Month: July 2006

A couple of folks have noticed their trackbacks/comments being held for moderation, where none save tbs/comments snagged by my SPAm filters were held before. It’s a function of three things:

1.) I upgraded my WordPress installation over the weekend (and so deleted and re-installed plugins… and didn’t reinstall ’em all)
2.) Had been getting no fewer than 2,000 SPAM comments/trackbacks a day for the past week or so.
3.) Changed my approach to SPAM comments/tbs.

Now NO comment/tb is supposed to be approved unless at least ONE comment/tb from that source has been approved by me. Since I semi-restarted the SPAM filters when I upgraded the blog (and yeh, I was severely caffeine- and sleep-deprived at the time and remember doing it but not what I did. *sigh*), some of y’all who have commented/tbed here before will need manual approval, as well as all really new commenters.

Makes more trouble for me that it does for you, really, and my SPAm count has actually gone up… cos SPAM that was slipping through the filters before—and still is—is now being held in moderation… along with every legitimate comment/tb that my new WP install doesn’t recognize as having been around before.

OK, I’m still caffeine-deprived, cos re-reading the graphs above is like taking two, three four lumps of sugar (thanks, Pete Puma).

3or4.wav

Momday Open Post. Link to this post and track back. More below the post body.

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…winning the CNN narrative seems more important to many of the “statesmen” who are making these decisions than actually winning something important. I am reminded of Pareto’s Foxes and Lions and what happens when Foxes rule… ¹

Repetition is said to aid learning, so here ya go: When a society elevates silly issues to importance, and spends a lot of social capital on them to the detriment of addressing serious issues, that society is in serious trouble. “That society” is us.

Homosexual “marriage”–a silly, time-wasting issue. We’ve better things to spend ourselves on. Not even worth this sentence saying it’s not worth the time wasted on it.

Snail darters et al. Really, now: the survival of certain species (especially when more than a few times “endangered” species have proven to, urm, NOT be) should be left to good old darwinian natural selection. *heh*

Speaking of which: arguing over which religion is taught in schools, Neodarwiinism or Creationism… while the pubschoools in this country are flushing the minds of yet another generation down the toilet. Priorities, folks! College grads can’t read. What difference does it make how they think we got here as a species if they can’t even read? (And the real question is how the hell did they get outa high school and into college as illiterates?)

TSA. Need I say more? Is there a better single example of a public policy/debate/issue that’s skewed by dangerous silliness than the Thousands Standing Around? Attempt to confiscate the Medal of Honor from a real American hero on the way to speak at West Point; make a mother drink her own breast milk (expressed and bottled for her baby’s use in flight); grope, harass and steal from average citizens day in and day out… rather than do what’s rational and focus on security risks according to a reasonable profiling system (as the safest airline in the world—El Al—does). Typical of the dangerous silliness driving American security, border and foreign policy.

What do all these silly things have in common? Yeh, a gimme question not even rising to the level of a rhetorical device. You’d already answered it before I asked it, unless you are an integral, driving part of the problem.

Every single silly (but dangerous) issue distracting from dealing with real, serious issues are driven by the anti-democratic, anti-Western, anti-American, anti-free speech faux liberals on the left and lent impetus by stupid faux conservatives in the right who let the faux liberals frame the issues and circumsribe the arena of discussion.

And every single solitary social issue that is harming our society today, whether a silly issue detracting from the level of public debate or genuinely serious issue, is exacerbated by the ever-increasing anti-federalism of the Federal government.

The Republic has one foot (some would say both feet and digging itself deeper) in the grave, already, and most folks waste all too much time arguing about silly things.

I guess that’s just what happens when a society is rich enough to squander its wealth on siliness. And when its “leaders” are more concerned with preening for an audience (or simply stroking their own… egos) than doing essential work to insure the society’s security and future.

But there’s a danger sneaking in under our radar (many, in fact) that will one day reveal all these to be silliness writ large enough to kill. And it’s not just that our so-called “education system” is steadily churning out citizens who are dumber than a bag of hammers. No! We cannot be satisfied with that level of moron production! No, our society (via its chosen political masters) must INSURE that its population is ever dumber:

“Cognitive Decline: The Irreducible Legacy of Open Borders”

But let’s all talk about how to accomodate non-English-speaking children in our schools and about how two daddys is oh-so-good for kids (instead of sealing our borders, fixing our schools and making divorce difficult to obtain).

Bah.

The Random Yak Gets It

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As I said, this is an open trackback post. Link to this post and then track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

For those of y’all who’ve been following along…

Well, tomorrow the saga of Yolanda Yaris, my daughter’s first personally-selected, “bought-on-her-own” car, ends when she picks up Guido Yaris, Yolanda’s replacement as transportation. Since time pressure, physical exigencies, and foot-dragging and obstructionism from ins company thugs refusing to make her whole meant Lovely Daughter had to have things handled this week, she settled on (I almost more accurately wrote “settled for”) a car that is about $1,000 less than Yolanda was: the three-door (hatchback) body version of the Yaris that uses the same drive train and frame, etc.

