Thought for TODAY...

“I do not love the bright sword for it's sharpness, nor the arrow for it's swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend” -J.R.R. Tolkien

Happy Holidays!!

"I believe in the meaning of honor and integrity. I am an action person who feels personally responsible for making any changes in this world that are in my power...because if I don't, no one else will."

Tech Support we would like to see...

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0.

I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources.

In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3 , Football 5.0 , Hunting and Fishing 7.5 , and Racing 3.6.

I can’t seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite applications. I’m thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0 , but the uninstall doesn’t work on Wife 1.0 .

Please help!

Thanks,Troubled User…..


REPLY:Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING !!!
It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfrie nd 7.0 . It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony/Child Support . I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application “Yes Dear”to alleviate software augmentation.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE! because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.
Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0 , Cook It 1.5 ! and Do Bills 4.2 .

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0 !

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3 . This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system!

Best of luck,
Tech Support

HUMANISM AND ITS ASPIRATIONS

Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

The life stance of Humanism—guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience—encourages us to live life well and fully. It evolved through the ages and continues to develop through the efforts of thoughtful people who recognize that values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance.

Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.

Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.

Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.

Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Humanists rely on the rich heritage of human culture and the life stance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of plenty.

Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence. The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.

Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improve society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature’s resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.

Humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.

Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.

Why Me???

I like sitting down to blog...

I like that freedom.

When I start a post I have no idea where I'm headed.
I like that freedom.
I do write a lot...outlines and plans...strategies and policies.
But blog writing is like going off for a walk with no predetermined finish time or route, sometimes the walk is through the fileds, sometimes along the streets.


The typing: different from what I might write with a pencil...and yes I do still use the pencil. The typing taps in to something in my brain. I think my best writing comes when I am not thinking. It's just writing. Or at least that's the way I look at it.

I rarely reread my posts. Hence the number of typos and errors. But for me, that's okay.
I'm not the most anal person in the world. But it's very much what I look for elsewhere.
The flaw.
The scar.
The fingerprint.
The weirded-out turn of a phrase.
Something close to the hearth where the meat burns ina instant and leaves your face all warm for a bit.
I like reading something I've written and thinking 'geez who wrote that?

And the best part about blogging is that I always find someone else who sums it all up - whatever it is - better than I ever could.

It saves me the bother.

Any Fool Can Get Published...

A couple of weeks ago, IDC put out a study http://www.emc.com (paid for by EMC) that estimated the amount of data produced in 2006 and projected the load for 2010.

The figures are astounding.

All of us together, mostly individual users, created 161 exabytes of data in 2006.

That's 161 billion gigabytes.

In 2010, that figure will rise to almost a zettabyte. That's roughly 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

My eyes go cross just trying to count the number of commas.

Now, there are many scary things about all this data.
For example, if you're looking for a needle in it, how will you find it?
Will today's search techniques be up to the job?
Unlikely.
Particularly, if it is stored here, there, and everywhere.


Also, the quality of all this data will be — how to put this politely — uneven.
Back in the 18th century, an educated person may well have been able to read everything that had ever been published because the archive was not all that large.
And to get published, the thing had to pass some minimal standards at a publisher.

Today, any fool can publish and does. (your reading this, aren't you)?
Profusely. So who figures out what the good stuff is?
Where is the trusted arbiter of quality? Brand names will figure prominently here.
If you believe the Wall Street Journal, then you'll buy its version of things, and if you believe Jerry Falwell's version of things, then you'll buy into whatever the National Liberty Journal says.

So the moral here is...check the background and reputation of the sources of your information before you give it weight or creedence...

or the drivel that you are regurgitating as facts may be your own!

Political Correctness Kills...

When former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the infamy of Sept. 11 a "wake-up call from hell," he meant just that. His characterization demands repeating again – and again – because worse than Sept. 11 will happen unless we heed the call.

I am not so sure the commissars of political correctness, who so dominates our media, our government bureaucracies and other institutions, are willing to unshackle the will of the American people and allow us to destroy the terrorists and the nations that back them.

President Bush has done a remarkable job – especially in light of the hand he inherited from the previous administration. It is also important to remember that a hidden problem for the Bush administration is that the U.S. government, including our Pentagon, CIA and other agencies, is still largely run by appointees of Clinton-Gore or the career military and bureaucrats Clinton-Gore promoted through the ranks.

