This means we need to start subtracting the word "world" from the term "world wide web". China and other totalitarian countries countries are increasingly restricting internet use. We're moving from a true world wide web to a nationalized web.
That is, until new software hacks can be invented to circumvent government controls.
More information: Investors Business Daily.
An old, long-wiskered man once said to Teddy Roosevelt: "I am a Democrat, my father was a Democrat, my grandfather was a Democrat." Roosevelt then said: "Then if your father had been a horse thief and your grandfather had been a horse thief, you would be a horse thief?"
"No," the man said, "I would be a Republican."
The story is not true. All Republicans are not horse thieves. At the biggest estimate, not over 90 percent are horse thieves. Every once in a while you meet a pretty nice one.
Carrie Prejean and Sarah Palin are again in the news. One just turned upon her tormenters with a lawsuit; the other was driven out of office. One women ran for Miss USA; the other ran for Vice-President. For both women, it was not enough that they were defeated in their respective contests; they had to be humiliated, ruined, and stigmatized for all time. Both are part of a disturbing phenomenon in American culture.
Let’s take the two cases one by one.
CP was a beauty contest winner – and looser. As Miss California she lost the contest for Miss USA. She was ambushed with a gay-marriage question in the final moments and answered against it. The judge bragged afterwards how he used that answer to defeat her.
But that was not enough.
The pageant officials denounced her. An investigation targeted her – just her, not any of the other beauty contestants – and found some bad things. Not anything very bad, mind you, but bad stuff, nevertheless. This was the excuse for a new round of denunciations.
They even went after her Miss California title! A straight-up attempt to remove her from that failed. (The firestorm from the left triggered a backlash of negative publicity on the pageant.) Trump caved. (Donald Trump owns the beauty pageant.)
But as many of may know from much experience, there’s more than one way to get rid of someone. After a length of time, the officials who had denounced CP so vociferously, announced their excuse: she had failed to make 75 appearances. So they fired her and Trump okayed it. Now she’s suing.
Sarah Palin underwent a similar ordeal. Her family was targeted, the parentage of her children was questioned, and worst of all, so many ethics complaints were filed against her that she ran up $500,000 in legal fees just to defend herself. Then the newspapers announced she was getting divorced (false).
Both women did not handle the onslaught very well. Thrown into minefields, they stepped on a few. But did that justify the vilification that they both endured?
- And remember: Carrie Prejean was only a beauty contestant!
In the end, it was not these two women that were hurt the most; it was our culture. Whatever happened to the kinder, gentler America?
The lawyer told the doctor, “I have no money but I’ll pay you out of the malpractice suit.” What can a doctor say nowadays? He asked the lawyer what caused him to be such a know-it-all. The lawyer said, “I’ve consulted a fortune-teller, a palm reader, Tarot cards, and a faith healer.”
“And what dumb advice did those quacks give you?”
“They told me to go see you.”
When he checked with his malpractice insurance, he enrolled in law school. It was just as well. He only became a MD in the first place because he screwed up his earlier job as a kidnapper. His handwriting was so bad that nobody could read his ransom notes. At the time, doctoring seemed to be the next logical switch.
He wasn’t such a good lawyer, either. He chased an ambulance 10 blocks only to find the patient inside was another lawyer. – Yet another malpractice suit to add to his collection. He finally settled. He ended up owing an arm and a leg – one set to the lawyer he had doctored and the other to the lawyer he represented in the ambulance. Now he's quadriplegic but he still owes the lawyer who settled the cases.
Nobody likes a crooked lawyer until he needs one. But now what? He's gone back to kidnapping - pharmacists.
My take on George Will's latest. His column was published in the Washington Post.Time was, rights were defensive. They were to prevent government from doing things to you. Today, rights increasingly are offensive weapons wielded to inflict demands on other people, using state power for private aggrandizement.
My take on Mark Steyn's latest. His column was published in the Orange County Register.
Summary: Hating Jews goes back centuries. Like all prejudice, racial/ethnic hatred is not only wrong; it hurts the hater, too.
Quote:
As I always say, the "oldest hatred" didn't get that way without an ability to adapt: Once upon a time on the Continent, Jews were hated as rootless cosmopolitan figures who owed no national allegiance. So they became a conventional nation state, and now they're hated for that. And, if Hamas get their way and destroy the Jewish state, the few who survive will be hated for something else. So it goes.
If culture and tradition is defined as any behavior that is learned by observing or interacting with others, then animals have culture, too. But to what degree was human cultural development due to the same causes as animal's and when did it mestasize due to our superior brains?
I believe that the additional variable is imagination. We have it; animals don't. Before Homo-sapiens, previous man species (Neanderthals, Rhodesiensis) had developed the ability to make and use stone axes. In fact, axes were in use for a million years - but without new inovations. At some point, people had to have imagination in order to take culture to the next level.
