Posted on January 31, 2006
Like most Americans after 9/11 I've been listening for Muslim denouncement of terrorist. I've heard it from American groups but not much else. Apparently I wasn't listening hard enough or the story wasn't told.
Here is a list compiled by Charles Kurzman of UNC that lists statements by Muslims of note in response to terrorism and 9/11.
This is an interesting site on the topic as well.
On another Islam note, apparently free-speech is bad when it comes to Mohammad as is noted here and here. The comics that have spawned death threats, boycotts, and protests are here.
Tagged with: Politics Rants |
Posted on January 27, 2006
I found my way on to the mediamatters.org website today from Google news and was initially excited because I thought I found a non-biased site with journalistic integrity that existed to debunk misinformation in the media. I read a few articles, a noticed a slant in the writing so I went to the about page where I found their mission is instead to debunk conservative misinformation. In response I sent them the following email:
I stumbled across your website today and was happy to find a reference for debunking misinformation sent out from the media. Unfortunately it seems you're only interested in debunking conservative media statements and not all biased media statements. You'd show much more credibility if you were pointing out the misstatements, lies, and bias on all sides of the political spectrum.
I'm disappointed to find out you're just as biased as the people you claim to discredit. Maybe one day true journalists will step forward and take a truly non-biased, non-opinionated approach to reporting.
When will we find an organization with a similar mission as yours but without a political agenda? Liberal is just as much a dirty word as you treat the word conservative. You're not helping media accountability, you appear to be promoting an agenda under the guise of correcting misinformation.
One day both extremes of political thought will understand the need for balance and moderation. Hopefully an organization like yours will wake to it and truly be light for accountability and truth in the media.
Tagged with: Politics Rants |
Posted on January 26, 2006
Tip to the FreeBSD Community: telling users to RTFM when they have simple questions is another reason why FreeBSD is relatively unpopular in comparison to certain linux distros. Take Gentoo and Ubuntu, both have very accomodating communities who go out of their way to help users.
Tagged with: IRC Linux Rants |
Posted on January 25, 2006
I’ve previously mentioned that Michelle and I were big into Rockstar: INXS. So when I was driving in to work this morning and Marty Casey & Lovehammers were on KLOS promoting their new album, I knew I would have to pick it up. I liked Marty on the show and like most of the songs he did on the show. Amazingly I didn't resent him for his horrid rendition of Wish You Were Here, which is my favorite song by Pink Floyd. After all, it was the otherwise amazing House Band that really butchered the song. You can't take a five minute thirty second song and compress it into two and a half minutes and not have somethign suffer.
So I’m 11 tracks into this new album, with one terrifying track left (Wish You Were Here). I figured I should write out what I think of the first 11 tracks before I hit the last one in case it sways my opinion either way. The album is mediocre, much like INXS’s new album, it's very produced and smooth. Marty has a good voice and the musicians get the job done. Apparently they’ve been playing together since they were 14 so I couldn’t imagine they wouldn’t be tight together. Stand out songs include the previously heard “Trees” and “The Riddle.”
My inital thought on listing to “Wish You Were Here” as I’m typing this is that the tempo is rushed. Marty is smoother on the song then I remember him to previously be on the live performances. You can’t top Gilmour and obviously they knew that so they threw the guitar parts through some effects to pull it off. I’ll give this one a decent attempt. I can’t say I’ll be rushing to listen to it again though.
Posted on January 20, 2006
The following is the log which illustrates the wonderful types of messages I get on GameSurge:
--- Log opened Thu Jan 19 19:23:14 2006
19:23 -!- Irssi: Starting query in gamesurge with GP|Novo[insert-club-here]
19:23 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> heya hows it going
19:23 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> ip68-108-40-138.lv.lv.cox.net
19:23 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> <---- my ip
19:23 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> so check this out
19:23 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> im offering you a deal
19:24 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> NoR|CelciuS-1HP- is a threat to my community
19:24 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> im holding gamesurge responsible for his acts if you dont give me his ip
19:25 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> you have until 8pm tomorrow to give me his ip
19:25 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> or I will take gamesurge and all of its resources offline forever
19:25 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> and dont give me that privacy policy bs
19:26 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> and if you dont think im serious
19:27 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> you know a few ppl
19:27 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> do the names
19:27 <GP|Novo[insert-club-here]> Sisco and bman mean anything to you
19:30 -!- GP|Novo[insert-club-here] [~none@ip68-108-40-138.lv.lv.cox.net] has quit [Quit: ( www.nnscript.de :: NoNameScript 3.81 :: www.XLhost.de )]
--- Log closed Thu Jan 19 19:36:25 2006
Tagged with: GameSurge Internet |
Posted on January 19, 2006
I'm generally a news and talk radio guy in the morning. Sometimes I listen to KLOS if I want a good laugh or something. I stopped listening to KROQ some years back because I really, really couldn't stand the Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, etc, etc type thing and KROQ was really heavy into it. In flipping channels this morning I stumbled across KROQ in my presets and amazingly they were playing a good song (Anything, Anything by Dramarama). So I stopped to listen, through about 10 songs, all good or tolerable. Did they ditch the lame rap-metal hybrid stuff?
In other news I dropped the Last.fm and Netflix feed from my sidebar because it was slowing down page loads, considerably. I've been thinking of maybe making them AJAX powered so then the page would load and subsequently go out and get that info. I guess I'll put that on the “When I need a diversion from everything else I need to do” list.
Tagged with: Music |
Posted on January 11, 2006
I’m excited about the MacBook, I’m in love with the iMac. But why did you add
this annoying little bar to the bottom of iTunes? It is obtrusive. It is obnoxious. If I want to deal with music store content, I’ll go to the music store. If it’s true that
850 Million songs have been sold at a rate of over 3 million a day, is this not just a bit obnoxious. How about having it off by default and telling us it’s there? Most people will leave it on because they don’t know you can turn it off. I’m sure you’ve been counting on that. Don’t get me wrong, I still love you, but you’ve gone one step too far and should go stand in the corner and be ashamed of yourself.
Tagged with: Apple Rants iTunes |
