Re: Gen. Colin Powell, Pres. Obama's Secretary of Defense
I think that Powell actually was fed incomplete or untrue information which he then delivered. It's those who lied to him who are most at fault. That is incredible. An experienced General grade officer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff serving as the Secretary of State with access to real intelligence as opposed to the pretend clap trap fed to the public was in no position to be so stupid. He knew damn well he was telling lies and willingly participated in the commision of crimes. There is no doubt. Only the disinterested public without an education in military technology or awareness of the condition of the Iraqi state (dire) was in any position to believe the lies and only then if distracted by misdirected rage about the World Trade Center attack. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gen. Colin Powell, Pres. Obama's Secretary of Defense
Plus a long and distinguished career in the military, Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as the National Security Advisor. His career wasn't so distinguished. His attempt to white wash U.S massacres of Vietnamese villagers (such as My Lai) doesn't reflect well on him either. Can honor not be redeemed after a mistake, even one as large as his? The callous murder of between ten and sixty thousand odd people? Mmmm, no I don't think so. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Gen. Colin Powell, Pres. Obama's Secretary of Defense
On Oct 20, 2008, at 3:59 PM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: Julia Thompson wrote: It's like the people running around accusing Obama of being a Muslim -- it's inaccurate, but they may have been lied to by people who want to turn opinion against Obama, and not be intending to lie. That would be the perfect conspiracy theory, following the Bush-is-a-Manchurian-candidate conspiracy. If Bush is at sold of some foreign sheiks, what would be best for them then to blunder everything in the final weeks, weaken the Republican candidate to death, and place a Muslim at the POTUS? :-) Alberto Monteiro You know what? a) Barack Obama is *not* a Muslim, and I have a fairly high degree of confidence in that statement. b) If he were, I'd be even *more* likely to vote for him. I have to ask -- would it be so unimaginably bad to have a Muslim holding public office in this country? The most disturbing part of the rumor to me isn't the suggestion that he might be, it's the implication behind the rumor that that would be a reason to disqualify him from office. The former is merely slander; the latter is un- American in the most bigoted way. (The fact that it's historically consistent is no excuse as far as I'm concerned.) The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. -- Thomas Jefferson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Off-topic., monotonous posting (was Child-killing religion)
On 15 Oct 2008 at 11:37, William T Goodall wrote: It's been very quiet here since the thought police manifesto. Obvious Maru You posted a Manifesto? AndrewC Yes, I went there Maru Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: No more feeding the troll (was Re: Debunking B.S. from the so-called debunker )
On 19 Oct 2008 at 19:07, Nick Arnett wrote: I'll stop feeding him now and perhaps ponder just how much disruption the list managers should tolerate. A lot, of course, but sheesh... Said it before, say it again: You're far too forgiving. On forum / list / wiki moderation, I fall into the Stalin/Gulag camp of moderation. I once was one of the admins a forum where we made people take and post photos of a hand-written apology to be able to post again after certain offences... Andrew ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: No more feeding the troll (was Re: Debunking B.S. from the so-called debunker )
On Oct 21, 2008, at 5:20 AM, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 19 Oct 2008 at 19:07, Nick Arnett wrote: I'll stop feeding him now and perhaps ponder just how much disruption the list managers should tolerate. A lot, of course, but sheesh... Said it before, say it again: You're far too forgiving. On forum / list / wiki moderation, I fall into the Stalin/Gulag camp of moderation. I once was one of the admins a forum where we made people take and post photos of a hand-written apology to be able to post again after certain offences... And you settled for that only because you couldn't physically put them in the stocks and have people pelt them with eggs? Dave PS: I'm not a big fan of humiliation, but not disciplined enough not to dish it out from time to time. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: No more feeding the troll (was Re: Debunking B.S. from the so-called debunker )
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Dave Land wrote: On Oct 21, 2008, at 5:20 AM, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 19 Oct 2008 at 19:07, Nick Arnett wrote: I'll stop feeding him now and perhaps ponder just how much disruption the list managers should tolerate. A lot, of course, but sheesh... Said it before, say it again: You're far too forgiving. On forum / list / wiki moderation, I fall into the Stalin/Gulag camp of moderation. I once was one of the admins a forum where we made people take and post photos of a hand-written apology to be able to post again after certain offences... And you settled for that only because you couldn't physically put them in the stocks and have people pelt them with eggs? I'm not a fan of pelting with eggs. Tomatoes are my limit there. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: monotonous posting
