Archive Page 2
The US government has announced that they will be shooting down a satellite that is currently orbiting the earth.
It is one of their own satellites that is supposedly filled with toxic rocket fuel. It is supposed to be crashing into the earth’s atmosphere before long and they want to shoot it down so they can control where it crashes.
This story is especially cool because the military will be shooting down the satellite from a sea based vessel. As part of our missile defense system, this will be a great test for operation star wars.
This post was found on TundraPolitics.com. I thought it was so good, and so important to share that I copied it to my blog.
Super Tuesday will forever change the Republican party. They are at a split in a road for which there is no return.
Either the party will turn toward the conservative path with Mitt Romney, rejecting the notion that only liberalism wins, or they will turn to McCain and create a party far left of the one that Reagan built.
The choice is yours. Attend the Caucus on Tuesday. If you need to find your caucus, click here.
Not that I have ran into this, but I am sure that it is entirely possible. UNIX (and Linux) base all date information on the number of seconds since January 1st, 1970. This is known as the UNIX Epoch.
As a side note, there is a potential serious problem when 2038 hits. At that point, there will be more seconds in the Epoch counter will exceed its 32 bit placeholder. Essentially we will run into similar problems that we faced in Y2K.
To celebrate the success of Martin Luther King Jr. I have included the text of his most famous speech: “I have a dream.” He was a man that believed in a New America, and he believed that it could be achieved by taking the higher ground.
Just as we give President Ronald Reagan the honor of winning the cold war, we too can say that Martin Luther King Jr. was responsible for the winning of the war on racism.
___
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
I found this very interesting article at Insight Magazine’s website. It sheds a lot of light on an otherwise under reported, over speculated issue with Barack Hussein Obama. It is probably the more objective then most of the items you will find on the subject when you do a Google search.
Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?
This is the question Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s camp is asking about Sen. Barack Obama.
An investigation of Mr. Obama by political opponents within the Democratic Party has discovered that Mr. Obama was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia. Sources close to the background check, which has not yet been released, said Mr. Obama, 45, spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia.
“He was a Muslim, but he concealed it,” the source said. “His opponents within the Democrats hope this will become a major issue in the campaign.”
When contacted by Insight, Mr. Obama’s press secretary said he would consult with “his boss” and call back. He did not.
Sources said the background check, conducted by researchers connected to Senator Clinton, disclosed details of Mr. Obama’s Muslim past. The sources said the Clinton camp concluded the Illinois Democrat concealed his prior Muslim faith and education.
“The background investigation will provide major ammunition to his opponents,” the source said. “The idea is to show Obama as deceptive.”
In two best-selling autobiographies—”The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” and “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance”—Mr. Obama, born in Honolulu where his parents met, mentions but does not expand on his Muslim background, alluding only to his attendance at a “predominantly Muslim school.”
The sources said the young Obama was given the name Hussein by his Muslim father, which the Illinois Democrat rarely uses in public.
His father was black and came from Kenya. Mr. Obama’s mother, the daughter of a farmer, came from Wichita, Kansas. Mr. Obama’s parents divorced when he was two years old. His father returned to Kenya.
Later, Mr. Obama’s mother married an Indonesian student and the family moved to Jakarta. Mr. Obama returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his maternal grandparents.
The sources said the background check concerned Mr. Obama’s years in Jakarta. In Indonesia, the young Obama was enrolled in a Madrassa and was raised and educated as a Muslim. Although Indonesia is regarded as a moderate Muslim state, the U.S. intelligence community has determined that today most of these schools are financed by the Saudi Arabian government and they teach a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.
Although the background check has not confirmed that the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended was espousing Wahhabism, the sources said his Democratic opponents believe this to be the case—and are seeking to prove it. The sources said the opponents are searching for evidence that Mr. Obama is still a Muslim or has ties to Islam.
Mr. Obama attends services at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago’s South Side. However, he is not known to be a regular parishioner.
“Obama’s education began a life-long relationship with Islam as a faith and Muslims as a community,” the source said. “This has been a relationship that contains numerous question marks.”
The sources said Mr. Obama spent at least four years in a Muslim school in Indonesia. They said when Mr. Obama was 10, his mother and her second husband separated. She and her son returned to Hawaii.
“Then the official biography begins,” the source said. “Obama never returned to Kenya to see relatives or family until it became politically expedient.”
In both of his autobiographies, Mr. Obama characterizes himself as a Christian—although he describes his upbringing as mostly secular.
In “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama says, “I was not raised in a religious household.” He describes his mother as secular, but says she had copies of the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita in their home.
