Re: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution
On Sun, Jul 27, 2003 at 06:31:52PM -0700, Doug Pensinger wrote: I can't remember seeing such obvious sarcasm whoosh over people's heads the way Erik's comments did. I think the reason it seems so obvious to you is that you think about what my viewpoints are likely to be on various issues, and compare that to what I write. Julia, Jon, and a number of other people do this as well, I'm sure. (I don't mean they just think about my viewpoints, I mean they think about the viewpoints of whoever is posting) But there are some people who don't do this, either because it doesn't occur to them, or they haven't read enough posts to be able to make such a decision. Or because they don't have a well-developed sense of humor and/or just take EVERYTHING very seriously. I've gotten caught by other people's satire before. (In my defense, it wasn't a statement that was clearly in contradiction to the person's viewpoints). I don't think it is a bad thing to get tripped up occasionally. It reminds me to spend more time thinking about what people write, what they mean, and what they are thinking. -- Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
John D. Giorgis wrote: Ritu and Nick make similar points which I will respond to here. At 12:29 PM 7/25/2003 + Robert J. Chassell wrote: Robert J. Chassell wrote: The phrase The British have learned suggests to a listening public that the US President had US intelligence agencies investigate the matter. John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] responded It does not suggest this to me. Indeed the mere fact that British intelligence is being mentioned in the State of the Union suggests exactly the opposite to me. Interesting. Your ideolect is certainly different from mine and from people with whom I have talked over the past half century. I find this astounding, and can't help but wonder if you aren't letting your political bias and your various subtle biases towards my opinions to color your perception of language. John, what do you know of my political biases? Would you care to explain what you think my political biases as well as my biases towards your opinions are? :) Let's see, not one Brin-L'er responded to this the first time around. let's see if at the very least one of you three can give it a try this time around; I must have missed the earlier questions - I am usually way behind on the mail. :) QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligece services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to sources our own do not, particularly in Africa, and that the British intelligence services are generally considered among the best and most reliable in the world, and BELIEVE the British intelligence report? Your choice. What do you do? I look forward to your, Nick's, and Ritu's answers to this question. This is a simple one, JDG, though my answer falls in none of the categories you provide. :) It is a mix of your last two options. I'd accept that the British Intelligence might have better resources than ours [I am pretending to be the US prez here] and that they have a good record of reliability and excellence. However, when it comes to the SotU address, I'd go for option [c] without any hesitation whatsoever. In fact, I'd expect to be rather incensed if I received unverified information in *any* form other than a 'for-yours-eyes-only' note or a verbal report, with all the doubts about its veracity noted before the report even started. However, let us also examine another scenario: I *want* to go to war with Iraq and this bit of unverified information is a convenient filler in my edifice of reasons. In such a case, I might be tempted to include it in my SotU address, but only after I have clarified that the US intelligence has been unable to verify this information. If the Congress also decided to trust the British Intelligence as much as I chose to, well and good. But it would be their decision to make, on their assessment of the factual situation. And if I tamper with the facts I report to them, if I imply things that aren't true, then I would have crossed the line between leadership and manipulation. That is a Bad Thing, mmm'kay? :) Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Justifying the War Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
John D. Giorgis wrote: As for your argument that liberation of Afghanistan would not have been justified on September 10th, 2001 - well I find it most peculiar to hear the logic of retribution coming from you.The liberation of Afghanistan was justified because it made the Afghan people better off, end story. But wasn't the liberation of the Afghans planned after Mullah Omar refused to hand over Bin Laden to the US? Ritu ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
Having questioned one side in the debate, let me question the other side. The discussion over the evidence for WMD that existed before Gulf War II seems to naturally flow out of what happened. Here's how I see what's happening. 1) There was general acceptance that Hussein has chemical and biological weapons when the inspectors left before the 1998 bombings by the US and GB. There was also evidence that he had a program to develop nuclear weapons that was in a fairly early stage. 2) Top leadership in the US and GB gave the impression, leading up to the war, that they had in hand intelligence that the WMD program was not just leftovers of the earlier program that were not totally destroyed. From these 16 words, and others, I got the impression that they had weapons that would test the US biological/chemical warfare defense. I also got the impression that the nuclear program was ongoing and making progress. 3) During and since the war various sources associated with the intelligence community seemed to indicate that these viewpoint expressed by the Administration was stronger than the intelligence actually supported. The reality was that the intelligence was consistent with a broad range of possibilities. Professionals use cautious words under these circumstances, for good reason. 4) Top leadership/management chose to ignore these cautions and use words that indicated certainty. I've seen that happen in other cases in business. Upper management in many companies put reports through a filter of what they know to be true in their hearts. They accept reports that fit this understanding, and find flaws with those that don't. Further, everyone in the organization knows what is wanted, and it takes courage to issue a contradictory report...especially if things are murky and top management might be right. I got the general feeling that, even if they thought that their case was a bit overstated, they knew that the weapons found after the liberation of Iraq would prove their point, so all that would get lost. As an aside here, during the war there were other criticisms of the Administrations viewpoints, both by retired professionals and by unnamed sources from within the military stating that Rumsfeld did not use enough heavy armor in the war. I was concerned at the time, but now happily admit that the heavy armor that was used was more than adequate for the task. Even then, with the concerns, I leaned towards believing that the US forces would do very well. Indeed, at the time, I was unique in my house in believing that the fall of Baghdad would take weeks, not months. The proof was in the pudding. With WMD, I expected the same. When Gautam stated that he was very confident that WMD would be found in a few months, I was too. Now, its over 3 months since the end of the war, and the closest thing to a smoking gun that has been reported is some centrifuges and plans that had not been destroyed in '98. The US has had control of the country for that time, and has found next to nothing. From the attitude and words of the administration, I expected that they had a pretty good idea where things were and that they knew the shell games the Iraqis were playing with the inspectors. Never would I have imagined that we would be left with little more evidence than was produced by the inspectors last fall and winter (they found plans too IIRC). So, in this case, the proof is also in the pudding. The administration overruled their own intelligence, as I'm guessing did the GB administration from the new coming from there, and overstated what was known. I don't actually think they lied because I think they believed what they said. However, they were wrong. When they overruled the military and attacked with less armor then recommended, they were right, and they deserve credit. When a political operative pressured the head of the CIA to go against his own folks and accept the claim of African uranium, they deserve to take the responsibility for that. The reason this is important is that the negatives for going into Iraq are long term. We are going to be occupying Iraq for a long time. I'm now seeing timeframes close to five years for this. Occupying and controlling an Arab country for this length of time does has the potential for tremendous risks. So, given the close nature of the risk/reward tradeoff in the minds of many people, the misrepresentation of the intelligence information was critical. Containment vs. attack as the best option was balanced on a knife's edge. I recently saw an interesting article arguing for three basis for going into Iraq: 1) Human Rights 2) risk to the US from WMD 3) Transforming the Middle East The author argued that the first reason has actually been strengthened since Gulf War II. The likelihood for the third reason is still uncertain. The second reasons appears less valid as time goes on. The chances of Hussein having a massive chemical/biological warfare system
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
- Original Message - From: John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 6:07 PM Subject: Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words At 06:49 PM 7/27/2003 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligence services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to sources Why not e) Both the British and the American governments have overruled the better judgment of their intelligence services. From what I've heard and read from GB, there has been even worse tension over this than here. The best example of this was the claim that GB knew that Hussein was 45 minutes away from delivering WMD. I have a hard time believing that a significant weapons deployment with that short of a launch window could disappear that quickly. Dan M. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Robotic Singularity
The Fool quoted: All of that is good, so these automated systems will proliferate rapidly. The problem is that these systems will also eliminate jobs in massive numbers. Yawn. More than 200 years after the Industrial Revolution, and the neoluddites are still using the same excuses as the luddites. No, let me be fair: this probably dates back from the Greeks, when some brilliant engineers were designing machines and the paleoluddites complained that it would cause a massive unemployment of slaves Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Thou shalt not obey
http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/2003_07_13_armedndangerous_archive.html #105828974033195389 http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/2003_07_13_armedndangerous_archive.html# 105828974033195389 Interesting blog from someone who states that man is not a killer by instinct, but rather a complacent follower of orders Nerd From Hell ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Scouted: Surgery on Brain Tumor 'cures' pedophile
http://www.salon.com/mwt/wire/2003/07/28/pedophile/index.html Excerpt: The man had an egg-sized brain tumor pressing on the right frontal lobe. When surgeons removed it, the lewd behavior and pedophilia faded away. Exactly why, the surgeons cannot quite explain. It's possible the tumor released some pre-existing urges, Burns said. But that's a tough debate, we just don't know. The outcome raises questions not only about how tumors alter brain function, but also how they can influence behavior and judgment. Daniel T. Tranel, a University of Iowa neurology researcher, said he has seen people with brain tumors lie, damage property, and in extremely rare cases, commit murder. The individual simply loses the ability to control impulses or anticipate the consequences of choices, Tranel said. Dr. Stuart C. Yudofsky, a psychiatrist at the Baylor College of Medicine who specializes in behavioral changes associated with brain disorders, also has seen the way brain tumors can bend a person's behavior. This tells us something about being human, doesn't it? Yudofsky said. If one's actions are governed by how well the brain is working, does it mean we have less free will than we think? It's a question with vast implications in the criminal justice system. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that executing mentally retarded murderers is unconstitutionally cruel because of their diminished ability to reason and control their urges Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Windo$e
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without bricks tied to its head. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Thou shalt not obey
