One of the most important ideals to emerge out of the Second World War is the notion that individuals can be called to account by due process of law in the aftermath of conflict for crimes committed in the name of a nation or ideology. These criminals can be captured, held, tried and punished for even something as horrifying as genocide. Even decades after the famous war crimes trials, fugitives from justice such as Aldolf Eichmann were still being brought to account. Many were captured, tried and punished . . . by sentence of court.
Fifty million died to fascist aggression in twelve horrifying years of war and genocide, but the architects of that cataclysm were called to account in a manner consistent with the values we were fighting for. In the face of overwhelming evidence of their crimes, even genocidal Nazis and Japanese militarists were offered the benefit of due process at trial.
In these debased times, apparently we can no longer afford the luxury. Due process of law is a sad casualty of this War on Terror™
Last night, President Obama informed the world that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks of 2001.09.11, was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and the US has his dead body. This electrifying news triggered spontaneous celebrations around the country and even some praise for the President from the various Republicans seeking their party's presidential nomination.
So while this monstrous mass murderer is now explaining his crimes against his religion to Allah in person and a nation rejoices . . . why am I not celebrating?
First of all -- it's not because I'm some kind of crypto-Islamofacist terrorist socialist communist who hates America, kicks puppies, eats kittens raw and thinks American Idol sucks. Far from it. Unlike many who are having a Beltane mass public triumphalist war-gasm over this, I've served this country in the US Navy. I think I understand a thing or two about war and the way the world works. The part of me that understands the latter is not in the mood for celebrating.
Reason the first for not wanting to celebrate: I hold with the idea of that all human beings have inherent value -- even Hitler and OBL. Yes, even a villain like Osama bin Laden. Even the dearth of this monster diminishes us.
Reason the second: Apparently OBL was killed in a daring raid by US Special Operations troops. Boots on the ground, not bombs from the sky. Intelligence and light infantry were Obama's choice of weapon, not data nets and remote-control drones. This operation could have gone very very badly for the troops and Obama, as both living Democratic former presidents can attest. Barack Obama risked his chances for a second term as President on the success of this raid. My point here: If the President chose to rely on light infantry / commandos for this task, there was the possibility of capturing OBL for trial.
If OBL were taken and not killed in action, the end result would eventually be the same: OBL would never "get off on a technicality" even before the most bleeding heart judge in the universe. Yes, any trial would be a theatrical event to rival Broadway, a media circus that would make OJ Simpson's trial look like a kiddie ride, and a trial would take time.
Due process has a price. But justice at the cost of our values and our souls is hardly worthy of a great nation like the United States of America.
However disappointed that we aren't going to try OBL for his crimes, I applaud the US military for its valor and courage in carrying out a dangerous mission. The guys in camouflage and the intelligence community scored a brilliant success on this operation. However, there is a bigger picture here . . . one that worries me over the long term.
Edit for clarity and a couple of stupid spelling errors.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Friday, February 27, 2009
Man on Fire (and I'm not talking about artists in a desert . . .)
I'm talking about a certain skinny guy, dark complexion, curly hair, 'bout my age. Lovely wife, two darling little girls. He has a real tough job -- possibly the world's toughest -- and he works hard at it. He's only had it for five weeks, and in that time he has been damned effective.
Barack Obama: Man on Fire.
He is wasting no time at all. Other great leaders in history, like this Corsican / French leader from almost two hundred years ago, and this distinguished American President from the last century, both got a lot done in a mere 100 days. Frankly, it's refreshing to see a leader in action -- as opposed to the leadership inaction or malpractice we experienced under Obama's predecessor in the White House.
I'm resigned to one thing with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office: I'm not going to agree with everything he is doing . . . but he's doing things that really need doing. Like listening to those who do not favor his approaches to the issues -- something his predecessor emphatically did not even pretend to do. He treats the American people like adults, and not little children.
Not to mention the specifics: executive orders closing the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the plans for a summer 2010 withdrawl from Iraq . . . .
No voter's remorse here.
Barack Obama: Man on Fire.
He is wasting no time at all. Other great leaders in history, like this Corsican / French leader from almost two hundred years ago, and this distinguished American President from the last century, both got a lot done in a mere 100 days. Frankly, it's refreshing to see a leader in action -- as opposed to the leadership inaction or malpractice we experienced under Obama's predecessor in the White House.
I'm resigned to one thing with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office: I'm not going to agree with everything he is doing . . . but he's doing things that really need doing. Like listening to those who do not favor his approaches to the issues -- something his predecessor emphatically did not even pretend to do. He treats the American people like adults, and not little children.
Not to mention the specifics: executive orders closing the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the plans for a summer 2010 withdrawl from Iraq . . . .
No voter's remorse here.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Memes and Themes, the LARP
Work has been full of the latter lately.
1. We had a diversity fair the other day. There are company sanctioned affinity groups for AAs, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, women, Christians and LGBT folk. I was going to ask, but was afraid of being accused of bigotry, the following question: Where's the affinity group for "None of the Above"?
2. Next week is an awards meeting. Too many people and too much noise in too little space . . . and it is nominally compulsory, except in the case of medical stuff.
My doc rocks. Appointments anytime I need them. Sorry I missed the awards ceremony again . . . pesky heaslth issues.
Anyway, the manual for events here stipulates that THERE MUST BE A THEME! Usually the theme reeks of TV sports . . . but this time the theme is "50s Pop Cultcha." Of course, I refuse to be amused. The Fifties were "happy days" at the expense of too many others.
SCREW the sock hops, Mel's Diner, etc. The Fifties were NOT all "Happy Days" and Teh Fonze.
I suggested our team do the Army-McCarthy Hearings with a Bill Gates look-alike playing Tail Gunner Joe, the excreseance from Wisconsin. "Have you no sense of decency left, Sir?"
They shot the idea down in flames, naturally.
----------------
Now playing: Babylon 5 - Voices of Authority
via FoxyTunes
1. We had a diversity fair the other day. There are company sanctioned affinity groups for AAs, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, women, Christians and LGBT folk. I was going to ask, but was afraid of being accused of bigotry, the following question: Where's the affinity group for "None of the Above"?
2. Next week is an awards meeting. Too many people and too much noise in too little space . . . and it is nominally compulsory, except in the case of medical stuff.
My doc rocks. Appointments anytime I need them. Sorry I missed the awards ceremony again . . . pesky heaslth issues.
Anyway, the manual for events here stipulates that THERE MUST BE A THEME! Usually the theme reeks of TV sports . . . but this time the theme is "50s Pop Cultcha." Of course, I refuse to be amused. The Fifties were "happy days" at the expense of too many others.
SCREW the sock hops, Mel's Diner, etc. The Fifties were NOT all "Happy Days" and Teh Fonze.
I suggested our team do the Army-McCarthy Hearings with a Bill Gates look-alike playing Tail Gunner Joe, the excreseance from Wisconsin. "Have you no sense of decency left, Sir?"
They shot the idea down in flames, naturally.