The same people who left us vulnerable to the acts of Sept. 11 are now claiming they will solve our future problems.

I believe long-term good will come out of this catastrophe only if we learn from the events of Sept. 11, hold accountable the people in our government who failed us, and make necessary reforms.
If we do not do this, it is doubtful we will exist as a great nation 10 years hence.
We should also heed the Roman statesman Cicero, who remarked that great nations are destroyed not from the barbarians outside but from the civilized people within.

The logic of this is simple: There will always be barbarians outside the gates. It is up to us to have the character and strength and will to defend against them.

Before Sept. 11, P.C. thinking taught us that nothing we do matters; character didn't count. It was the Age of Clinton. After Sept. 11, the overriding lesson is that everything we do counts; character does matter.

Even the liberal Boston Globe recognized this.

Breaking from the P.C. crowd, it reported that Clinton's sexcapades and scandals detracted from his ability to focus on hunting down Osama bin Laden.

That story got almost zero national press coverage.

FROM A 21 YEAR OLD VETERAN...god help us, what have we done to an entire generation?

I stare out into the darkness from my post, and I watch the city burn to the ground.

I smell the familiar smells, I walk through the familiar rubble, and I look at the frightened faces that watch me pass down the streets of their neighborhoods.

My nerves hardly rest; my hands are steady on a device that has been given to me from my government for the purpose of taking the lives of others.

I sweat, and I am tired. My back aches from the loads I carry. Young American boys look to me to direct them in a manner that will someday allow them to see their families again…and yet, I too, am just a boy….my age not but a few years more than that of the ones I lead.

I am stressed, I am scared, and I am paranoid…because death is everywhere. It waits for me, it calls to me from around street corners and windows, and it is always there.
There are the demons that follow me, and tempt me into thoughts and actions that are not my own…but that are necessary for survival. I’ve made compromises with my humanity. And I am not alone in this. Miles from me are my brethren in this world, who walk in the same streets…who feel the same things, whether they admit to it or not.
And to think, I volunteered for this…
And I am ignorant to the rest of the world…or so I thought.

But even thousands of miles away, in Ramadi, Iraq, the cries and screams and complaints of the ungrateful reach me. In a year, I will be thrust back into society from a life and mentality that doesn’t fit your average man. And then, I will be alone. And then, I will walk down the streets of America, and see the yellow ribbon stickers on the cars of the same people who compare our President to Hitler.

I will watch the television and watch the Cindy Sheehans, and the Al Frankens, and the rest of the ignorant sheep of America spout off their mouths about a subject they know nothing about. It is their right, however, and it is a right that is defended by hundreds of thousands of boys and girls scattered across the world, far from home. I use the word boys and girls, because that’s what they are. In the Army, the average age of the infantryman is nineteen years old. The average rank of soldiers killed in action is Private First Class.

People like Cindy Sheehan are ignorant. Not just to this war, but to the results of their idiotic ramblings, or at least I hope they are. They don’t realize its effects on this war.

In this war, there are no Geneva Conventions, no cease fires. Medics and Chaplains are not spared from the enemy’s brutality because it’s against the rules. I can only imagine the horrors a military Chaplain would experience at the hands of the enemy. The enemy slinks in the shadows and fights a coward’s war against us. It is effective though, as many men and women have died since the start of this war.

And the memory of their service to America is tainted by the inconsiderate remarks on our nation’s news outlets. And every day, the enemy changes…only now, the enemy is becoming something new. The enemy is transitioning from the Muslim extremists to Americans. The enemy is becoming the very people whom we defend with our lives. And they do not realize it. But in denouncing our actions, denouncing our leaders, denouncing the war we live and fight, they are isolating the military from society…and they are becoming our enemy.

Democrats and peace activists like to toss the word “quagmire” around and compare this war to Vietnam. In a way they are right, this war is becoming like Vietnam. Not the actual war, but in the isolation of country and military. America is not a nation at war; they are a nation with its military at war. Like it or not, we are here, some of us for our second, or third times; some even for their fourth and so on. Americans are so concerned now with politics, that it is interfering with our war.

Terrorists cut the heads off of American citizens on the internet…and there is no outrage, but an American soldier kills an Iraqi in the midst of battle, and there are investigations, and sometimes soldiers are even jailed…for doing their job.

