INSPIRATIONAL: Why be anti-war?

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

http://lewrockwell.com/whitehead/whitehead39.1.html

The Horror! The Horror! Must-See War Films
by John W. Whitehead

*** begin quote ***

Saving Private Ryan: The Invasion Sequence (1998). The long opening sequence of this film is unlike anything in any other Hollywood depiction of war. It’s 25 minutes of barely comprehensible chaos and mutilation. Many veterans have stated that it is the most accurate re-creation of an amphibious assault. Credit for this sequence goes mainly to director of photography Janusz Kaminski – to be shared with editor Michael Kahn, sound designer Gary Rydstrom, writer Robert Rodat and director Steven Spielberg. Beyond this – i.e., the other 150 minutes of the film – Saving Private Ryan is a run-of-the-mill movie.

*** end quote ***

That opening sequence should convince anyone that war is the last option. The next time a politician or bureaucrat urges war, let them lead!

“We, The Sheeple” didn’t learn the lesson of Viet Nam, The Republic of.

55k of our best brightest warriors paid tuition. And ⅓ of the draft population went north or underground. It divided the nation and poisoned our souls.

When I hear them beat the War Drums for Syria, Iran, or whatever <insert name of favorite deity you favor> forsaken place they want our girls and boys to go die in, I get physically ill. In Fifth Grade, a Brother explained the “Just War” doctrine. He fought in the Pacific theater, and would say to us: “You JUST don’t understand. You know, but do not understand.” He was right. Many decades later, I know, but I don’t understand.

Dona Nobis Pacem!

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GUNS: The right’s existence is all the reason needed!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/03/05/md-gun-law-found-unconstitutional/

Md. Gun Law Found Unconstitutional
March 5, 2012 1:29 PM

*** begin quote ***

States can channel the way their residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but because Maryland’s goal was to minimize the number of firearms carried outside homes by limiting the privilege to those who could demonstrate “good reason,” it had turned into a rationing system, infringing upon residents’ rights, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote.

“A citizen may not be required to offer a `good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” he wrote. “The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”

*** end quote ***

I think New Jersey laws should fall. As with every city and state! It’s a shame that someone has to take on the Gooferment to get their rights.

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RANT: Fluke, A Fake?

Monday, March 5, 2012

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/sandra-fluke-a-fake-victim-of-georgetowns-policy-on-contraceptives/

Faith Sandra Fluke: A Fake Victim of Georgetown’s Policy on Contraceptives?
Posted on March 3, 2012 at 5:00pm by Mytheos Holt

*** begin quote ***

But what if she not only decided to attend the university anyway, but decided to attend specifically so she could fight this battle? Consider this passage from an early Washington Post story done on Fluke before she was permitted to testify:

Fluke came to Georgetown University interested in contraceptive coverage: She researched the Jesuit college’s health plans for students before enrolling, and found that birth control was not included. “I decided I was absolutely not willing to compromise the quality of my education in exchange for my health care,” says Fluke, who has spent the past three years lobbying the administration to change its policy on the issue. The issue got the university president’s office last spring, where Georgetown declined to change its policy.

Fluke says she would have used the hearing to talk about the students at Georgetown that don’t have birth control covered, and what that’s meant for them. “I wanted to be able to share their stories,” she says. “My testimony would have been about women who have been affected by their policy, who have medical needs and have suffered dire consequences.. . .The committee did not get to hear real stories I had to share, about actual women who have been dramatically affected by this policy.”

*** end quote ***

So all this nonsense is a setup?

She’s not 23; 30.

She’s an activist.

And, did she enroll to cause this?

Cui bono.

If I was an investigative reporter, then I’d ask was she paid to do this.

So many questions; I’ll have to adjust my tin foil hat to get better reception on this issue.

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SERVICE: DNS — ISP, GOOGLE, or OPENDNS; OPENDNS for me

Monday, March 5, 2012

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseackerman/2012/02/25/a-closer-look-at-google-public-dns/

Tech|2/25/2012 @ 5:34PM
A Closer Look at Google Public DNS
Elise Ackerman, Contributor

*** begin quote ***

What role has Google played in the DNS ecosystem? Do you see them as a competitor or a partner?