On Oct 20, 2008, at 10:27 AM, Julia Thompson wrote: On Mon, 20 Oct 2008, John Williams wrote: Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] I also like the one that goes One has two ears and one mouth, and should use them in that proportion. Don't forget the ten typing fingers. Vs. 2 eyes for reading. Hm Julia Given that i read at least 5 times as fast as I type (probably much faster), that probably works out just about right. :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: monotonous posting
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Oct 20, 2008, at 10:27 AM, Julia Thompson wrote: On Mon, 20 Oct 2008, John Williams wrote: Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] I also like the one that goes One has two ears and one mouth, and should use them in that proportion. Don't forget the ten typing fingers. Vs. 2 eyes for reading. Hm Julia Given that i read at least 5 times as fast as I type (probably much faster), that probably works out just about right. :) Actually, depending on what it is, I can type faster than half as fast as I can read at times. I've freaked people out with my typing speed. (Well, one person, anyway. I don't think anyone was freaked so much as remarking on it when I've been doing IM and long responses are sent very quickly. Someone asked if I was doing a copy-paste on one of those, and no, I wasn't.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: TV Zeitgeist
On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 10:21 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 20 Oct 2008, at 15:59, Mauro Diotallevi wrote: On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 8:45 PM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: _My Own Worst Enemy_ seems to have a very similar concept to the forthcoming _Dollhouse_, mixed with a little bit of _Chuck_. And a dash of Battlestar Galactica. That's a bit tenuous. The final five? I was thinking more in terms of sleeper agents. -- Mauro Diotallevi The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Asperger Syndrome
... depending on what it is, I can type faster than half as fast as I can read at times. I've freaked people out with my typing speed. Julia Very impressive! That was one of the things I admired about my ex-wife. Her hands flew over the keyboard in a blur. In her case, however, her computer expertise was also a reflection of her AS. She could not spell, or do simple math, but that was not a handicap as there are programs for that sort of thing. At first I was attracted by her quirky nature and she fit in well at Cons where her AS was just another attribute. I've learned to tolerate much of her rudeness, but what I can't understand is why she prevents me from seeing our son. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Secretary of Defense
I have to ask -- would it be so unimaginably bad to have a Muslim holding public office in this country? The most disturbing part of the rumor to me isn't the suggestion that he might be, it's the implication behind the rumor that that would be a reason to disqualify him from office. The former is merely slander; the latter is un-American in the most bigoted way. (The fact that it's historically consistent is no excuse as far as I'm concerned.) There is a lot of hysteria against Muslims in this country, even before 9/11, so that now it even exceeds racism against Blacks. Obama will be vilified by many because he is half black and has an Arab middle name. I would prefer Wesley Clark as Sec'y of Defense and give Colin Powell a chance to redeem himself as Sec'y of State. If Hillary had been nominated, Obama could have been a great VP, helping heal the wounds in Africa and running for president in 8 years. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Secretary of Defense
Jon Louis Mann wrote: I would prefer Wesley Clark as Sec'y of Defense and give Colin Powell a chance to redeem himself as Sec'y of State. Clark would be a good choice for Sec. of Defense as well. I'm not sure I'd put Powell back in at State. Seems like asking a bit much of the world's nations to accept him in that role again after his last go-round at it. --[Lance] -- GPG Fingerprint: 409B A409 A38D 92BF 15D9 6EEE 9A82 F2AC 69AC 07B9 CACert.org Assurer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Secretary of Defense
On Oct 21, 2008, at 3:19 PM, Jon Louis Mann wrote: There is a lot of hysteria against Muslims in this country, even before 9/11, so that now it even exceeds racism against Blacks. Obama will be vilified by many because he is half black and has an Arab middle name. All the more reason, IMHO, to grab that bull by the horns and face it head on, rather than enabling the hysteria even more. Demons live in the dark, and the best way to get rid of them is to shine the light on them .. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Secretary of Defense
I would prefer Wesley Clark as Sec'y of Defense and give Colin Powell a chance to redeem himself as Sec'y of State. Clark would be a good choice for Sec. of Defense as well. I'm not sure I'd put Powell back in at State. Seems like asking a bit much of the world's nations to accept him in that role again after his last go-round at it... --[Lance] mebbe so, but he would have to be confirmed first and explain why he didn't resign in protest, earlier. he was obeying orders and may have thought he could have been a moderating influence to balance off the neo-cons... jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Future of the list / Questions?
