It’s the little things…

For want of a nail
the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe
the horse was lost.
For want of a horse
the rider was lost.
For want of a rider
the battle was lost.
For want of a battle
the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want
of a horseshoe nail.

It’s always the little things. But little things are often very, very large.

Take one of three very, very large things that are dragging the U.S. over the face of a precipice and down to ruin: illiteracy. No, I’m not just talking about the lack of what Mass Media Podpeople, Academia Nut Fruitcakes, edu/bureaucraps, and politicians *spit* that are the Conspiracy of Dunces intent on bringing the U.S. to ruin have redefined literacy to mean (a simple ability to laboriously decode words from print).

No, literacy is much, much more than simply being able to decode the printed page or sign ones name, as the dumbed down version our wonderful Conspiracy of Dunces would have it. It is at the very least the ability to decode those words, make sense of them and use their meaning to make rational decisions or come to an understanding of things beyond ones personal experience.

That’s simple functional literacy. And functional literacy is on the decline in the U.S. Witness all the idiots who in 2000 were too stupid to be able to follow directions in voting and caused such a brouhaha in the Florida vote count.

Worse, college graduates who are unable to understand simple directions for taking prescription meds or a newspaper editorial written to a theoretical eighth-grade level. College graduates.

But the simple, little thing of functional literacy is essential to a democratic representative republic, for when voters are too stupid to make sound choices, the government they get will be… what we have.

It’s a little thing. Continue reading “It’s the little things…”

You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up…

but apparently Scott Ott can. *heh*

iTunes Rival iSlam to Offer Muslim-Friendly Fare

…as a counter to the video, Fitna

According to Ott’s “satire” piece, iSlam will counter Fitna with Muslim-friendly fare.

“We have not edited out any of the blood, gore, explosions, beheadings, bodies dragged through streets, execution-style shootings, female genital mutilation, ritual cutting of children and other normal religious scenes,” said one unnamed Dutch Muslim leader. “But we have removed the horrifying cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.”

*heh*

Droll, Scott.

Of course, given the norm of the Koran, the Hadith and the Sirah (the unholy trinity of Muslim “holy” writings), Scott’s piece, while technically satire (solely cos the Muslim-friendly iPod imitator, iSlam, doesn’t really exits… yet) is of course spot on in its painting of Islam’s normative (by the measure of the Koran, the Hadith, the Sirah and Mohammed’s own documented charater as a hate-filled mass murderer, pedophile, rapist, thief, liar and all-around scumbag) religious practices.


Trackposted to The Virtuous Republic, Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, The Yankee Sailor, OTB Sports, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

An always timely reminder

FWIW

I’m just a tad paranoid about network security. Hardware firewall. Software firewalls on each computer. Up to date anti-virus/anti-spyware, etc., softwares. Strong passwords. Highest level wireless encryption compatible with all my devices (pretty high, lemme tell ya–I’ll just let you guess :-)), etc.

In my inbox today:

Did you Change the Password?

The article’s a short and sweet reminder to change default passwords on equipment you purchase, such as routers, firewalls, etc. I simply do not know how many times I’ve made a service call and discovered as a matter of course that the client has such a device with the default user/password combo still unchanged.

*sigh*

Can you say, screen door on a submarine?

BTW, my last wireless router default UN/PW combo was admin/admin. How hard is that to crack?

Just do it. Don’t buy a piece of hardware that has a default password and just leave it that way. Getcherself off your lazy butt and change the password. No, don’t use your birthday, your mother’s maiden name or your pet’s name. *sheesh!* Get real.

BTW, let me give you a hint how to crack some of my passwords. Some of my passwords are based on the technical names of specific mountains. I simply misspell them in various ways, as well as mixing cases in a semi-random fashion. There. That should get you started cracking those passwords.

Oh, what does that family of passwords go to? That’s your second level exercise, cos I’m not saying.

🙂


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The Greatness of the American Electorate

The American electorate’s amazing literacy, deeply informed knowledge of history, economics and current events combined with superb analytical skills and a deep committment to participatory government have inexorably led to the development of the wisest government in the history of the world.

Welcome to April 1, 2008


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Eaten by Locusts

Monday, Monday… Today is eaten by locusts… or maybe it’s voracious dust bunnies that’ve gathered on my “to-do” schedule. So, hit me with your best posts, so I can have a reading list ready made, OK?

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WordPress 2.5

Just upgraded to the “latest and greatest” WP, version 2.5/ Many things to like about it. Some things, not so. A couple of my fav plugins just will not even show up on the plugin page. They’re simply not recognized by WP 2.5. *sigh* That means digging around and finding new plugins to do the same thing, if such are available, cos I dimply don’t have the time to dig into learning to write WP plugins.