----------------
Now playing: Babylon 5 - Voices of Authority
via FoxyTunes
Monday, January 26, 2009
Movie Night Rant
Ex#2 tossed some movie discount tickets at me for Yule, so I decided to catch some recent movies.
Defiance: This film, starring Daniel Craig, was nothing short of awesome. Set in the midst of the 20th century's largest ethnic cleansing effort -- the Holocaust -- in history's largest military campaign -- WW2 eastern front -- this film Gets It Right. It's based on the true story of three Belorussian Jewish brothers who escaped the visit of the Nazi Einzatsgruppen (roving paramilitary extermination squads) to their village and sought to wreck their vengeance on the killers of their kin. Along the way, they take on a somewhat larger mission: to save as many Jews as possible, becoming partisans resisting the occupation. Along the way they endure betrayal, Stuka dive bombers, der Whermacht, massive amounts of vodka, the Red Army, each other and a winter that made Valley Forge 1775 look like Club Med Spring Break 2008.
I'm really happy to see another true-story WW2 film about the sacrifices non-Anglo-Americans made to defeat Nazi Germany. Enemy at the Gates, from a few years ago, was most welcome. The Eastern Front was much more than one big blizzard in the winter, one large mudbath in the spring and one big bloodbath in between. I'm also happy the producers got the military end right; few things about a historical war movie annoy me more than not getting the details of uniform, kit, and especially tactics right. The final breakout battle scene was a work of art. The partisans were caught in a clearing coming out of a river ford by a couple of squads of infantry and a tank. Fortunately the river bank formed a reverse slope for cover. Shades of Waterloo . . .The partisans lacked a panzerfaust (the WW2 ancestor of the RPG-7) to stop the tank, having only grenades. As there were woods on the flank, the German commander, with a move right out of the tactical manual, sent a MG42 to the flank to lay enfilade fire onto the partisans that would be unaffected by the reverse slope. The partisans captured the gun and turnd it onto the Germans to strip away the infantry advancing with the tank, then grenade-rushed the tank (German tank commanders ususally fought with the hatch open to use the commander's pintle -mount machine gun). Scratch one Panzer.
Gran Torino: Clint Eastwood's put out a lot of really good movies. Like fine wine, he's getting better and better with age. Flags of Our Fathers was the last one of his I saw, about the story behind the famous picture of the Marines raising the American flag on Mt. Subiachi on Iwo Jima in 1944. His latest film, Gran Torino, is not so much about waging war as it is about finding peace. Eastwood plays an aged Korean War veteran, widowed but making his way in the world -- a world changed a great deal from the one of his youth. He finds that peace in an unlikely place: in the young Hmong neighbor boy who he catches trying to steal his prized Gran Torino at gunpoint as a gang initiation. Along the way he gives point (rifle, M1 Garand, to be exact) to the phrase "You Kids Get Off My Lawn!" and learns to tolerate and appreciate the Hmong. When the gang wrecks vengeance on the neighbor, Eastwood's character comes up with a tragic but fitting solution.
Awsome movie.
Defiance: This film, starring Daniel Craig, was nothing short of awesome. Set in the midst of the 20th century's largest ethnic cleansing effort -- the Holocaust -- in history's largest military campaign -- WW2 eastern front -- this film Gets It Right. It's based on the true story of three Belorussian Jewish brothers who escaped the visit of the Nazi Einzatsgruppen (roving paramilitary extermination squads) to their village and sought to wreck their vengeance on the killers of their kin. Along the way, they take on a somewhat larger mission: to save as many Jews as possible, becoming partisans resisting the occupation. Along the way they endure betrayal, Stuka dive bombers, der Whermacht, massive amounts of vodka, the Red Army, each other and a winter that made Valley Forge 1775 look like Club Med Spring Break 2008.
I'm really happy to see another true-story WW2 film about the sacrifices non-Anglo-Americans made to defeat Nazi Germany. Enemy at the Gates, from a few years ago, was most welcome. The Eastern Front was much more than one big blizzard in the winter, one large mudbath in the spring and one big bloodbath in between. I'm also happy the producers got the military end right; few things about a historical war movie annoy me more than not getting the details of uniform, kit, and especially tactics right. The final breakout battle scene was a work of art. The partisans were caught in a clearing coming out of a river ford by a couple of squads of infantry and a tank. Fortunately the river bank formed a reverse slope for cover. Shades of Waterloo . . .The partisans lacked a panzerfaust (the WW2 ancestor of the RPG-7) to stop the tank, having only grenades. As there were woods on the flank, the German commander, with a move right out of the tactical manual, sent a MG42 to the flank to lay enfilade fire onto the partisans that would be unaffected by the reverse slope. The partisans captured the gun and turnd it onto the Germans to strip away the infantry advancing with the tank, then grenade-rushed the tank (German tank commanders ususally fought with the hatch open to use the commander's pintle -mount machine gun). Scratch one Panzer.
Gran Torino: Clint Eastwood's put out a lot of really good movies. Like fine wine, he's getting better and better with age. Flags of Our Fathers was the last one of his I saw, about the story behind the famous picture of the Marines raising the American flag on Mt. Subiachi on Iwo Jima in 1944. His latest film, Gran Torino, is not so much about waging war as it is about finding peace. Eastwood plays an aged Korean War veteran, widowed but making his way in the world -- a world changed a great deal from the one of his youth. He finds that peace in an unlikely place: in the young Hmong neighbor boy who he catches trying to steal his prized Gran Torino at gunpoint as a gang initiation. Along the way he gives point (rifle, M1 Garand, to be exact) to the phrase "You Kids Get Off My Lawn!" and learns to tolerate and appreciate the Hmong. When the gang wrecks vengeance on the neighbor, Eastwood's character comes up with a tragic but fitting solution.
Awsome movie.
Friday, November 28, 2008
How I Spent My Holiday...
I stayed home, ate turkey, mustard and Swiss sandwiches on low-carb bread and leveled my Shammy to 72 and my DK to 65. I also performed the annual ritual Blessings Audit (y'know, "count your blessings and thank the gods you aren't in India right now getting hosed by terrorists"). I'm doing what I want to do, and if this seems "outside the norm" to folks 'cause it isn't something out of a Norm Rockwell painting, it's not my problem. It's that of the beholder. Kind of like beauty.
Working now, dressing (human leg wound kind, as opposed to the carb-laden kind served with the ritual holiday feast) change later, then THREE DAY WEEKEND, baby!
Methinks I'll go see the new movie Australia. Us 'Murican folks often forget that Pearl Harbor is not the only place that Imperial Japanese Navy bombed back in '41. Gurencia -- the Picasso painting -- can represent far too many places: Dresden, Coventry, Nanking, Hanoi, London, Berlin, Tokyo . . . .
----------------
Now playing: U2 - Cold Turkey
via FoxyTunes
Working now, dressing (human leg wound kind, as opposed to the carb-laden kind served with the ritual holiday feast) change later, then THREE DAY WEEKEND, baby!