From: Chad Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brin-L (E-mail 2) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Thou shalt not obey Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 08:22:12 -0700 http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/2003_07_13_armedndangerous_archive.html #105828974033195389 http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/2003_07_13_armedndangerous_archive.html# 105828974033195389 or http://makeashorterlink.com/?D2D212A65 Since my e-mail program broke it up... Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. I guess this tells more about idiotic behaviour of Windo$e users than about Windo$e itself. Probably those people would still crash twice a day if they were using a real O.S. instead of Gates's videogame. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
From: William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brin-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Windo$e Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 17:11:57 +0100 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. Honestly, I suspect this is more ID10T errors than anything else. My home computer running WinXP has crashed perhaps four times in the last 7-8 months, and I believe they were hardware related and not the operating system. Win2K was also totally crash free for the year and a half I used it. By the way M$oft OS's do not have the patent on crashing. For over a month, I had a recurring problem with OSX where it would freeze on my G4 each time I tried to empty the trash. Nothing helped. Diskwarrior, TechTools, Norton Utilities, etc., etc., all pronounced my computer fine and dandy but didn't fix the problem. Called Apple tech support. No help. (Big surprise there... they're totally incompetent.) Spoke to a friend techie who said it was a fairly common problem. I had to download a program that would allow me to view hidden folders in OS9, boot into Classic, find the OSX trash folder, throw it away and empty the trash in OS9, then reboot in OSX. In all, about 5 minutes of work. This problem has spontaneously recurred twice since I fixed it that first time. Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
---Original Message--- From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligence services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to other sources Why not e) Both the British and the American governments have overruled the better judgment of their intelligence services. Uhhh e does not answer the question of what do you do? Please try again - I am really looking forward to having some of the critics of the Bush Administration's decisions at this juncture to actually answer the question of what they would have done. JDG - But perhaps I should not hold my breath, Maru? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Corporate Fallout Detector
http://web.media.mit.edu/jpatten/cfd/ Corporate Fallout Detector The Corporate Fallout Detector reads barcodes off of consumer products, and makes a noise similar to a gieger counter of varying intensity based on the social or environmental record of the company that produces the product. I came up with the numbers by correlating several online bardcode databases with a pollution database and a corporate ethics database. Of course the data produced by this approach is subjective and inaccurate at times, but that's part of why I built it: It's difficult for consumers trace corporate actions through the maze of corporate ownership, and find who is really responsible. This helps create an environment where consumers have difficulty making informed purchasing decisions without the use of special tools... The case is made from a discarded steel computer case, cut on a waterjet cutter and bent with a metal brake. Inside is a SaJe microcontroller and a Wasp barcode scanner. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
- Original Message - From: John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 8:50 AM Subject: Re: Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words ---Original Message--- From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligence services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to other sources Why not e) Both the British and the American governments have overruled the better judgment of their intelligence services. Uhhh e does not answer the question of what do you do? Please try again - I am really looking forward to having some of the critics of the Bush Administration's decisions at this juncture to actually answer the question of what they would have done. Accept the intelligence as given without having your political operative pushing hard to make it say more than it does. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: TI interpreation of QM
I wrote (re TI): Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate you taking the time to cover the pros and cons. Dan replied: Did what I say make sense to you? Do my posts on QM make sense? Or are you just being polite? There are times I get very frustrated with my own ability to communicate ideas that are fairly clear to me. ;-) Yes, it did make sense to me, although I did have to go back and re-read a couple of sections of the paper. The way Cramer handles TI in his novel is a little different from what he says in his paper, and I was a bit confused about this at first after reading your reply (I had glossed over one of the sections of his paper, thinking I understood it from the novel), but after carefully re-reading, it made good sense to me. Reggie Bautista _ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Killer Bs Discussion) Subject: Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 18:49:28 -0400 QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligece services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to sources our own do not, particularly in Africa, and that the British intelligence services are generally considered among the best and most reliable in the world, and BELIEVE the British intelligence report? Your choice. What do you do? I look forward to your, Nick's, and Ritu's answers to this question. YOU LEAVE OUT OF THE STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE. YOU DO NOT USE IT TO TRY TO CONVINCE AMERICANS THAT WE MUST GO TO WAR UNTIL YOU CAN AT LEAST CONVINCE YOUR OWN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY THAT THE STATEMENT IS TRUE Um. C In other words. :-) No need to shout, Doc. :) Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
From: Gautam Mukunda [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] already. When Ashcroft's jack-booted thugs come for you, give me a call - I'll be happy to protect you. When Ashcroft's jack-booted thugs come for them, they won't be able to call you. They won't get their one phone call. They won't be able to call a lawyer. No one will know where they are or what the charges are against them. You won't be able to call them. They will be able to be held indefinitely as a suspected enemy combatant. Sounds like fun. - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
From: Gautam Mukunda [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If John Ashcroft were anyone _but_ an evangelical Christian (speaking as a non-evangelical non-Christian) the way he is treated by the Left would be recognized by everyone for what it is - sheer religious bigotry of the most unvarnished sort. Huh? I'm one of those people who voted for a dead guy over Ashcroft. I didn't like him when he was govenor of Missouri I didn't like him when he was a senator from Missouri. And I don't like him now that he's Attorney General. This has NOTHING to do with religious bigotry. Unless disliking the man because he pushes his religious agenda upon the rest of us is religious bigotry! - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 05:32 pm, Jon Gabriel wrote: From: William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brin-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Windo$e Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 17:11:57 +0100 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. Honestly, I suspect this is more ID10T errors than anything else. But the user shouldn't be able to make the OS crash, however much of an ID10T they are. My home computer running WinXP has crashed perhaps four times in the last 7-8 months, and I believe they were hardware related and not the operating system. That's a *lot* of crashing. Win2K was also totally crash free for the year and a half I used it. Also? By the way M$oft OS's do not have the patent on crashing. For over a month, I had a recurring problem with OSX where it would freeze on my G4 each time I tried to empty the trash. Sure, every OS *can* crash sometimes. I've had Linux kernel panic on me, and Mac OS X has informed me it requires a restart once or twice per year per machine. More than twice a day is a quite different kind of thing altogether. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On 28 Jul 2003 at 12:32, Jon Gabriel wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. Honestly, I suspect this is more ID10T errors than anything else. My I call them USE's. User-Studpidity-Errors. home computer running WinXP has crashed perhaps four times in the last 7-8 months, and I believe they were hardware related and not the operating system. Win2K was also totally crash free for the year and a half I used it. I have had precisely two OS crashes not caused by known game issues since I installed 2k. Certain apps crash when I do certain things, but that's usually the app and not windows. Andy Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On 28 Jul 2003 at 19:17, William T Goodall wrote: On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 05:32 pm, Jon Gabriel wrote: From: William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brin-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Windo$e Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 17:11:57 +0100 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. Honestly, I suspect this is more ID10T errors than anything else. But the user shouldn't be able to make the OS crash, however much of an ID10T they are. Then you have to strictly limit what they can do. I can't stand OS's which nanny me. Also, you have to only run approved programs... No. Andy Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
SCOUTED: Leslie Townes Hope, 1903-2003
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/27/entertainment/main555724.shtml ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
From: William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Windo$e Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 19:17:23 +0100 On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 05:32 pm, Jon Gabriel wrote: From: William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brin-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Windo$e Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 17:11:57 +0100 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. Honestly, I suspect this is more ID10T errors than anything else. But the user shouldn't be able to make the OS crash, however much of an ID10T they are. Tell that to the third party software makers, please. Some of it is just badly written for Macs AND PC's. AOL used to freeze my computer pretty darn frequently in OS9. Who's to blame? Apple, AOL or me? Here's a hint: It sure as heck ain't me. :) Connecting and disconnecting peripherals while the computer is running usually causes major problems on older versions of the Windows OS. It doesn't in any of the current versions. If you're told not to do something and do it anyway, then you're the ID10T, not the maker of the OS. My home computer running WinXP has crashed perhaps four times in the last 7-8 months, and I believe they were hardware related and not the operating system. That's a *lot* of crashing. It's entirely hardware related. I have a hard drive that's dying which 'shorts' (for lack of a better term) every once in a blue moon. I hear a loud 'click' and then the computer restarts completely. It's not OS related. Win2K was also totally crash free for the year and a half I used it. Also? Completely. It never crashed the entire time I used it. A program might have once or twice... but never the whole OS. By the way M$oft OS's do not have the patent on crashing. For over a month, I had a recurring problem with OSX where it would freeze on my G4 each time I tried to empty the trash. Sure, every OS *can* crash sometimes. I've had Linux kernel panic on me, and Mac OS X has informed me it requires a restart once or twice per year per machine. More than twice a day is a quite different kind of thing altogether. It seems horrifically high. I suspect that it's a combination of lack of maintenance and ID10T errors. I use tons of programs, usually simultaneously on my Windows machine and don't have problems, but I keep them maintained, too. Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
From: Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Windo$e Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 18:24:24 +0100 On 28 Jul 2003 at 12:32, Jon Gabriel wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. Honestly, I suspect this is more ID10T errors than anything else. My I call them USE's. User-Studpidity-Errors. home computer running WinXP has crashed perhaps four times in the last 7-8 months, and I believe they were hardware related and not the operating system. Win2K was also totally crash free for the year and a half I used it. I have had precisely two OS crashes not caused by known game issues since I installed 2k. Certain apps crash when I do certain things, but that's usually the app and not windows. Win2K was great, but I found it a little limiting. (Well, to be honest, I just couldn't play Half Life on it. Win2K wasn't supported.) ;-) Jon GSV Priorities Priorities Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