Has anyone thought much about the future list? What it will be or should be like in 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100 years time? Are people joining leaving at an accelerating, decelerating or constant rate? Is its demographic changing over time? Has its purpose changed over time? Should its purpose be restated? (I haven't noted a lot of Discussion about the Killer B's or Vernor Vinge since I joined.) Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? Regards, Wayne Eddy ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Racial and religious bigotry
There is a lot of hysteria against Muslims in this country, even before 9/11, so that now it even exceeds racism against Blacks. Obama will be vilified by many because he is half black and has an Arab middle name. Jon All the more reason, IMHO, to grab that bull by the horns and face it head on, rather than enabling the hysteria even more. Demons live in the dark, and the best way to get rid of them is to shine the light on them ... I agree, but only because the economic collapse has actually made it likely that he will be elected. I still would have preferred that Obama picked a qualified Hispanic woman for his VP. Jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Wayne Eddy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: No more feeding the troll (was Re: Debunking B.S. from the so-called debunker )
On 21 Oct 2008 at 7:48, Dave Land wrote: On Oct 21, 2008, at 5:20 AM, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 19 Oct 2008 at 19:07, Nick Arnett wrote: I'll stop feeding him now and perhaps ponder just how much disruption the list managers should tolerate. A lot, of course, but sheesh... Said it before, say it again: You're far too forgiving. On forum / list / wiki moderation, I fall into the Stalin/Gulag camp of moderation. I once was one of the admins a forum where we made people take and post photos of a hand-written apology to be able to post again after certain offences... And you settled for that only because you couldn't physically put them in the stocks and have people pelt them with eggs? Oh it didn't get posted publically. Unless they offended again, in which case they got banned and a nice picture of their appology stamped with a big red Banned got posted in a special sub-forum for it. Heh. There were six bans in two years in a very...often disagreeable...community of several hundred. AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Oct 21, 2008, at 3:36 PM, Wayne Eddy wrote: Has anyone thought much about the future list? What it will be or should be like in 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100 years time? Are people joining leaving at an accelerating, decelerating or constant rate? Is its demographic changing over time? Has its purpose changed over time? Should its purpose be restated? (I haven't noted a lot of Discussion about the Killer B's or Vernor Vinge since I joined.) Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? Regards, Wayne Eddy There's an interesting sort of social dynamic to successful online forums that seems to have been fairly constant since the dialup BBS days -- I notice a lot of commonalities between an unusually successful local BBS I used to frequent back in the dialup days, and many modern social-networking communities and e-lists like this one. Based on that, I think the medium the forum resides in is only a superficial aspect of the community -- focus on the people, and on bringing in people who are both the kind of people you want to attract and, to some extent, the people who attract others of that type as well, and most of the other problems solve themselves. It may just be the fact that I've lived close to Internet-related technology for a lot longer than most people, but I've never seen the technology itself as a raison d'etre for an online community. The technology facilitates communication, but never perfectly, and never in such a way that there isn't room for improvement. Email is a good medium for writers -- the one population not particularly vulnerable to email's known limitation of filtering out nonverbal communication cues that keep offhand humorous quips from being treated as hideous insults and mortal threats -- and literate readers, whom I tend to think of as just extremely non-prolific writers in disguise. But there are other media that would work equally well. (Facebook probably isn't one of them, from my experiences with it, as it tends to provide a sort of canned sociality that facilitates social activity between people who have difficulty navigating both the technology and the social conventions, but tends to get in the way of more meaningful social interaction by reducing it to a sort of video game. Same complaints about Myspace, never liked either of them much. LiveJournal stays out of the way somewhat more, and as a matter of fact, at least two of my favorite communities are LJ communities, but again, it's only a medium, not the message.) LiveJournal does provide an article/comments structure that e-list communities handle more in terms of email threads (and some mail reader clients don't handle those as well as others, and sometimes servers regurgitate old posts, etc.), so that might be a good model to look at in terms of better supporting the *style* of communication the community prefers, but still, people first, technology as needed to support the people. IMHO, trolling and monotonous posting are self-limiting problems. I've dealt with them in e-list communities in which I've been a mod or owner, and while new members may be more inclined to feed trolls and pour fuel on flame wars, for the most part, these are behaviors that mature community members eventually learn to help control, if by no other means than ignoring the posts/comments that tend to generate more heat than light. Media that provide more tools for depriving a flame war of fuel (like placing the more intemperate commenters on temporary moderated status, etc.) can help somewhat in that respect, but can also make it hard to strike the delicate balance between moderation, facilitation, and censorship. I'd rather live with the signal/noise ratio and decide for myself what's signal and what's noise than have someone try to protect my delicate little ears/eyes .. the latter is often a hallmark of *unsuccessful* online communities, and tends to kill successful ones too when it's over-applied. That's for starters. I've thought about this for at least 25 years, so there's a lot more in my head that hasn't bobbed to the surface yet .. :D ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Secretary of Defense