Methinks I'll go see the new movie Australia. Us 'Murican folks often forget that Pearl Harbor is not the only place that Imperial Japanese Navy bombed back in '41. Gurencia -- the Picasso painting -- can represent far too many places: Dresden, Coventry, Nanking, Hanoi, London, Berlin, Tokyo . . . .
----------------
Now playing: U2 - Cold Turkey
via FoxyTunes
Saturday, November 22, 2008
45 years ago today . . .
. . . hopes and dreams, murdered in Dallas.
I was but a wee lad of three, that late November day. I remember hearing the word "assassinated" and connected it right away to the flag covered coffin in the Capitol Rotunda I saw on TV. Mom and Dad were both Real Upset, especially Mom.
I saw the whole thing on my Auntie June's black-and-white TV: the caisson, the big black stallion with the reversed boots in the stirrups, and John-John, a kid my age, saluting with one hand as he held his Mom's with the other.
Years later, I read about the things, both good and not so good, that formed John F. Kennedy's legacy. How just six years after that horrible day in Dealy Plaza an American first set foot on our planet's natural satellite, igniting an explosion in science and technology that led to personal computers and the Internet. How he stood resolute in the face of aggression, and how that stand eventually led to tragedy and defeat in a distant corner of Southeast Asia. How his death laid the groundwork for many key pieces of civil rights legislation, and how cynically future presidential candidates from Goldwater to McCain would exploit reaction to these victories for the next forty years.
Things really went to hell after that.
For JFK, and Mom:
I was but a wee lad of three, that late November day. I remember hearing the word "assassinated" and connected it right away to the flag covered coffin in the Capitol Rotunda I saw on TV. Mom and Dad were both Real Upset, especially Mom.
I saw the whole thing on my Auntie June's black-and-white TV: the caisson, the big black stallion with the reversed boots in the stirrups, and John-John, a kid my age, saluting with one hand as he held his Mom's with the other.
Years later, I read about the things, both good and not so good, that formed John F. Kennedy's legacy. How just six years after that horrible day in Dealy Plaza an American first set foot on our planet's natural satellite, igniting an explosion in science and technology that led to personal computers and the Internet. How he stood resolute in the face of aggression, and how that stand eventually led to tragedy and defeat in a distant corner of Southeast Asia. How his death laid the groundwork for many key pieces of civil rights legislation, and how cynically future presidential candidates from Goldwater to McCain would exploit reaction to these victories for the next forty years.
Things really went to hell after that.
For JFK, and Mom:
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tonight's the Night . . .
. . . and not in the Rod Stewart sense of the phrase.
Tonight Barack Obama accepts his party's nomination. I *am* going to watch the speech live / streamed.
Of course, the stage setting at Invesco Field in Denver where Barack will speak has drawn some invidious comment from certain quarters because the backdrop looks like an ancient Greek temple(!). Well, people, lots of buildings are based on ancient Greek temples -- the Capitol Building in DC, Cali's own Capitol being just two. Where the hell do you think the word "democracy" itself comes from? Space fairies?
It's kind of ironic that the world has just wound down another cultural artifact that comes to us from the ancient Greeks: TEH FSCKING OLYMPIC GAMES!
OK, people, answer me this: What day is it? 28 August. On this date in 1963, another great American, also of African descent, also a great orator, gave a speech on the steps of a very similar building.
History's being made this week. The least we can do is watch it. Yes I can...and yes I WILL!
----------------
Now playing: The Elders - Turning Point
via FoxyTunes
Tonight Barack Obama accepts his party's nomination. I *am* going to watch the speech live / streamed.
Of course, the stage setting at Invesco Field in Denver where Barack will speak has drawn some invidious comment from certain quarters because the backdrop looks like an ancient Greek temple(!). Well, people, lots of buildings are based on ancient Greek temples -- the Capitol Building in DC, Cali's own Capitol being just two. Where the hell do you think the word "democracy" itself comes from? Space fairies?
It's kind of ironic that the world has just wound down another cultural artifact that comes to us from the ancient Greeks: TEH FSCKING OLYMPIC GAMES!
OK, people, answer me this: What day is it? 28 August. On this date in 1963, another great American, also of African descent, also a great orator, gave a speech on the steps of a very similar building.
History's being made this week. The least we can do is watch it. Yes I can...and yes I WILL!
----------------
Now playing: The Elders - Turning Point
via FoxyTunes
Sunday, August 10, 2008
What Would Orwell Blog?
Find out here.
This is facinating stuff . . . .
----------------
Listening to: Trifolkal - The Starbucks of County Down
via FoxyTunes
This is facinating stuff . . . .
----------------
Listening to: Trifolkal - The Starbucks of County Down
via FoxyTunes
Friday, May 23, 2008
Un. Be. FSCKING-Lievable!
Hillary Clinton, today, about why she's staying in the running despite her being virtually mathematically eliminated from nomination contention:
This remark is utterly beyond the pale. Yes, Bill Clinton didin't wrap up the nomination till June, but back then we didn't have the front-loaded system we have today. I almost read this as an idle wish that her rival -- Barack Obama -- were to be assassinated to clear her way to the nomination!
Consider this: Senator Obama and his family have been subjected to death threats since he announced his candidacy over a year ago. Not to mention this: Inspirational American political leaders have all too often been the targets of assassins the last fifty or so years. Given the groundbreaking nature of his candidacy and the fact that too many people have too much to lose if Obama is elected, I'm not very surprised at the talk. Eight years ago, when Colin Powell was considering a run for the Presidency, the racists in my family said that "He dropped out because he's be shot like a dog for being black if he dared run."
Hell, a few months ago, when Ex#2 served me my divorce papers, I asked her who she supported. "Obama, of course. But I think he'll get assassinated."
Nonetheless, it's nothing short of reprehensible of HRC to even go there.
Kids, this shit has to stop, NOW!
Time to put on your magickal thinking hats. No, not the one with the stinky fish entrails. When you think about something, you feed it's thought-form. When you feed a thought-form enough energy, you make it real and give it impact in the world. How many thought-forms are dining on the thought-energy of the thousands of people out there this subtle but toxic meme is evoking?
Here's the counter: visualize Barack Obama taking the oath of office next January 20. Visualize him shielded from harm by the good wishes and the hopes of the millions who will have cast their ballots for the change he represents. Let THAT thought-energy protect and preserve him. Ask the God/s you reverence to ward him from the ill-actions of others.
And most of all, admonish Hillary for her ill-chosen words.
Responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out of the race, she said: "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it," she said, dismissing the idea of abandoning the race.
This remark is utterly beyond the pale. Yes, Bill Clinton didin't wrap up the nomination till June, but back then we didn't have the front-loaded system we have today. I almost read this as an idle wish that her rival -- Barack Obama -- were to be assassinated to clear her way to the nomination!
