Month: June 2005

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…

Been reading a lot of eBooks… maybe too many

Why would I say “maybe too many”?

Let me set the scene. Of the computers here, I have this one, the one I do most of my surfing, blogging, etc., on, set up as a kinda “cocoon.” Comfy chair, wireless keyboard, three different pointing devices (cuts down on carpal tunnel, suited to different uses, etc.), one on a lil side table at just the right height to serve as an extended arm rest when I’m semi-reclining in the chair.

OK, I’m sitting, reading a book book (you know, one of those strange things on paper? :-), letting a Beethoven violin concerto kinda wash over me and I reach the bottom of a page. I find myself momentarily flummoxed when the scroll wheel on the mouse my hands resting on doesn’t “turn the page”/scroll further down…

heh

Had to actually turn the darn page… physically!

We bid farewell to a great man a year ago…

Found over at Blonde Sagacity

You are Napoleon Dyanamite and a buttload of gangs
are trying to recruit you.

Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Funny thing… when our daughter brought this quirky movie for us to view with her during one of her all-too-infrequent visits (Aside to Wonderful Daughter: yeh, I know you visit as often as you can and that it’ll necessarily become less frequent as time goes on. That’s life!), I watched it with a growing sense of dejà vu. heh. Nah, apart from the fact *cough* that my autobiography of high school life in the 60s was used as a basis for the film…*cough* I really wasn’t as ‘cool” as Napoleon. I was much less visible, apart from band, chess club and science seminar. And I attended high school in a semi-major metropolitan area, etc. Lotsa differences, but still… yeh, there are similarities—perhaps moreso with the person I am now than then, even. 🙂

Thunderbirds (1)
Originally uploaded by mnmus.

My sister had a “front row” seat for the June 1, 2005 – AFA graduation. From outside her home.

Envy much?

🙂

Heather MacDonald fisks the Harvard template for diversity scams

Harvard University has just pledged $50 million for faculty “diversity” efforts, penance for President Lawrence Summers’s public mention of sex differences in cognition. The university would have been better off hiring a top-notch conjuror, since only magic could produce a trove of previously undiscovered female and minority academic stars suitable for tenuring.

Even Harvard’s bottomless resources cannot buy a miracle, however. So instead of a magician, the university has brought forth the next best thing: a report on “diversity” that, like all such products, possesses the power of shutting down every critical faculty in seemingly intelligent people…

MacDonald skewers, marinades and thoroughly roasts the idiots who can’t see their noses on their own faces. It’s a joy to read. Unfortunately, those who need to read it most will either not, or, reading it, will deliberately blind themselves to its plain text meaning.