Category: Blogroll

More about today’s linkfest below.

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Yesterday, I had occassion to drop by my Wonder Woman’s library. She was at a meeting, so I twiddled my thumbs at her desk for a while, noodling around doing random searches of the card catalog. [Telescoping the story… ] I ended up quickly reading a Louis L’Amour book–something I’d not done in many, many years. It reminded me why I read all his books, despite the fact that the plots are predictabe to the point of being hackneyed, all his characters are complete sterotypes, dialog is frequently didactic to the point of being “preachifying” on traditional American virtues, etc. So why did I read darned near everything the guy wrote, lo those many years ago?

The guy could write descriptive narrative. I’ve been many of the places he describes, and some of them I recognized on my first visit from descriptions in his books, others I knew well I knew better after reading his descriptions. That’s something.

But more than that–and the reason one of the most learned men I know once told me he read L’Amour and considered him his favorite “theologian” *heh*–the “preachifying” on traditional American virtues are a welcome anodyne to the pain of viewing the steady erosion of those virtues in contemoprary culture.

So, I may dig out those old paperbacks and skim ’em for some of that preachifying didactic dialog from time to time whenever I begin to be nauseated by contemporary culture. Because some “light reading” just shines more light than some more “substantive’ reading.

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(Every thime I read/hear “Do you want to take a survey?” I think of the Animainiacs. Great cartoons.)

Nah, this isn’t a survey about anything important or even significant. Heck, it’s not even a survey about anything all that interesting to most of my readers, for that matter, so if you have no real interest in compgeeky stuff, just toddle right along to another post, ‘K?

How Long Did It Take to Install Your Home Network?

My answer (because it was the shortest time allowed) was “Less than an Hour”–though of course I didn’t include my first peer-to-peer network between two computers using just a crossover cable (the time for that was essentially just the time it took to plug the cable into both computers and tell ’em they were on the same workgroup. What? 5 mins max?).

My first home network using some sort of switch/hub and two separate segments of cable between two computers in different rooms took about 20 minutes, because I had to run cabling in the attic, down walls, etc.

Real hard. *yawn*

Other computers added on usually take about the same amount of time, unless using wireless access. Running the cable’s the time sink. Well, that and building the cables from a bulk roll.

Nowadays, using a wireless router and wireless cards, one could easily set up a buncha computers on a home network in 15-20 minutes, assuming familiarity with the hardware and different operating systems (if using different OSes). Heck, just assuming the ability to read directions. What really flabbergasted me was the percentage of folks who answered that it took more than an hour: 43%. Heck, 18% (part of the 43%–25% took between 1 hour and 1 day) took longer than a day to get their home network up and running. If it takes that long, someone ought to think to have a literate person read a manual and explain the process using small words, spoken s l o w l y. *heh*

And then there are the folks not dealt with in the survey who are like my (bad) neighbors. They set up their wireless network wrong. But I’m not telling them that their unsecured network leaves them wide open. Nuh-uh. *heh*

Charles Brumbelow, in an email published in Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Maor Mail points to an Opinion Journal (WSJ) snippet listed under, “The Religion That Dare Not Speak Its Name,” that touches on a subject that’s too difficult for “nuanced” thinkers to resolve easily, but which seems pretty darned simple to me:

There is a genuine problem here of choosing language that distinguishes between Muslim terrorists and plain old Muslims. But circumlocutions designed to avoid acknowledging the former’s Islamic nature cannot possibly help clarify matters.

Let me help “clarify matters” a bit.

“Plain old Muslims” claim the Koran (choose your own trendy spelling) is their literal guide to a holy life.

Islamic terrorists claim the Koran (choose your own trendy spelling) is their literal guide to a holy life.

“Plain old Muslims” revere Mohammed and view his life and teachings (of which the Koran, Hadith, etc,) as worthy of emulation in all of life.

Islamic terrorists revere Mohammed and view his life and teachings (of which the Koran, Hadith, etc,) as worthy of emulation in all of life.

Now, THE distinction: Islamic terrorists honestly, forthrightly and openly seek to actually emulate the bloody Butcher of Medina, while “Plain old Muslims” are either just not all that serious about actually following Mohammed or are living lives of lies, decieving the Dar al Harb.

There. Now you know the single most significant differential between “Plain old Muslims” and Islamic terrorists.