Recently, I came across this article in Live Science. It says, that much research needs to be done to trace the effects of language and intelligence on human culture.
Quote:
"We really know very, very little about the kind of roots of culture, and the biological origins of culture, and how the forms of culture we see in our species are similar to or different from those seen in animals," said zoologist Alex Thornton of Cambridge University.
200 Years Today this was first performed. #5 is one of the top all time favorites - ever!
Pictured is the Vienna Theater in the 19th. century.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Ludwig Beethoven (1770-1827) was one of the all time greats of Music. The symphony was first performed on December 22, 1808 at the Vienna Theater. LB conducted the orchestra himself. Two symphonies premiered that night. The Sixth was performed first; the Fifth second. That the night, the show bombed. The building was cold; the audience exhausted by the lengthy performance (4 hours for both symphonies.) LB had to stop the orchestra at one point and regroup. It wasn't until months later that people realized that this was one of the great masterpieces of history.
The Wikipedia article about him is pretty good. Also visit the Beethoven Depot. Finally, here's the lowdown on the 5th. Symphony.
The public already has seen the effects of media bias in the old media. New media bias may just be transferring the 20th. century problems of filtered news to the 21st. century. New media, same problem. Only, with the power that new media has at its disposal, the problem of media bias affecting public opinion may be even worse in this new century than in the last.
Yes, this game is incredibly stupid! So, can you beat it?
Now here's an interesting article from the Daily Telegraph, an English newspaper.
because he might answer back! This is a funny story in the news that I thought I'd share with you.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/ ... 3986.shtml
This guy in Nebraska - Nebraska! - Aren't they level-headed in Nebraska? This story belongs in California. Anyway this guy in Nebraska sues God. Wants a court order to make Him stop world suffering or something like that. Says he just wants to make a point. But then God answers back. The court official says that His papers just "miraculously appeared" on the desk. - In keeping with the spirit of the story, no doubt. So now, the plaintiff has an actual lawsuit on his hands!
Jay Leno opined that this lawsuit is very unfair to God. God is in heaven. Where in heaven is He going to find a lawyer?
May I suggest a little humility from both sides. Claims of knowledge on the part of science - especially as to what is known about the origin of the universe - are being made which way over reach what is actually known and are belied by the frequent changes in the theories.
As for religeon, I think that we ought to take the Bible literally unless there is significant scientific evidence to the contrary. It seems pretty clear to me that the Bible was not intended to have the scientific exactitude for dating that us moderns are used to. Mankind's very concept of time has evolved since ancient days.
To be fair here, today's aggressors do seem to come from not from science itself but from left-wingers who use science to advance an anti-Christian agenda. Creationism controversies in the news have wanted to include "intelligent design" as well as evolution in the schools. The other side has wanted only their own views taught. Even despite their lack of tolerance for the other side's point of view, the evolutionists would still have my sympathy if only they weren't so militant about it.
Here is an interesting article about the latest developments in this area from science's point of view.
7 new Wonders to match the 7 original wonders. A private group conducted a global poll. People voted, American Idol style. It seems a little interesting as it reflects opinions on such things. As much as I worship Jesus Christ, the statue in Rio hardly ranks as humanities greatest accomplishments. Other entrants were similar. So many for Latin America, so many for the Middle Ease, and so on.
Here is the newest list. This is from the National Geographic.
Just wonder why the Voyager* didn’t make it. Imagine standing in New York and hitting a golf ball to a hole in Los Angeles and scoring a hole-in-one. That was Voyager. One can think of a number of fantastic things mankind has accomplished in recent centuries.
As for the original wonders of the ancients, for the technology of their day, they really were Wonders of the World. The Colossus of Rhodes is an excellent example.
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* Voyager is the name of the spacecraft that flew by the outer planets and eventually left the solar system entirely.
Here's an interesting article from the London Times about the world situation.
One theory about the clash of cultures such as Islam and The West is that religeous and ethnic ties are so strong that they drive groups of people apart. This articles factors in economic issues.
This kind of reminds me of the border states in the US Civil War. In the pre-war years, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were strongly pro-south and pro-slavery. Yet, when the war came and the chips were down, they sided with the Union.
Kentucky was especially interesting. A Confederate invasion in 1862 gave it every opportunity to side with the South. But for them, with the Ohio River to the north and the Mississippi River to the west, the economic ties to the northern states neutralized the pro-southern leanings. Other states further south didn't have that geographical proximity.
Now days, geographical proximity isn't as important to economic inter-dependence. So that's the direction policy should go: create more economic inter-dependence. The article doesn't mention that this was Kissinger's general strategy in the 1970's.
One byproduct of this thesis, is that free trade policies would be more desirable than protectionism.
And this one's even worse than the last one. (The Cheeseburger Guy.)