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Lance A. Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Jon Louis Mann wrote: I would prefer Wesley Clark as Sec'y of Defense and give Colin Powell a chance to redeem himself as Sec'y of State. Clark would be a good choice for Sec. of Defense as well. I'm not sure I'd put Powell back in at State. Seems like asking a bit much of the world's nations to accept him in that role again after his last go-round at it. --[Lance] -- GPG Fingerprint: 409B A409 A38D 92BF 15D9 6EEE 9A82 F2AC 69AC 07B9 CACert.org Assurer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l I actually like the job that Gates has been doing. He's held senior brass accountable, forcing resignations, and placing emphasis on supporting the grunts on the line. He's the best appointment Bush has made in 8 years. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Racial and religious bigotry
I might, or might not. Choosing someone for a public office based on their gender/religion/ethnicity first and their qualifications second is as offensive to me in the case of choosing a qualified Hispanic woman as it is a qualified white man. (I'm willing to make an exception in the case of challenging a previously unchallenged stereotype and not enabling a historical hysteria about it, but this in particular doesn't seem to qualify.) On Oct 21, 2008, at 3:37 PM, Jon Louis Mann wrote: I agree, but only because the economic collapse has actually made it likely that he will be elected. I still would have preferred that Obama picked a qualified Hispanic woman for his VP. Jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
- Original Message - From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 6:46 AM Subject: Re: Future of the list / Questions? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. Nick Good idea. William can do a blog on 'Why Religion is Evil'. John can do a blog about 'Why Interference in the Free Market is Evil' etc, etc. and list members can read up on the topics they are interested in as they desire. Should make everyone happy. Regards, Wayne. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Oct 21, 2008, at 4:07 PM, Wayne Eddy wrote: I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. Nick Good idea. William can do a blog on 'Why Religion is Evil'. John can do a blog about 'Why Interference in the Free Market is Evil' etc, etc. and list members can read up on the topics they are interested in as they desire. Should make everyone happy. Regards, Wayne. Can even make them sticky, so people who want to discuss those subjects can find the current discussion easily. :) - (also believes religion is evil, but for possibly much more personal reasons) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Racial and religious bigotry
Jon Louis Mann wrote: I agree, but only because the economic collapse has actually made it likely that he will be elected. I still would have preferred that Obama picked a qualified Hispanic woman for his VP. Jon Like, say, J-Lo? Alberto Monteiro PS: fwiw, here's the uncyclopedia page about the (most likely) furure mayor of Rio de Janeiro (election this Sunday). Some facts are true. http://desciclo.pedia.ws/wiki/Fernando_Gabeira ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Racial and religious bigotry
At 04:03 PM Tuesday 10/21/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: I might, or might not. Choosing someone for a public office or any job based on their gender/religion*/ethnicity first and their qualifications second is as offensive to me in the case of choosing a qualified Hispanic woman as it is a qualified white man. Agreed. *With of course such obvious exceptions as paid clergy. . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
At 04:07 PM Tuesday 10/21/2008, Wayne Eddy wrote: - Original Message - From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 6:46 AM Subject: Re: Future of the list / Questions? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. Nick Good idea. William can do a blog on 'Why Religion is Evil'. John can do a blog about 'Why Interference in the Free Market is Evil' etc, etc. and list members can read up on the topics they are interested in as they desire. While the rest of us can continue with the regular list here. . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Racial and religious bigotry
On Oct 21, 2008, at 8:29 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 04:03 PM Tuesday 10/21/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: I might, or might not. Choosing someone for a public office — or any job — based on their gender/religion*/ethnicity first and their qualifications second is as offensive to me in the case of choosing a qualified Hispanic woman as it is a qualified white man. Agreed. *With of course such obvious exceptions as paid clergy. Which isn't really an exception, since in that case, religious affiliation is in fact a qualification for the job. :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On 21 Oct 2008, at 21:58, Bruce Bostwick wrote: There's an interesting sort of social dynamic to successful online forums that seems to have been fairly constant since the dialup BBS days -- I notice a lot of commonalities between an unusually successful local BBS I used to frequent