Consider this: Senator Obama and his family have been subjected to death threats since he announced his candidacy over a year ago. Not to mention this: Inspirational American political leaders have all too often been the targets of assassins the last fifty or so years. Given the groundbreaking nature of his candidacy and the fact that too many people have too much to lose if Obama is elected, I'm not very surprised at the talk. Eight years ago, when Colin Powell was considering a run for the Presidency, the racists in my family said that "He dropped out because he's be shot like a dog for being black if he dared run."
Hell, a few months ago, when Ex#2 served me my divorce papers, I asked her who she supported. "Obama, of course. But I think he'll get assassinated."
Nonetheless, it's nothing short of reprehensible of HRC to even go there.
Kids, this shit has to stop, NOW!
Time to put on your magickal thinking hats. No, not the one with the stinky fish entrails. When you think about something, you feed it's thought-form. When you feed a thought-form enough energy, you make it real and give it impact in the world. How many thought-forms are dining on the thought-energy of the thousands of people out there this subtle but toxic meme is evoking?
Here's the counter: visualize Barack Obama taking the oath of office next January 20. Visualize him shielded from harm by the good wishes and the hopes of the millions who will have cast their ballots for the change he represents. Let THAT thought-energy protect and preserve him. Ask the God/s you reverence to ward him from the ill-actions of others.
And most of all, admonish Hillary for her ill-chosen words.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Boot to the Head: Work edition
"I'll sing to you a little song / About the things that piss us off . . ."
Good day at work so far, but annoying as hell.
1. Pig-ignorant / lazy as hell coworkers. Three cases of these today, all before lunch.
a. Simple, easy steps even a Master of the Obvious should be able to do . . . but NOOOOOOO, they palm the job off on the Next Tech.
b. IDIOTS who refuse to use their empowerment to help customers because it will add a few minutes to their call times. Customer calls back, I spend the time to Put It Right, to ensure the customer is satisfied, and my metrics take it in the neck.
c. People who can name every minor character on The Simpsons and every break in continuity in their favorite comic books since the 70s, but have not a fscking clue who Genghis Khan was or what he really did.
2. Call monitoring. One of the conditions of my job is that my calls are monitored "for quality assurance." I know that any call may be monitored and evaluated, but this does not happen very often -- maybe a couple of times a week. When this happens once a day, I'm not stressed. Over the last week, I've had FIVE, three in one day, all by the same evaluator . . . who happens to be a member of my team on a coaching rotation.
OK, repeat after me: What. The. FSCK?
I run into him on my way out the door yesterday. Guy says this is purely random. Yeahright.
I get my 1 on 1 with my manager this week. Maybe he can answer my question.
Good day at work so far, but annoying as hell.
1. Pig-ignorant / lazy as hell coworkers. Three cases of these today, all before lunch.
a. Simple, easy steps even a Master of the Obvious should be able to do . . . but NOOOOOOO, they palm the job off on the Next Tech.
b. IDIOTS who refuse to use their empowerment to help customers because it will add a few minutes to their call times. Customer calls back, I spend the time to Put It Right, to ensure the customer is satisfied, and my metrics take it in the neck.
c. People who can name every minor character on The Simpsons and every break in continuity in their favorite comic books since the 70s, but have not a fscking clue who Genghis Khan was or what he really did.
2. Call monitoring. One of the conditions of my job is that my calls are monitored "for quality assurance." I know that any call may be monitored and evaluated, but this does not happen very often -- maybe a couple of times a week. When this happens once a day, I'm not stressed. Over the last week, I've had FIVE, three in one day, all by the same evaluator . . . who happens to be a member of my team on a coaching rotation.
OK, repeat after me: What. The. FSCK?
I run into him on my way out the door yesterday. Guy says this is purely random. Yeahright.
I get my 1 on 1 with my manager this week. Maybe he can answer my question.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Berzerkeley was fun...
I went to visit my daughter and son in law in Berkeley today. Had a blast despite a sore throat that almost kept me home.
Highlights included a fine lunch at a very nice Chinese place (huzzah for Moo Shoo beef), a visit to Sam's school (Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary), some geeking about on Sam's PC, MacBook and network and good coffee as Sophia showed me how to home roast with an air popper. I even saw a home movie showing Sam giving his first sermon. W00t! Then there was that tactical nuclear oatmeal cookie Sophia made . . .
They got a new car, a Volvo, to replace Soph's Kia. The Kia was named "Inga" and she wanted a name for the new car. Given that Volvo is Swedish, I suggested a male name: Gustav Aldolph. Yes, I was thinking of everyone's favorite 17th-century Swedish King, that most Lutheran champion, general, the Lion of the North. I also suggested his formidable daughter Christina as well.
I counted Presidential campaign signs and stickers while in Berkeley, starting with an Obama postcard Sophia had. The final count was 10 for BO, 3 for HRC, and ZERO for ANY Republican.
I'm starting my Earth Day / Beltane iTunes playlist; the song in the FoxyTunes sig is headlining that playlist. Not only is the song a good green / eco tune, it's easy on the ears as I grind in WoW.
----------------
Listening to: R.E.M. - Cuyahoga (Live)
via FoxyTunes
Highlights included a fine lunch at a very nice Chinese place (huzzah for Moo Shoo beef), a visit to Sam's school (Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary), some geeking about on Sam's PC, MacBook and network and good coffee as Sophia showed me how to home roast with an air popper. I even saw a home movie showing Sam giving his first sermon. W00t! Then there was that tactical nuclear oatmeal cookie Sophia made . . .
They got a new car, a Volvo, to replace Soph's Kia. The Kia was named "Inga" and she wanted a name for the new car. Given that Volvo is Swedish, I suggested a male name: Gustav Aldolph. Yes, I was thinking of everyone's favorite 17th-century Swedish King, that most Lutheran champion, general, the Lion of the North. I also suggested his formidable daughter Christina as well.
I counted Presidential campaign signs and stickers while in Berkeley, starting with an Obama postcard Sophia had. The final count was 10 for BO, 3 for HRC, and ZERO for ANY Republican.
I'm starting my Earth Day / Beltane iTunes playlist; the song in the FoxyTunes sig is headlining that playlist. Not only is the song a good green / eco tune, it's easy on the ears as I grind in WoW.
----------------
Listening to: R.E.M. - Cuyahoga (Live)
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Tasty think-piece . . .
This is the kind of article I read all too seldom; one with historical analysis that is utterly dead-on and fascinating to this history geek/nerd/wonk.
The money quotes:
In other words, the roots of our politics are rooted in the 17th-century English Civil War. Royalist "cavaliers," exiled by Cromwell's Protectorate who settled in Virginia and American south; Puritan exiles in the North.
This explains far too much.
The money quotes:
The clue to the US electoral map lies in ethnography. As the historian David Hackett Fischer and the commentator Kevin Phillips (among others) have demonstrated, ideology and region are surrogates for race and ethnicity in the US. American politics is, and always has been, a struggle for power between two coalitions of tribes. Two coalitions, instead of three or four, because the US inherited the "plurality" or first-past-the-post voting system from early modern Britain. Plurality systems ensure that third-party votes are wasted and so give countries relatively stable two-party democracy.