SCOUTED: Supreme Court Independence, by the Numbers
SUPREME COURT INDEPENDENCE, BY THE NUMBERS from The Washington Post For years, two schools of thought have debated how the Supreme Court makes decisions. Are the nine justices simply politicians in robes, destined by ideology to vote a certain way, or are they independent actors, whose opinions reflect their times, their experience and, most of all, the law itself? Mathematician Lawrence Sirovich, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Laboratory of Applied Mathematics in New York, stepped into this morass last month, introducing a purely mathematical model to gauge the justices' independence simply by cataloguing how often each one sides with the majority or the minority. Using the techniques of information theory, Sirovich analyzed 468 opinions by the Second Rehnquist Court between 1994 and 2002 to assess how often the justices seemed to fit into predictable ideological boxes. Information theory is a mathematical tool designed to highlight the unexpected in complicated systems -- such as a nine-headed Supreme Court. Complete article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48694-2003Jul25.html --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scouted: Surgery on Brain Tumor 'cures' pedophile
At 12:04 PM 7/28/03 -0400, Jon Gabriel wrote: http://www.salon.com/mwt/wire/2003/07/28/pedophile/index.html Excerpt: The man had an egg-sized brain tumor pressing on the right frontal lobe. When surgeons removed it, the lewd behavior and pedophilia faded away. Exactly why, the surgeons cannot quite explain. It's possible the tumor released some pre-existing urges, Burns said. But that's a tough debate, we just don't know. The outcome raises questions not only about how tumors alter brain function, but also how they can influence behavior and judgment. Daniel T. Tranel, a University of Iowa neurology researcher, said he has seen people with brain tumors lie, damage property, and in extremely rare cases, commit murder. The individual simply loses the ability to control impulses or anticipate the consequences of choices, Tranel said. Dr. Stuart C. Yudofsky, a psychiatrist at the Baylor College of Medicine who specializes in behavioral changes associated with brain disorders, also has seen the way brain tumors can bend a person's behavior. This tells us something about being human, doesn't it? Yudofsky said. If one's actions are governed by how well the brain is working, does it mean we have less free will than we think? It's a question with vast implications in the criminal justice system. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that executing mentally retarded murderers is unconstitutionally cruel because of their diminished ability to reason and control their urges So what do we do to protect society from those who commit heinous crimes where either (1) no organic problem can be found, (2) an organic problem is found, but we don't know how to treat it, or (3) an organic problem is found and treated, but the behavior does not change? --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
At 05:11 PM 7/28/03 +0100, William T Goodall wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. And that's the *good* news when compared with the how often the other 95% crash . . . --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Genetic fractions
Alberto Monteiro wrote: Julia Thompson wrote: Actually, it's him, not her, and the two that make my 126/128 instead of 128/128 are ancestors of his. Oh, how I hate the Internet! Why there's no Humanity Database with _all_ people that ever lived registered in it, so that we can so this kind of search automatically? For example, how close I am to you? I imagine we might have a common ancestral by 1600 or so. Most of my ancestors at that point were in the British Isles. to the best of my knowledge. A few were in France. If you go to http://www.rootsweb.com and do a search on Thomas Degges, that'll get you some (about 1/8?) of my ancestry back to some point. (He's my father. There's a lot of stuff on his mother's mother's ancestry. Her name was Harriet Meade Jones. Starting from where you have Thomas Degges, that's the most up-to-date data that Randy Jones has up. You may be referred to another database or two of his on the same site.) Between the ancestors of my mother and the ancestors of my father, I'm probably related one way or another to over half the people who were in Virginia at the time of the American Revolution, including a number of scoundrels. :) (One ancestor who was alive in Virginia at that time was definitely a scoundrel, but he's on my mother's side, and his son or grandson was a very admirable figure.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scouted: Surgery on Brain Tumor 'cures' pedophile
From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Scouted: Surgery on Brain Tumor 'cures' pedophile Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 14:17:33 -0500 At 12:04 PM 7/28/03 -0400, Jon Gabriel wrote: http://www.salon.com/mwt/wire/2003/07/28/pedophile/index.html Excerpt: The man had an egg-sized brain tumor pressing on the right frontal lobe. When surgeons removed it, the lewd behavior and pedophilia faded away. Exactly why, the surgeons cannot quite explain. It's possible the tumor released some pre-existing urges, Burns said. But that's a tough debate, we just don't know. The outcome raises questions not only about how tumors alter brain function, but also how they can influence behavior and judgment. Daniel T. Tranel, a University of Iowa neurology researcher, said he has seen people with brain tumors lie, damage property, and in extremely rare cases, commit murder. The individual simply loses the ability to control impulses or anticipate the consequences of choices, Tranel said. Dr. Stuart C. Yudofsky, a psychiatrist at the Baylor College of Medicine who specializes in behavioral changes associated with brain disorders, also has seen the way brain tumors can bend a person's behavior. This tells us something about being human, doesn't it? Yudofsky said. If one's actions are governed by how well the brain is working, does it mean we have less free will than we think? It's a question with vast implications in the criminal justice system. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that executing mentally retarded murderers is unconstitutionally cruel because of their diminished ability to reason and control their urges So what do we do to protect society from those who commit heinous crimes where either (1) no organic problem can be found, (2) an organic problem is found, but we don't know how to treat it, or (3) an organic problem is found and treated, but the behavior does not change? Well, in the case of pedophiles, that would be: 1) Firing Squad 2) Firing Squad 3) Castration, then Firing Squad Yes, I'm serious. I think they're repulsive. To answer your question in a different way, I suppose the solution may just be to give people a test to see if they have a tumor that, if removed, may cure them. If they don't, prosecute. If no other medical condition has been found to conclusively cause aberrant behavior of this type then the theory that one might is probably legally irrelevant. Jon ROU Insert Disclaimer Here Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gray Davis Recall Election Set for Sep-Oct
Kevin Tarr wrote: Okay, again I see all of that. But I'm assuming (and keep in mind I'm completely inebriated right now) that the Cal people agreed with a certain plan, then when things got tight, they wanted to change the plan. I'm not saying that business profits should trump all, but that a government should not have carte blanche to change the rules whenever it feels like it. I have an example right outside my back door. A business made an agreement with the local government that was to last for 99 years. Things changed and the business sued to get out of the contract and won! A bad example for me: the courts saw that it was a bad contract and voided it, but that doesn't make it right. My understanding of the situation, and I may be off on some of it, or all of it (and if so, clarification by those who have a better understanding would be extremely welcome), is pretty much: 1) Energy company folks from companies operating outside California helped with the drafting of the legislation, somewhat to their own benefit. 2) The elected officials elected by the folks in California agreed to the legislation. 3) With 1 2, there may have been some campaign contributions involved, in which case the energy companies bought some politicians. I don't know if this is true, but it wouldn't surprise me, anyway. 4) Energy companies used the new laws to their advantage. So, if anyone's going to run around pointing fingers, sure, Enron was a big evil badass, but at least some of the politicians involved probably aren't blameless either, and should have at least a few of those fingers pointed at them. Me, I'm annoyed at something Reliant did in a keeping up with the Enrons kind of way that turned out not to help them and they way they disposed of *that* little thing. (If you're an ISP with happy customers, they may end up cursing your dying breath if you sell out to the wrong ISP) And I don't even want to go into the naming of the park where the Astros play Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution
Doug Pensinger wrote: I know, I know, but we've got a lot of smart people here and I'm guessing that most of them are aware of Erik's libertarian views, not to mention his tendency to use sarcasm (especially when dealing with intolerance), so the statement: Catholics have a distorted view of the world that isn't healthy to pass on to children. They should not be permitted to legally marry, and their children should be put up for adoption with decent parents. Has to stand out as either so far out of character as to be absurd or extremely sarcastic. And I'm a horrible person and egg him on when he goes into that sort of mode. :) But any back-and-forth we get going in *that* situation isn't hurting either of *us*, and if someone doesn't get it, I'll try to let them know what's going on (at least at my end) one way or another. And if you read enough threads in which Erik and I participate, you may figure out all that yourself. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scouted: Surgery on Brain Tumor 'cures' pedophile
At 03:41 PM 7/28/03 -0400, Jon Gabriel wrote: From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Scouted: Surgery on Brain Tumor 'cures' pedophile Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 14:17:33 -0500 At 12:04 PM 7/28/03 -0400, Jon Gabriel wrote: http://www.salon.com/mwt/wire/2003/07/28/pedophile/index.html Excerpt: The man had an egg-sized brain tumor pressing on the right frontal lobe. When surgeons removed it, the lewd behavior and pedophilia faded away. Exactly why, the surgeons cannot quite explain. It's possible the tumor released some pre-existing urges, Burns said. But that's a tough debate, we just don't know. The outcome raises questions not only about how tumors alter brain function, but also how they can influence behavior and judgment. Daniel T. Tranel, a University of Iowa neurology researcher, said he has seen people with brain tumors lie, damage property, and in extremely rare cases, commit murder. The individual simply loses the ability to control impulses or anticipate the consequences of choices, Tranel said. Dr. Stuart C. Yudofsky, a psychiatrist at the Baylor College of Medicine who specializes in behavioral changes associated with brain disorders, also has seen the way brain tumors can bend a person's behavior. This tells us something about being human, doesn't it? Yudofsky said. If one's actions are governed by how well the brain is working, does it mean we have less free will than we think? It's a question with vast implications in the criminal justice system. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that executing mentally retarded murderers is unconstitutionally cruel because of their diminished ability to reason and control their urges So what do we do to protect society from those who commit heinous crimes where either (1) no organic problem can be found, (2) an organic problem is found, but we don't know how to treat it, or (3) an organic problem is found and treated, but the behavior does not change? Well, in the case of pedophiles, that would be: 1) Firing Squad 2) Firing Squad 3) Castration, then Firing Squad Yes, I'm serious. I think they're repulsive. I think we agree on that. To answer your question in a different way, I suppose the solution may just be to give people a test to see if they have a tumor that, if removed, may cure them. If they don't, prosecute. If no other medical condition has been found to conclusively cause aberrant behavior of this type then the theory that one might is probably legally irrelevant. Here's the COW, as I see it: In many jurisdictions, one can be found not guilty due to mental defect or disease (or words to that effect), i.e., what is often referred to as the insanity defense. Let's suppose a pedophile, or a murderer, or a insert heinous crime of your choice here is found to have a brain tumor (or other clearly diagnosable organic brain dysfunction). Do we: (a) declare him not guilty due to his illness and let him go because legally he is not guilty of anything? (b) require that he either serve his full time in prison or submit to treatment for the illness, and if the illness cannot be treated or treatment does not change his behavior, then put him in prison to serve his full sentence or commit him to a secure mental institution for at least the same amount of time, or until such time as he does respond to treatment? (BTW, how do you tell for sure if a pedophile has really been cured except by letting him out and observing that he does not re-offend?) (c) other (specify). While I would be inclined toward something like (b) (IANAL so don't yell at me if I have put some of it incorrectly), I expect that many will say either (1) He's been found ‘not guilty’, so legally he should be free to go, or (2) Mentally ill people should not be imprisoned like common criminals, or something of that sort. Do we need to change the laws to allow for a verdict of guilty but insane which would require the person to be confined for the protection of society until he is no longer a danger and receive treatment if any is available? In the latter case, do we make these people guinea pigs for experimental treatments which may or may not cure their problem (although there certainly are treatments which will cause them to no longer be a danger to society: a radical prefrontal lobotomy, frex, though the result of such an extreme treatment may well be that they will have to be institutionalized for the rest of their lives because they are no longer able to function well enough to care for themselves), or what? Jon ROU Insert Disclaimer Here See below. -- Ronn! :) IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humo(u)r or irrational
