Day: December 7, 2006

Running short on time, so this is a very quick drive-by post. Dig a little on yout own for more info.

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MsUnderestimated points out a Hannity/Colmes interview of Hashim Nzinga, December 6 (yesterday), where Hannity tried manfully and politely (but insistently) to get Nzinga to respond to a simple question about former North Carolina State University professor Kamau Kambon’s rant about solving the world’s problems by exterminating white people. Specifically referring to Kambon’s serious proposal to exterminate white people, Hannity asked Nzinga, “Are you going to support this?”

Nzinga refused over and over again to answer the question, instead repeatedly referring to the “fact” that ONLY white people commit mass murder, and implying again and again, in line with Kamau’s thesis, that whtes are actively seeking to exterminate blacks.

Oh, really, Mr. Dumbass Nzinga? One answer would suffice to completely invalidate both Mr. Kambon’s and Mr. Nzinga’s argument that whites and whites alone aremass murderers (especially of blacks): Rwanda. That’s right, some of the most horrendous mass murder episodess of the last few decades weren’t even committed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, as bad as those were. It was black on black mass murder, both government sanctioned democide and “revolutionary” reprisals, in Rwanda.

But that’s not all, of course. Any reasonable, moderately literate person could do a quick search and turn up

“On April 6, 1994, Hutu extremists unleashed a genocide in which perhaps 800,000 people were murdered in one hundred days.”

And how many of those 800,000 or so black Rwandans were murdered by whites, Mr. Nzinga?

*crickets chirping*

I thought so. Your assertion that whites are “the only” (as I recall your rant) mass murderers, and especially of blacks, is simply false, and making assertions based on your wilfull ignorance (anyone with more working synapses than a head of cabbage has is unaware of black on black crime in this country, ongoing tribal atrocities in Africa, etc.) is nothing but sheer racist bigotry.

Now, go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

FbL sent out a link to Valour-IT, Milblogs Give Hundreds of Laptops to
Wounded Soldiers at the PBS Mediashift website, highlighting Valour-IT.

Mark Glaser opens his post with this:

As I sit here and type this blog post, I pause for a moment to consider how important my fingers and hands are to me as a blogger and writer. If I should be injured or lose the use of my hands in some awful accident, what would I do?

That hypothetical situation is very real for some American soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, where body armor helps protect them from getting killed from the blasts of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) ? but injuries to extremities are common. In the summer of 2005, when Army Captain Charles ?Chuck? Ziegenfuss, a military blogger, was severely injured by such an IED, he asked his blog audience to help him get voice-to-text software, Dragon Naturally Speaking, for his laptop.

Take a few moments to read and consider the story, which I now know began in August, 2005, the “brain child” of two people, who connected via the Internet, several thousand miles apart physically, yet of one mind, and each had the puzzle pieces to get the Valour-IT program started.

Here we are, 15 months later, at least $350K in the books and 650+ units in place, headed towards 850 in place by Christmas this year, and funding for more as a result of this year’s fund drive. Here’s some insight from Mark’s article:

Neither FbL or Ziegenfuss make any money themselves from the project, which has zero overhead and is completely volunteer-run , just like Soldier’s Angels, which offers all sorts of services for wounded soldiers. FbL, who prefers to keep her real name out of the spotlight and off her blogs, told me how amazed she was by the power of the blogosphere to organize for a cause and come together virtually.

Please, keep reading….. Continue reading “Valour-IT: PBS Takes Notice”

This in my inbox from eWeek:

Microsoft has issued a zero-day attack alert for its ubiquitous Word application. The unpatched flaw can be exploited when a user simply opens a maliciously rigged Word document,
and there are no pre-patch workarounds available, Microsoft
warns.

Why do I use OpenOffice, again? I mean, beside the fact that it’s FREE? Oh, yeh. More secure. Riiiight.