In most periods from 1789 to the present, the US has had two dominant national parties competing to control government: Federalists vs Republicans (1790s-1810s), National Republicans vs Democratic Republicans (1810s-1830s), Whigs vs Democrats (1830s-1850s), Republicans vs Democrats (1850s-present). Despite the changing names, the underlying coalitions have been remarkably stable. In effect, there have been only two main parties in American history: the northern party and the southern party.
The core of the northern party (originally Federalists, Whigs and Republicans, and now Democrats) has been citizens of New England and the "greater New England" region settled by the descendants of colonial-era New Englanders, an enormous area which includes the great lakes, the upper prairie and the Pacific north-west. The culture of these "Yankees" originated in 17th-century English Puritanism. Its legacy remains in a distinct New England Yankee culture which values moral rectitude and social reform.
The historic rivals to the greater New England Yankees in US politics have been the coastal southerners of Virginia, South Carolina, and the Gulf coast region, which they settled from the Florida panhandle to east Texas. Royalist refugees from Cromwell's Puritan dictatorship--the so-called "Cavaliers"--created a hierarchical, traditional, aristocratic society based on a plantation economy. They have always dominated the southern party (originally Jeffersonian Republicans, then Jacksonian and Rooseveltian Democrats, and now Republicans).
On opposite sides in the English civil war, and then in the US civil war, the Yankees and Cavaliers have always been on opposite sides in US politics. For generations, the moralism of Protestants in New England, such as Cotton Mather and John Adams, has clashed with the worldly honour code of renaissance country gentlemen in the south, such as Thomas Jefferson and Robert E Lee. In New England, the politics of reform was organised around the town meeting; in the coastal south, the politics of deference and patronage was based on the courthouse gang. "Good government" is a New England idea. So is the idea of American exceptionalism, of an American mission to set an example to the world, or to save it. The ancestors of the New England Yankees emigrated to the American colonies in order to found a perfect Calvinist commonwealth. By contrast, the ancestors of the southern elite emigrated to the colonies in order to get rich quick by lording it over Indians, blacks, and poor whites. For New England, the US is--or should be--a New Jerusalem. For the south, the US is simply the successor to the British empire. The southern oligarchs, like their cousins who once ran imperial Britain, think in terms of profit, not providence.
In other words, the roots of our politics are rooted in the 17th-century English Civil War. Royalist "cavaliers," exiled by Cromwell's Protectorate who settled in Virginia and American south; Puritan exiles in the North.
This explains far too much.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Bits, bytes, nybbles and other data constructs
Scenes from a geek's life:
1. My hip going "pop" as I was getting ready to leave the doctor's office. Tylenol is helping; two of the world's most awesome nurses *ever* making sure that I did not leave the doc's office until the pain had diminished. Valarie and Connie are a matched set (literally!). I've met more educated nurses, sure...but none who are so patient-centered.
(Gheekspeak follows)
2. I get my job satisfaction shots in strange doses. Few things make me happier than rescuing a customer from a mistake. One of my axioms of Mac Teching is "Walk non-technical customers through the start of an Archive and Install (preserving) because there are too many ways for a nontech to fsck it to hell and beyond." "Archive and Install" (preserving) is a common resolution for software issues on a Mac; what it does is move the /System/ folder to a new location (the "archive" part) and installs a new one. It does NOT overwrite the old /System/, /Applications/ or more importantly, /Users/ (the "preserving" part). The /Users/ folder is home to things like the Desktop, Documents, Music, Movies and all the stuff you store on a computer and want to not lose. Well, Ms. Customer made one little mistake: the did the archive and install with the "preserving" option disabled. When this happens, the /Users/ folder goes into the archive as well. Upon completion of the install, your system goes through first time setup as though out of the box and looks like all the data is gone! The call started out with my diffusing the customer's demand for scalps. I told her how I think it happened, without assigning blame (I care about happy customers, not the whys of breaking things or Who To Blame), and showed her the mystery of how to restore a archived /Users/ folder without hosing the file permissions. This customer went from mistrustful and hinting at legal action to wanting to fly me to the East Coast for personal Mac lessons. Long call, because this restore process is a bit delicate . . . but the call ended with a VERY happy customer.
(end Gheekspeak)
3. Last night, in semi-secret rites in Nygel's Point, Desolace, Dakatirr (my shaman) was passed the title of Guild Master for the WoW guild Legends Till Death . Yet another case of insufficient reluctance. I'd been looking at starting my own guild for awhile, but I literally could not buy nine signatures for a guild charter I took out for. I did not set out to take over someone else's guild, but now that I have it I'll be doing as much administrivia as I do actually playing.
4. A few days ago, Barack Obama gave this little speech about race, faith and a few other things. My inner Orator (the one who got free in speech classes in high school and college and earned the highest degree of distinction from the National Forensics League for oratory, debate, extemporaneous and impromptu speaking) was amazed. Presidents are supposed to be inarticulate boobs who cannot sting together two original thoughts without connective tissue. Presidents are supposed to be rhetorical embarrassments. At least that's been the lesson of the 21st centuty dark age that is the Bush / Cheney administration. BO was brilliant in laying out his vision for that nation, his view of this nation's historic and persistent racism. (geek sideline: while his first and last initial suggest something odorous, his full initials -- BHO -- is a Windows geek acronym: Browser Helper Object. Some BHOs suck, others are not so bad) Folks, Barack Obama (BTW, his first name means "Lightning" in Hebrew and was also the name of Ariel Sharon's armored brigade in the Sinai in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the name goes back to a military commander from the Old Testament) is the Real Deal.
4. Finally: to the piece of human debris who parked his or her car less than a foot from my van which was centered in it's space at Kaiser, forcing a buy with a sore hip and not-so-mild claustrophobia panic attacks to climb in through the cargo door: FSCK YOU WERRY MUCH, ARSEWHOLE! I was just one security camera away from keying the passenger side door of your PoSmobile. Please, for the sake of the people who must share the road and parking spaces with you, get a real license to replace the one you have courtesy of Cracker Jack and Learn To DRIVE and PARK, you miserable dollop of dog crap.
1. My hip going "pop" as I was getting ready to leave the doctor's office. Tylenol is helping; two of the world's most awesome nurses *ever* making sure that I did not leave the doc's office until the pain had diminished. Valarie and Connie are a matched set (literally!). I've met more educated nurses, sure...but none who are so patient-centered.
