Tag: stupid is as stupid does

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[The info below is reproduced from a text file I’ve had laying around for the past 12 years or so. No, I didn’t cite the source when I originally obtained it, and yes, I’m too lazy to dig around and discover who claims to be its author. If you are the author, let me know, otherwise, just read it. Only the title is mine, cos, saved in the bad old days of DOS, the file name give little clue about the original title *heh*]

The Physics of Santa Claus (a short study for those still stuck on 34th Street)

Continue reading ““to the top of the roof, to the top of the wall… “/OTP”

Just watched a “made for TV movie” with my Wonder Woman. Turned to her as it ended and observed, “Well, if it had been better-written, better-directed and better-acted, it would have been pretty good.”

Well, at least I watched it in good company.

Hmmm… I wonder how Samantha Burns would handle this one… maybe not a “Crazy Rant” but a fashion show? *heh* (I really do wanna know, Sam :-))

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ubuntu, noun. Humanity or fellow feeling; kindness

I’ve been having some fun and frustration recently playing around with the latest “not quite ready for Aunt Tilly*” Linux GUI distros from Ubuntu. Yeh, I’ve waxed rather rhaphsodic about Puppy Linux for “Aunt Tilly” in the past, and I’m still high on that distro for the pure novice user, but it has a few more built in limitations than the Ubuntu distros that might constrict “Aunt Tilly” when she decides hse wants to do more.

But this post isn’t about Ubuntu Linux or computer use, except peripherally.

I was browsing around on an Ubuntu blog (titled, strangely enough, “The Ubuntu Blog” *heh*) and saw this post: Ubuntu Thong Spotted on BBC website – Oh, and Bill Clinton talks about Ubuntu.

So, naturally I had to read the referenced article.

What struck me about the article was that both the remarks quoting Bill Clinton–Rhodes Scholar, former President, etc.–and Desmond Tutu–Nobel Prize winner, and all that etc.–were rather vapid and showed a remarkable lack of historical perspective and cultural knowledge.

Here’s Bill on “ubuntu”–

“If we were the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most wealthy, the most powerful person – and then found all of a sudden that we were alone on the planet, it wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans…”

Nice enough sentiment, I suppose. Of course, the royal “we” kinda ruins the down-home simplicity, but we’ll let that slide. *heh*

Then Desmond Tutu is cited to lend weight to this “unique” African concept, one which is presented as a desperate lack in Western Civilization… a concept which, well, let’s let Dezzie speak:

“Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language… It is to say, ‘My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.'”

Yep. Remarkably difficult to render in a Western language. So foreign, so anti-Western… Or, as John Donne put it in the early 17th Century,

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated…As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness….No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

I guess Donne wasn’t covered at Oxford or the University of South Africa, although I recall being required to memorize that passage, among others when I was 13.

“Ubuntu” is not some unique concept brought to us by our wiser, “noble savage” brethren from the Dark Continent. A Bantu word caught up by the Zulu (the Zulu are a branch of Bantu) expressing the brotherhood of mankind (noticed that? No PC futzing around with “man and womankind” crap).. Now there’s a picture… The history–such as it is–of the Zulu is one largely of savage atrocities toward their fellow man. Ubuntu, indeed, cousin Desmond.

But of course, our “noble savage” brethren have much to teach us Western brutes about humane treatment of others. Why! We’ve never heard the like before! Except… except the concept wasn’t exactly new when a Carpenter from Nazareth restated it a couple of thousand years ago:

“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Mt 7:12)

Or again,

This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. John 15:17

Will just two do?

All this hoohaw over a jonny-come-lately Bantu-Zulu word/concept that says nothing new and whose adoption is due solely to a couple of convergent trends: a desire to pump up the image of backward people groups and a severe cultural subliteracy in the West.

But I guess I can give Bill and Cousin Desmond a pass on this. Surely they just don’t know any better.

Oh, and the Ubuntu thong?

Continue reading “Another perspective on Ubuntu–NOT compgeeky”

For those of y’all who’ve wondered where America’s Third World Countyâ„¢ is located, geographically speaking, here’s another clue (I’ve posted a couple of others in the past). We are located exactly on the other side of the Earth from the point noted below:

Dig your own very deep hole here.

h.t. Chaos Manor

Found at The Random Yak: the “Things I’ve Eaten on the BBC’s List of Things I Should Eat Before I Die” blogosphere meme pool game, based on the BBC’s list of “50 Foods to Eat Before You Die.”

The game? Copy the text below into a plain text editor, remove any comments I’ve appended, then paste the list into a post, BOLDING items you have eaten. Then, changing the Random Yak’s meme game a bit, link to this post and the Random Yak’s post. If you find this somewhere else, add their post in linkage, as well. Oh, cut it off after you’ve reached four blogs or so back.

Kinda like this:

The Random Yak
Third World County
Blog X
Blog Y
(Your Blogpost permalink and TB if you wish)

Something like that kinda structure gives folks an easy (lazy man’s) shirtsleeve way to track the game’s spread.

