Updated: Playing Blog Tag with 8 Things

I just now visited The World According to Carl, which is another blog in the Hillbilly Ecosystem.

There I saw a post entitled 8 Things. It's a blogging game, and the rules are as follows:

Players start with 8 random facts about themselves. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts. Players should tag eight other people and notify them that they have been tagged.

Okay, here are eight random facts about 1389, the admin of this blog:

1. One of my few pleasant memories from elementary school was the Bell Labs series of science documentaries, including Our Mr. Sun.
2. I used to take care of the birds and snakes for a small zoo in Ohio.
3. I once worked on an IBM 1401 Autocoder conversion. My, that goes back a ways...and that wasn't even my first programming job.
4. I once saw a tornado...from the inside. Not an experience I would care to repeat.
5. My maternal grandfather made his own beer during Prohibition.
6. My father drove a soft drink truck during the Depression.
7. My first computer was an IBM PC with two floppy drives, a green monochrome monitor, and an Epson dot-matrix printer, which cost me roughly five thousand dollars. To do graphics, I added a CGA board and used an RF modulator to route the results to an old black-and-white television set.
8. Many years ago, I lived and worked in downtown Chicago. At that time, I remember that there was a herd of stray cats living near the train tracks under the old U.S. Post Office building. I found out because I saw someone in an office building elevator who was bringing them food.

Now I have to find eight other bloggers to pass this along to. If you're a blogger and you don't have time to deal with this, I'll understand; otherwise, I invite you to give it a try. This is an opportunity for us bloggers to get more acquainted with one another, and for the public to get to know us a little better.

If you are seeing this blog post now and you feel like joining in, consider yourself "tagged" by 1389!

Update #1: I did manage to send the tag out to eight other bloggers, but not all at the same time. Hardware problems intervened, and I can no longer recall everyone who was on the list. Oh, well...

Update #2: Here are some random links from the same chain, both before and after me:

• Alabama Improper
• Amazingly Enough
• Conoscete Chi
• Days of Future Passed
• Each Day is a Gift
• Harvey Olson at Bad Example
• I Am My Kids' Mom
• Maranda Under Stress
• Right Truth
• Scott Allan

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Why Conservatives Need to Geek-Up (Part 1)

If you are not a liberal when you’re 25 you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative when you’re 45, you have no brain.

This saying, sometimes credited to Winston Churchill, seems to hold a bit of universal truth, as does the notion that the young people of a generation affect change, while the older folks lend stability. This certainly seems to be the case when it comes to politics online in the 21st century (allowing, of course, for exceptions such as the Young Republicans clubs and the die-hard hippies).

Web 2.0 technology affects our lives online in the form of blogs, online citizen journalism sites (social news), wiki’s, folksonomies, social networking sites, collaborative bookmarking sites, podcasts, aggregators (e.g. RSS), semantic web, collaborative software, and other online scenarios in which users create and share content such as graphics, news, information, technology, creative writing, software, photos, and videos. The original World Wide Web gave us the opportunity to share information by posting what we had to say, and by reading what others had to say. Web 2.0 takes that concept to the next level, by giving users the opportunity to collectively influence what information is available and how the information is distributed.

Today’s twenty-somethings grew up online, and generally seem to be more intuitively tech-savvy and more comfortable with online collaboration than those of us that are older (“older,” in this case meaning anyone over 35!). It is no wonder, then, that there is a noticeable liberal/progressive majority in the politics discussions of any of the social networking sites, which extensively utilize the newest technologies and the art of collaboration.

Largely due to Web 2.0 technology as well as increasingly interactive search engines, there is a growing body of knowledge online that is taking on a life of its own, and it is very influential. Features such as Google PageRank assure that the majority view of any issue is likely to be the first available information on any given topic. Anyone interested in the accuracy of the information that is being disseminated online, needs to have a voice in this increasingly important global discussion.

As conservatives, we need to understand and utilize Web 2.0 technology if we want this body of knowledge to even partially reflect our values, attitudes, respect for history, and vision for the future.

(Go to Part 2 of 3)
(Go to Part 3 of 3)

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It takes a mighty big person to repent these days...

It's not about looks, bodily stature and strength, celebrity, power, or wealth.

It's all about emotional and spiritual fortitude.

With all of the public-apology-fests we hear about these days, from the unspeakably hypocritical Don Imus brouhaha to the flying TB patient, it's getting harder and harder to find folks who can repent of their own wrongdoing before they have been put under pressure by civil authorities, media hounding, public disgrace, or all of the above. Were this merely a personal spiritual issue for those who cannot turn aside from the wrong path they have chosen, it would be bad enough.

But when those who cannot repent are public figures, the slippery slope to destruction grows broad enough to encompass us all.

This is why the defamation of the Serbs never seems to end. I am talking about the US/NATO/EU government officials and bureaucrats, the NGO/"think tank"/academia frauds, the mainstream media people, and everybody else who has played a part in this over the last decade and a half (and more). The New York Times is one recent example; see Still Slandering Serbia.

The accusers keep sticking to their wrongheaded story--no matter how obvious it becomes that the U.S. has been fighting on the wrong side, on behalf of the Muslim jihadists in the Balkans.