Re: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
At 02:56 PM 7/28/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: Doug Pensinger wrote: I know, I know, but we've got a lot of smart people here and I'm guessing that most of them are aware of Erik's libertarian views, not to mention his tendency to use sarcasm (especially when dealing with intolerance), so the statement: Catholics have a distorted view of the world that isn't healthy to pass on to children. They should not be permitted to legally marry, and their children should be put up for adoption with decent parents. Has to stand out as either so far out of character as to be absurd or extremely sarcastic. And I'm a horrible person and egg him on when he goes into that sort of mode. :) How does that make you a horrible person? Sounds like you and I are cut from the same cloth (more warp than weft, one presumes) . . . But any back-and-forth we get going in *that* situation isn't hurting either of *us*, and if someone doesn't get it, I'll try to let them know what's going on (at least at my end) one way or another. And if you read enough threads in which Erik and I participate, you may figure out all that yourself. FWIW, if anyone is ever uncertain whether something I have written is meant seriously or sarcastically, please feel free to ask me, either on- or off-list, and I will clarify it before things get out of hand and feelings get hurt. --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scouted: Surgery on Brain Tumor 'cures' pedophile
Ronn! wrote: So what do we do to protect society from those who commit heinous crimes where either (1) no organic problem can be found, (2) an organic problem is found, but we don't know how to treat it, or (3) an organic problem is found and treated, but the behavior does not change? Was this covered to some extent by Brin in the early Uplift novels, with the Probationers? It's been a *long* time since I read those, does anyone have them handy? Reggie Bautista On-Topic Maru _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 03:22:20PM -0500, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 02:56 PM 7/28/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: And I'm a horrible person and egg him on when he goes into that sort of mode. :) How does that make you a horrible person? Sounds like you and I are cut from the same cloth (more warp than weft, one presumes) . . . I think she was joking. -- Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Star Wars Kid Lawsuit
From http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/news_brief.html: The parents of the infamous Star Wars kid are suing classmates who posted a humiliating video of their son on the Interet, according to Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper. Quebec teenager Ghyslian Raza was the target of worldwide mockery when a private video he made of himself practicing his lightsaber moves was uploaded by kids at his school. Reggie Bautista _ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
US to Accelerate Aid to Afghanistan
U.S. to Seek New Afghan Aid Package Of $1 Billion Planned Boost Comes Amid Criticism of Reconstruction By Vernon Loeb and Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, July 27, 2003; Page A01 The $1 billion package, which more than triples the $300 million Afghanistan receives, represents new spending on Afghanistan and is designed to fund projects that can be completed within a year to have maximum impact on the lives of the Afghan people before scheduled elections in October 2004, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Although Congress authorized $3.3 billion in financial and military assistance to Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, a relatively small part of that amount has been spent. Testifying in June before the House International Relations Committee, Barnett R. Rubin, former special adviser to the United Nations on Afghanistan, said that $200 million in construction projects have been completed. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51273-2003Jul26.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 02:56 PM 7/28/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: And I'm a horrible person and egg him on when he goes into that sort of mode. :) How does that make you a horrible person? Sounds like you and I are cut from the same cloth (more warp than weft, one presumes) . . . Well, I was exaggerating. I mean, look at that emoticon But I do have a tendency to egg people on at just the wrong time, for the amusement of myself and them, and to the annoyance of many of those around us. (And the funny thing is, if I'm with a large enough group from my husband's family, I can get away with it so much longer than he'd *ever* be able to.) Just a streak of something, not quite sure what. (I'm sure I've mentioned that I played Devil's Advocate in Sunday school a lot when I was in high school, as well.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
Erik Reuter wrote: On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 03:22:20PM -0500, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 02:56 PM 7/28/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: And I'm a horrible person and egg him on when he goes into that sort of mode. :) How does that make you a horrible person? Sounds like you and I are cut from the same cloth (more warp than weft, one presumes) . . . I think she was joking. Joking is close. Being humorous may be vaguer, but in this case, more accurate. BTW, my sister once told me that I'm not terribly good at being subtle. I've been working on it since. Do I succeed at times? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
JMS To Quit Jeremiah?
The second season of Jeremiah on Showtime (which wrapped a couple of months ago) starts airing this September. Unless something major changes, JMS won't be involved in any further seasons. From http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2003-07/28/10.30.tv or http://makeashorterlink.com/?G2F051B65 JMS To Quit Jeremiah? J. Michael Straczynski, executive producer of Showtime's SF series Jeremiah, told fans on a message board that he won't return to the series if it's picked up for a third season. I have zero desire to return to a third season of Jeremiah, Straczynski posted on the rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated newsgroup on July 24. Showtime was great, no mistake, but MGM [which produces the show] has overall been the most heinous, difficult and intrusive studio I've ever worked for. I've worked for, and had great relations with, Viacom, Universal, Warner Brothers and a bunch more. But I will never, ever, work for the present administration at MGM. Asked in a subsequent post whether the show could continue without him, Straczynski replied, Sure, they could definitely do so. At the end of the day, it's their show, and if there should be a season three, they would have no choice but to bring someone else in. As an aside ... none of this should be taken as a diss of the coming season. I honestly think that the second season is miles better than our first season. It's more consistent, takes more chances, it's really a very strong season. Thing of it is, you look at the quality of the work, and the amount of blood on the floor in getting to that point, and have to decide if the one is worth the other. The process is hard enough without others making it even harder than it has to be. And there we are. The second season of Jeremiah commences on Sept. 19. Reggie Bautista _ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
At 05:13 PM 7/28/03 -0400, Erik Reuter wrote: On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 03:22:20PM -0500, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 02:56 PM 7/28/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: And I'm a horrible person and egg him on when he goes into that sort of mode. :) How does that make you a horrible person? Sounds like you and I are cut from the same cloth (more warp than weft, one presumes) . . . I think she was joking. I know I was. -- Ronn! :~) Humor...it is a difficult concept. --Lt. Saavik (Kirstie Alley) to Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) in _Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn_ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution
From: Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 06:49:28 -0400 On Sun, Jul 27, 2003 at 06:31:52PM -0700, Doug Pensinger wrote: I can't remember seeing such obvious sarcasm whoosh over people's heads the way Erik's comments did. I think the reason it seems so obvious to you is that you think about what my viewpoints are likely to be on various issues, and compare that to what I write. Julia, Jon, and a number of other people do this as well, I'm sure. (I don't mean they just think about my viewpoints, I mean they think about the viewpoints of whoever is posting) I do. In fact, that's what gets me in trouble most often. I sometimes jump to conclusions about what a person is saying based not only on what they've said in the past but also what I *think* they're saying. Since this has been a problem for me I now usually try to ask people to clarify their points (or allow them to do so with others) before I jump down their throats. :-) It doesn't always work. But there are some people who don't do this, either because it doesn't occur to them, or they haven't read enough posts to be able to make such a decision. Or because they don't have a well-developed sense of humor and/or just take EVERYTHING very seriously. I think people naturally take some of the topics you choose to lampoon very seriously. People rarely think bashing their belief system is funny. If something offends, why continue to do it? You also have a tendency to bait the very people who don't get what you're doing. It can be amusing to watch... and damned annoying to be the target. ;) (Bait may not be the right word, but it's all I can come up with.) There's a part of me that does enjoy watching someone's flawed argument (or in one case, behavior) turned back against them. I'm sure it comes from the same part that roots for the hungry reptile everytime I see that Crocodile Hunter guy on tv. :) I've gotten caught by other people's satire before. (In my defense, it wasn't a statement that was clearly in contradiction to the person's viewpoints). I don't think it is a bad thing to get tripped up occasionally. It reminds me to spend more time thinking about what people write, what they mean, and what they are thinking. I agree that shaking people up and exposing them to an alternative worldview is a good thing. I read AlterNet and Ann Coulter on a regular basis for that precise reason. :) Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 07:22 pm, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 28 Jul 2003 at 19:17, William T Goodall wrote: But the user shouldn't be able to make the OS crash, however much of an ID10T they are. Then you have to strictly limit what they can do. Not really. I can't stand OS's which nanny me. I'd rather be 'nannied' than have the freedom to crash the OS just by running a buggy bit of user-level software. Also, you have to only run approved programs... No. Nothing one can install without an admin password is capable of crashing any serious OS. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without bricks tied to its head. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