In red: the ONE color LD wanted to avoid.

Ah, well, it’s just transportation.

At least red will be very easy to see during daylight hours (and she doesn’t drive much at night, when she’ll have lights to provide visibility to other drivers, anyway). LD’s dad is pleased, though. Handling characteristics and fuel economy should be just a tad better with Guido than with Yolanda, and the rest of the car’s the same solid Toyota engineering.

Bye-bye, Yolanda.

Yeh, I am sometimes kinda nit-picky. So?

One reason I like eBooks in html format is that I can easily edit them when the author and editors have fallen down on things that they ought to catch. I mean, after all, if I paid $4 for a book, I have a right to expect these folks to earn their $$ by doing a workmanly job of writing and editing it. (You’re not paying me jack for reading this, so mty typos stay. So there.)

Case in point (and the spur for this nit-picky post): I’m reading a book right now that’s really pretty well-written. The author not only has a history degree (and other neato keano DV stuff) but he wasn’t ruined by a history degree in a contemporary college/university, that is, he knows his stuff. It’s fiction, but this guy’s fiction is usually pretty tight, and any historical/cultural references are pretty much on target.

So, when I ran across a piece of dialog where a character said (according to the author’s “transcription”), “Here, here!” I was just a tad disgusted.

As the guy should know, the expression is “Hear, hear!” as derived most likely from the expression “Hear him, hear him!” as I recall the OED stating it. It’s an expression of strong agreement.

“Here, here!” means, well, nothing, has no roots outside of subliterate blatherings and is entirely unworthy of this author.

So, yeh, I’ve corrected a few other usages, typos, misspellings and expressions in this particular book, and I kinda have to wonder if

1.) The editor wasn’t waaaay under the weather (or relying on some sub-par copyreaders) or
2.) The co-author (yeh, there’s someone else in the mix), whom I’ve never read before, wasn’t responsible for this bit, or
3.) Both.

I vote for both.

But at least I can correct the usage, save MY copy (corrected) and read on…

Nice thing about eBooks in html format…

🙂

Below, a revision and expansion of a comment I made on Bloggin’ Outloud in a short response to Lyn’s post, Current Argument: Gay Marriage, Part 1. Talk amongst yourselves… *heh*

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I don’t have any animus toward gay people, but I do very much resent homosexuals attempting to co-opt gaity as their own exclusive province. I am about as completely heterosexual as can be imagined (and I have a very vivid and fecund imagination), yet I have moments, days, even weeks of experience being truly gay. Not homosexual, but gay.

Indeed, I have known very few homosexual individuals who have been gay. Most I have known are–on various three-dimensional axes–as far from being gay as could be imagined. In fact, the homosexual activists often in the news are angry, strident, whiners and moaners and shouters-down of opposing views and altogether unpleasant individuals. That’s about as far from gaity as can be imagined.

That lil idiocy of homosexual activism dispensed with, what about the silliness of homosexual “marriage”?

Oh. Yes. That.

At best it’s an oxymoron.

Optimally, it’s just another way for a miniscule portion of society to blow itself up in importance and whine and moan and shout its way into manufacturing a “right” that makes no sense.

It’s silliness puffed up large. All sizzle, no steak. All hat, no cattle. etc. As ideas go, it’s as profound and worthy of discussion in the marketplace of ideas as the meritorious idea of tainted marshmallows as a steady diet is profound and worthy of debate in the marketplace of ideas.

If homosexuals want to harm themselves by their deviant behavior (and a 2%-4% group deviating from the norm is just that: a deviation), they have that right, but to ask society to place a stamp of approval on it is assinine.

Arguments about genetic disposition toward deviant behavior—even if true—are spurious, as are arguments about equal rights for homosexuals (re: marriage, etc.). Were I to have a “genetic predisposition” toward violent resolution of conflict (and some people do, you know), society would still be justified in censoring my behavior were I to engage in deviant behavior and punch out everyone I disagreed with, no matter how much I whined, bitched and moaned about “equal rights” for a violence-prone minority group.

In fact, what about that hugely-discrinminated-against minority group, cannibals? Where are their equal rights?

Bah. Behavior has always been and always will be moderated, circumscribed and censored or allowed by societies. Civilized society (there has really only been one for the past 1,000 years or so, you know) has always denoted—rightly—that marriage is between some number of men and women (various sorts of polygamous/polyandrous arrangements have been accepted, although monogomy has been the norm for civil acceptance). Changing that for a 2%-4% portion of society is truly allowing the gnats to bridle the horse.

It’s silly, and when society allows the silly to drive public discourse, it’s in serious trouble.

Put the homosexual marriage silliness back in the closet with the other silly season arguments and issues and get on with real issues that affect ALL of society, including the other 96%-98%.

Stuffing the closet at The Random Yak

Not yet, but close… (Sir Fred posited extraterrestrial origins for life on Earth, perhaps even intelligent alien intervention.)