Mr. Obama says his father was “raised a Muslim, but by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist….” Mr. Obama also describes his father as largely absent from his life. He says his Indonesian stepfather was “skeptical” about religion and “saw religion as not particularly useful in the practical business of making one’s way in the world ….”
In the book, Mr. Obama briefly addresses his education in Indonesia. “During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin’s call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables.”
Mr. Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School; he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. He later settled in Chicago, joined a law firm and began attending and helping local churches.
Mr. Obama is married to Michelle Robinson and they have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. In 1996, he was elected to the Illinois state Senate. Eight years later, he became a U.S. senator from Illinois.
The sources said Ms. Clinton regards Mr. Obama as her most formidable opponent and the biggest obstacle to the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination. They said Ms. Clinton has been angered by Mr. Obama’s efforts to tap her supporters for donations.
In late 2006, when the Illinois senator demonstrated his intention to run for president, the Clinton campaign ordered a background check on Mr. Obama, the sources said. Earlier this week, Mr. Obama established an exploratory committee, the first step toward a formal race.
Less than hopeful presidential communist candidate, Barack Hussein Obama, seemed to portray Midwestern Iowans as nothing more then inbred hicks. As an individual from the Midwest, I feel offended by Barack Hussein Obama’s remarks.
In an interview with ABC News, Barack Hussein Obama expressed surprise that Iowans voted for him in the caucuses. He cited that they went beyond the supposed stereotype of being “Ingrown and Parochial.”
It’s kind of funny, because I never saw Iowans as that. I believe that what Barack Hussein Obama is trying to do is play on the politics of hate. He wants to make the perception that somehow people hate Iowa, and that those poor victims came out to support him.
The problem is that people don’t feel that way about Iowa. This was either a made up stereotype by Barack Hussein Obama, or he actually feels that way, and was shocked to find that those “Backward” Midwesterners actually accepted him.
I guess it fits that he would play on the politics of hate and class envy. He is after all, proposing that we begin to remove tax cuts, increase additional taxes, and redistribute that money to others. So divisive stereotype politics fits right in with his campaign strategy.
I think that sometimes I know exactly how Wally feels in this Dilbert Cartoon! If you ever had one thing lead to another with an upgrade, you will know exactly what I mean.
I guess you could say this is kind of like “Feature Creep,” only one might call this “Upgrade Creep.” What started as a simple software install, soon progresses to a mother board altering 13 ring circus.
In case you are in the market for hiring programmers, or you are a programmer looking to improve your resume (a.k.a. cv), you will benefit greatly from reading Inter-sections.net’s article on finding good programmers.
I have included their bullet points below, but for more details, check out the whole article. It was written well, and contains a lot of good advice.
Positive indicators:
- Passionate about technology
- Programs as a hobby
- Will talk your ear off on a technical subject if encouraged
- Significant (and often numerous) personal side-projects over the years
- Learns new technologies on his/her own
- Opinionated about which technologies are better for various usages
- Very uncomfortable about the idea of working with a technology he doesn’t believe to be “right”
- Clearly smart, can have great conversations on a variety of topics
- Started programming long before university/work
- Has some hidden “icebergs”, large personal projects under the CV radar
- Knowledge of a large variety of unrelated technologies (may not be on CV)
Negative indicators:
- Programming is a day job
- Don’t really want to “talk shop”, even when encouraged to
- Learns new technologies in company-sponsored courses
- Happy to work with whatever technology you’ve picked, “all technologies are good”
- Doesn’t seem too smart
- Started programming at university
- All programming experience is on the CV
- Focused mainly on one or two technology stacks (e.g. everything to do with developing a java application), with no experience outside of it
Here’s a simple guide to using your existing Windows install inside Ubuntu - and still being able to start it from your hard disk if you need. It takes around 15 minutes and doesn’t require any terminal use.
I have been working on configuring Ubuntu this past week, and it is amazing. I will need to still use Microsoft Windows occasionally on that desktop, so I will attempt to use this solution in the near future.
read more | digg story
I don’t think that there could be any song that is more appropriate this Christmas than “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” For the seventh Christmas in a row, our nation, and the world, is wrapped into a struggle that has forever changed our lives.The fight against the Islamic Jihad, had spread from the Middle East, Somalia, and Indonesia, to New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. As our nation reacted to the atrocities at home, we mobilized for war against Al Queda, and those who preached the destruction of the west.
Our soldiers began fighting back the enemies of the free world. Our allies were attacked in Spain, Britain, and more. With courage, we stayed in the fight, knowing that a better world could be made, if we prevail.
After seven Christmases of war, many have given up hope. They have proclaimed that the Wrong have indeed prevailed. Hope has given way to despair. It is easy to believe that there will never be peace again.