From: William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Windo$e Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 23:05:49 +0100 On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 07:22 pm, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 28 Jul 2003 at 19:17, William T Goodall wrote: But the user shouldn't be able to make the OS crash, however much of an ID10T they are. Then you have to strictly limit what they can do. Not really. I can't stand OS's which nanny me. I'd rather be 'nannied' than have the freedom to crash the OS just by running a buggy bit of user-level software. Spoken like someone who doesn't tweak his own interface. :) Also, you have to only run approved programs... No. Nothing one can install without an admin password is capable of crashing any serious OS. Heh. Ironic. I guess OS X 10.2.6 is out then. Co-workers clean-installed the latest version of Safari on three relatively new iMacs today and after a restart it crashed all three of them. We'd never seen a panic-crash before. Tech support is here now trying to get the computers to boot up in OSX. Hopefully we'll have them running tomorrow. And it's not even a third-party application. :) Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Empire Of Lies
A Speech From The Extremist Front: Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Children of the American Revolution, the great libertarian author and teacher Robert LeFevre once told me that the first money the United States government ever spent was a $20,000 check from a Dutch bank, drawn on an account that didn't exist. Hence the expression, You low-down, no-account bast-... whatever. Apparently this piece of financial chicanery was the doing of one Alexander Hamilton, a literal bast-whatever, who also favored deficit spending and maintaining a handsome national debt because he reasoned that if the government owed people money, they'd have an interest in making sure it survived. Thus the American Empire was born in the shadow of a lie. It's often been observed that the first casualty of war is the truth. But that's a lie, too, in its way. The reality is that, for most wars to begin, the truth has to have been sacrificed a long time in advance. Take the Civil War-the name itself is a lie. A civil war is what happens when two groups compete violently for control of the same government. That's not what happened in America in the 1860s. Whatever its other faults, the South had no interest at all in taking over and ruling the North. What happened in America in the 1860s was a war of secession, a war of independence, no different in principle from what happened in America in the 1770s and 1780s. What makes it different in some people's minds is that one side in the War between the States was fighting to end slavery, and the other side, perversely, to preserve it. The trouble with that is that what goes on in some people's minds is often the result of a lie, and this is one of those instances. Both sides in the American Revolution held and used slaves-does that somehow make American independence illegitimate? There are those prepared to say it does. But the War between the States was not about slavery, at all. It was about discriminatory taxation-the South was paying 80 percent at the time-and the centralization of authority. The best evidence that it was not about slavery lies in the writings of abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, who demanded, rather late in the war, that it be made to be about slavery. He would not have demanded that if it were already so, now would he? If the War for Southern Independence was about slavery, why did slavery remain a healthy institution in the North? Why did the Union army take slaves away from Southerners, not to free them, but to use their labor in their war against the South? Why were slaves kept busy, all through the war, rebuilding the capitol building in Washington, D.C., to Abraham Lincoln's imperial taste? Perhaps the greatest lie about the War between the States is that Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. Lincoln emancipated nobody. The man freed not a single slave. His celebrated Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the North-that might have offended too many fat Republican industrial mercantilists who owned their own black slaves. Neither did the Emancipation Proclamation apply to the border states, who might have been offended enough by it to secede, along with their Southern neighbors. The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to the South, to those states Lincoln did not control. As a result, it freed no one. It was nothing but propaganda, which is perhaps the fanciest euphemism ever cooked up for a plain, simple lie. The horrible truth about the War between the States is that it ended with many more individuals enslaved than when it began. Before the war, most Americans were free. They owned their own lives. But by the time it ended, everybody was the property of the state. Men were nothing but replaceable parts in the machinery of war. Women were nothing but factories to replace them. And the government could take your life-or anything else it wanted-any time it wanted, for any reason it cared to offer. Lincoln set all of the precedents for the monsters and for the monstrous regimes that followed after him. Even today, his example is being used by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin as an excuse to enslave and murder Chechens. Now I wrote about all of this, and more, several years ago, in an article I called The American Lenin, and, as such, it circulated on the Internet for quite a while. Believe me, there was nothing even slightly controversial, historically speaking, in that article. All of my facts came from sources favorable to Honest Abe, historians who approved of the way that he undid the American Revolution and ravaged the Constitution and the Bill of Rights just as his generals undid civilized decency and ravaged the South. When my friend Vin Suprynowicz published The American Lenin in the Las Vegas Review Journal, though, it stirred up an even greater storm of excrement than when I'd defended the rights of smokers. I was called everything any columnist has ever been called, including the author of the single worst piece of tripe ever
Re: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 04:41:27PM -0500, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 05:13 PM 7/28/03 -0400, Erik Reuter wrote: I think she was joking. I know I was. That makes 3 of us (or 2.5, depending on Julia's vagueness)! -- Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
--- Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A Speech From The Extremist Front: I like to think of myself as something of a Lincoln expert. I'm certainly a Lincoln _fanatic_. Where did you find such a piece of junk? I'm really curious in particular as to the historians he found who said that all of his facts were correct. Just to pick one - for fun - he's quite wrong about the Emancipation Proclamation. It is true that it did not free _many_ slaves (immediately), but that's very different from it did not free any. There were some portions of the occupied South that were not exempt from the Proclamation - those slaves were freed immediately. Furthermore, and more important, as the victorious armies of the Union made their way into the South, they freed slaves as they went - something that they could not have done without the Proclamation. The other stuff is equally tendentious, of course. The idea that the Civil War wasn't about slavery is the product of a frankly racist school of historical thinking that few historians of the post-Civil Rights era would accept. The idea that it was about confiscatory taxation is, of course, absurd. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On 28 Jul 2003 at 23:05, William T Goodall wrote: On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 07:22 pm, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 28 Jul 2003 at 19:17, William T Goodall wrote: But the user shouldn't be able to make the OS crash, however much of an ID10T they are. Then you have to strictly limit what they can do. Not really. Yes really. It's called Palladium. Guess you're a big fan of that... I can't stand OS's which nanny me. I'd rather be 'nannied' than have the freedom to crash the OS just by running a buggy bit of user-level software. Also, you have to only run approved programs... No. Nothing one can install without an admin password is capable of crashing any serious OS. Ahh, but I'm allways running admin-user stuff, shrug. Andy Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
William T Goodall wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. We have some staff here who get this sort of reliability some times, sometimes just working in MS Word and MS Outlook. The first thing they do is stop sending the error reports to MS, so I suspect that the numbers are actually much worse. We used to try to troubleshoot the errors, but now it's quicker to just reimage the machine and wait for it to start happening again in a few months. On my own machines, I've only ever experienced it running older software designed for Win95/98. Pretty much everyone concedes that MS is getting better... Cheers Russell C. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Arrgh!
Erik Reuter wrote: There are plenty of specifically designed watercooling systems designed for overclocked PCs, which just replace the heatsink/fan unit with a coupler, and run the pump and radiator separately. But that doesn't do a lot to cool your hard drive(s) or graphics cards. I've seen it used (on the web, not in R/L) for graphics cards. HDD cooling is simpler, those little thermal control cradles are so effective and so quiet. We use them on all our servers, but I've also ended up with some semi-retired ones for my home PC, and you can't hear them when the fans do kick in. (My semi-retired one gets some comments coz the temperature readout on the front shows 188 deg C for one cradle and 35 deg C on the other). Cheers Russell C. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scouted: Surgery on Brain Tumor 'cures' pedophile
Jon Gabriel wrote: I suppose the solution may just be to give people a test to see if they have a tumor that, if removed, may cure them. If they don't, prosecute. If no other medical condition has been found to conclusively cause aberrant behavior of this type then the theory that one might is probably legally irrelevant. Surely we prosecute regardless. The victim at least deserves a trial be called, and the accused be judged by a jury of his peers. If those peers determine that he did it but it wasn't his fault, then let the punishment reflect that. To not prosecute is to say that it was OK, to reduce or remove the penalty is to say that it was wrong, but the accused had no ability to alter his actions (either by recognising the wrongfulness, or by resisting the temptation) I'd still want a probation or parole system for the accused after surgery to ensure he wasn't just taking advantage of the built-in get out of jail free card. Cheers Russell C. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
Gautam Mukunda wrote: The idea that it was about confiscatory taxation is, of course, absurd. It's nice to find something we can agree on wholeheartedly. Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
rob posted: A Speech From The Extremist Front: [actual speech snipped] You Want Controversy, You Get Controversy Maru Whatever happened to putting L3 in the subject line for posts this long ;-) Some of the historical data here sounds a little... unsound, but I'm sure there are others on the list that can tackle that angle better than me. Thanks for posting this, rob, and reminding me why I'm not a member of the Libertarian party :-) Reggie Bautista Liberaltarian Maru _ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution
Erik wrote: Are you really suggesting that people should limit their satire to trivial issues? ... Saturday Night Live completely neutered? You mean they aren't now? Reggie Bautista Smiley Maru _ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Homeland Security Issue? :-)
From http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/ap/20030728/ap_on_re_us/texa s_redistricting_2 Democratic state lawmakers fled Texas on Tuesday for the second time in three months to thwart a Republican drive to redraw the state's congressional districts. Eleven of the 12 Democrats in the state Senate left for Albuquerque, N.M., as a first special session called by the governor to address redistricting drew to a close and he called a second special session, scheduled to begin Wednesday. The second session could last as long as 30 days. Does anyone outside of the Texas governor's mansion or the Republican house leadership still consider this to be a threat to national security? Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
- Original Message - From: Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 6:40 PM Subject: Re: Empire Of Lies rob posted: A Speech From The Extremist Front: [actual speech snipped] You Want Controversy, You Get Controversy Maru Whatever happened to putting L3 in the subject line for posts this long ;-) Arrgh!.Sorry Reg! You are indeed correct, and I realised this right after clicking send. Some of the historical data here sounds a little... unsound, but I'm sure there are others on the list that can tackle that angle better than me. I like Neils fiction, but he is definately very extreme compared to most folks I know. Thanks for posting this, rob, and reminding me why I'm not a member of the Libertarian party :-) Actually, I had a different motive. With all the polarizing discussion on the list lately, dividing us into liberal and conservative camps, I wanted to show that there are Americans out there who in completely serious tones will make everyone on this list appear to have quite similar views. People, despite our differences in opinion and belief, we have much more in common than might seem obvious. I think Smiths speech makes that quite clear. xponent A Broader Contrast Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