back in the dialup days, and many modern social-networking communities and e-lists like this one. Based on that, I think the medium the forum resides in is only a superficial aspect of the community -- focus on the people, and on bringing in people who are both the kind of people you want to attract and, to some extent, the people who attract others of that type as well, and most of the other problems solve themselves. I think the technology does shape the community. Slashdot and Digg are the way they are because of the peer-review algorithms they use. Wikipedia has its problems because of the way the hierarchy of moderation is organised. The way all these forums have been played and abused and the way those running them have tweaked the algorithms and organisation to counter that and been re-countered in return show that there is no simple way of building a general forum for ideas and debate. It may just be the fact that I've lived close to Internet-related technology for a lot longer than most people, but I've never seen the technology itself as a raison d'etre for an online community. The technology facilitates communication, but never perfectly, and never in such a way that there isn't room for improvement. Email is a good medium for writers -- the one population not particularly vulnerable to email's known limitation of filtering out nonverbal communication cues that keep offhand humorous quips from being treated as hideous insults and mortal threats -- and literate readers, whom I tend to think of as just extremely non-prolific writers in disguise. But there are other media that would work equally well. (Facebook probably isn't one of them, from my experiences with it, as it tends to provide a sort of canned sociality that facilitates social activity between people who have difficulty navigating both the technology and the social conventions, but tends to get in the way of more meaningful social interaction by reducing it to a sort of video game. Same complaints about Myspace, never liked either of them much. LiveJournal stays out of the way somewhat more, and as a matter of fact, at least two of my favorite communities are LJ communities, but again, it's only a medium, not the message.) LiveJournal does provide an article/comments structure that e-list communities handle more in terms of email threads (and some mail reader clients don't handle those as well as others, and sometimes servers regurgitate old posts, etc.), so that might be a good model to look at in terms of better supporting the *style* of communication the community prefers, but still, people first, technology as needed to support the people. An email list represents the bazaar model of idea exchange. One can simply ignore threads of discourse one isn't interested in and killfile those that are irrelevant or pointless. Any more complicated model with ratings, peer trust networks, relevancy association or whatnot is placing faith in the idea someone else's algorithm can sort interesting from bullshit better than oneself. IMHO, trolling and monotonous posting are self-limiting problems. I've dealt with them in e-list communities in which I've been a mod or owner, and while new members may be more inclined to feed trolls and pour fuel on flame wars, for the most part, these are behaviors that mature community members eventually learn to help control, if by no other means than ignoring the posts/comments that tend to generate more heat than light. Media that provide more tools for depriving a flame war of fuel (like placing the more intemperate commenters on temporary moderated status, etc.) can help somewhat in that respect, but can also make it hard to strike the delicate balance between moderation, facilitation, and censorship. I'd rather live with the signal/noise ratio and decide for myself what's signal and what's noise than have someone try to protect my delicate little ears/eyes .. the latter is often a hallmark of *unsuccessful* online communities, and tends to kill successful ones too when it's over-applied. The problem is avoiding communities that crystallise around a world- view and become isolated by filtering out all dissenting voices. Opinion Maru The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. - Albert Einstein -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ ___
The Power Of Nightmares
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22power+of+nightmares%22hl=en# A nice BBC series that shows parallels between the rise of the Neo-Conservatives and the rise of the Radical Islamists. Fairly comprehensive. xponent Info Dumps Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: TV Zeitgeist
On 21 Oct 2008, at 19:27, Mauro Diotallevi wrote: On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 10:21 AM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 20 Oct 2008, at 15:59, Mauro Diotallevi wrote: On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 8:45 PM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: _My Own Worst Enemy_ seems to have a very similar concept to the forthcoming _Dollhouse_, mixed with a little bit of _Chuck_. And a dash of Battlestar Galactica. That's a bit tenuous. The final five? I was thinking more in terms of sleeper agents. The fifth-columnist aspect of that is somewhat relevant but I think the dual-identity theme although related is different. I don't have an explanation and am just putting it up for discussion but it's interesting that the TV Zeitgeist has thrown this up this year. I suspect that Whedon's twist on the notion may be more subversive than _My Own Worst Enemy_ :-) Plausible Deniability Maru The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. - Albert Einstein -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, William T Goodall wrote: An email list represents the bazaar model of idea exchange. One can simply ignore threads of discourse one isn't interested in and killfile those that are irrelevant or pointless. Any more complicated model with ratings, peer trust networks, relevancy association or whatnot is placing faith in the idea someone else's algorithm can sort interesting from bullshit better than oneself. And this is what I like about mailing lists. I tend to read every. single. post (so I'm not subscribed to as many lists as I *might* be), especially the ones I'm a moderator for (and one of the others is deathly dull, but I have to keep an eye out for anything illegal, which has been a problem once or twice), but also for the others. Eventually I work out how much weight to give a particular poster on a particular subject, and have the values for that in my head. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: monotonous posting