Google has helped raise the importance of DNS above the network engineering community, which has been really good. They’ve also worked with us to advance the state of the art for DNS performance, something we’ve really enjoyed working with them to make happen. It’s not so much competition as it is choice in the market. If they started defaulting Chrome to use Google DNS, I think that’s something we would take issue with, but for now, we like the idea of people using a DNS other than their ISPs, that’s a good idea for a lot of reasons.

What are some of those reasons?

I like the idea of separation of services. ISPs provide a pipe. Other vendors provide security. Other vendors provide email. When one party controls all the services, it’s a “synergy” for the company, but rarely for the consumer. With DNS in particular, there are performance and security benefits that third party DNS providers offer that ISPs aren’t incentivized to do since DNS is a cost-center for them, and a profit-center for us.

*** and ***

I think anything which promotes heterogeneity on the Internet promotes stability. Diversity in services, service providers, and separating the layers of the networking stack are all important. Your ISP no longer provides you email because everyone either uses their own or has an account with Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo mail. The same way people unbundled their email from their ISP, I think they should do with their DNS. Separation of services has been a long-standing best practice in the security community, and it applies now more than ever. In that vein, I’ll reiterate my view that I think Google controlling search, the browser, and the network or DNS layer is a dangerous trifecta that the consumer will probably be best served avoiding.  I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.

*** end quote ***

I’ve been a fan of separation of duties.

ISP EMAIL has always been a trap for their Customers. That “customer@isp.net” is the property of the ISP; not the Customer. Once you give that out to enough people you’re locked in.

Why not use a DNS service that has an incentive to be loyal to you?

Since finding OPENDNS, I have not had an DNS outages. I know that VERIZON, COMCAST, and GOOGLE have had outages.

Easy decision fmpov.

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FUN: A night at the opera

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Lessons learned from a night at the opera. (the met; not Groucho Marx movie)

1> add 45 minutes to the time table. (NYC traffic sucks!)

2> give the deadline times with smiley clock faces with the big hand on two and the little hand on the three! (girls don’t do numbers well.)

3> while the lead diva ain’t Taylor Swift, man, that heifer had a set of pipes. (funniest moment when lead guy has to pick her up a carry her to the imaginary bedroom. Bet he wears a truss!)

special note of the “child” in the show: those three guys making it move made the doll seem like a real kid.

Best joke of the night: “so that kid was brought to the USA and grew up to be Jerremy Lin!”

Now we”ll see what the others thought!

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FJohn ReinkeBestest oddest serendipitous moment of the night.

I was wearing my “campaign ribbon” on my lapel. Always do when I get clean up and dress up to the 9’s.

Coming out the rest room, this old gent going in, had be a 150 years old, grabs my arm and says “Like your lapel chevron. See I wear mine too.” I was stunned. He had the exact same one.

Surprising for me to think that fast, I said: “And I thank you for your service to our country that allowed me to earn mine.” His response: “You’re a good boy. God bless.”

And, ships in the night, we both moved on as the curtain chimes were ringing. Funny, never thought of myself as a “good boy”, wish we could have compared notes.

If I’d have been thinking faster, I should have given him my business card. I had them in my jacket pocket. (Never go anywhere with out the basic networking tools — business cards and a pen!)

I went back to my seat and wondered what he did to earn his. Bet it was a lot more than I did!

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POLITICAL: The debate is really NOT about “insurance”

Sunday, March 4, 2012

http://peadarroe.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/a-woman-said

A Woman Said
Posted on February 24, 2012

*** begin quote ***

What follows was part of a discussion on a well known “social media site”.  I copied it because I thought it said a lot about a great divide in our country, the one between two kinds of people, two generations, two different world views, two different cultures.  It was occasioned by the appearance of a cartoon showing the President of these Untied States wearing the clerical robes of a pope.  It was s satirical cartoon designed for strong reactions, and it got them.  People objected to the artist’s robing Obama as the Catholic Pontiff, commented on his support for abortion and his refusal to recognize the conscience rights of Catholics.  Someone, a young woman, wrote:

I find it disturbing, but I’m mostly offended by the commentary it represents. I don’t like Obama, but I don’t find him to be any more “tyrannical” or arrogant than any other President we’ve had. Calling him a Communist really just illuminates one’s complete misunderstanding of communism, and the equation of abortion with the Holocaust as well as the implication that requiring insurance to cover birth control is equal to abortion, just pisses me off.

