View 412 May 1 - 7, 2006 (original) (raw)
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Tuesday, May 2, 2006
The freeways are crowded again. And what was the impact on the economy without the Gothic invaders?
Not to promote the Art Bell show, or Nostradamus, or Edgar Cacey, but their Nostradamus expert tonight is saying truth: the Goths wanted nothing more than to be part of the Roman Empire and its wealth, they didn't intend to invade and conquer they just wanted in, and they came not in armies and hordes but in tribes a few hundred a day... Eventually Theodoric the Goth deposed the last Roman Emperor of the West. They were Arian heretics but wanted to control the Church even so. Perhaps there are some lessons in there. Perhaps not.
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Lisabetta, the TabletPC, continues to work as if nothing wrong had ever happened. She's docked in her usual manner, and all seems well. She's not overheating (I did blow out all the vents, but I didn't see any dust or lint), the drive isn't chattering, and all works just fine.
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Asking again, does anyone know how to search OUTLOOK Archives? I need to look back for a couple of years.
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http://usinfo.state.gov/esp/home/topics/us_society_values
/national_symbols/anthem_spanish.html
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
'Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto - "In God is our trust,"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
No refuge could save the hireling and slave...
At one time cadets at West Point were required to learn all four verses, with the fourth being the most popular with military officers. I do not know, but I suspect that tradition is no more.
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Microsoft set to launch cheaper Windows XP product in Africa
By DULUE MBACHU .c The Associated Press
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Microsoft Corp. is targeting Africa with a lower-priced operating system, a Windows ``Starter Edition'' that will work on cheaper machines and have Africa-themed screensavers and background wallpaper among its features.
Microsoft said Thursday its Windows XP Starter Edition for Africa is scheduled to hit African shelves in July, although it didn't say how many units will be shipped or what the price range will be.
The Microsoft system ``operates on lower-cost personal computing hardware'' and ``is designed for entry-level PC users in Africa - with extended help and assistance functions for first-time users, and locally relevant screensavers and wallpapers,'' the Redmond, Washington-based company said in a statement released in Nigeria.
Does anyone else see some problems here?
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Thanks to several readers for calling my attention to this:
http://www.cir-usa.org/articles/156.html
The age of white guilt: and the disappearance of the black individual
Essay
By Shelby Steele
Harper's Magazine, November 30, 1999
One day back in the late fifties, when I was ten or eleven years old, there was a moment when I experienced myself as an individual--as a separate consciousness--for the first time. I was walking home from the YMCA, which meant that I was passing out of the white Chicago suburb where the Y was located and crossing Halsted Street back into Phoenix, the tiny black suburb where I grew up. It was a languid summer afternoon, thick with the industrial-scented humidity of south Chicago that I can still smell and feel on my skin, though I sit today only blocks from the cool Pacific and more than forty years removed.
This is an important essay, and well worth your time. The short comment is, "Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide." Steele gives a good series of examples and consequences. And see below
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Subject: Iraqi Oilfield Conditions
Hi Jerry,
See http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,413981,00.html for an interesting overview of the condition of the Iraqi oil industry,
Best Regards,
Leander
I find this fascinating; and of course Phillip's ship is over there in the Gulf and probably goes in and out of that river...
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Jean-Francois Revel, RIP.
http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/
story.html?id=6710ab8d-d432-49ce-aca1-
cc21f8c8edf8&k=64116
----- Roland Dobbins
How Democracies Die was an important work. He was always interesting. I regret I never met him.
And on the subject of How Democracies Die:
Steele's latest: White Guilt and the Western Past.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318
- Roland Dobbins
These are both important essays. We've looked at most of these issues here, but these are good summaries with examples and good reasoning.
And the summary remains: "Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide."
Do not misunderstand: by suicide, Burnham meant, and I mean, the extinction of what we call "Western Civilization" including liberalism, tolerance, the Enlightenment, the Laws of War, laissez faire, and the notion of private property in the sense of "A man's home is his castle." There are counterparts to all those in civilizations other than Western, but sometimes they are hard to discern. Tolerance and the notion of equal rights and equal protection of the laws, in particular, has little counterpart anywhere outside the West. The fact the the Liberals who are killing the West will be the first to suffer when their work is done is not much consolation.