This time a guy is suing his florist. He bought some flowers and the florist sent a thank you note to his home thanking him for his business. The wife called and asked the florist to fax over the receipt and the details of the transaction. The florist's employee did. Big deal?
The note accompanying the flowers said, "Just wanted to say that I love you and you mean the world to me! Leroy." Well, it turns out that the flowers went to old Leroy's girlfriend instead of his wife. Big deal now!
Leroy is suing for $1 million dollars for mental anguish and for the additional amount he expects he will have to pay his wife in the divorce* - because she found out he was cheating on her. He believes that this is the florist's fault, not his.
The florist's spoksman offered this lame defense: "We are not responsible for our customer's conduct." Clearly, the poor spokesman it totally out of touch with the world of modern litigation.
More details about the case here.
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* Did I mention that his wife is divorcing him? His wife is divorcing him.
In this litigation happy society, these kind of lawsuits come up all the time. Lawsuits where someone does something stupid and gets hurt. Rather than just chalking it up to one of life’s lessons, they find someone else to blame. Someone who has deep pockets, for choice.
Remember the lady who spilled some hot coffee on herself? Even though the cup plainly was marked “Extra Hot”? She sued McDonalds and got millions.
Yesterday, another guy sued McDonalds for giving him a cheeseburger. Turns out he is allergic to cheese. He wants $10 million.
According to the lawsuit he ordered his quarter-pounder without cheese and then, “From this point forward, Mr. Jackson repeatedly asked as to the status of his food and whether it had no cheese, and took multiple preventive steps to assure his food did not contain cheese." When he got the burger, he bit into it, tasted cheese, and had to make an emergency run to the hospital where he almost died.
Too bad that the “multiple preventive steps” he took did not include LIFTING THE BUN OFF THE HAMBURGER TO CHECK IT BEFORE BITING INTO IT!!
While we all sympathize with people with severe food allergies, we wonder why the whole rest of the world is responsible except for the actual person himself?
Anyway, McDonalds probably doesn’t have to worry about this one because anybody who behaves the way this plaintiff claims he behaved in this affair and faced the consequences he claimed he faced, probably won’t live long enough to get to trial.
More details here.
You Know You're An Internet Addict When:
* You spend more time on your girlfriend's home page than with your girlfriend.
* You didn't know that Firefox was also a movie starring Clint Eastwood.
* Your bookmark takes 15 minutes to scroll from top to bottom.
* There's a permanent hineyrumpus-groove in your computer chair, but you haven't noticed.
* You've said "no" to sex in order to view Internet porn.
* You've rationalized installing a mini-fridge, microwave, and port-a-potty at your workstation.
* You go shopping every week, but you've never been inside a mall.
* You don't believe anything you read in a newspaper unless you verify it on a news site.
* You think that 404 is the number of the beast.
* You refuse to go outside because of the sun: "it burns! IT BURNS!!"
* Your eyeglasses have a web site burned in on them.
* You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor.com
* You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading. And you have an ethernet connection right next to the toilet paper.
* You step out of your room and realize that your parents have moved and you don't have a clue when it happened.
* You crank up your surround-sound whenever leaving the room so you can hear if new e-mail arrives.
* All of your friends have an @ in their names.
* When looking at a pageful of someone else's links, you notice all of them are already highlighted in purple.
* You've already visited all the links at Yahoo and you're halfway through Lycos.
* You can't call your mother...she doesn't have IRC, ICQ, or Instant Messaging.
* You check your mail. It says "no new messages." So you check it again.
* You have commandeered your teenager's phone line for a secondary net connection in case your ADSL goes down, and even his friends know not to call on his line anymore.
* Your phone bill comes to your doorstep in a box.
* You code your homework in HTML and give your instructor the URL.
* You don't know the sex of three of your closest friends, because they have gender-neutral nicknames and you never bothered to ask.
* You name your children Eudora, Mozilla and Dotcom.
* Your husband tells you he's had the beard for 2 months.
* You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop and check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
* You tell the cab driver you live at http://123.elm.street/house/bluetrim.html
* You actually try that 123.elm.street address.
* You tell the kids they can't use the computer because "Daddy's got work to do" and you don't even have a job.
* Your wife makes a new rule: "The computer cannot come to bed.". So you file for a divorce...online.
* You are so familiar with the WWW that you find the search engines useless.
* You get a tattoo that says "This body best viewed with Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher."
* You forget what year it is.
* You start tilting your head sideways to smile.
* You begin to wonder how on earth your service provider is allowed to call 200 hours per month "unlimited."
* You turn on your computer and turn off your wife.
* Your wife says communication is important in a marriage...so you buy another computer and add her to the network so the two of you can chat.
* You refuse to go on vacation where there's no electricity, phone lines, or hotspots.
* You finally do take that vacation, but only after buying a data-enabled cel-phone, and a wi-fi PDA.
* You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap...and your child in the overhead compartment.
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