*** and ***

As for the requirement that private employer’s insurance policies cover contraception – I could go on at length about the necessity of hormonal birth control for many women (such as myself) for entirely NON-birth control related reasons (if I don’t take it, I get terrible cysts due to my endometriosis – cysts that may very well prevent me from getting pregnant in the future when I choose to) – but also that I don’t think an employer, whether or not it’s the Catholic church, should be making the medical decisions of its employees. Removing one area of coverage allows others to be chipped away at – and employers and insurance companies may find it in their interest to lower premiums by not covering many routine [JR: My emphasis.] and/or necessary procedures they chose not to agree with for whatever reason.

*** end quote ***

Stepping out from the pro-choice / pro-life debate for a moment, I’d suggest that we all focus for a moment on the word “routine”. To me that means, “ordinary and predictable”. And, are we talking about “insurance”? Where a bunch of folks with the same random risk profile pool their premiums to be paid out when that fire, flood, or tornado hits. Here we have a lady arguing that we, as a society, should “insure” “oil changes for our cars.” Where is the random disaster in an “oil change”? Went to aa Jiffy Lube / Oil Well / or some such place last week. In and out for under $100 in ½ hour. Now envision if it was insured. Call 1-800-thrid world country, file a report, yada yada. No way that was going to cost under $100 and less than ½ hour. In principle, it’s the same. Forcing “insurance companies” into the position of paying for “routine” stuff is just wrong. So, if this is NOT about “insurance”, then it must be about “politics”, propaganda, and manipulation. So this circles us back to the pro-life / pro-choice debate. Because it’s OBVIOUSLY NOT about “insurance”. imho. ymmv.

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POLITICAL: Negative rights and free condoms

Saturday, March 3, 2012

http://www.keywestlou.com/2012/03/weather-yesterday-was-fantastic-once.html

Saturday, March 3, 2012

*** begin quote ***

The hit topic was Rush Limbaugh’s abuse of a Georgetown University female student. Sandra Fluke. Sandra testified before a Congressional committee earlier in the week in support of birth control. She believed it should be available free to women under Obama health care.

Limbaugh referred her as a “slut” and “prostitute.” His theory basically was that if  Sandra wanted her contraception pills paid for by another, she wanted to have her sex paid for. Any woman who wanted her sex paid for was a prostitute.

*** end quote ***

Sorry, but I agree the sun has affected your legal mind. Negative rights?

If I have to pay for this woman’s birth control, then I am slave. The only rights a human is entitled to is negative ones. (Like John Locke said.) No one can prevent me from speaking; they don’t have to listen, but they can shut me up.

Positive rights — a “right” to healthcare, condoms, unionize — enslave some one to some extent. DO the doctors have to work 50% for free? Do the condom makers have to give away their product? Do workers have be enslaved to a Big Union and a Big Company at the same time? Positive rights create a requirement that someone provide them. Who?

Sorry, but imho, you are just flat wrong.

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INTERESTING: The ‘dingo baby’ case; it was a dingo!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/24/10493942-australia-inquest-hopes-to-solve-1980-mystery-dingo-baby-case

Australia inquest hopes to solve 1980 mystery ‘dingo baby’ case
By msnbc.com staff and news services

*** begin quote ***

SYDNEY — A coroner on Friday opened Australia’s fourth inquest into the most notorious and bitterly controversial legal drama in the nation’s history: the 1980 death of a 9-week-old baby whose parents say was taken by a dingo from her tent in the Australian Outback.

Azaria Chamberlain’s mother, Lindy, was convicted and later cleared of murdering her and has always maintained that a wild dog took the baby. She and her ex-husband, Michael Chamberlain, are hoping fresh evidence they have gathered about dingo attacks on children will convince Northern Territory Coroner Elizabeth Morris and end relentless speculation that has followed them for 32 years.