Jon wrote: It seems horrifically high. I suspect that it's a combination of lack of maintenance and ID10T errors. I use tons of programs, usually simultaneously on my Windows machine and don't have problems, but I keep them maintained, too. There are two computers at home, both with Windows ME, that are primary my responsibility to keep up. I do the same maintenance on both of them, run the same software, and use them both about equally. They have the same virus definitions, same Windows updates, same version of the Opera web browser, same games, same everything. One of them crashes maybe once every couple of months. With the other one, I'm lucky if it doesn't crash at least once a day. The only hardware difference between them is that they have different models of mouse. I don't think the difference can be written off to ID10T errors in this case (I don't think my IQ changes *that* much when I move from machine to machine :-), or lack of maintenance. It's certainly possible that one of them has a piece of faulty hardware somewhere, but they've both reacted the same to every diag that I know how to throw at them. Reggie Bautista _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 11:24 pm, Jon Gabriel wrote: Nothing one can install without an admin password is capable of crashing any serious OS. Heh. Ironic. I guess OS X 10.2.6 is out then. Which does require an admin password to install :) Co-workers clean-installed the latest version of Safari on three relatively new iMacs today and after a restart it crashed all three of them. We'd never seen a panic-crash before. Tech support is here now trying to get the computers to boot up in OSX. Hopefully we'll have them running tomorrow. And it's not even a third-party application. :) Which illustrates another important point - never be an early adopter :) Let somebody else find the problems in the latest sw updates... -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 11:56 pm, Russell Chapman wrote: William T Goodall wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html Mr. Gates acknowledged today that the company's error reporting service indicated that 5 percent of all Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. We have some staff here who get this sort of reliability some times, sometimes just working in MS Word and MS Outlook. The first thing they do is stop sending the error reports to MS, so I suspect that the numbers are actually much worse. We used to try to troubleshoot the errors, but now it's quicker to just reimage the machine and wait for it to start happening again in a few months. On my own machines, I've only ever experienced it running older software designed for Win95/98. Pretty much everyone concedes that MS is getting better... 'Getting better' from a long way behind then... -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Those who study history are doomed to repeat it. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
World Premiere
Tonight was the world premiere on the UK scifi channel of the first of the three Firefly episodes that were unaired in the US when the show was cancelled. It was good. Drat. Drat because it was cancelled, and drat because there are only two more to go...two more Mondays. Or Tuesdays, since I watched it at 12.15am since Alias was on when it first showed at 9pm. And in the Whedon repertory company checklist the guest star was the guy who played the loquacious vampire in Buffy S7 *and* the science guy at Wolfram and Hart in Angel S4. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I speak better English than this villain Bush - Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi Information Minister ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is a homemaker worth?
Julia wrote: We could not buy disability insurance on me. We tried. I don't know if it was state law or the insurance company, but I couldn't be insured for disability. Were you looking while you were pregnant? Lots of insurance companies will deny disability and even life coverage to women who are pregnant, but will will more than happily take your money once you have given birth. Reggie Bautista They Tried To Make Me An Underwriter, But I Escaped Maru _ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
outrageous: defense department terror betting pool
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/2363276/detail.html Defense Dept. Program Taking Terror Bets Program Models 'Futures' Markets POSTED: 3:20 p.m. EDT July 28, 2003 A new Department of Defense program allows traders to bet on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks. The department's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency designed what it calls the The Policy Analysis Market. The program works much like the financial markets where traders buy and sell futures based on the possibility of a specific event in the Middle East, 11 News reported. Some of the examples listed on the agency's Web site include the assassination of Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat and a missile attack by North Korea. Bidders would profit if the events for which they hold futures occur. Defense officials said the market-based system is highly accurate when assessing such things as political and civil stability, economic health and military disposition of Middle East countries. Participants would only have to pick a username and password to participate and the agency said it won't have access to their identities or funds. But critics said this allows terrorists who are planning an attack to profit on the assault or even make false bets to mislead authorities. Members of Congress said the market idea is not only wasteful, but repugnant. I think this is unbelievably stupid. That is a gentle thing to say about a program that is so devoid of value, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, said. It combines the worst of all our values in my judgment. It's a tragic waste of taxpayer money. It will be totally offensive to almost everyone. [The] idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridicules and grotesque, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said. The bizarre plan we are describing today is a waste of taxpayer money and it needs to stop immediately. The program's intent is clear: the federal government is encouraging people to bet on and make money from atrocities and terrorist attacks. Registration for the site begins Friday and will be limited to the first 1,000 traders. Actual trading will begin Sept. 1 and the Department of Defense plans to open the site to 10,000 traders by Jan. 1, 2004. --- Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history. -- Pat Robertson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: World Premiere
William T. Goodall wrote: Tonight was the world premiere on the UK scifi channel of the first of the three Firefly episodes that were unaired in the US when the show was cancelled... [snip] And in the Whedon repertory company checklist the guest star was the guy who played the loquacious vampire in Buffy S7 *and* the science guy at Wolfram and Hart in Angel S4. Jonathan Woodward? He was pretty good in both, but I think I liked his Angel character better. I wonder if he will end up as a recurring character, given events at the end of the season (no spoilers here out of respect to Alberto and anyone else who has yet to see the end of Angel's 4th season). I wasn't much impressed by the first episode of Firefly so I didn't make much of an effort to follow it. However, since then I have seen some of the later episodes on tape and am now looking forward to the DVD release. I wonder what order they'll put the episodes in... Reggie Bautista _ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Homeland Security Issue? :-)
Democratic state lawmakers fled Texas on Tuesday for the second time in three months to thwart a Republican drive to redraw the state's congressional districts. Eleven of the 12 Democrats in the state Senate left for Albuquerque, N.M., as a first special session called by the governor to address redistricting drew to a close and he called a second special session, scheduled to begin Wednesday. The second session could last as long as 30 days. Does anyone outside of the Texas governor's mansion or the Republican house leadership still consider this to be a threat to national security? The first special session of the Texas senate failed to redistrict. So the governor called a second special session - after promising not to. Tom Beck www.prydonians.org www.mercerjewishsingles.org I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last. - Dr Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 6:43:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And its unclear that arrest is even the proper word to describe what the Chairman tried to do - since I don't think that even if the Chairman's request had been carried out that the Democratic Representatives would have been detained, placed in jail, or had charges filed against them. At any rate, caning another Congreesman, literally nearly to death, on the floor of Congress is far worse. Can we get real here. Once again this is not the 19th century. We are talking about a congressman of one party trying to have congressmen of the other party arrested. This is outragous behavior. It is not some little prank ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 6:41:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Lastly, if Al Gore had won the 2000 election, would you be bitterly complaining that he did so thanks to his partisans on the Florida Supreme Court? If a full recount of the florida vote had been ordered it would have been a reasonable thing to do. In close elections recounts are often performed and in some cases even mandated. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution
Erik Reuter wrote: Saturday Night Live completely neutered? SNL neutered itself a long time ago. :-) Jim ___ Express Yourself - Share Your Mood in Emails! Visit www.SmileyCentral.com - the happiest place on the Web. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 7:07:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 06:49 PM 7/27/2003 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligece services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to sources our own do not, particularly in Africa, and that the British intelligence services are generally considered among the best and most reliable in the world, and BELIEVE the British intelligence report? Your choice. What do you do? I look forward to your, Nick's, and Ritu's answers to this question. YOU LEAVE OUT OF THE STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE. YOU DO NOT USE IT TO TRY TO CONVINCE AMERICANS THAT WE MUST GO TO WAR UNTIL YOU CAN AT LEAST CONVINCE YOUR OWN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY THAT THE STATEMENT IS TRUE The State of the Union is irrelevant to this example. But it is not irrelevant because this is THE major policy speech that the president makes every year. This speech is worked on with the most care and intensity by the president's staff. It is givin to a joint session of congress. It is unique and important. Statements in this speech must or should be above speculation. In short it is not just another speech. Leaving it out of the State of the Union is an action that is consistent with actions a, b, c, and d above. So, which is it, Bob?Before you decide whether or not to include it in the State of the Union, you have to make the more fundamental determination of a, b, c, or d. Actually I don't have to do any of those things. In fact it is my point that the president should have not used this data until it could be verified or disproved by our intelligence services. You don't have to call them (a)liers or (b) incompetent. You don't have to (c) ignore it. Not using it in the SOU address is not the same as ignoring it. You don't have (d) accept it on faith. You (e) ask the British to provide documenation of their claim. If they do so you can include it in the SOU. JDG - Tough Decisions, Maru - but he is the POTUS after all ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: World Premiere
On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 02:09 am, Reggie Bautista wrote: I wasn't much impressed by the first episode of Firefly Which wasn't supposed to be the first... so I didn't make much of an effort to follow it. However, since then I have seen some of the later episodes on tape and am now looking forward to the DVD release. I wonder what order they'll put the episodes in... I think the UK SciFi channel has been showing them in canonical order. The plot and character development seems to make sense anyway... ...which jumbling them up certainly wouldn't help :( Sabotage. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs. -- Robert Firth ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Windo$e
