, and I wear sandals. HE scowled and got in his car with a Jesus fish on it.
Now, if he actually had a statue of Jesus on his dashboard, he would've then been staring at a long-haired man in sandals, which would have been the ultimate irony.
For some reason, it's mainly the Christians that have a problem with my appearance. I just don't get it.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
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If this were truly about who we support, Bin Laden would be our best ally since we funded other Afghans (not Bin Laden, it turns out) kicking out an invader on their soil. We funded the defense of his native country against a non-Islamic state (oh, you thought Saddam was religious? Read more.).
This becomes all the more interesting as we see Russia coming to our aid and providing information about Afghanistan, not too long (historically speaking) after we originally funded al-Qaid and Bin Laden to get Russia out of Afghanistan.
Yes, Iran is currently pro-US. Once upon a time, so was Iraq. And so was Afghanistan, apparently. Is there a better way to deal with them than switching sides every decade or so?
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
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· Score: 2
I don't blame the intelligence agencies for not seeing this coming. They apparently stop a lot of these things, and I've actually been hearing some good things about their numbers the last couple of days.
I don't see how you could even blame airport security for letting people on an airplane with a razor in a carry-on bag. This was reeeeally sneaky.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
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I don't hate the US at all. I love this country. I am a very patriotic and law abiding citizen, I just happen to disagree with the way that my country has been lead for a while now.
I just don't believe that feeding a killing machine is the only way to handle this.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
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...and we also "arm them" with a lot of foreign aid.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
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1) Most of these arms sales go to warlike countries such as Canada and Belgium.
So why don't they hate Canada or Belgium? They've apparently got good military technology. What are we doing to piss people off that the Canadians aren't?
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
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Well spoken. But my question to this policy is, at some point or another our foreign aid (not just the weapons, but the went to these people that attacked us today... Was there a better solution to the oil/anti-comunism battle that America went through in the 80s?
I don't know the answer to that question, and I do indeed realize that. I'm glad we had this discussion, it'll make me continue to think about this.
Toward the future, there is no mathematical way of denying that we will need to end our dependence on oil. We're just running out.
It will be interesting to see how a planet with no need for fossil fuels will readjust itself socially. I hope we live to see it.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
More On Tragedy
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Then i do stand corrected.
What did he do in the interim?
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
More On Tragedy
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· Score: 2
There wasn't a single word of my post that justifies this carnage. This is a deeply, horribly, everythingly fucked up response.
Whether or not the Taliban is involved, I despise them to the core of my being. They have destroyed the history of the nation which they currently ocupy, wiping out statues and monuments that are thousands of years old to establish their position as the second biggest bullies on the planet.
The term "great evil" is being tossed around all over the 24-hour coverage by the Palestinians, the Iraqis, GW and Bill Clinton.
Which of them are correct? That entirely depends on which country you were born in, and how willing you are to get into the heads of "the enemies."
Who is the great evil? Is it the group that just destroyed the WTC, or is it the group that has for over 30 years now armed and rearmed the citizens of the middle east to systematically fight our enemies for us?
If you're grappling with that question, there's a very simple answer that none of us are taught to look at.
The simple truth is that we (many of you and me), as Americans, aren't involved in this war. Neither are most of the Palestinians, or the Pakistanis, or the Afghanis.
The "groups" I spoke of in that question are the leaders of these forces, the men in control of our country who have been instigating the constant battles in the middle east for over three decades, as well as the al-Qaid and the men that follow Bin Laden.
This war has been brought about by the men in the CIA and these small groups in in the middle east. I have known people from all of these countries for many years, and they're Americans like the rest of us. They're all currently hoping that other Americans don't suddenly decide to hate them, and express their collective anger against a small, militant group of individuals, not whole nations of civilians because of these abominations brought about by a few dozen power-hungry little men.
I can't side with either of them. That's how they get their power.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
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How does it bite GB II on the ass?
Well, let's see.... Thousands are dead, both the pentagon and the world trade center are demolished, and the entire terrorist world knows that we are vulnerable, and are laughing at us.
The world trade center was taken out. On a global scale, that's huge. This will be a dark spot on the legacy of the entire Bush family, seeing as how their foreign policies have brought this on our nation.
What's unfortunate is that noone in the media is even whispering about this, so your outlook will probably prevail.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
on
More On Tragedy
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· Score: 3, Funny
It gets worse, though... Bin Laden and the al-Qaida are the 2 top suspects in all of this, and according to this article at MSNBC, both groups were given their "startup funds" by our CIA in an attempt to weaken the Soviets, who were occupying Afghanistan in the 80s.
So, who was the head of the CIA at the time? Oh yeah, George Herbert Walker Bush. Interesting, how it all comes back to bite him and his family on the ass.
Re:Airport Security... Is that enough?
on
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· Score: 2
Well, some of these guys built their weapons out of their razors that they had in their flight bags.
