Having just finished "Fahrenheit 451" and looking around at how our society is shaping up, I begin to wonder why we left the rule of a king?
Why is it that people crave the government sticking their grubby little mitts into everything?
I ask you this, how many of this countries government run programs have stayed within the boundaries of their original intended purposes?
Not many of them that I can think of, now obviously some of it is due to people that find "loop holes," thus helping push the system past its limits. But then the work needed to rebuild or reform what is broken is fought against so much that its insane. The worst part I think is that most of this is going on in plain sight but when the media says its all "ok" then that MUST be what is true right?
I mean what happened to common sense? Ill respect someones opinion that is actually and truly THEIR view. Not a force fed tablet from some "expert," tell me why you think the way you do and I might respect you and your words.
Because of this desire for uncle sam to fix everything, I'm putting money on obama getting re-elected. Not that I want that of course.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Thursday, May 05, 2011
y com ey don kno wut i say???? :-(
If you could perfectly understand the post title I can only assume that you send text messages a lot.
Why did I type the title like that? Well to beg a question of course! Last night I was talking to one of my buddies, both of us were tired as hell, so I honestly have no idea how this became the topic of discussion.
Anyways, he said something about how schools were now accepting and/or teaching texting short hand or slang.
Not just as one of those waste of credit type of classes but as an accepted method of academic communication.
First thing out of my mouth was, "Your f***ing joking right?" He assured me he wasn't, but I didn't believe him, I had to see this for myself.
Straight to Google I went! Well I didn't find any direct proof that the teaching or accepting of said lingo was rampant, though I did find some articles stating that these kids in school now have a far smaller vocabulary than previous generations. A few defended the trend as a more efficient way of communication within that specific medium, though it was not to be accepted in college level work.
I even saw an article that was trying to push the theory that somehow texting slang helped with real spelling, via phonetic representation.....don't all dictionaries already break words down into a phonetic type spelling to help you say/read it right?? I wish I could find that article again to link it here, I will link the ones I mentioned above for anyone that is interested.
Semi condemns acceptance
Passes of as nothing to really worry about
The reason I bring this up is mainly because it is simply scary to me. I mean didn't we learn our lesson about this kind of thing back in the 90s with Fuzzy Math ?
I can understand certain words and ways of speaking vary from region to region.
But it would seem that there is a blurry line between being efficient and plain old lazy. Just think about it, what will the next 20 years bring?
Why did I type the title like that? Well to beg a question of course! Last night I was talking to one of my buddies, both of us were tired as hell, so I honestly have no idea how this became the topic of discussion.
Anyways, he said something about how schools were now accepting and/or teaching texting short hand or slang.
Not just as one of those waste of credit type of classes but as an accepted method of academic communication.
First thing out of my mouth was, "Your f***ing joking right?" He assured me he wasn't, but I didn't believe him, I had to see this for myself.
Straight to Google I went! Well I didn't find any direct proof that the teaching or accepting of said lingo was rampant, though I did find some articles stating that these kids in school now have a far smaller vocabulary than previous generations. A few defended the trend as a more efficient way of communication within that specific medium, though it was not to be accepted in college level work.
I even saw an article that was trying to push the theory that somehow texting slang helped with real spelling, via phonetic representation.....don't all dictionaries already break words down into a phonetic type spelling to help you say/read it right?? I wish I could find that article again to link it here, I will link the ones I mentioned above for anyone that is interested.
Semi condemns acceptance
Passes of as nothing to really worry about
The reason I bring this up is mainly because it is simply scary to me. I mean didn't we learn our lesson about this kind of thing back in the 90s with Fuzzy Math ?
I can understand certain words and ways of speaking vary from region to region.
But it would seem that there is a blurry line between being efficient and plain old lazy. Just think about it, what will the next 20 years bring?
Monday, May 02, 2011
Please sir!! I want some moar!!!
This is a column I read in todays (2 may 2011) shreveport times. The front page was about the Osama news, so I picked it up and started skimming through the articles. This was one of the few that caught my eye.
Pretty good summation of how blindly some people are eating up everything out of Obamas mouth.
The Obama doctrine: Leading from behind
Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine.
One of his advisers described the president's action in Libya as
"leading from behind."
-- Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, May 2 issue
To be precise, leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy - Lizza's painstaking two-year chronicle shows it to be as ad hoc, erratic and confused as it appears - this will have to do.
And it surely is an accurate description, from President Obama's shocking passivity Iran's 2009 Green Revolution to his dithering on Libya, acting at the very last moment, then handing off to a bickering coalition, yielding the current bloody stalemate. It's been a foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the (fictional) "international community" to do what only America can.