(Gheekspeak follows)
2. I get my job satisfaction shots in strange doses. Few things make me happier than rescuing a customer from a mistake. One of my axioms of Mac Teching is "Walk non-technical customers through the start of an Archive and Install (preserving) because there are too many ways for a nontech to fsck it to hell and beyond." "Archive and Install" (preserving) is a common resolution for software issues on a Mac; what it does is move the /System/ folder to a new location (the "archive" part) and installs a new one. It does NOT overwrite the old /System/, /Applications/ or more importantly, /Users/ (the "preserving" part). The /Users/ folder is home to things like the Desktop, Documents, Music, Movies and all the stuff you store on a computer and want to not lose. Well, Ms. Customer made one little mistake: the did the archive and install with the "preserving" option disabled. When this happens, the /Users/ folder goes into the archive as well. Upon completion of the install, your system goes through first time setup as though out of the box and looks like all the data is gone! The call started out with my diffusing the customer's demand for scalps. I told her how I think it happened, without assigning blame (I care about happy customers, not the whys of breaking things or Who To Blame), and showed her the mystery of how to restore a archived /Users/ folder without hosing the file permissions. This customer went from mistrustful and hinting at legal action to wanting to fly me to the East Coast for personal Mac lessons. Long call, because this restore process is a bit delicate . . . but the call ended with a VERY happy customer.
(end Gheekspeak)
3. Last night, in semi-secret rites in Nygel's Point, Desolace, Dakatirr (my shaman) was passed the title of Guild Master for the WoW guild Legends Till Death . Yet another case of insufficient reluctance. I'd been looking at starting my own guild for awhile, but I literally could not buy nine signatures for a guild charter I took out for
4. A few days ago, Barack Obama gave this little speech about race, faith and a few other things. My inner Orator (the one who got free in speech classes in high school and college and earned the highest degree of distinction from the National Forensics League for oratory, debate, extemporaneous and impromptu speaking) was amazed. Presidents are supposed to be inarticulate boobs who cannot sting together two original thoughts without connective tissue. Presidents are supposed to be rhetorical embarrassments. At least that's been the lesson of the 21st centuty dark age that is the Bush / Cheney administration. BO was brilliant in laying out his vision for that nation, his view of this nation's historic and persistent racism. (geek sideline: while his first and last initial suggest something odorous, his full initials -- BHO -- is a Windows geek acronym: Browser Helper Object. Some BHOs suck, others are not so bad) Folks, Barack Obama (BTW, his first name means "Lightning" in Hebrew and was also the name of Ariel Sharon's armored brigade in the Sinai in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the name goes back to a military commander from the Old Testament) is the Real Deal.
4. Finally: to the piece of human debris who parked his or her car less than a foot from my van which was centered in it's space at Kaiser, forcing a buy with a sore hip and not-so-mild claustrophobia panic attacks to climb in through the cargo door: FSCK YOU WERRY MUCH, ARSEWHOLE! I was just one security camera away from keying the passenger side door of your PoSmobile. Please, for the sake of the people who must share the road and parking spaces with you, get a real license to replace the one you have courtesy of Cracker Jack and Learn To DRIVE and PARK, you miserable dollop of dog crap.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Political This 'n' That
1. Even though I'm a political junkie, I'll be ignoring Shrubby's final State of the Onion speech tonight. My one word SotU: FUBAR. The best thing I can say to him and his henchmen are the words Oliver Cromwell spoke to the Long Parliament:
2. This is the level to which reporting on certain presidential campaigns has sunk. Sic transit gloria mundi.
3. On the Dem side, interesting shift in momentum toward Barack Obama from his rather big win in the South Carolina primary this weekend. The more I look at Barack Obama, the more I like him. Even more interesting is the sheer vote totals. More people voted there for Obama than for all the Rs combined.
Consider how significant this is to me as a political and history junkie: An African American candidate (not the first one, but the first to have such a high chance of winning a major-party nomination), a man of my generation (he's two years younger than I am . . . our first post-Viernam / late Boomer / ur-GenX candidate in a field full of Cold Warriors and Viernam era 60-something Boomers), won a resounding victory in a Democratic primary in a state notorious for neo-Confederate revanchism -- and the state where the American Civil War started with the shelling of Fort Sumter in 1861.
4. In other Obamania news: The Democratic side of the Kennedy clan has endorsed Obama. Senator Ted and neice Caroline Kennedy have issued ringing endorsements of Obama that invoke the memories of President John Jennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy.
----------------
Listening to: The Elders - Turning Point
via FoxyTunes
You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.
2. This is the level to which reporting on certain presidential campaigns has sunk. Sic transit gloria mundi.
3. On the Dem side, interesting shift in momentum toward Barack Obama from his rather big win in the South Carolina primary this weekend. The more I look at Barack Obama, the more I like him. Even more interesting is the sheer vote totals. More people voted there for Obama than for all the Rs combined.
Consider how significant this is to me as a political and history junkie: An African American candidate (not the first one, but the first to have such a high chance of winning a major-party nomination), a man of my generation (he's two years younger than I am . . . our first post-Viernam / late Boomer / ur-GenX candidate in a field full of Cold Warriors and Viernam era 60-something Boomers), won a resounding victory in a Democratic primary in a state notorious for neo-Confederate revanchism -- and the state where the American Civil War started with the shelling of Fort Sumter in 1861.
4. In other Obamania news: The Democratic side of the Kennedy clan has endorsed Obama. Senator Ted and neice Caroline Kennedy have issued ringing endorsements of Obama that invoke the memories of President John Jennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy.
----------------
Listening to: The Elders - Turning Point
via FoxyTunes
Saturday, January 26, 2008
An double IV drip of "Irony"
Another factoid in the current debate on domestic spying:
The US Attorney General has a portrait of Grorge Orwell in his ofice.
He says he admires Orwell's style and clarity as a writer. Yea, and I used to read Playboy for the articles, too.
/bangs head on desk to dull the pain . . .
359 days until those people (to use a favorite phrase of Gen. Robert E. Lee) are outta there and our long long national nightmare ends.
His other office portrait, of Supreme Court Justice, US Attorney General and Nuremburg prosecutor Robert Jackson, is likewise ironic. But not in the way he might think it is.
----------------
Listening to: Green Day - American Idiot
via FoxyTunes
The US Attorney General has a portrait of Grorge Orwell in his ofice.
He says he admires Orwell's style and clarity as a writer. Yea, and I used to read Playboy for the articles, too.
/bangs head on desk to dull the pain . . .
359 days until those people (to use a favorite phrase of Gen. Robert E. Lee) are outta there and our long long national nightmare ends.
His other office portrait, of Supreme Court Justice, US Attorney General and Nuremburg prosecutor Robert Jackson, is likewise ironic. But not in the way he might think it is.
----------------
Listening to: Green Day - American Idiot
via FoxyTunes
Monday, December 31, 2007
The Christian Hell Just Froze Over . . .
I am in complete agreement with a New York Times editorial for once.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Ever look for something for a long time . . .
----------------
Listening to: Emerald Rose - Four Jacks
via FoxyTunes . . . and suddenly realize that you had it all along?
Case in point: the "Listening to . . " in this post.
A bit of background: I am utterly addicted to David Weber's Honor Harrington novel series. The Honorverse has been described as "space opera as if CS Forrester had written it." It's got exploding spaceships, Byzantine politics, Tech That Makes Sense, Sound Tactics (too much sf/f military fiction does not, sadly), historical allusions, action, adventure, telepathic cats with prehensile tails and opposable thumbs and characters to both admire and revile.
