Does anyone doubt that Katherine Harris is a dangerous woman?
This business about "legislating sin" is so much nonsense. I don't think I need to elaborate, but I'm going to, just a little, because hey, I can.
Her first point ("seperation of church and state is a lie") is not all that bad. She threw it in the hyperbolic speech generator for a while, but at its root, it's pretty simple. The understanding that most people have of the seperation of church and state, as intended by the framers, is flawed. She and I agree on this point. It's her second point that makes me afraid to admit that her first point is, on the surface, correct.
This idea that if we don't elect christians, we will legislate sin... look, we all know what she's trying to say: Abortion is wrong (I agree). Gay marriage is wrong (I agree). That being said, the fact that something is legal does not make it compulsive behavior. If homosexual people can get married, that does not affect my relationship with God one way or the other. In no way does the fact that other people are living in sin force me to live in sin.
An aside: what if we could trade abortion for gay marriage. What if we could say, right now, that gay people can get married just like straight people, but abortion is now illegal. People on both sides of this, would you take that trade?
Ok, enough tangent. For Katherine Harris, I have this to say: The laws that you would pass as a Christian legislator, what if a muslim were in office, and passed laws that similarly mirrored his religion. Would you find them acceptable? If the answer is no, then you need to rethink your strategy.
I love this Ford commercial. They're targeting a market segment that other companies are, dare I say it, afraid to go after.
Here's a little something for you from the Agitator and another reason not to elect Hillary Clinton. I can't believe that people want to emulate the UK and European health care models.
Hello again kids, I think you'll like this one... especially Mother, if you're still reading.
First, a little background, you'll have to go read this article. Sorry, it's hard to get through, but you'll have to endure if you want to grok in fullness the situation at hand.
At the end, you'll notice that they posted a comment from yours truly. I'll copy the comment text here for everyone to see:
Now that that's out of the way, isn't this a decision more properly left to the child's parents? Though, I guess if, as the article says, the program has 100% backing from parents, that's not really an issue any more. Still, the point remains and this may be yet another decision taken out of the hands of the citizen.
The first line sounds a little crazy - almost as if there were MORE COMMENT to be had. The rest sounds like your typical reactionary nutjob, someone who has vowed to fight nanny statism on all fronts, no matter how silly the cause.
For those who are wondering why the second paragraph sounds like it does, here's the original comment. I have to tell you, the first paragraph of this was quite possibly the most fun I've had in... well, the last 24 hours or so.
Setting aside the content of the article for a moment, this might just
be the most poorly written news article I have ever had the
displeasure of reading. It was as if I was watching a car accident -
despite my real interest in the material, it was only a sort of macabre curiosity
that kept me reading to the end. The grammar, while poor, is probably
passable, unless the author plans on any schooling more advanced than
the 6th grade. Despite that being the case, what really worries me are the
clear, continuous logical fallacies. I'm not sure whether the author or the editor is more responsible, but if this were a print article, I'd recommend that they both be sacked without hesitation.
So there's the "original" third paragraph. I saved an early copy and made some revisions to it, so it may not match the original word for word, but I feel it's true to the spirit of the original.
Anyway, I get this in my email:
Dear Naginata,
Thanks for your recent note on our site. We appreciate the time taken by you to pen down your views about our site.
We sincerely apologize that we have not been able to meet your expectations, and provide you with information you were looking for. While we strive to provide the best possible content to our readers, pressure to meet deadlines sometimes makes our people commit mistakes such as these. I’m writing to assure you that your feedback was and will always be valued here at The Money Times.
Please do keep visiting us, and letting us know about our performance. Suggestions/criticism from learned readers like you is much required for ‘The Money Times’ to grow and reach the heights that we aspire for.
Regards,
Smrity Sharma
Now I'm not sure how to feel about that. Either way, I let my inner jerk out and they thanked me for it. That's probably not good for the author of the next poorly written article I find.
This video is well worth your time. Imagine if George Lucas were replaced by Mike Hodges (Director of Flash Gordon).
Way better than episode I or II.
There haven't been many posts lately. I want you to know that I have a complaints process in place, for those of you who are dissatisfied with the service I've been providing. In fact, I've decided to model my complaints process after the one in place at the Independence, MO police department. If you will direct your attention to this video, it should tell you everything you need to know on the topic of complaints, and how they will be dealt with.
Have a nice day.
Last weekend I went to GenCon. Having never been to one of these, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect.
Rather, having been to several conventions including a few for computer science educators and a star trek convention, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, but I was pleasantly suprised.
My primary reason for going was to talk with the guys at CCP about EVEMon, and maybe meet some of the fans. I'll say this; CCP doesn't do things by half measures. Their 2-story booth was the star of the convention floor, even tucked away as it was in a far corner. They ran demos of their new Trading Card Game all day for 4 days, and everyone who sat down and played a game under the trained eye of CCP developers (and for a 3 hour period on Sunday, me) got a complete deck of their choice.
They also had a tournament with 10,000 in cash prizes and a LOT of other prizes. With help from one of my friends in building a deck, I made it through 8 rounds of the tournament, and got knocked out in the quarter finals due to lack of resources. Aggro deck FTW. I walked away with $450 and about $200 in cards, plus a signed picture. Plus I got to go to a very crazy after-party when the tourney wrapped up around midnight. Free advice: do NOT attempt to out-drink ANY of the CCP developers. Also, don't play dodgeball against White Wolf, because they play for reals. I also got an invitation to their upstairs the next day - turns out they had an open bar up there!
I also played in the D&D open tourney, and we must have been in the really bad starting bracket, because despite the fact that we did better than almost every other team that played in our qualifying round, we didn't make the semi finals.
Oh well, there's always next year.
If you de-orphan an open source project, should you change the name? In this case, to "XEVEMon" or "EVEPlan" or something?
What if you joined the project as a developer soon after it went open source, and the original developer has, for all intents and purposes, fallen off the edge of the earth?
I'm not asking you to read the whole history of the thing (if you do, I'm Anders Chydenius), but I am interested in the opinions of the other programmers around here, because "the community" (or a part of it) is mad at me for taking over administration and moving the repository, apparently.