Oh. Well.

The new management “Dashboard” is nice, clean, easily navigable, which is a darned good thing, cos darned near EVERYTHING is moved around. *heh*

Oh, well, I’ll either live with it and learn how to deal with the changes or not.

😉

Some good things, though, to be sure. I like the media browser. The composition page is much, much cleaner. Had to give it quasi 3D buttons, but I can live with the eye candy, I suppose.

Words to Avoid Using

Following on my mini-rant against the sub-literate use of the word “liberal” (Liberals? Not) to refer to reactionary pseudo-communist/socialist tyrannical statist control freaks, here is a short list of terms that should be avoided, or used only with great care, by any rational person:

conservative–when used by or to refer to any reactionary pseudo-communist/socialist tyrannical statist control freak who does not actively practice the ethos of “the government that governs least, governs best” by seeking to reduce the scope and power of government, reduce the enormous burdens of taxation upon citizens, guard our borders, our rights (including our property rights), etc. IOW, about 99% of the current crop of lying, self-styled “conservative” politicians–aren’t. Don’t call such folks “conservatives”; call ’em liars.

gay–when used to refer to angry, neurotic, deeply troubled homosexual self-styled “victims”. Use the word to refer to happy, carefree people, instead.

black–when used to refer to a person (unless you are talking about a black-hearted villain of some sort). I have yet to meet ANY so-called “black” person who is black, even guys from Nigeria I knew in college.

Afro-American–another B.S. term. Also, ban any other hyphenated-American term. What? Am I a hyphenated-American because a couple of hundred years ago my ancestors came from elsewhere? By that measure, Eskimos, Cree, Sioux and all the other so-called “native Americans” ought to be called “Asian-Americans” cos that’s where they came from. We’re either Americans or something else entirely.

Update: I thought it good to include the following from a comment made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1915:

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans… There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.”

green–used to refer to eco-prop (ecological propagandist), an eco-propagandist or a supposedly “eco-friendly” technology. It’s become either a nearly meaningless shiboleth for leftist goons to use to ostracize people who simply want to live civilized existences or else a stupid-happy brainwashing tool. Use “green” to refer to the color, OK?

global warming–the proper term is “anthropogenic global warming hogwash”. Get it right, folks.

climate change–when used as an escape for AGW loonies, liars, fellow travelers and useful idiots who are confronted with inescapable proof that their AGW hypothesis is hogwash. When used in the context of, “Climate change? Sure, that’s the nature of climate; it changes all the time, whether we do anything about it or not,” it’s a perfectly good term. Just be careful how you use it, or you may be (justly) lumped in with the AGW loonies, liars, fellow travelers and useful idiots who use it improperly.

There, that’s a short list. Add to it in comments.


Trackposted to Nuke Gingrich, Woman Honor Thyself, McCain Blogs, Right Truth, Adam’s Blog, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Cao’s Blog, , Rant It Up, The Yankee Sailor, and D equals S, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Heeeeere’s your sign…

Here’s a site that’s apparently been around since 2002 that I just discovered has some “tickets” for you to download, print out and leave on that car parked by a certifiable jackass the next time (like, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow… ) you see one, perhaps like this:

The site has a gallery of nearly 150 such signs of barbarian invasion…


Liberals? Not.

I do heartily wish that those who know better would stop referring to reactionary pseudo-communist/socialist tyrannical statist control freaks as “liberals” when they are indeed the antithesis of liberal thought.

A real liberal would back to the hilt every single Constitutional right The People posess, including the right toi keep and bear arms (against a tyrannical government, among other dangers), the right of free association, and the rights not ennumerated, as mentioned in the 10th Amendment.

A real liberal would seek at every turn to curb government intrusion into individuals’ lives.

A real liberal would seek to lessen the burden of taxation upon The People.

A real liberal would, in short, be the exact opposite of those lying bastards of Satan on the left who falsely claim to adhere to liberal principles.

And I’d like to see such reactionary pseudo-communist/socialist tyrannical statist control freaks stoned for false witness when they refer to themselves as “progressives” too.

(Yeh, yeh, I know: they’re probably already “stoned” eh?)

A grassroots movement to simply call these folks “liars” might be best. Liberals they ain’t.

OTOH, soi disant “conservatives” who are indistinguishable from the reactionary pseudo-communist/socialist tyrannical statist control freaks on the Left, save for a few cosmetic false declarations, are hardly any better.


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