Day: June 6, 2005

Over at the appropriately-named Pull My Finger, Spurs asks an intriquing question.

Go on. I won’t hold you back. Go let him ask you his question. And be sure to leave a lengthy comment in answer. 🙂

Well, what are you waiting for? Go!

Are you still here? What are you waiting for?

*sheesh*

Lileks disses the “Koran desecration” meme

You really, really ought to make sure you catch James Lileks’ new feature, Screedblog. A sample of today’s rant:

“..Not to say we should treat the Qur’an with casual disrespect. But if an infidel touches the book with the wrong hand and people react like a two-year-old whose peas are touching the mashed potatoes, well, I understand why this matters, but when measured against the sins of headchoppery and carbombs, it pales to an evanescent translucence…”

I think you understate the case a bit, James, but then, there’s more where that came from, so at second thought, maybe you don’t.

🙂

…for the browser that provides “simply the best internet experience…”

CLICK on the Opera Browser button in my sidebar and take a look at Opera. It’s worth the look. Or check out PC World’s 100 Best Products of 2005 for a write up that’s better than my lil plaudits. Yeh, PC World also cites Mozilla’s Firebird, primarily for making a significant dent in Microsoft’s internet Exploder market dominance and the buzz fans created for alternative browsers. But check the article on Opera out. The link leading there reads, “Firefox too austere? Opera is an attractive, feature-rich alternative…. ” heh

Internet browser company Opera Software has added features for tighter security and the ability to surf the Web with voice commands in the latest version of its browser, Opera 8 for Windows and Linux, launched Tuesday.

Opera, in Oslo, sees the security issue as one it can leverage to carve into Microsoft’s dominance of the browser market with its Internet Explorer.

“We think that security is the reason why people would want to switch browsers,” says Opera spokesperson Eskil Sivertsen.

Internet Exploder is simply aweful. Firefox is OK, but still immature, clunky and feature-poor compared to Opera.

Give it a shot. If you already have a good java install, the download’s under 4MB. And that’s with many, many features bult in that require extra software downloads, installs and tweaks to get similar functionality in Firefox (if they are available at all).

Orson Scott Card on War Watch

While there are large portions of Orson Scott Card’s religious, philosophical and political views I disagree with (a more collegial disagreement than not, to be sure), he notes the character of the current enemies of civilization in the American arena of discourse pretty clearly in a recent article:

…the fanatics who now rule the Democratic Party, serving the cause of Smartland at the expense of the Heartland, will find that if they ever really get control of government, they will quickly be the most hated rulers our country ever had.

Already large numbers of Americans seethe over the puritanical laws imposed on us by anti-democratic judges, who cannot wait for compromise and the political process to “purify” us. Already we are outraged by the propaganda they foist on our children in the schools, without reference to the values of the community or the roots of the American culture.

The Taliban of Smartland will be just as repugnant to the people of America as the Islamist Taliban was to most of the people of Afghanistan…

Be sure to read his well-reasoned, carefully-written comments here.

BTW, strangely, I have the author (who shall go unnamed here) of a post whose rabid spittle flew wildly in a rant against Orson Scott Card in reaction to this article to ‘thank” for leading me to these comments by Card.

So, Joe “haven’t had a thought of my own for 50 years” Biden wants to close down Gitmo…

Yeh, I almost typed “redux” but this thing is starting to sound more like a regurgitation of the (in)famous “Linda Lovelace” movie all the time…