But underlying that style, assures this Obama adviser, there really are ideas. Indeed, "two unspoken beliefs," explains Lizza. "That the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world."
Amazing. This is why Obama is deliberately diminishing American presence, standing and leadership in the world?
Take proposition one: We must "lead from behind" because U.S. relative power is declining. Even if you accept the premise, it's a complete non-sequiter. What does China's rising GDP have to do with American buck-passing on Libya, misjudging Iran, appeasing Syria?
True, China is rising. But first, it is the only power of any significance militarily relative to us.
And second, the challenge of a rising Chinese military is still exclusively regional. It would affect a war over Taiwan. It has zero effect on anything significantly beyond China's coast.
Proposition two: We must lead from behind because we are reviled. Pray tell, when are we not? During Vietnam? Or earlier, under Eisenhower? Or maybe later, under the blessed Reagan? The Reagan years were marked by vast demonstrations in the capitals of our closest allies denouncing America as a warmongering menace taking the world into nuclear winter.
"Obama came of age politically," explains Lizza, "during the post-Cold War era, a time when America's unmatched power created widespread resentment." But the world did not begin with the coming of consciousness of Barack Obama. Cold War resentments ran just as deep.
It is the fate of any assertive superpower to be envied, denounced and blamed for everything under the sun. Nothing has changed.
Who truly reviles America the hegemony? The world that Obama lived in and shaped him intellectually: the elite universities; his Hyde Park milieu (including his not-to-be-mentioned friends, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn); the church he attended for two decades, ringing with sermons more virulently anti-American than anything heard in today's full-throated uprising of the Arab Street.
It is the liberal elites who revile the American colossus and devoutly wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind is a reaction to their view of America, not the world's.
Other presidents take anti-Americanism as a given, rather than evidence of American malignancy, believing - as do most Americans - in the rightness of our cause and the nobility of our intentions. Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America's fitness for leadership. I would suggest that "leading from behind" is a verdict on Obamas fitness for leadership.
Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron. Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it a doctrine. The president is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned.
Charles Krauthammer - Columnist
Pretty good summation of how blindly some people are eating up everything out of Obamas mouth.
The Obama doctrine: Leading from behind
Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine.
One of his advisers described the president's action in Libya as
"leading from behind."
-- Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, May 2 issue
To be precise, leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy - Lizza's painstaking two-year chronicle shows it to be as ad hoc, erratic and confused as it appears - this will have to do.
And it surely is an accurate description, from President Obama's shocking passivity Iran's 2009 Green Revolution to his dithering on Libya, acting at the very last moment, then handing off to a bickering coalition, yielding the current bloody stalemate. It's been a foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the (fictional) "international community" to do what only America can.
But underlying that style, assures this Obama adviser, there really are ideas. Indeed, "two unspoken beliefs," explains Lizza. "That the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world."
Amazing. This is why Obama is deliberately diminishing American presence, standing and leadership in the world?
Take proposition one: We must "lead from behind" because U.S. relative power is declining. Even if you accept the premise, it's a complete non-sequiter. What does China's rising GDP have to do with American buck-passing on Libya, misjudging Iran, appeasing Syria?
True, China is rising. But first, it is the only power of any significance militarily relative to us.
And second, the challenge of a rising Chinese military is still exclusively regional. It would affect a war over Taiwan. It has zero effect on anything significantly beyond China's coast.
Proposition two: We must lead from behind because we are reviled. Pray tell, when are we not? During Vietnam? Or earlier, under Eisenhower? Or maybe later, under the blessed Reagan? The Reagan years were marked by vast demonstrations in the capitals of our closest allies denouncing America as a warmongering menace taking the world into nuclear winter.
"Obama came of age politically," explains Lizza, "during the post-Cold War era, a time when America's unmatched power created widespread resentment." But the world did not begin with the coming of consciousness of Barack Obama. Cold War resentments ran just as deep.
It is the fate of any assertive superpower to be envied, denounced and blamed for everything under the sun. Nothing has changed.
Who truly reviles America the hegemony? The world that Obama lived in and shaped him intellectually: the elite universities; his Hyde Park milieu (including his not-to-be-mentioned friends, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn); the church he attended for two decades, ringing with sermons more virulently anti-American than anything heard in today's full-throated uprising of the Arab Street.
It is the liberal elites who revile the American colossus and devoutly wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind is a reaction to their view of America, not the world's.
Other presidents take anti-Americanism as a given, rather than evidence of American malignancy, believing - as do most Americans - in the rightness of our cause and the nobility of our intentions. Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America's fitness for leadership. I would suggest that "leading from behind" is a verdict on Obamas fitness for leadership.
Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron. Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it a doctrine. The president is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned.
Charles Krauthammer - Columnist
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