So, cutting my yabber off,

Things I’ve Eaten on the BBC’s List of Things I Should Eat Before I Die

1. Fresh fish

2. Lobster

3. Steak

Continue reading “50 Foods meme pool game”

Weekend OTA. Link here and track back all weekend. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out the Open Trackbacks Alliance.

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While leafing through an old Lutheran hymnal, legacy of my wife’s family, I happened across the second Sunday in Advent featuring the following:

No, the old hymnal didn’t have an embedded mp3 file, silly. It had the following words set to the tune above, words you are likely familiar with:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

And in an even older tongue, transliterated for use in English: maranatha!

So, I tuned into the weather channel, tonight, but all I got was “snow”…

25 degrees fahrenheit and falling… at around noon today.

Good thing I had nowhere pressing to go and had stocked up on essentials (coffee, etc.) earlier this week, cos the car doors are frozen shut with freezing rain, sleet and finally snow, and the strrrets nearest us are still too hazardous to walk (drive, maybe, should I decide to take extreme measures and unfreeze car doors).

Of course, sarcastically titling this post “blaming” cold weather on “global warming” is as disingenuous as global warmists/climate change alarmists blaming local occurances of excessive heat, flooding or whatever on “global warming” or “climate change” (whatever that means: the climate has a history of changing, ya know… it’s the nature of, urm, nature to do so, ya see).

So, grabbing another cuppa joe, sitting back and working on some knotty network issues (resolving another “These OSes don’t wanna talk to each other nicely” thingy–*heh*), kicking back with my Wonder Woman (who’s off today cos schools of all kinds closed all over the area w/in a 35-50 mile radius–heck, Son&Heir even has the day “off” to work exclusively on some papers instead of sitting i n classes).

The dogs are enjoying their thick fur coats (heck, Leo’s coat is so oily, the ice crystals barely stick, and Buttons’ coat is so think, all the ice does is add more insulation. *heh* They’re happy campers in the cold, moreso than in the heat). The cats are going crazy in the rather sudden weather change. Naturally. Cos they can.

Snow. Kinda nice change.

One of our Good Neighbors is off across the creek (just outside city limits) burning some gathered tree limbs and leaves. He tends to do that when wet is coming down pretty strongly. Smart guy. Less chance of fire spreading, although the creek and his close supervision pretty much assures no threat to houses nearby, anyway.

Spread some of the coffee grounds Lovely Daughter gets from Starbucks for us (to use primarily as a soil amendment) on the drive and walk to aid in melting ice/snow, instead of adding salt to the area. Works fairly well, but I’m not using coffee grounds on the car doors. *heh*

Lazy day. I think I’ve been needing one of those.

Crossposted from Stop The ACLU

Its that time of the year again. The time when the intolerant grinches like the ACLU start trying to fill their stockings with your tax dollars in their attempts to secularize Christmas. The ACLU try their best to deny their attacks on Christmas. They call those defending Christmas the well organized extremists out to make a buck in the guise of defending Christmas. This is of course false. The Alliance Defense Fund, just like last year, are offering their services to defend Christmas completely FREE!

However, the lies continue again this year as the ACLU denies their attacks on Christmas. But their actions speak louder than their words.

Already the ACLU have begun their attacks. They have already been successful in bullying the Berkley City Council into moving their Christmas nativity scene off public property. This, despite the fact that the display also included other religious and secular elements including a Star of David, Christmas trees, a Santa Claus figure, a Santa’s Mailbox, and a “Seasons Greetings” sign.

Continue reading “Stop the ACLU: ‘Tis the Season”

I think I’ll break this down into small, bite-sized chunks for anyone who wishes to discuss. Heck, if a literate Muslim can be found to make argument with these bite-sized notes, I’d welcome the dialog.

So, just one difference per post, OK?

In general, Muslim societies and Western societies have a great divide when it comes to individuals either telling the truth or lying. There is a general agreement that lying is bad, except…

Among Muslims, lying to a family member, particularly a subordinate member of a family lying to a superordinate member. But all other lies fall into the “it’s only bad if you get caught and there are consequences you cannot avoid” category. Otherwise, lying to anyone to gain an advantage is actually viewed as a virtue. And lying to non-Muslims is a virtue enshrined into the teachings of Islam as al taqiya, so-called “holy lies.”

And no, lies by so-called “moderate” Muslims that this is not true Islam are exposed by the simple method of examining the life and work of the founder of Islam. After all, Mohammed’s first “great victory”–the slaughter, pillage and enslavement of the Jews of what is now called Medina–was the direct result of Mohammed lying to the Jews in order to effect their surrender. This is bloody, savage, treacherous event is celebrated by all Muslims during Hijrat, and in fact, it is the treachery at Medina that marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar!

Continue reading “Islam Vs. the West 1.1: so what’s the big deal?”