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of William T Goodall Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 8:15 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Windo$e On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 11:24 pm, Jon Gabriel wrote: Nothing one can install without an admin password is capable of crashing any serious OS. Heh. Ironic. I guess OS X 10.2.6 is out then. Which does require an admin password to install :) Yeah, yeah, yeah. :) Co-workers clean-installed the latest version of Safari on three relatively new iMacs today and after a restart it crashed all three of them. We'd never seen a panic-crash before. Tech support is here now trying to get the computers to boot up in OSX. Hopefully we'll have them running tomorrow. And it's not even a third-party application. :) Which illustrates another important point - never be an early adopter :) Let somebody else find the problems in the latest sw updates... OSX 10.2.6 *is* a software update! It's the 12th (13th?) update to the OS software since they hit X. (It's the sixth update to Jaguar, which came with the three iMacs. As you probably know, once a Mac comes with a certain OS installed, you can't downgrade to a previous version.) For that matter this version of Apple's Safari is their third update. So, how many eons must one wait before one is no longer considered an early adopter? ;-) I better recap this all for myself so I don't forget: A serious OS doesn't crash... ...as long as you don't run third party software (or for that matter any software, even by the computer manufacturer) that requires an admin password to install... ...AND you've got all your software updates... ...AND all your OS updates... ...AND you're not installing a version of any software that's still buggy and untested... *grin* Did I miss anything? ;-) Jon Merely Amusing Myself Maru Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
William T Goodall wrote: The most unreliable OS I had running until recently was the OS on my Vigor 2600We ADSL modem-router-firewall-wireless-basestation-kitchen-sink gadget which used to lock up every 10 to 14 days, requiring a reboot. I upgraded the firmware a couple of months ago and it hasn't misbehaved since. Upgradeable firmware is good :) My D-Link version of these used to do that too, but it turned out that the cable ISP (which specifically bans the use of any sort of internet sharing device, and requires an authentication client running on the PC to enforce it) had changed their system to sabotage them. D-Link promptly issued an upgrade to resolve, which the ISP (Australia's biggest telco) promptly sabotaged, for about 3 or 4 rounds, until the telco gave up. Gotta love upgradeable firmware... The telco's authentication client was the most crash-prone software I've ever used, which really pissed me off, not to mention I couldn't use it with my NetWare servers. Cheers Russell C. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 9:21:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Do you seriously believe that if any person other than Bush were President we would have taken out Saddam by now? Really? I think there was some sentiment to do this amoung Clinton's advisors. I am not saying we would have but it is not impossible. Also, the goal of international relations is not _popularity_. The world is not a high school. That is correct. In high school one can be a bully but in the world it is better to be cooperative, to compromise on some issues. Bush _used_ the sympathy 9/11 generated to make possible something that would not have been possible without it - the removal of Saddam Hussein, something that was clearly not in the interest of anyone in the region or in Europe (save England). His ability to do that was diplomatic skill of the highest order. You are kidding about this. We had one true ally in this Britain. The other are either not major players or are anxious to please us (not a bad thing; it is refreshing that countries that owe their freedom to us feel gratitude but they would probably have agreed if we said we wanted to invade the moon). There was so much ill will towards us that Schroeder got elected because he pledged to oppose the war. When the french went crazy he was stuck. It may be true that we didn't need any help but you don't have to rub the noses of the rest of the world in that fact. Especially if you need the rest of the world to manage the reconstruction of iraq ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
Reggie Bautista wrote: One of them crashes maybe once every couple of months. With the other one, I'm lucky if it doesn't crash at least once a day. The only hardware difference between them is that they have different models of mouse. I think this inconsistency is what really pisses people off. You can start a Win98 machine 5 times in 10 minutes and get different results every time... You can open the same Word document you opened yesterday and splat!. How do you diagnose/repair problems like that? Cheers Russell C. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Windo$e
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Reggie Bautista Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 8:09 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Windo$e Jon wrote: It seems horrifically high. I suspect that it's a combination of lack of maintenance and ID10T errors. I use tons of programs, usually simultaneously on my Windows machine and don't have problems, but I keep them maintained, too. There are two computers at home, both with Windows ME, that are primary my responsibility to keep up. I do the same maintenance on both of them, run the same software, and use them both about equally. They have the same virus definitions, same Windows updates, same version of the Opera web browser, same games, same everything. One of them crashes maybe once every couple of months. With the other one, I'm lucky if it doesn't crash at least once a day. The only hardware difference between them is that they have different models of mouse. I don't think the difference can be written off to ID10T errors in this case (I don't think my IQ changes *that* much when I move from machine to machine :-), or lack of maintenance. It's certainly possible that one of them has a piece of faulty hardware somewhere, but they've both reacted the same to every diag that I know how to throw at them. Have you thought of switching mice and software to see if the 'good' computer starts crashing? Seriously. It might be a driver problem with the mouse. Other than that... I'd say you're right. It's definitely not you. :) But my not-so-expert experience over the years has been that a large minority of people don't know much about software maintenance or bother to learn. IMO, logically, they should make up at least a portion of those surveyed. Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 02:46 am, Jon Gabriel wrote: Jon Merely Amusing Myself Maru If it makes you happy... -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs. -- Robert Firth ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Who Are the US's Allies? Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
At 09:52 PM 7/28/2003 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bush _used_ the sympathy 9/11 generated to make possible something that would not have been possible without it - the removal of Saddam Hussein, something that was clearly not in the interest of anyone in the region or in Europe (save England). His ability to do that was diplomatic skill of the highest order. You are kidding about this. We had one true ally in this Britain. The other are either not major players or are anxious to please us (not a bad thing. Ahem. You have forgotten Austalia, who was very much a true ally. You have also forgotten Japan, the leader of which essentially got his country's constitution ammended so that Japan could help us out in Iraq, and is a major player by any measure. You have also forgotten Poland, which is the second-largest country in Europe - which I guess you could argue is anxious to please us, but given that Poland is already in NATO and on the fast-track to the EU, is certainly in a different category than Bulgaria and Romania. You have also forgotten the Czech Republic, which is in a similar situation to Poland, with the exception of being a major player. Nevertheless, you have also forgotten Spain - the fourth-largest country in continental Europe, and is certainly a major player in the European Union. JDG ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 02:49 am, Russell Chapman wrote: My D-Link version of these used to do that too, but it turned out that the cable ISP (which specifically bans the use of any sort of internet sharing device, and requires an authentication client running on the PC to enforce it) had changed their system to sabotage them. That is evil. D-Link promptly issued an upgrade to resolve, which the ISP (Australia's biggest telco) promptly sabotaged, for about 3 or 4 rounds, until the telco gave up. At least they gave up :) -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Those who study history are doomed to repeat it. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are kidding about this. We had one true ally in this Britain. The other are either not major players or are anxious to please us (not a bad thing; it is refreshing that countries that owe their freedom to us feel gratitude but they would probably have agreed if we said we wanted to invade the moon). There was so much ill will towards us that Schroeder got elected because he pledged to oppose the war. When the french went crazy he was stuck. It may be true that we didn't need any help but you don't have to rub the noses of the rest of the world in that fact. Especially if you need the rest of the world to manage the reconstruction of iraq Which we apparently don't. The astonishing failure of the mass media to cover the fact that the reconstruction is going fairly well is, well, astonishing. I think it's largely because most reporters are too lazy to get out of Baghdad, combined (of course) with hatred of the Administration, but you'd think that they'd be at least _vaguely_ competent. But they don't. All of that aside, Bob, you keep circling back to the same essential mistake, the belief that there was some combination of words that would have convinced the rest of the world to go along with Iraq. You have _no_ evidence for this, and a great deal of evidence otherwise. For 12 years after the war, France was essentially bought off by Saddam and campaigned to _lift_ the sanctions. Germany's anti-Americanism is so hysterical that one-third of the population thinks that _we_ were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. What makes you think that they would have agreed to an invasion that was clearly not in their commercial interests (because they were in hock to Saddam) and not in their power interests (because it demonstrated their absolute and self-inflicted irrelevance on the world stage)? If not for 9/11, Bush could not have gotten the early momentum that made the whole thing possible, and he _certainly_ could not have got Britain, Australia, (I hope that none of our Australian list members object to the constant denigration-through-omission here of Australia's heroic efforts to liberate Iraq - as much as Britain, Australia is a true friend to the US and to freedom. John Howard is no less a great man than Tony Blair for his stand.) Japan, Poland, and the Czech Republic (among others) as well as the (critical) acquiescence of Russia. He made a choice. That choice was, I think, the right one, but the choice did exist, and pretending that it didn't is allowing your hatred of the President to cripple your judgment. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Windo$e