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The best April First pranks…

Inigo Montoya: Let me ‘splain.
[pause]
Inigo Montoya: No, there is too much. Let me sum up…

OK, just one: Google TiSP, a plan by Google to offer wireless internet service to homes through local sewage systems and home plumbing… Bringing together the best of Google with the best of many internet users.

In the typical Google datamining style that has caused privacy concerns in the past, Google said of the free/low cost service,

To offset the cost of providing the TiSP service, we use information gathered by discreet DNA sequencing of your personal bodily output to display online ads that are contextually relevant to your culinary preferences, current health status and likelihood of developing particular medical conditions going forward

Of course, this was April 1, wasn’t it? It’s not as though this were a newsflash from Congress where one expects this kind of nonsense to be seriously proposed…

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I’m soooo far behind in my reading, that I’d been nominated twice for a “Thinking Blogger Award” before I actually read one of the nominating posts.

*sigh*

Now, that’s something to think about.

*heh*

At any rate, both Angel, of Woman Honor Thyself, and Stanford, of MoreWhat.Com have extended the honor to me. Angel, complaining that I make her head hurt *LOL* and Stanford lattering me beyond bounds with “unmistakable stand on issues with a complete absence of hype“.

Now, as I understand this particular blogosphere meme pool tag game, it goes like this:

Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. The participation rules are simple:

1.) If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,

2.) Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,

3.) Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

Thanks, Stanford and Angel! You’ve both given me much to think about, and though you both deserve tag backs with noms of your own, since you’ve both been tagged, I’ll try to go further afield with my own tags. Of course, there are many others I could tag, save that so many, like blogsis Kat or G.M. Roper, have already been tagged or like Jerry Pournelle, who began “blogging” years before there was any such thing as a blogging platform, and so still uses software that doesn’t easily deal with links in and has NO way of noticing trackbacks at all (hey! as “The Original Blog” he can do it any way he wants to, I guess. :-)). But apart from so many deserving folks already mentioned or who kinda fall between the cracks in the system, there are five notables I’d like to list:

1.) The Random Yak. Whether it’s one of the Maniyak’s biblical exegesis posts or one of Random Yak’s squint-eyed views of modern cluture or current events, there’s always something to think about there.

2.) Every post–whether by D.L., Bergbikr or The Mary Hunter–at the eponymous TMH’s Bacon Bits is worth reading and thinking about. Here’s one of D.L.’s wide-ranging Top Ten (Profound) Headlines as an example.

3.) Curt of Chaotic Synaptic Activity can bend my mind. He not only has a sharp, well-honed mind but a wealth of experience and an unique viewpoint to bring to the table, and he invariably lays out a feast for thought ranging between humorous and serious, including the major and commonplace in between. Anchors away!

4.) Layla’s started a new group blog, The Dhimmitude News Network. Strong stuff from someone who knows Islam from an unique perspective who has invited others to share in the task of unmasking the global evil that is Islam. Take for example, “Christian Jihad.” Strong! Do read it! (Note: Yes, I have an interest. I’ve contributed one post, making me about one week behind on my committments there–apologies, folks.) UPDATE: Note, folks, that DNN shares a domain with Layla’s frontline blog: The Hill Chronicles, where you can find as much thought-provoking material (like this wood-shedding of Saudi “King” Abdullah) as you want. 😉

5.) Jake, at Freedom Folks, is never at a loss for thought-provoking words, as his Jackass Quotes of the Day demonstrates.

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Trackposted to Stageleft, guerrilla radio, stikNstein… has no mercy, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Today, the first two verses of the hymn,

No Tramp of Soldiers’ Marching Feet
Timothy Dudley-Smith

No tramp of soldiers’ marching feet
with banners and with drums,
no sound of music’s martial beat—
“The King of glory comes!”
To greet what pomp of kingly pride
no bells in triumph ring,
no city gates swing open wide:
“Behold, behold your King!”

And yet he comes. The children cheer;
with palms his path is strown.
With every step the cross draws near—
the King of glory’s throne.
Astride a colt he passes by
as loud hosannas ring,
or else the very stones would cry
“Behold, behold your King!”

Read the rest where it’s “reprinted” with permission at WQOTW

UPDATE: The tune associated with the lyrics by the author is the venerable KINGFOLD. CLICK below to play (if you have an mp3-capable plugin for your browser), or CLICK on the tune name to open in your fav media player. Sing along with the instrumental if you wish.