It is absolutely sickening to me to think our country has come to this. Why are we so obsessed with the bad news? Why will people stop at nothing to be against this war, no matter how much evidence of the good we’ve done is thrown in their face? When is the last time CNN or MSNBC or CBS reported the opening of schools and hospitals in Iraq? Or the leaders of terror cells being detained or killed? It’s all happening, but people will not let up their hatred of President Bush. They will ignore the good news, because it just might show people that Bush was right.

America has lost its will to fight. It has lost its will to defend what is right and just in the world. The crazy thing of it all is that the American people have not even been asked to sacrifice a single thing. It’s not like World War II, where people rationed food and turned in cars to be made into metal for tanks. The American people have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Unless you are in the military or the family member of a servicemember, its life as usual…the war doesn’t affect you.

But it affects us. And when it is over and the troops come home and they try to piece together what’s left of them after their service…where will the detractors be then? Where will the Cindy Sheehans be to comfort and talk to soldiers and help them sort out the last couple years of their lives, most of which have been spent dodging death and wading through the deaths of their friends? They will be where they always are, somewhere far away, where the horrors of the world can’t touch them. Somewhere where they can complain about things they will never experience in their lifetime; things that the young men and women of America have willingly taken upon their shoulders.

We are the hope of the Iraqi people.

They want what everyone else wants in life: safety, security, somewhere to call home. They want a country that is safe to raise their children in. Not a place where their children will be abducted, raped and murdered if they do not comply with the terrorists demands. They want to live on, rebuild and prosper. And America has given them the opportunity, but only if we stay true to the cause and see it to its end. But the country must unite in this endeavor…we cannot place the burden on our military alone. We must all stand up and fight, whether in uniform or not. And supporting us is more than sticking yellow ribbon stickers on your cars. It’s supporting our President, our troops and our cause.

Right now, the burden is all on the American soldiers. Right now, hope rides alone. But it can change, it must change. Because there is only failure and darkness ahead for us as a country, as a people, if it doesn’t.

Let’s stop all the political nonsense, let’s stop all the bickering, let’s stop all the bad news and let’s stand and fight!

Isn’t that what America is about anyway?

In a Nutshell...

I don't normally put entire quotes here...but I think this warrants it....

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "We have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq.
But when Arabs kill Arabs and Shiites kill Shiites and Sunnis kill all in a spasm of violence that is blind and furious and has roots in hatreds born long before America was even a republic, to place the blame on the one player, the one country, the one military that has done more than any other to try to separate the combatants and bring conciliation is simply perverse.

It infantilizes Arabs.

It demonizes Americans.

It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts:

Iraq is their country.
We midwifed their freedom.
They chose civil war."

Where Did I Go Wrong??

"FATAL ERROR": Where Did I Go Wrong and What Can I Do Now?

There is nothing more frustrating when Web surfing than to be stopped dead in your tracks by one of many error messages. Often cryptic in nature and downright scary in tone, messages such as "Error 404," "Unknown Host," "Your Client Does Not Have Permission to View This Site," and "This Program Has Performed an Illegal Action and Will Be Shut Down," can have a chilling effect.

Following are some tips for getting past, or better yet, avoiding these interruptions altogether.

The Web has no spellcheck.

Make sure that you've written "Amazon" not "Amizon." If you have copied a Web address, make sure that you've captured the entire URL (e.g., "uwnyc.org" not "uwnyc.or"). If you accidentally include even tiny extraneous characters - like a number or a period used in a listing - your computer will inform you that there is no Web site named "1.uwnyc.org". Nice try, but... Even intelligent guessing won't always lead you to the right answer. For example, how would one figure out that the Web address for Stan Hutton's wonderful "Guide to Nonprofit Charitable Organizations" is ".nonprofit.about.com". Think of the hours which might be wasted if you tried every possible permutation and combination. Instead, type what you know of the organizational name into a search engine like Google.com and scan the hits that it provides until you recognize the specific reference you're seeking. Then click on the link provided and consider bookmarking the site so you can easily locate it in the future.

What's in a name?

While one "Center" may choose "ctr.org", another may use "cent.org". I have often been asked if a comprehensive or even up-to-date URL "yellow pages" or "white pages" exists and the answer is "no", on both counts. If all else fails, go back to the search engine approach. Which suffix will suffice? Not every organization that works with nonprofits is itself a nonprofit, and not every provider of goods and services is a business. If "name.org" doesn't work, try "name.com" - or vice versa. If you still get no satisfaction, try ".net" or possibly ".gov" before giving up. It's a long shot, but you never know.