On Oct 21, 2008, at 12:34 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Oct 20, 2008, at 10:27 AM, Julia Thompson wrote: On Mon, 20 Oct 2008, John Williams wrote: Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] I also like the one that goes One has two ears and one mouth, and should use them in that proportion. Don't forget the ten typing fingers. Vs. 2 eyes for reading. Hm Julia Given that i read at least 5 times as fast as I type (probably much faster), that probably works out just about right. :) Actually, depending on what it is, I can type faster than half as fast as I can read at times. I've freaked people out with my typing speed. (Well, one person, anyway. I don't think anyone was freaked so much as remarking on it when I've been doing IM and long responses are sent very quickly. Someone asked if I was doing a copy-paste on one of those, and no, I wasn't.) Julia I'm not actually sure how fast I read, having been a speed-reader since I was in kindergarten. But two eyes to read vs. ten fingers to type comes down quite some ways onto the reading side, and I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a slow typist .. My boss calls me Tommy and watches TV in a hot dog suit and I think he might be a moron. -- Bobby Hill ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Racial and religious bigotry
At 08:53 PM Tuesday 10/21/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Oct 21, 2008, at 8:29 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 04:03 PM Tuesday 10/21/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: I might, or might not. Choosing someone for a public office or any job based on their gender/religion*/ethnicity first and their qualifications second is as offensive to me in the case of choosing a qualified Hispanic woman as it is a qualified white man. Agreed. *With of course such obvious exceptions as paid clergy. Which isn't really an exception, since in that case, religious affiliation is in fact a qualification for the job. :) Obviously . . . ;) . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: TV Zeitgeist
WTG wrote: The fifth-columnist aspect of that is somewhat relevant but I think the dual-identity theme although related is different. I don't have an explanation and am just putting it up for discussion but it's interesting that the TV Zeitgeist has thrown this up this year. I suspect that Whedon's twist on the notion may be more subversive than _My Own Worst Enemy_ :-) The dual-identity theme seems very PKD-like at first, but I think that it makes the most sense in comparison to the lead-in show *Chuck*. They both seem to be two sides of the same escapist coin, where one average man ends up a wild spy life (one with a computer in his brain, and the other with a manufactured personality) with the real difference being drama versus comedy. One of the io9 commentators mentioned the idea of a Chuck/MOWE cross-over, and I definitely agree that that might be exactly what the two shows need: Chuck needs a little bit more serious stakes/drama at times and MOWE needs to crack a joke more often... As for Dollhouse I don't see it being that similar... sure it has the personality switching thing, but where MOWE is pretty firmly spy-fi, Dollhouse has the benefit/advantage/curse/undoing (depending on which side of the consumer/producer divide you are on, of course) of being able to be much more of a Thing a Week show vibrating amongst the action-variant genres as it wants to, and switch gears completely as often as the audience would allow. On a complete tangent: Is anyone else surprised that not only can Mike O'Malley (of Nickolodeon GUTS and _Yes, Dear_ fame) *act*, but he seems to be the most interesting character(s) on MOWE? At this point I'm wondering if Raymond (Boy Scout) and Tom (OfficeSpace-reject) are in fact secretly the real main characters of the show... -- --Max Battcher-- http://worldmaker.net ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Racial and religious bigotry
On Oct 21, 2008, at 6:53 PM, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Oct 21, 2008, at 8:29 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 04:03 PM Tuesday 10/21/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: I might, or might not. Choosing someone for a public office — or any job — based on their gender/religion*/ethnicity first and their qualifications second is as offensive to me in the case of choosing a qualified Hispanic woman as it is a qualified white man. Quite so, except where gender, religion, or ethnicity are part of the qualifications. It may be more effective for a rape counsellor to be female, a boys' PE teacher to be male, and so forth (including the obvious example of clergy, as noted). My dear wife gets practically livid when she is asked to join a group (at work, when she was in an office, or at church now) because she is either female or of Japanese ancestry. It is is a sure way to get her dander up. The existence of organizations like the Hewlett-Packard Black Women Engineers (or the like, if that exact group does not exist, and it probably does, under the rubric of diversity), is part of the problem, not a solution to it, says she, and I agree. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