Hate Windows Update (and Microsoft’s sneaky practices like installing “windows Genuine Advantage” spyware) as much as I do? Here are a couple of alternatives:

Shavlik NetChk Protect is now available for a one year free trial for anyone with a valid email address. It’s a powerful app designed for enterprise network environments, enabling sysadmins to maintain their networked Windows computers easily, effectively and safely. And it is designed to update many more softwares than just Microsoft offerings.

And you can download it and use it for a year for free.

Not too shabby.

If that’s too big a deal for you, BigFix can maintain your Microsoft products very, very effectively for free, freeing you from dependence on Microsoft’s cranky, unreliable and sneaky Windows Update procedure. And BigFix is free.

One of my Win2K comps had had problems for months installing certain security updates via Microsoft’s automatic update facility (or even directly from MessySoft using various download/install techniques). BigFix just handled it.

Either app is a Very Good thing, IMO. Give ’em a shot if you want to loosen the apron strings.

Of course, if ya wanna CUT the MessySoft apron strings, Ubuntu Linux 6.06 is super cool, capable, secure and easily updated, and most people have little need for anything that doesn’t come in the default install.

*heh*

More than a few bloggers have taken the time to give the war against Western Civilization some thought, some in much more depth than the “Seven” post below. Here are a few:

Continue reading “Seven More”

Note: I am NOT going to be very specific in this post. Folks who are able to do their own homework can easily fill in specific examples and many, many more issues than I list below. This is, as I say below, an opportunity to engage in a very simplified, but potentially useful, thought experiment.

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Each of the critical issues facing us as a society today are… moral issues. It’s just that the idea of virtue and sin have been denigrated (and pejorated) so long and folks who ought to know better have allowed the enemies of virtue to redefine the topic so narrowly (and wrongly) that we rarely think in those terms.

As a starting point, try this lil thought experiment: take the classic “Cardinal Virtues”—Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith, Hope, Love—and “Deadly Sins”—Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust; although older lists include despair or “accedie”—and try matching up the “Deadly Sins” with difficulties facing Western Civ… and the “Cardinal Virtues” with the solutions to those difficulties…

You can easily page through backposts here at twc for critical issues to apply these to, but I’ll go ahead and list just a few for starters:

Democratic rule is arguably greatest achievemant of Western Civilization, and democratic government “of the people, by the people” is under assault both by those who claim greatest alliegiance to it and by those alien invaders to whom it is a… foreign concept. Think: the Eurabianization of France, Italy, et al; the anti-democratic urm, “Democratic Party,” and the political elite as a whole, to mention just a few obvious examples.

What deadly sins appear to be the favorites of the politcal elites, Academia Nut Fruitcakes, Mass Media Podpeople and their ilk who commit open acts of treason, encourage invasion and weaken the very fabric of a democratic society by their open acts of defiance of that society’s fundamental principles of governance and responsible citizenship? What virtues do these folk demonstrate that they lack?

Apply that line of thought to

Education…

The Arts…

Taxes…

Religion…

You get the idea? A growing number of the “products” of so-called public education end up graduating from college unable to read and understand a newspaper editorial or the instructions on a prescription med bottle—apparently only about 31% of recent college grads can manage those great intellectual feats. Are sad facts like this the result of a virtuous approach to educating our future citizens or an example of how greed, sloth, pride and envy lead educrats, a growing (sadly) number of teachers and pubschool administrators *spit* to join with slothful parents in lobotomizing future citizens?

The arts… *sigh* Dominated by two extremes with trash on both ends. “High art” dominated by crucifixes suspended in jars of urine. Pop art dominated by misogynistic rap “music” and worse. What virtue is there in,

“You say you a dime, you a measly penny. She say she’s a dime, she’s a measly penny. She say she’s a dime, she’s a measly penny. Stop trying to get with me. You say you a dime, you’s a measly penny.”

And that’s some of the cleanest of rap lyrics, far better than the norm, both in “lyric” quality and in moral tone. I won’t reprint the crap that falls within the norm. Take a few minutes and rate ANY pop music today with the Principles of Classicism, then ask yourself, “How would society improve if more music today employed those musical principles?”

Of course, most folks today, after lobotomization via pubschool and mass media, won’t even notice the religious, social and philosophical underpinnings of those principles, because Western Civilization itself has been under such prolonged assault by both mass media and academia.

*sigh*

Dare I mention the huge evil that our current tax structure IS (let alone the greed that is its essential underpinning)? What virtue can answer this evil?

And religion… *sigh* Christianity and Judaism both devolving (in this country) to the social clubs they have long since even ceased being in other Western nations? I wonder what virtues are lacking there?

I just mention these general areas of concern, because this sort of approach to understanding many, many issues could quite likely be useful in doing something that is the anathema of anti-democratic, anti-western civ folk: making clear distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil.

Sometimes the issues really are clearcut black and white.

Obviously, the traditional “Cardinal Virtues” listed above aren’t the only virtues needed to combat the further erosion of Western Civilization. And there are other traditional lists of “Cardinal Virtues”. And the “Seven Deadly Sins” are joined by a host of others in the camps of both those who seek the end of democratic and other Western Civilization values and those who defend them.

But those two lists of seven do provide a useful toolset for approaching issues.