Unless they're going to instate an "electric shavers only" policy, stepping up patrols and security at the airports isn't going to do a damn thing.
And Fahrenheit 451 is about people who live in a dictatorial police state already, not America.
wait 10 years.... if this kind of thing keeps up, you'll see what's left of our civil liberties run through a sausage factory.
there's an argument to be made....
on
More On Tragedy
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· Score: 4, Insightful
...that on some level, we brought this upon ourselves.
Our "defense" industry is largely what caused this debacle -- the number one export for the United States is weapons. Think about that for a second -- we make more money selling weapons to the rest of the world than any other thing that we make.
The middle eastern countries are mostly split into 2 factions. We, in the United States, choose one of the 2 teams and sell arms to them. Often, we will sell arms to both sides. Remember iran-contra? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, wait, that was patriotic heroism. Only a crackhead or a defense industry salesman would sell fucking ARMS to IRAN.
So, basically, our #1 export is pouring gasoline on fires that have burned for thousands of years. Eventually, one of those fires hits us back here at home, and everyone wants to cry out "more defense" as if this could protect us, or help us sleep at night.
This attack is a reminder that ballistic missles aren't going to save us anymore. Star wars isn't going to stop 8 men with knives from hijacking
domestic flights.
The only thing that is going to save us a sane, rational foreign policy that doesn't incense our enemies in the middle east.
This isn't even a partisan issue. Clinton is as much to blame as either Bush, Ronald Reagan is as much to blame as Lyndon Johnson.
We as a nation need to stop instigating fights if we want to stay out of them. It's that simple.
I have worked for a small software shop for 3 years now, and we recently started implementing Extreme Programming into all of the development.
Ths difference has been astronomical. Deadlines are more realistic, the our releases are far more stable, and basically, the whole "chaos" of development seems to have taken on an organized form that makes everyone happy, even our extremely hyper CEO.
It's customer-driven, it's organized, and it has simplified life at the company immensely. I'm not a shill for it, I'm just relating our experience.
I would highly recommend picking up a couple of the XP books. There are several chapters devoted to how to sell the idea to your bosses, as well as recommended means for showing them how well it's working, which is essential when dealing with people who are obsessed with ROI.
i stil have 486's in use, and my fastest machine is a pii300...
thios parts would definitely be of use to schols, but i don't think they'd be wiling to deal with individual hardware pieces.
the problem is that large organizations (schools, etc.) aren't going to want to deal with building machiensfrmo individual parts, because the administration costs of dealing with a large number of disparate machines can be huge.
and then we can all have wireless, handheld devices that we take with us everywhere, and each one of them will have our individual number in it, and then we can have a completely surveillance-based society.
It amazes me how often "Industry Pundits" refer to the internet as "New Media," and then post dire warnings about the future of the internet when "Old Media" companies discover that their models don't fit.
So old-school internet radio stations aren't going to continue streaming their broadcasts? This is supposed to spell the end of internet radio?
People turn to internet radio to avoid the homogeneous crap that they're stuck with from "old school" radio stations. I don't want to have to choose between the latest mass-produced alternative and pop crap, I want to be able to hear, say, reggae, or ska, or funk, or whatever other type of music, out of the billions out there, that I can't hear on the rregular radio because it has become so streamlined that it must appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Let's face it, radio sucks. Internet radio, on the other hand, with its ability to stream countless different styles of music, holds a lot of promise to me.
So good riddance to the old school. Let them keep propagating their useless, mindless, repetitive crap for the masses, and lets not waste bandwidth on it.
Well, if you currently own a Visor, you can get the VisorPhone for $49 at the moment.
If you don't own a Visor, you get a VisorPhone free with the purchase of any Visor.
Seems like a great deal, as an admin, wireless net access is a godsend. I've been using my Vx with the Skytel Minstrel for about 6 months now, mainly for SSH and AIM. It's great to be able to pull something out of your pocket and restart a server if you get paged without having to drive to the nearest net connection...
...its was given to me by my boss, supposedly to replace my Vx.
It lasted less than a month before I had them return it.
It was slow, it was trying to do FAR more than anything I'm going to drop in my pocket rightly should, the stylus was ludicrous and fell out of the case a couple of times (fortunately I always managed to find it), the WinCE/PocketPC platform is just a mess, and overall it was just nowhere near as elegant as the Palm.
Re:"Merlin"? I smell "Digital Nervous System" agai
on
HP Jornada 560 Series
·
· Score: 2
Let's see.... is XP their new operating system, or is it Extreme Programming?
Slashdot Mirror
There's nothing quite as pagan as dressing up in robes, then chanting as a group to turn a wafer into the body of a man who died around 2000 years ago.
Here, drink some of his blood.
If God has reason to be angry with this country, it's because we continue to support people like Falwell and Robertson.