Anne Lade, a former police officer hired by the court to investigate the case, told a packed courtroom at the Darwin Magistrates Court in the Northern Territory that in the years since Azaria disappeared, there have been numerous dingo attacks on humans, some of them fatal.

*** end quote ***

Sad for this poor mom who was vilified in the press.

The world is a dangerous place for hairless, slow, “stupid” bi-pod humans. I’ll beat my drum about “guns” being the big equalizer. Every man, woman, and child should be packing. We’ve become so complacent that we presume we have a “divine right” to survival. Foolish people wander around the planet and don’t understand how fragile life is.

Argh!

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INTERESTING: Respect is missing for powerful women

Friday, March 2, 2012

TIP OF THE HAT TO THE IOWA NEPHEW-IN-LAW

http://espn.go.com/espnw/commentary/7601977/connecticut-huskies-prove-weekend-warriors-no-match-elite-women

Weekend warriors no match for elite women
Feb 22  
By Adena Andrews

*** begin quote ***

Earlier this month, comedian Kevin Hart and a group of male friends challenged the UConn women’s basketball team to a game of five-on-five. The video has recently made the rounds on social media.

Hart, who’s so short he calls himself a “little grown man,” was confident he and his entourage could defeat the Huskies, who are ranked No. 4.

That’s right, a group of men whose cumulative collegiate basketball experience was one Division III season challenged one of the best women’s teams in the country.

And, as expected, UConn wiped the Gampel Pavilion floor with Hart and his crew. The only things that may have been bruised during the game were five male egos … and one guy who hit the ground pretty hard after being posted up by a UConn center.

As I watched the video, I laughed — at first. But then I began to seethe. These men actually thought they had a chance against these elite players. The jokes they cracked made it seem like they were surprised women could run and dribble at the same time. Maybe they didn’t get the memo about UConn’s historic 90-game winning streak that ended last season or the 99-game home streak that ended last week.

They may also have just learned women do more than cook, clean and raise children. They are allowed to vote and play sports.

*** and ***

Some players “looked like they might have a hard time competing in a playground pickup game, dribbling the ball off their legs and running into each other on the three-man weave drill,” an Associated Press report said of the tryouts.

Their inflated male egos told them they could actually run with the big girls. Those guys are probably the same ones who sit on the couch saying, “I could beat (insert WNBA player name) in a game of one-on-one.”

They would never challenge Ray Allen to a 3-point shooting contest or claim they could box out Kevin Love. Why? Because they respect their talent. However, that same respect is missing for a woman who has also made the game her career.

*** end quote ***

Remember Bobby Riggs and Billy Jean King?

While the bell shaped curve of the physical characteristics of men and women is definitely different, it’s stupid to ignore it.

To think that women can’t be more capable at something than a man, just because they are female, is the height of stupidity.

Ever meet an Israeli woman who fought in the Seven Day War? Definitely, feminine, but had killed to protect her kibbutz. And, I have no doubt could do it again.

Ever see a mother bear with cubs? You better be using binoculars.

Ever …  well you get the idea.

That doesn’t mean that every woman can be a firefighter, a front line soldier, or a weightlifter.

To prejudge anyone is just dumb.

My wife played ball and, on at least two occasions, I saw her “spank” overconfident male friends. One of her “victims” remembered the spanking. LOL!

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2011/03/24/memories-remembering-our-girl/

She’d have gotten a good laugh out of this story.

We, as people, better wake up. Look to Africa and Asia for the stupidity they inflict on women. That’s these fools to an extreme. We need all our “human resources” working for a better world.

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INTERESTING: Writing about death of a spouse

Thursday, March 1, 2012

http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-have-your-spouse-die#ans1038733

What does it feel like to have your spouse die?

by  Betsy Megas, widow.

