My second essay at the Center for a Stateless Society attempts to deconstruct the "support the troops" meme and recast it as a shameless failsafe for the preservation of State warmaking authority. Here's an excerpt:
Oil, terrorism, and dictators are just peripheral issues, after all, compared to the bedrock goal of preserving faith in the power and sanctity of our government. The only thing worse than losing a war is losing the right to wage war. The only thing worse than losing an election is losing the system of power and privilege which makes elections worth winning. And the only thing worse than implementing bad policy is the realization that policy is largely irrelevant to reality. Critics of the war are obligated to speak in terms that reinforce the abstract dogma of the State -- otherwise, why would they seek office?
Check out the rest here, and please let me know if I'm making sense.
I've stopped following Right Thinking Girl much lately. I can only include so much comedy on this blog, and at a certain point it becomes cumbersome to point out the mulitple dimensions of her stupidity. But today's a slow day, and while her latest content doesn't take the bonehead positions we've all come to expect, scrolling down to the bottom of the blog rewards me with a fresh, steaming pile.
The issue today, folks, is the virtuous contractors in Iraq - risking their lives for their country a tidy payout. Since "Democrats" are against them, it follows like a law of nature that RTG is for them (and naturally, therefore, I make fun of her for it). And my, how she is for them. Without sparing so much as a second to, you know, read about their issues with contractors, she pulls the straw straight out of her ass to begin building her pile argument:
Companies like Blackwater USA provide an incalculable service for our country and to the men and women in hostile countries who are doing the work that allows us to sleep safe in our beds in places like Dayton, Baltimore, and Albany. The two reasons Democrats hate these companies is because they hate any business that involves a profit. They also hate war, no matter the justice of it. Put them together and you have a powderkeg of hatred.
A few responses drift to mind like an autumn leaf alighting on the forest floor.
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Welp, in a terribly short time (February is already over, jeez) I'll have been a Mac user for one month. I feel by now I can pass some sort of judgment on this Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz machine. However, it's entirely from the P.O.V. of a guy who uses his Mac for development day in and day out, so more casual users should keep that in mind.
I definitely get the sense that switching from Windows to Mac has substantially less adjustment pains than going in the opposite direction. Once you adopt the Mac way of doing things, it all makes sense. However, adopting the Mac way of doing things kind of sucks at first. It took me forever to figure out how to "right click" on things with the Mighty Mouse and I was always hitting the expose option unnecessarily. Without a doubt the most annoying thing about Mac is, well, two things:
- Substituting the Command key for the Control key on all keystrokes I use (such as Cmd-C for copy)
- Breaking the Home / End keys. I cannot overemphasize how much I miss being able to go to the start or finish of a line with one key. Mac uses Cmd-Arrow, but it's not the same.
Other than that, I'm really enjoying this machine. Installing applications is a cinch, and I like how everything is based on BSD. I use a few cool gimmicks like Desktop Manager to enable multiple desktops between which I can easily switch (great for changing code and switching to a browser to check it) and Quicksilver (immediately access anything on your computer in a few keystrokes). One thing I need to do is boost the memory from 1 GB to 2GB (max memory is 3 GB for the Macbook Pro, but the 2 GB modules are far too expensive now) because I've noticed a bit of slowness at times - nothing remotely comparable to Windows, usually. I tend to have a lot of stuff running at the same time.
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Don't watch Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. What a snooze-fest. Here's an excerpt from the film; imagine suffocating narration while the same black and white picture flash on the screen.
Narrator: In 1936, Rand woke up and realized she was out of eggs. Grasping the idea of the omelet as an expression of man's highest ideals, she put on her coat to go out to the market. It was then that she ran into the mailman, and had a conversation which, while utterly mundane, plays some mysterious but vital role in her biography.
Leonard Peikoff: Ayn never missed a chance to expound on her views about individualism and the heroism of man. In a way, she was teh best person evah. And I'm not just saying that as the sole inheritor of her estate, either.
Narrator: Upon arriving at the market, she calmly picked up a carton of eggs and carried them to the checkout counter. It was there she happened upon the inspiration for a screenplay which, incidentally, did not get produced*. Although this saddened her, she resolutely managed to return home and start cooking an omelet that would reflect her vision of man as a heroic being.
Two hours of that is a bit much, besides the fact that she really deserved better.
* This was the Hollywood of the 30s, so any failure of hers could be easily attributed to collectivists, socialists, communists, and other stupid people.
...who thinks the "Dick in a Box" skit is not really that funny?
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Written on Saturday, February 24, 2007
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. It was 17 degrees outside, so it got cold in the house. I didn't want to leave Tela at home today while we're waiting for the landlord to fix it, so I brought her to work. Of course, she was quite a star, but development work makes her really tired.</p><p>(Had to take this on my camera phone; sorry for the crappy quality)</p>
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