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Trackposted to Right Pundits, Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Allie Is Wired, Right Celebrity, Stageleft, guerrilla radio, stikNstein… has no mercy, Walls of the City, basil’s blog, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Pursuing Holiness, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.” Mark Twain

Well, I got the itch. I realized that waiting to set up a PC-BSD comp til I built another box was just silly. I have too many other projects I’m behind on already. *heh* Sooo, took an Ubuntu/Ichthux box and partitioned the hard drive (yeh, this box has only one hard drive). Slapped Disk 1 of the PC-BSD install set in and re-booted.

Hey, nice! Easiest full install of an OS yet*. Less than 15 minutes and the install CD’s ejected and it’s time to reboot.

…

Boot Loader gives me a choice of Linux (F1) or PC-BSD (F3), as it ought to. Boots cleanly. Nice desktop, but resolution’s set too high for this 17″ monitor. Popup immediately informs me how to use the KDE Control Center to modify my environment. Since I’ve been off KDE machines for a while, that’s nice.

Next popup tells me there are updates available (since I downloaded the OS last week? Yep.) OK that and they just install.

OK, back to the Control Center. Oh, you noticed I didn’t have to configure my network in any way? Right. It just works, apparently. Back to the Control Center. I’ll just set the translucency levels and set the auto-raise to mimic the way I like to work for now.

Tramslucency levels? Yeh, kinda like Mac OS X and Vista. [Update: Yeh, I told the thing to emulate the Mac GUI. The Almighty Dock is on top of my screen, and just as with Mac OSX, it’s unmovable. *heh*]

OK, I’ll put a purty picture up for a desktop background, too.

Well, apart from having to use the crappy (but still worlds and away better than Internet Exploder) Konqueror browser to download Opera and install it (*heh*), everything Just Works and does so quite well indeed.

And yeh, download, CLICK and Opera’s installed. Oh, and getting to a download of Opera? Easy-peasy, in fact, even easier than the Freespire Click N Run system. Really easy.

I’ll live with this for a while, dual booting between Linux and PC-BSD, and see how I like it over the course of a couple of weeks. So far, though, no onions, only orchids for PC-BSD. I need to see if the software I use in Linux to manage my Palm will work in this OS, but since it’s touted as able to run Linux apps, it might well do just that.

Looking really good so far…

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*Note: Puppy Linux is still all-time champ for shortest time to a usable desktop. But then, it just lkloads itself into memory and creates a dogone good-sized swap file without doing an actual install. Great lil OS. Fits on a credit-card sized CDR or a USB drive, easily.

Not today, at any rate.

When we bought this house 12 years ago, it had all we needed going for it: 4BR–enogh room for two teenagers and us; two baths–again, juuust enough (heck, the kids could share :-)), other amenities like good neighbors (not so much any more *sigh*), and the pool and fenced yard were icing. I thought to myself, “Self, I could live in this house til I die and be satisfied.” And I meant it.

But there were little things.

The cutsy flowered wallpaper in the kitchen, dining room and carried on down the hallway to the “master suite”–*yech* Yeh, that went long ago.

The french doors to the deck were still in gray primer. Fixed years ago, as well.

Other little things.

But the doors. *sigh* All of them were hoolow core–including the front door! Made no sense whatsoever.

Well, I’ve dealt with some of them–front door war first, replaced with a nice 8-panel solid wood door. But the upstairs doors have been down on the list too long. Found a door for that bath–raised panels, only 1/8 inch too tall *heh*

Soooo, lunch was installing that door and getting it painted, “new” hardware (well, new to that door and location).

Big deal: it’s been so long since I used my hole saw that when I went to the place I knew it was… it wasn’t. An excuse to buy a tool. *Whoopee!* Bought a door ijstallation kit that replicated much of the same functionality and added a nice lil reusable plastic lock-on template. Nice. Sure, I could have used one of my routers to route out the places for the hinges, but with setup and teardown, well, for two hinges it wasn’t worth it. besides, the kit came with a new 1/2″ chisel, and I really enjoy shaving wood with a chisel.

So, hardware try-mounted and door works. remove hardware and paint.

Looks good. Install (quick-drying semi-gloss latex enamel).