*** begin quote ***

Only in the last 48 hours did Scott’s spirit begin to fade. He slept, mostly, but he knew he was going. In one of his last lucid moments, he spoke candidly with me and a social worker who had come to visit. He did not feel he knew how to die, he said. I told him I didn’t think he needed to know how, that it was probably a lot like being born. It just happens naturally. And I’m pretty sure I told him I loved him, at least one last time. I don’t know that he had come to grips with it

He died around midnight, just a couple days after his 33rd birthday and three years, almost to the day, after his diagnosis. In all, we were together 15 years. I have very few regrets about the time I spent with Scott.

I don’t think I will ever forget what he looked like when he died. His head leaned to one side, his neck lacking the strength to support it. He turned pale, then blue, and it was a quiet death. That was the moment he ceased to be the person I had known. Still, it’s hard for me to recall that part, to bring it into my mind enough to write about it.

*** end quote ***

Our Girl just stopped breathing.

I was just sitting, hopeless, helpless, waiting. Unable to switch places.

Glad that she was finally released form this vale of tears.

I kissed her again. And, hoped that it was like in the movie “Ghost” where the deceased is drawn towards a beautiful light.

Sadly, I understand how hard it was to write this.

I’m pretty sure that I’ll never wed again. We too had the conversation. I think I always won with “how could someone compare to you?” and I was sure she’d find someone better. How many soul mates can one person find in their life. I found mine.

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POLITICAL: Dependency programs are a moral hazard

Thursday, March 1, 2012

http://biggovernment.com/dturbull/2012/02/22/the-effects-of-dependency-programs-more-harm-than-help/

The Effects of Dependency Programs: More Harm than Help
by Donlyn Turnbull

*** begin quote ***

Aside from the dire economic outlook, equally important is the harm social dependence is causing for people who enter the system and become stuck.

It’s not called “in-dependency” programs for a reason.

Whoever controls your money and your choices controls you.  And when you lose that ability, you begin to stop taking responsibility for your life. Dependency programs breed more dependency and can create the same psychological effects as people involved in abusive or other severely difficult situations.

Many people assume if you are in a bad situation you will do anything to escape it.  However, the truth is, “If you feel like you aren’t in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in”.  It’s the very definition of a psychological effect proven in the 1960’s by scientist Martin Seligman, called “learned helplessness”.

When people begin to believe they can’t help themselves they eventually stop trying.

The Administration is allowing people to become fully dependent on them for their basic needs like food and access to health services, even encouraging it. The more they rely on the Government, the more Government has control of their lives and the less people feel they are capable of escaping their situation.  Without responsibility and choices, they give up.

An excellent example of this was presented in a study in 1976 by Langer and Rodin.  It showed the effects of nursing home patients who were given responsibility and choices as opposed to those “where conformity and passivity is encouraged and every whim is attended to.”  The latter dramatically declined in overall “health and well-being”.  The study was extended to homeless shelters.

When people were given both responsibility and choices they were much more likely to find work and a place to live.

A continuation of the same study showed “increased-responsibility conditions” have very positive long term effects as well.

*** end quote ***

I remember my Mom saying to me, when I complained about this or that, “Fix it!”, “Do Something About It”, or “That’s Not My Problem”. And, heaven help me, if I said I was bored. She’d find something that I needed to do. Later in life, when “stuff happened”, as it always does, she’d say: “That’s life; deal with it.” or “Well, what are you going to DO about it?”.

I’ve made many bad decisions in my life. Done dumb things for which a price had to be paid. Squandered tons of money. Burned bridges, spilt milt, and regretted so many missed opportunities. Some, due to NOT making a conscious decision, but many due to a deliberate choice. Good decisions go bad through what I’d call bad luck. But the vast majority of my “disasters” were of my own making.

(In writing this, I wonder what “choices” I missed completely. That’s not “shoulda, coulda, and woulda!” thinking. It’s just realizing that there maybe have been “hidden” options that I’m not even aware of or just didn’t see as a choice.)

I’ve heard this before form the lady who runs a welfare to work charity in Mercer County. How the State Welfare bureaucrats want their “Clients” to stay on the dole. She has to literally retrain people to think independently. She has great success stories which just proves to me that people are beautiful when they are free of these artificial constraints.

I’ve long thought that the Gooferment shouldn’t be in the charity business. Just prevent force and fraud, and allow people to suceed or fail on their own.

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