Anyway, back in 2000 or so, Baen Books, publisher of the series, put the whole series onto CD-ROM and distributed a copy of the disc with each hardcover of War of Honor. Anyway, I got that book and the disc, and gleefully synced the entire series' pdb files to three PDAs since then.
Also on the disc was the three Echo's Children filksongs set in the Honorverse. And until yesterday, I did not know it. I've been all over the web looking for "No Quarter!" -- I saw the lyrics on some random filk site last year, and as soon as I realize it was a Honorverse song, I had to have it!
Now I do . . . and it was worth the wait! I just hope the upcoming Honorverse books (three next year, pray to Sharon)
Many SF series get worse for wear as time goes on; this one gets better. I also recommend the books that are not part of the main sequence of the series, like Crown of Slaves and (most especially) The Shadow of Saganami. Also, unlike many series, reading them in publication order is best. My favorite of the whole series? The Shadow of Saganami, without a doubt. Followed closely by Honor Among Enemies, In Enemy Hands, and Echoes of Honor (which is something of a trilogy in terms of the ongoing story).
The song concerns what could well have been a scene in Echoes . . . but in Echoes the actual wording was "To all Grayson ships, the order is: Lady Harrington, and No Mercy!"
----------------
Listening to: Echo's Children - No Quarter
via FoxyTunes
Listening to: Emerald Rose - Four Jacks
via FoxyTunes . . . and suddenly realize that you had it all along?
Case in point: the "Listening to . . " in this post.
A bit of background: I am utterly addicted to David Weber's Honor Harrington novel series. The Honorverse has been described as "space opera as if CS Forrester had written it." It's got exploding spaceships, Byzantine politics, Tech That Makes Sense, Sound Tactics (too much sf/f military fiction does not, sadly), historical allusions, action, adventure, telepathic cats with prehensile tails and opposable thumbs and characters to both admire and revile.
Anyway, back in 2000 or so, Baen Books, publisher of the series, put the whole series onto CD-ROM and distributed a copy of the disc with each hardcover of War of Honor. Anyway, I got that book and the disc, and gleefully synced the entire series' pdb files to three PDAs since then.
Also on the disc was the three Echo's Children filksongs set in the Honorverse. And until yesterday, I did not know it. I've been all over the web looking for "No Quarter!" -- I saw the lyrics on some random filk site last year, and as soon as I realize it was a Honorverse song, I had to have it!
Now I do . . . and it was worth the wait! I just hope the upcoming Honorverse books (three next year, pray to Sharon)
Many SF series get worse for wear as time goes on; this one gets better. I also recommend the books that are not part of the main sequence of the series, like Crown of Slaves and (most especially) The Shadow of Saganami. Also, unlike many series, reading them in publication order is best. My favorite of the whole series? The Shadow of Saganami, without a doubt. Followed closely by Honor Among Enemies, In Enemy Hands, and Echoes of Honor (which is something of a trilogy in terms of the ongoing story).
The song concerns what could well have been a scene in Echoes . . . but in Echoes the actual wording was "To all Grayson ships, the order is: Lady Harrington, and No Mercy!"
----------------
Listening to: Echo's Children - No Quarter
via FoxyTunes
Friday, November 16, 2007
The very best thing about Leo . . .
Two words: TIME MACHINE.
Time Machine is the very best single reason for a Mac user to buy and install Leopard . . . and of you are a Windows user, the very best reason to go get a new Mac. Time Machine is a backup and restore utility. In a word, you can, at need, "go back in time" and restore your entire system or even a single file from any 1-hr increment in the last day, any day in the last month and any month thereafter. So, if in the middle of writing your master's thesis your MacBook Pro's internal HD packs it in, if you have TM and an external hard disk, you can restore the last backup (not to mention OS X, all your preferewnces, email, etc) of your thesis once the hard disk is replaced, and on you go.
You can restore a single file, your whole iTunes Library or thw whole fscking startup partition. No more need to use Target Disk Mode and another Mac. No more "log in as root, drag and drop your Home folder (c:\Documents and settings\yourname for you windows users) and HOPE you got it right." For some users, enabling the OS X "root" account is like handing a drunk with Tourette's Syndrome a greased grenade . . . only "sudo rm -R /* is capable of more damage in less time (think dropping to DOS, cd c:, then del *.*). No more Retrospect, .Mac backup 3.x (not a bad program, but it's about as intuitive as brain surgery when compared to TM) or needing to rely on a non-Apple solution.
Best of all, TM does this silently and automaticly..
Windows, by comparison, has "system restore" which is great for restoring Windows system files . . . but it does nto do jack about your master's thesis or your email, pics, music, videos or porn.
I had been looking forward to buying a new external hard drive to try this feature out once my finances allowed for it. Fortunately for me, I won a nice 250 gigabyte USB 2.0 drive today for quarterly sales performance. This is plenty of space to allow me to back up the 100 GB drive in my MacBook (currently about 40 gigs free). I'm going to put at least three partitions on the disk: one OS X for TM (I'm going to names it "HD Welles"), one also OS X (one just big enough to serve as a 10.5 startup disk, probably named "DaVinci" -- as in Leo-nardo) to install Leopard so I can boot off this drive at need and one formatted for FAT32 (Disk Utility does not speak Windows NTFS) so my good friends Michelle and David can back up their docs/music/pics/etc/omg/wtf/bbq.
Since the disk will be partitioned three ways, I think I'll call it "Gaul." Of course, people will look at me funny (not that they don't do that already . . .).
----------------
Listening to: Styx - Suite Madame Blue
via FoxyTunes
Time Machine is the very best single reason for a Mac user to buy and install Leopard . . . and of you are a Windows user, the very best reason to go get a new Mac. Time Machine is a backup and restore utility. In a word, you can, at need, "go back in time" and restore your entire system or even a single file from any 1-hr increment in the last day, any day in the last month and any month thereafter. So, if in the middle of writing your master's thesis your MacBook Pro's internal HD packs it in, if you have TM and an external hard disk, you can restore the last backup (not to mention OS X, all your preferewnces, email, etc) of your thesis once the hard disk is replaced, and on you go.
You can restore a single file, your whole iTunes Library or thw whole fscking startup partition. No more need to use Target Disk Mode and another Mac. No more "log in as root, drag and drop your Home folder (c:\Documents and settings\yourname for you windows users) and HOPE you got it right." For some users, enabling the OS X "root" account is like handing a drunk with Tourette's Syndrome a greased grenade . . . only "sudo rm -R /* is capable of more damage in less time (think dropping to DOS, cd c:, then del *.*). No more Retrospect, .Mac backup 3.x (not a bad program, but it's about as intuitive as brain surgery when compared to TM) or needing to rely on a non-Apple solution.
Best of all, TM does this silently and automaticly..
Windows, by comparison, has "system restore" which is great for restoring Windows system files . . . but it does nto do jack about your master's thesis or your email, pics, music, videos or porn.