It was nearly a century and a half ago that a man, by the name of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, felt as many feel today. He began to write a poem, that would describe his journey from despair to hope.
To understand the context of this poem, you must understand the time and situation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was a man with scars on the inside and out.
Just three years before, he had tried to rescue his wife as she burned alive after her dress caught fire by a candle. His face was so charred from the fire, that he could not attend his own wife’s funeral.
At the time of this writing, Longfellow’s own nation was in the midst of the greatest struggle it had ever faced. The civil war was in it’s darkest moments and the states were anything but united. Men fought and killed their own brothers and fathers. The tensions between the north and the south created an emotional chasm that appeared as though it would never be bridged.
Longfellow lived at a time when peace may have been desired, but peace was not visible, not even on the horizon.
In the midst of this dark time, Longfellow cried out in his writing:
“There is no peace on earth, for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men. “
This was in the context of a struggle that looked as though it had no end. Many believed that wrong would prevail, and the the Right would fail. They only saw death in the future. Though they believed their cause was just, they had no faith, because they could see no victory.
Longfellow was then reminded that there is hope. With a burst of the bells he was reminded that
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, good will to men.”
With those timeless words, came encouragement, not just to Longfellow or the people of his time, but to the entire human race. We are reminded that there will be struggles and we will face circumstances that we see as all but lost, but in the end, the Right will prevail.
Take heart, our struggles here at home, and those of insurmountable proportions around the world, will be victorious. The wrong shall fail, the right will prevail, with the result being peace on earth and good will toward all men!
Merry Christmas!
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn, the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
I am hoping to make my first side-scrolling game sometime this spring. I have been learning Python during the past week specifically for this purpose.
I have learned a lot about the language. It is very easy to use. Currently, I am working on going through a couple online Python tutorials.
I finished my first set of Python tutorials last week, and they were very good, but sometimes a little basic. If you have programmed before, they may be a little easy.
I am now working on a specific python gaming tutorial found at F0o.com. I am loving all I am learning. I have heard from some friends, who do game programming, that
Python is one of the best languages to make games with.
Perhaps the most famous Python based game is Civilization IV. Maybe you have heard of it. If not, go to Amazon right now and buy it. It is probably the most addicting fun game ever created.
I installed VMWare player last week on my PC. Using their player software, I was able to create a partition for my Ubuntu Linux system that can be run from within Windows.
The installation went great, but I realized that some problems do not show up immediately.
Today I put my SD card in my memory card reader, expecting the Autorun menu to appear. Instead, I had nothing. I also did not have an “Autoplay” on the menu when right-clicking on the memory card in “My Computer.” Finally, the title of my card was no longer being displayed in My Computer.
Fortunately, the solution to these problems is simple. But first, the problem needs to be explained. When VMWare is installed, it modifies the Windows Registry to prevent Autorun.
This is probably a good idea. If you had your favorite Ubuntu distribution running from within Windows, and decided to put in a CD, you don’t want both Operating Systems to try to load the disc simultaneously. The easiest way to solve the problem is by disabling the Autorun feature.
Personally, I like Autorun. I take pictures all the time, and I like the convenience of popping my memory card into the computer and clicking the program I use to download my pictures and movies. Maybe it is not the coolest way to download pictures, but it certainly makes my life easier.
To re-enable the autorun feature in Windows XP (I heard that Vista is similar, but having never used the OS, except at the store, I have no guarantee that this works in Vista):
- Go to Start -> Run
- Type in “regedit” (No Quotes). This will bring up the Windows Registry Editor.
- As a side note, registry edits can hose your computer. Be very careful. Your edits are at your own risk.
- In the registry, delete the following keys:
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun
- Finally, ensure that HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CDRom\AutoRun has a value of “1.” Otherwise your DVDs and CDs will not Autoplay.
I have also created a script to accomplish these tasks. You can download Terry Pearson’s AutoRun Restore Script here.
- To Run the script, first download and save the zip file to your desktop.
- Unzip the file.
- Double click on the script.
- Windows will display a warning message. Click “Yes.”
A dialog box will then display telling you that the changes have successfully been entered into the registry.- Your Autoplay feature should work now.
Please note that I have made every attempt to ensure that this script is safe and work correctly, but it is ultimately your responsibility to check the safety and usability of any script you download on the internet.
I wanted to give you a quick heads up about a great new site I stumbled upon at http://slatecard.com.
As you know, today liberals in Hollywood and Washington are using MoveOn.org and other Internet websites to beat Republican candidates who share our values. In fact, using one liberal website, ActBlue.com, more than $30 million has been raised for liberal candidates throughout the nation.
And they’