Talk about irony.... I've been driving around with a huge flag on a pole duct taped to the rollbar on the back of my Jeep. It's amazing to see the reactions you get from people, from waves to peace signs to fists of solidarity, etc.
But I pulled up in front of a store, and an older gentleman was standing next to his car. He saw the flag and started to say something to me....
Then he looked me up and down. I have long hair, and a beard, and I wear sandals. HE scowled and got in his car with a Jesus fish on it.
Now, if he actually had a statue of Jesus on his dashboard, he would've then been staring at a long-haired man in sandals, which would have been the ultimate irony.
For some reason, it's mainly the Christians that have a problem with my appearance. I just don't get it.
If this were truly about who we support, Bin Laden would be our best ally since we funded other Afghans (not Bin Laden, it turns out) kicking out an invader on their soil. We funded the defense of his native country against a non-Islamic state (oh, you thought Saddam was religious? Read more.).
This becomes all the more interesting as we see Russia coming to our aid and providing information about Afghanistan, not too long (historically speaking) after we originally funded al-Qaid and Bin Laden to get Russia out of Afghanistan.
It's all very convoluted.
Yes, Iran is currently pro-US. Once upon a time, so was Iraq. And so was Afghanistan, apparently. Is there a better way to deal with them than switching sides every decade or so?
I don't blame the intelligence agencies for not seeing this coming. They apparently stop a lot of these things, and I've actually been hearing some good things about their numbers the last couple of days.
I don't see how you could even blame airport security for letting people on an airplane with a razor in a carry-on bag. This was reeeeally sneaky.
I don't hate the US at all. I love this country. I am a very patriotic and law abiding citizen, I just happen to disagree with the way that my country has been lead for a while now.
I just don't believe that feeding a killing machine is the only way to handle this.
...and we also "arm them" with a lot of foreign aid.
1) Most of these arms sales go to warlike countries such as Canada and Belgium.
So why don't they hate Canada or Belgium? They've apparently got good military technology. What are we doing to piss people off that the Canadians aren't?
Well spoken. But my question to this policy is, at some point or another our foreign aid (not just the weapons, but the went to these people that attacked us today... Was there a better solution to the oil/anti-comunism battle that America went through in the 80s?
I don't know the answer to that question, and I do indeed realize that. I'm glad we had this discussion, it'll make me continue to think about this.
Toward the future, there is no mathematical way of denying that we will need to end our dependence on oil. We're just running out.
It will be interesting to see how a planet with no need for fossil fuels will readjust itself socially. I hope we live to see it.
Then i do stand corrected.
What did he do in the interim?
There wasn't a single word of my post that justifies this carnage. This is a deeply, horribly, everythingly fucked up response.
Whether or not the Taliban is involved, I despise them to the core of my being. They have destroyed the history of the nation which they currently ocupy, wiping out statues and monuments that are thousands of years old to establish their position as the second biggest bullies on the planet.
The term "great evil" is being tossed around all over the 24-hour coverage by the Palestinians, the Iraqis, GW and Bill Clinton.
Which of them are correct? That entirely depends on which country you were born in, and how willing you are to get into the heads of "the enemies."
Who is the great evil? Is it the group that just destroyed the WTC, or is it the group that has for over 30 years now armed and rearmed the citizens of the middle east to systematically fight our enemies for us?
If you're grappling with that question, there's a very simple answer that none of us are taught to look at.
The simple truth is that we (many of you and me), as Americans, aren't involved in this war. Neither are most of the Palestinians, or the Pakistanis, or the Afghanis.
The "groups" I spoke of in that question are the leaders of these forces, the men in control of our country who have been instigating the constant battles in the middle east for over three decades, as well as the al-Qaid and the men that follow Bin Laden.
This war has been brought about by the men in the CIA and these small groups in in the middle east. I have known people from all of these countries for many years, and they're Americans like the rest of us. They're all currently hoping that other Americans don't suddenly decide to hate them, and express their collective anger against a small, militant group of individuals, not whole nations of civilians because of these abominations brought about by a few dozen power-hungry little men.
I can't side with either of them. That's how they get their power.
How does it bite GB II on the ass?
Well, let's see.... Thousands are dead, both the pentagon and the world trade center are demolished, and the entire terrorist world knows that we are vulnerable, and are laughing at us.
The world trade center was taken out. On a global scale, that's huge. This will be a dark spot on the legacy of the entire Bush family, seeing as how their foreign policies have brought this on our nation.
What's unfortunate is that noone in the media is even whispering about this, so your outlook will probably prevail.
It gets worse, though... Bin Laden and the al-Qaida are the 2 top suspects in all of this, and according to this article at MSNBC, both groups were given their "startup funds" by our CIA in an attempt to weaken the Soviets, who were occupying Afghanistan in the 80s.