I had been looking forward to buying a new external hard drive to try this feature out once my finances allowed for it. Fortunately for me, I won a nice 250 gigabyte USB 2.0 drive today for quarterly sales performance. This is plenty of space to allow me to back up the 100 GB drive in my MacBook (currently about 40 gigs free). I'm going to put at least three partitions on the disk: one OS X for TM (I'm going to names it "HD Welles"), one also OS X (one just big enough to serve as a 10.5 startup disk, probably named "DaVinci" -- as in Leo-nardo) to install Leopard so I can boot off this drive at need and one formatted for FAT32 (Disk Utility does not speak Windows NTFS) so my good friends Michelle and David can back up their docs/music/pics/etc/omg/wtf/bbq.
Since the disk will be partitioned three ways, I think I'll call it "Gaul." Of course, people will look at me funny (not that they don't do that already . . .).
----------------
Listening to: Styx - Suite Madame Blue
via FoxyTunes
Monday, November 5, 2007
Catapulting the Propaganda on cable teevee, and Why Cable Internet Is Evil
As all five of my readers know, I absolutely HATE television. I do not, and will not own a TV set. While my new roomie, bless his lupine soul, has satellite TV at our place and I had Comcast cable TV at my last place, I refuse to buy a set.
Speaking of cable internet versus DSL: AT&T Yahoo! consumer aDSL beats the holy snot out of Comcast cable for internet access. While cable IS faster and a bit simpler to set up (your computer is configured by default for cable over ethernet, DSL configuration is a bit harder), aDSL is a LOT more reliable. Back when I lived near CSUS, with both my first set o' roommates and my own place, the DSL went down a total of twice, and a power-cycle of the CPE and router fixed the issues. World of Warcraft latency was usually under 25 milliseconds -- not too bad at all. When I lived with Evil Otto, thanks to the wonders of cable "bandwidth sharing" the connect speed would drop to the point where WoW latency exceeded 1500 milliseconds; web pages and email took forever and a day to download (so I knew the game issues were not Blizzard's servers).
Not to mention what Comcast is doing to Bittorrent users . . . never has a problem with Bittorrent when connected to SBC / AT&T Yahoo! consumer aDSL. Of course, if Comcast hoses Bittorrent, it will also hose World of Warcraft updates because these updates are distributed using the Bittorrent protocol.
Moral of the story: do not get cable internet. Ever.
Back to the evil that is cable teevee. Even though I don't own a set, many public places where I spend time have sets tuned to Fox News, CNN or ESPN. It is very easy for me to ignore Faux News and Conservative News Network because of the sheer idiocy the hosts. For some reason ESPN is harder to ignore but the sheer inanity of big-time sports -- not to mention how addicted certain parents of mine are to teevee sports -- makes me more sensitive to it.
Anyway, I saw an ad the last time I was exposed to the toxin that is ESPN that made me go "WTF?" The spot was a generic VISA card ad. What made me go "WTF" was not the usual conspicuous consumption / debt overload stuff that makes me want to puke. The ad is basically a parade of consumers buying stuff they don't need with their VISA cards . . . then one of the parade of customers offered Federal Reserve Notes -- cash -- instead of a VISA card to pay for his purchases. From the look on the clerk's face you'd think the customer offered to pay for his crap with a used condom. Two thoughts went through my head at this point" one was "Why is cash treated like a leprous dead badger with AIDS?" When last I looked at a dollar bill, it said "valid for all debts, public and private." Just what is the Wall Street / Madison Avenue politico-economic axis of evil REALLY trying to say? To me it sounds like "Cash (and by extension, the government that issues it) cannot be trusted but VISA (and by extension the private sector) can be."
Of course, from the standpoint of someone who has a massive distrust for the current regime of corporate overlords in DC, you have to wonder. Is government issue cash money on the way out the door? Perhaps it is. Thanks to the "War on Drugs," cash transactions of more than $10k must be reported to the IRS to ferret out money laundries. Then there is the terrorism angle . . . I'm sure that dealers in weapons, explosives and other things needed for terror operations do not take credit cards (then again, the 9/11 guys got the job done with box cutters . . . and Home Depot takes plastic . . .).
Anyway, there is a long history of private currencies in the US -- Hmmm...something to think about.
Speaking of cable internet versus DSL: AT&T Yahoo! consumer aDSL beats the holy snot out of Comcast cable for internet access. While cable IS faster and a bit simpler to set up (your computer is configured by default for cable over ethernet, DSL configuration is a bit harder), aDSL is a LOT more reliable. Back when I lived near CSUS, with both my first set o' roommates and my own place, the DSL went down a total of twice, and a power-cycle of the CPE and router fixed the issues. World of Warcraft latency was usually under 25 milliseconds -- not too bad at all. When I lived with Evil Otto, thanks to the wonders of cable "bandwidth sharing" the connect speed would drop to the point where WoW latency exceeded 1500 milliseconds; web pages and email took forever and a day to download (so I knew the game issues were not Blizzard's servers).
Not to mention what Comcast is doing to Bittorrent users . . . never has a problem with Bittorrent when connected to SBC / AT&T Yahoo! consumer aDSL. Of course, if Comcast hoses Bittorrent, it will also hose World of Warcraft updates because these updates are distributed using the Bittorrent protocol.
Moral of the story: do not get cable internet. Ever.
Back to the evil that is cable teevee. Even though I don't own a set, many public places where I spend time have sets tuned to Fox News, CNN or ESPN. It is very easy for me to ignore Faux News and Conservative News Network because of the sheer idiocy the hosts. For some reason ESPN is harder to ignore but the sheer inanity of big-time sports -- not to mention how addicted certain parents of mine are to teevee sports -- makes me more sensitive to it.
Anyway, I saw an ad the last time I was exposed to the toxin that is ESPN that made me go "WTF?" The spot was a generic VISA card ad. What made me go "WTF" was not the usual conspicuous consumption / debt overload stuff that makes me want to puke. The ad is basically a parade of consumers buying stuff they don't need with their VISA cards . . . then one of the parade of customers offered Federal Reserve Notes -- cash -- instead of a VISA card to pay for his purchases. From the look on the clerk's face you'd think the customer offered to pay for his crap with a used condom. Two thoughts went through my head at this point" one was "Why is cash treated like a leprous dead badger with AIDS?" When last I looked at a dollar bill, it said "valid for all debts, public and private." Just what is the Wall Street / Madison Avenue politico-economic axis of evil REALLY trying to say? To me it sounds like "Cash (and by extension, the government that issues it) cannot be trusted but VISA (and by extension the private sector) can be."
Of course, from the standpoint of someone who has a massive distrust for the current regime of corporate overlords in DC, you have to wonder. Is government issue cash money on the way out the door? Perhaps it is. Thanks to the "War on Drugs," cash transactions of more than $10k must be reported to the IRS to ferret out money laundries. Then there is the terrorism angle . . . I'm sure that dealers in weapons, explosives and other things needed for terror operations do not take credit cards (then again, the 9/11 guys got the job done with box cutters . . . and Home Depot takes plastic . . .).
Anyway, there is a long history of private currencies in the US -- Hmmm...something to think about.
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