And though half of businesses unable to “upgrade” their computers to Windows Vista, maybe that’s not such a bad thing… since Microsoft’s “shrinkwrapped beta to the desktop” programs ALWAYS need patching the day they’re rolled out. *sigh*

Oh, and the Rio Grande is now somewhere North of Redmond?

Alla y’all who “refreshed” Internet Exploder 7 just before Thanksgiving to get the latest security patch discovered that Microsoft apparently thought we’d already changed the name of the country to “Los Estados Unidos de América,” cos the package for the U.S. English version tried convert a buncha folks’ IE7 to a Spanish language version. WTG, MessySoft. *sigh* It’s “fixed” now, though. Well, as fixed as Internet Exploder can be, I suppose. Look for more securrity patches monthly on that monster. (Meanwhile, Opera’s managed less than 2 security patches needed a year, for the past several years… and all of those were released within a day or so of the discovery of the need for them. Even Firefox development has been better than MessySoft there.)

Well, I suppose I could continue this lil poke in the eye, but MessySoft does that to itself enough to make any jabs I make in its direction superfluous.

Still, I do use Windows, though I am transitioning my personal use to different flavors of Linux (still have to use Windows for ONE application and for familiarity so I can rag on those who call on me to fix Windows-related issues. *heh*). “Different flavors of Linux”—*LOL* “Yum! Puppy!” Ymmier: Puppy on a stick! 🙂

With all the aches and pains users must experience upgrading or simply maintaining Microsoft’s products—especially in the last few years—Microsoft seems to be making its mission statement, “You only hurt the ones (whose money) you love.”

😉

See the report here, along with the video recorded by MSUnderestimated –see the citation of STACLU on the picture of the “Nativity” display. (WTG, lady! And WTG STACLU!)

13 Things I Love About Christmas

1. The smells: crisp wintry air, evergreens, baked goods.

2. The (non-musical) sounds: bells (ok, approaching musical), wrapping paper tearing… you can imagine a host of sounds with me.

3. Long lines at checkout (yeh, really: folks to play with; 🙂 “captive” audiences *heh*)

4. If I’m lucky, icy, snowy weather. The better to watch all the people who should have their cars taken away from them skid, slide and generally reveal their inability to walk and chew gum at the same time, urm, reveal also their inability to drive in any sub-optimal road conditions. Yeh, I like having my view of humanity validated that way… (What can I say? I am a curmudgeon, after all! :-))

5.) The music of Christmas. Unfortunately, there’s notalotta secular stuff (and hardly any popular contemporary or even popular traditional) that’s any good. But the carols and hymns can be awe-inspiringly beautiful. And who can imagine a Christmas season without at least one hearing of St. Olaf’s choirs singing “Beautiful Savior” a cappella? Well, I suppose any choir would do (though I also like a particular SSA arrangement. :-))

6.) The lights.

7.) The greetings of strangers smiling, “Merry Christmas!” or even the ocassional “Bah, humbug” curmudgeonly response (with the sheepish, almost secret smile lurking underneath).

8.) Heck, I’ve even been known to break my semi-rule of “Gatherings larger than five or six people are anathema” rule and attend a Christmas party *shudder* during this season.

9.) The presents. Not the getting of them. I have more stuff and junk than I need (actually, it’d be a gift to me for folks to take some-a my junk off my hands, if you know what I mean). The giving of them. Fun. But I’ll control myself. Too much fun can be deleterious to one’s financial health, my inner tightwad warns. 🙂

10.) The foods. More the cooking than the eating, now, since I find myself strangely unable to eat as much as once I could. No, I’ll not bake, but I will make different foods than usual for the holidays. Sometimes simple meals, sometimes a more complex menu. Sometimes, it’s just having everyone in the kitchen working at once that’s the wonderful part.

11.) The memories. Of family, children, extended family, friends.

12.) And remembering them, renewal or strengthening of contacts and bonds of love.

13.) The One whose birth we celebrate this time of year (even those who do so unaware).

Check out more TTs at the Thursday Thirteen Hub.