Oops. Used the wrong paint. You see, we have two yellows. One that’s really light, almost Gurnsey cream colored (with a touch more yellow, maybe). Another is a richer yellow, used in the livingroom (really brightens the room!).

I had grabbed a can of the livingroom yellow. Really stood out next to the other yellow on the walls around the door.

*heh*

S’OK. The paint was already dry. Slapped on another coat very, very quickly, of the right paint.

Now, see, there’s this about me and painting: I don’t like to do it. Oh, I like the results, but doing it… not so much. Still, do it right (even with the wrong paint *heh*) and there’s some enjoyment in the act for me anyway, because I learned much of what I do when I paint from my paternal grandfather.

Granddaddy was a “show and tell” kinda guy. Grew up as a working cowboy on the family ranch and became a far, far more literate man than I am. He made his living as a farmer, a carpenter and, for nearly 40 years, a postal worker. But it was as a handyman that he shared most of the times we spent together. He taught me how to hold a brush, and how to use the right brush for the job. So, today during lunch, when I used a 1″ natural hair detail brush to brush in the panels and a 2.5″ brush to do the frame (the stiles and rails), I held my brush as Granddady showed–and told–me to: like holding a pencil or pen, not in the “handshake” grip most folks use. (Try it: you’ll find it less tiring and the brush easier to control.)

And as I painted (and re-painted *VBG*) the door, I remembered times spent with Granddaddy and, as always when I paint trim or walls or suchlike, it made the job go easier.

Man! I think I want to paint some more now.

Maybe.

😉

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Trackposted to Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson’s Website, A Blog For All, Adam’s Blog, basil’s blog, Stuck On Stupid, Cao’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, , Conservative Cat, LaTogaStrappata®, Rightlinx, , stikNstein… has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, The Right Nation, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Yep. Linkfest. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂

If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.

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By conservative (not Conservative) estimates, illegal aliens make up approximately 8% of the workforce and number anywhere between 12,000,000 and 20,000,000 in total population (yeh, some big families there), and of that number nearly 70% are Mexican.

Yep: 70%, or anywhere between 8,400,000 and 14,000,000 of the illegal aliens in this country are invaders from Mexico. I say “invaders” because the Mexican government actively sponsors and aids their defiance of our borders. Surely cassus belli for war, if ever there were such a thing. That’s between 8,000,000 and 14,000,000 criminals (border violation, identity theft, and more) the feddle gummint is doing damn all to protect its citizens from.

I’ve had subliterate morons suggest (suggest, hell! Outright flame!) that I am a racist for posting the following picture of the American flag flown upside down UNDER a Mexican flag–on American soil, no less!–and then suggesting that the proper response to that disgusting display would be to burn and trample the Mexican flag.

Of course, accusing me of racism for suggesting a measured response to those illiteratti who shout “Aztlan!” while disrespecting the American flag (on AMERICAN soil!) and waving Mexican flags ought to have their flag burned and trampled is a measure of just how very stupid these idiots are. I’d suggest they have someone read a dictionary definition to them, but then finding someone with words small enough to explain such a concept to idiots within the limited time frame of their wee little attention spans would render the task impossible. Heck, even attempting to drill through thick skulls to explain that “Mexican” is NOT a “race” would make the labors of Hercules pale in comparison. *sigh*

But all that’s not necessary, you see, because their charge of racism is disingenuous, false on its face, an attempt to discredit without making an argument or addressing the essential immorality of their position. Realizing this, it becomes readily apparent that arguing (or even “discussing vigorously”–which is what argument really is *heh*) with such cretins is simply playing tarbaby. The only possible argument with such as these is to SHOUT LOUDER AND LONGER THAN THEY DO.

Seriously. Not one single solitary self-made idiot who slings false charges instead of arguing their case will EVER be persuaded by honest argument. Indeed, honest argument will simply encourage them to shout liuder with ever more vigorously asserted false statements. With such persons, the ONLY remedy is force, even if only forceful words, repeated until THEY are shouted down.

Don’t get me wrong. As long as someone wants to make an honest argument, I believe the only right thing to do is listen and address their argument reasonably. But that is not what I have seen and heard from the open borders/”transform America into Mexico del Norte” crowd.

“They are doing jobs Americans won’t do.” Lie.

Continue reading “Lies, Damned Lies and “Racist” Lies”