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of William T Goodall Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 9:14 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Windo$e On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 01:08 am, Reggie Bautista wrote: Jon wrote: It seems horrifically high. I suspect that it's a combination of lack of maintenance and ID10T errors. I use tons of programs, usually simultaneously on my Windows machine and don't have problems, but I keep them maintained, too. There are two computers at home, both with Windows ME, that are primary my responsibility to keep up. I do the same maintenance on both of them, run the same software, and use them both about equally. They have the same virus definitions, same Windows updates, same version of the Opera web browser, same games, same everything. One of them crashes maybe once every couple of months. With the other one, I'm lucky if it doesn't crash at least once a day. The only hardware difference between them is that they have different models of mouse. I don't think the difference can be written off to ID10T errors in this case (I don't think my IQ changes *that* much when I move from machine to machine :-), or lack of maintenance. It's certainly possible that one of them has a piece of faulty hardware somewhere, but they've both reacted the same to every diag that I know how to throw at them. Reggie Bautista The most unreliable OS I had running until recently was the OS on my Vigor 2600We ADSL modem-router-firewall-wireless-basestation-kitchen-sink gadget http://www.adslguide.org.uk/hardware/reviews/2002/q4/vigor2600we.asp which used to lock up every 10 to 14 days, requiring a reboot. I upgraded the firmware a couple of months ago and it hasn't misbehaved since. Upgradeable firmware is good :) Upgradeable firmware rocks. :) The Linksys WET11 I use to connect the G3 server to the network never crashes - but it doesn't do anything very complicated so it doesn't have any excuses. I loathe Linksys. I seriously hope that WET11 never breaks William. Our 5 month-old Linksys 4-port router broke a few weeks ago. Before that it required a restart every Monday morning like clockwork. Called tech support to get an RMA number. Figured that I'd send it back to the company and get a replacement because it was definitely broken. No lights and it wasn't routing anything anywhere. AND it was still under warranty. There should have been no problem. It all seemed so simple when I started. It seems Linksys has moved their toll-free tech support hotline. You now get India. Yes, *India*. And no one in the department has ever heard of a Mac, nor do they know how to diagnose a router when it's hooked up to one. Five minutes of Do Macs run Linux? We don't support that. Tech Guy Supervisor actually suggested I find a Windows computer to hook it up to so we could confirm it was broken. I called D-Link before I bought our new router to find out where their tech support staff was located: California. And they support Macs. It's been running without a hitch for a few weeks now and we've never had a problem. The G3 runs Apache, MySQL, PHP, the brin-l chat. It hasn't actually been up longer than about 90 days (24/7) at a stretch because of software updates or having to cut off the power for electrical work. My HP calculator has never crashed, although there are instructions in the manual for resetting it should that happen :) Pity about HP... What about them? Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Empire Of Lies
From: Gautam Mukunda [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] The other stuff is equally tendentious, of course. The idea that the Civil War wasn't about slavery is the product of a frankly racist school of historical thinking that few historians of the post-Civil Rights era would accept. The idea that it was about confiscatory taxation is, of course, absurd. I agree completely. I just finished reading The Battle Cry of Freedom a few months ago. It was clear from there that the war was, in fact, about states rights. (Which is one of many things historical revisionists like to say.) However, the rights involved just happened to be the right to keep slaves! It's crazy to say it wasn't about slavery. - jmh Very Good Book BTW Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Empire Of Lies
--- Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree completely. I just finished reading The Battle Cry of Freedom a few months ago. It was clear from there that the war was, in fact, about states rights. (Which is one of many things historical revisionists like to say.) However, the rights involved just happened to be the right to keep slaves! It's crazy to say it wasn't about slavery. - jmh Very Good Book BTW Maru I agree it's a very good book - probably the best single-volume history of the war, actually. But I actually disagree with that conclusion. I don't think state's rights had anything to do with the war, actually. I have an unfair advantage over McPherson, in that my opinion was formed partly by Frehling's _Prelude to Civil War_, which I think had not been written when _Battle Cry_ was. But Frehling tells the story of the South Carolina Nullification Crisis, and he points out that positions in South Carolina on nullification had nothing to do with the economic impact of the tariff. Instead, it basically worked out that the more you supported slavery, the more in favor you were of nullification. He believes (as do I) that nullification, like every other state's rights struggle up to the Civil War (I would go further and say - up until the 1970s) was a proxy for slavery (or after the Civil War, for the rights of African Americans). Southern attempts to limit the power of the federal government were almost solely attempts to limit its power _to deal with slavery_. My other argument would be - what was the single most egregious expansion of the power of the Federal Government - at the expense of state sovereignty - during the pre-war period? I would argue that it was the barbarous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, passed as a sop to Southern radicals. While enforcing the return of fugitive slaves was clearly a federal responsibility, the specific terms of the act were nonetheless an immense expansion of the power of the Federal Government (apart from being an atrocity). Yet the South was entirely in favor of it. Again, because it protected slavery. The simplest explanation is (to me) that the overriding concern of Southern politicians was the protection of slavery, and everything else was secondary to that. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Homeland Security Issue? :-)
Dan Minette wrote: From http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/ap/20030728/ap_on_re_us/texa s_redistricting_2 Democratic state lawmakers fled Texas on Tuesday for the second time in three months to thwart a Republican drive to redraw the state's congressional districts. Eleven of the 12 Democrats in the state Senate left for Albuquerque, N.M., as a first special session called by the governor to address redistricting drew to a close and he called a second special session, scheduled to begin Wednesday. The second session could last as long as 30 days. Does anyone outside of the Texas governor's mansion or the Republican house leadership still consider this to be a threat to national security? I'm just sick of it. I wish that Perry would just quit on the whole redistricting thing, because I believe that if anything passes, it *will* be challenged in court, and waste even more state money, provided by taxpayers, of which I am one, and if the state attorney general said the court-drawn map was OK and adequite, why doesn't anyone believe him? Julia going through TDF withdrawal today ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is a homemaker worth?
Reggie Bautista wrote: Julia wrote: We could not buy disability insurance on me. We tried. I don't know if it was state law or the insurance company, but I couldn't be insured for disability. Were you looking while you were pregnant? Lots of insurance companies will deny disability and even life coverage to women who are pregnant, but will will more than happily take your money once you have given birth. Nope. This was before I got pregnant with Sammy. This was a couple of months before I left my last job. I got approved on the life insurance (through a different company) while I was pregnant with Sammy. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
Erik Reuter wrote: On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 04:41:27PM -0500, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 05:13 PM 7/28/03 -0400, Erik Reuter wrote: I think she was joking. I know I was. That makes 3 of us (or 2.5, depending on Julia's vagueness)! Considering the contents of my belly, go for any number from 0.5 to 3 for me. :) Julia past elephant, approaching feeling like beached whale at times ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A Speech From The Extremist Front: I like to think of myself as something of a Lincoln expert. I'm certainly a Lincoln _fanatic_. Where did you find such a piece of junk? On L. Neil Smith's website? I've read one short story of his. Something in the tone annoyed me. I think we have one novel of his. I haven't read it. I'm not interested in reading it anytime soon -- there are so many novels I *know* I'll enjoy that I could get to first. But he's very popular in some circles. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
Robert Seeberger wrote: Actually, I had a different motive. With all the polarizing discussion on the list lately, dividing us into liberal and conservative camps, I wanted to show that there are Americans out there who in completely serious tones will make everyone on this list appear to have quite similar views. People, despite our differences in opinion and belief, we have much more in common than might seem obvious. I think Smiths speech makes that quite clear. I like that motivation. If I'm engaged in debate, before I post, I try to figure out just where I agree with the person I'm responding to, and then just focus on the little bits where I disagree. Maybe I ought to send more responses quoting the bits I agree with and comment that I agree with those bits. It's certainly nicer in my head when I figure out where I agree with someone, and make some sort of a *positive* connection with them, even if I don't post anything to that effect. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... The State of the Union is irrelevant to this example. But it is not irrelevant because this is THE major policy speech that the president makes every year. This speech is worked on with the most care and intensity by the president's staff. It is givin to a joint session of congress. It is unique and important. Statements in this speech must or should be above speculation. In short it is not just another speech. Yes, and there is no more serious decision a nation can make -- none -- than the decision to go to war. I'm dismayed that Bush apologists are willing to belittle the importance of the State of the Union address and the gravity of the decision that was being advocated. At the same time, I'll sadly add that virtually every modern president has lied in order to persuade the public that it must go to war. There's nothing partisan about it, I suppose, it's politics as usual, and if there's any institution to be damned for allowing it to happen, it's the media, which has failed every time to take a really critical look at the justifications for war. I do believe that this administration thought it would get away with offering poorly investigated intelligence in the State of the Union address because the press would swallow it, at least for long enough to get us into the war. And they were right -- in fact, at its worst, the media pundits were fanning the flames by branding anyone who questioned the decision for war as unpatriotic. Going back to the 16 words, they were spoken by the most important leader in the world, in his most important speech, on the most important decision our nation can possibly make. If that isn't the time for those in power to get the facts right, there is no such time. And if those are not the circumstances in which citizens and the press deserve -- and should demand -- solid evidence, there is no such time. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
At 02:13 AM 7/29/03 +0100, William T Goodall wrote: My HP calculator has never crashed, although there are instructions in the manual for resetting it should that happen :) Neither have any of mine (at least 4 different models I can recall, all of which I still have and still use 3 of them at least on occasion), even during battery changes. Nor did any of the TI models I have owned, though the TI-59 had to go in for service when for some reason it stopped working entirely. Neither have any of the Casio models I have owned. Neither did the Sharp model I once dropped in the toilet: it worked fine after it dried out. --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
At 09:52 PM 7/28/03 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are kidding about this. We had one true ally in this Britain. The other are either not major players or are anxious to please us (not a bad thing; it is refreshing that countries that owe their freedom to us feel gratitude but they would probably have agreed if we said we wanted to invade the moon). You been reading the _Weekly World News_ again? (That was a story on the cover of a recent issue.) --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Who Are the US's Allies? Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
John D. Giorgis wrote: ... You are kidding about this. We had one true ally in this Britain. The other are either not major players or are anxious to please us (not a bad thing. Ahem. ... You have also forgotten Poland, which is the second-largest country in Europe O.K., second in what sense, then? Russia, Sweden, Finland, Norway... are all bigger by area. Russia, Germany, UK, France, Spain... have greater populations. Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Spain,... have greater GDPs. (These from: http://www.geographyiq.com/ranking/rankings.htm) Yes, there were some allies. But really! If you have to fluff up the list to make it look bigger, then you know that it's thin. ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
Jon Gabriel wrote: But the user shouldn't be able to make the OS crash, however much of an ID10T they are. Tell that to the third party software makers, please. Some of it is just badly written for Macs AND PC's. AOL used to freeze my computer pretty darn frequently in OS9. Who's to blame? Apple, AOL or me? Here's a hint: It sure as heck ain't me. :) Blame can start with the author of the OS. They should have designed it so that your 3rd party software *can't* crash the system, only itself. The task is harder for PC's than pretty much any other class of computer, though, given the high variety of hardware they have to account for. That and the fact that they often paint themselves into a corner with backward compatibility issues. -- Matt ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