So, who was the head of the CIA at the time? Oh yeah, George Herbert Walker Bush. Interesting, how it all comes back to bite him and his family on the ass.
Well, some of these guys built their weapons out of their razors that they had in their flight bags.
Unless they're going to instate an "electric shavers only" policy, stepping up patrols and security at the airports isn't going to do a damn thing.
You do bring up a VERY good point, though.
And Fahrenheit 451 is about people who live in a dictatorial police state already, not America.
wait 10 years.... if this kind of thing keeps up, you'll see what's left of our civil liberties run through a sausage factory.
...that on some level, we brought this upon ourselves.
Our "defense" industry is largely what caused this debacle -- the number one export for the United States is weapons. Think about that for a second -- we make more money selling weapons to the rest of the world than any other thing that we make.
The middle eastern countries are mostly split into 2 factions. We, in the United States, choose one of the 2 teams and sell arms to them. Often, we will sell arms to both sides. Remember iran-contra? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, wait, that was patriotic heroism. Only a crackhead or a defense industry salesman would sell fucking ARMS to IRAN.
So, basically, our #1 export is pouring gasoline on fires that have burned for thousands of years. Eventually, one of those fires hits us back here at home, and everyone wants to cry out "more defense" as if this could protect us, or help us sleep at night.
This attack is a reminder that ballistic missles aren't going to save us anymore. Star wars isn't going to stop 8 men with knives from hijacking
domestic flights.
The only thing that is going to save us a sane, rational foreign policy that doesn't incense our enemies in the middle east.
This isn't even a partisan issue. Clinton is as much to blame as either Bush, Ronald Reagan is as much to blame as Lyndon Johnson.
We as a nation need to stop instigating fights if we want to stay out of them. It's that simple.
I have worked for a small software shop for 3 years now, and we recently started implementing Extreme Programming into all of the development.
Ths difference has been astronomical. Deadlines are more realistic, the our releases are far more stable, and basically, the whole "chaos" of development seems to have taken on an organized form that makes everyone happy, even our extremely hyper CEO.
It's customer-driven, it's organized, and it has simplified life at the company immensely. I'm not a shill for it, I'm just relating our experience.
I would highly recommend picking up a couple of the XP books. There are several chapters devoted to how to sell the idea to your bosses, as well as recommended means for showing them how well it's working, which is essential when dealing with people who are obsessed with ROI.
i stil have 486's in use, and my fastest machine is a pii300...
thios parts would definitely be of use to schols, but i don't think they'd be wiling to deal with individual hardware pieces.
the problem is that large organizations (schools, etc.) aren't going to want to deal with building machiensfrmo individual parts, because the administration costs of dealing with a large number of disparate machines can be huge.
and then we can all have wireless, handheld devices that we take with us everywhere, and each one of them will have our individual number in it, and then we can have a completely surveillance-based society.
oh, joy.
It amazes me how often "Industry Pundits" refer to the internet as "New Media," and then post dire warnings about the future of the internet when "Old Media" companies discover that their models don't fit.
So old-school internet radio stations aren't going to continue streaming their broadcasts? This is supposed to spell the end of internet radio?
People turn to internet radio to avoid the homogeneous crap that they're stuck with from "old school" radio stations. I don't want to have to choose between the latest mass-produced alternative and pop crap, I want to be able to hear, say, reggae, or ska, or funk, or whatever other type of music, out of the billions out there, that I can't hear on the rregular radio because it has become so streamlined that it must appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Let's face it, radio sucks. Internet radio, on the other hand, with its ability to stream countless different styles of music, holds a lot of promise to me.
So good riddance to the old school. Let them keep propagating their useless, mindless, repetitive crap for the masses, and lets not waste bandwidth on it.
god i wish i had mod points.... too funny.
Well, if you currently own a Visor, you can get the VisorPhone for $49 at the moment.
If you don't own a Visor, you get a VisorPhone free with the purchase of any Visor.
Seems like a great deal, as an admin, wireless net access is a godsend. I've been using my Vx with the Skytel Minstrel for about 6 months now, mainly for SSH and AIM. It's great to be able to pull something out of your pocket and restart a server if you get paged without having to drive to the nearest net connection...
What's ironic is that IBM bundled speech recognition all through OS/2 Warp 4, which just happened to be codenamed Merlin.
It didn't catch on, obviously.
Ever get the feeling that we'll get usable speech recognition when we get jet backpacks and little Jetsons flying cars?
...its was given to me by my boss, supposedly to replace my Vx.
It lasted less than a month before I had them return it.
It was slow, it was trying to do FAR more than anything I'm going to drop in my pocket rightly should, the stylus was ludicrous and fell out of the case a couple of times (fortunately I always managed to find it), the WinCE/PocketPC platform is just a mess, and overall it was just nowhere near as elegant as the Palm.
Let's see.... is XP their new operating system, or is it Extreme Programming?