It's true that too many of them have built their career on Serb-bashing. But there's another reason why these high-placed Serb-bashers dare not recant. It's because they have caught themselves in their own trap.

Lying is the lubricant that keeps the machinery of evil in motion. But now, the perpetrators can't get off their own runaway train. Nor can they let the rest of us off.

In the name of "justice," they relentlessly demanded draconian punishments for any Serbs accused of real or fictitious war crimes. Now the tragic irony is that these accusers cannot recant their own false allegations without inviting the same harsh fate for themselves that they have been demanding for the Serbs.

Lies have consequences. Their own false allegations against the Serbs resulted in a very real genocide against the Serbs. If these Serb-bashers were ever to admit they had been wrong, they would have reason to fear that, at some point--maybe years from now, maybe sooner--they would be called to account, and would find no more mercy than what they themselves had dealt out to the Serbs. And that is what they are truly most afraid of.

Stein hoists to these valiant bloggers:

• Jihad Watch
  • Balkan Muslim Gratitude
• Our Children are the Guarantors
  • What Our PR Problem Really Is
  • Our Children are the Guarantors: My Own So Sorry
• Witch-King of Angmar
  • See this comment!
  • View from Minas Morgul

Thanks to all of you for having the courage to discuss this issue. Sadly, I too must admit that it took me way too long to understand what was going on.

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Offbeat news roundup - May 25, 2007

1389 doesn't feel like being serious today.

• Snakes on a plane - 700 of them!
• Pet rooster's gone -- and eatery wants it back
• Parks try to flush out toilet thieves
• Fort Lauderdale resident pleads for help with quickly multiplying iguanas
• 17-year cicada invasion coming to Illinois
  Update: Zoo animals enjoying 17-year cicada feast
• Physical attraction is about more than just body shape, as this article at ScienceDaily.com reveals
• Canada bans illegal alien strippers
• Amorous alligator trapped at Kennedy Space Center workshop

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It's new, it's by William A. Whittle, and it's worth reading now

If you aren't familiar with William A. Whittle and the Eject!Eject!Eject! website, you're missing one of the best writers on current trends from an historical perspective. His understanding of the issues of war and defense is spot on.

You Are Not Alone, Part 1 and Part 2 is a long article, but so thought-provoking, and, dare I say, inspiring, that it is worth dropping whatever else you are doing to take the time to read it now.

Read it, think about it for awhile, and read some of the other articles on Whittle's site. He has an intriguing, and I believe correct, comprehension of the real purpose behind, and need for, those efforts and struggles that so often seem lonely and futile.

Comments are open, both here and on Whittle's site.

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What Israel's PR problem really is - and how Web 2.0 can counter corruption in the MSM

Our Children Are The Guarantors: What Our PR Problem Really Is offers a convincing explanation of how the present-day vilification of Israel and the Jews has been engineered in much the same way as was the vilification of the Serbs in the 1990s.

1389 predicted that Israel would be the next target - but the Internet was not developed to the extent that it is today, and at that time it was very difficult indeed to reach an audience. Now we have a much larger audience on the Internet, with social news sites, Web 2.0, and much else.

The mainstream media has become corrupt largely because it faces too little competition. It's our job to give them some! Everyone who has good factual information can start using all of the available tools to get it to as many people as possible. In addition, we all need need to watch out for, and confront, any attempts to censor our message because it is not "politically correct" or, more to the point, because it gets in the way of our enemies' agendas.

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Our Children Are The Guarantors: My Own “So Sorry”

1389 was deeply moved by this blog entry, Our Children Are The Guarantors: My Own “So Sorry”, which offers a personal view of how one writer was affected by the deceptive media spin on the Balkans debacle.

Be sure to read it.

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New advances in clothing technology...perfect for web addicts!

Now it's possible to apply germ-killing nanoparticles to textiles. When clothing with this technology becomes commercially available at an affordable price, it will eliminate one more reason to take an unwanted break from the "intertubes"!

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How much of an Internet addict are you?

Take this test to find out.

But then, if you even have to ask, you probably know the answer already!

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"Oops! That wasn't supposed to happen! © Google 2007"

Okay, I'll admit it: 1389, a/k/a the editor of this blog, is the worst Internet junkie on the planet. Among other things, I have upwards of thirty feeds coming into my Google Reader account alone, and when I'm out somewhere, I pick them up on my cellphone with Google Reader Mobile, which is currently in beta test.

Normally, Google Reader Mobile works surprisingly well, even on a cellphone screen not much bigger than a postage stamp.

This past Friday, I clicked on a feed link and got the mysterious message shown in the header of this blog entry.

Obviously, this is not the most helpful error message - neither for the tech support staffer nor for the end user. If any of you happen to know anything about this message, please post a comment here!

More to the point: my attention was especially drawn to the fact that Google included a copyright notice in a message that is such a painfully ironic summation of the human condition.

After all, who among us has not said, or at least thought, the same thing?

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Iran to filter "immoral" mobile messages

Apparently, as in Saudi Arabia, too many frustrated Iranians have been using cellphone instant messaging to circumvent the restrictions on communications regarding sexuality, and on contact between the sexes.

See this story from Reuters.com.

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