Blog Jones

As you may have noticed, just below my blogroll is a list of my five most recent comments to the blog. Thanks to this guy for writing the plugin.

Susannah Meadows interviews Stephen Jones at MSNBC.com. Key Quote:

Are you less strict than your father?
Hard to say. If we’re talking about stuff that’s clearly in scripture, I wouldn’t be less anything. Rules, order are part of the educational value. Even if you have to dress up to come to class, that’s teaching something. We maybe could get to the day when we don’t wear ties in the morning, but I’m not sure.

“And the peasants rejoiced.”

Her name is Dr. Rice or Dr. Condoleeza Rice or Secretary Rice.

Please do not refer to her as “Condi” in public discourse and press conferences. Show some respect.

Thanks.

(Program Note: I actually composed this post several days ago, but I wrote it late at night and wanted to take the time to edit it.)

The Boileryard has been something something of a one-issue blog lately. It’s founder, Boileryard Clarke, has been beating the drum for an anti-interventionist foreign policy; specifically, he’s become an opponent of the war in Iraq, and against any similar preemptive attacks. A recent post analyzes the President’s inaugural address. Allow me to quote a representative sample:

When he said; “At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical - and then there came a day of fire.

We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat…” what he is telling us is that he visualizes the War On Terror to be the equivalent to the Cold War, and that we will need another 50-year effort to overcome this threat just as we overcame the Communist one. A permanent state of emergency in the government that allows power to form around the Executive and takes power away from the Legislative.

Just as we watched happen from 1946 to 1991. Congress, once the only body that was allowed to declare War, now exists in a position where War no longer exists. If we don’t call it “War” - that is, declare it emphatically and commit the resources of the whole nation to the effort - the President can use a simple up-and-down roll call to bolster the legality of using American force for as long as he can get away with it. Congress’ ability to actually declare war was lost sometime around Viet Nam. We can thank the Democrats for it.

As you can tell from his final sentence above, Clarke is not some liberal Michael Moore worshipper. He isn’t among those who mindlessly repeat the arguments of the far left. His posts lately have carried the title “The Betrayal of the American Right.”

And his point definitely has merit. I agree that the President’s stated position, as follows, is troubling:

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. [My Emphasis]

It’s hard to oppose this position. No decent human being wants to stand beside tyrants or appear to be against freedom.

But I do have to oppose it, primarily on the grounds of feasibility. According to a link I found on Google News, the war in Iraq has cost approximately $130 billion dollars. That’s for one country with little more than a pushover defense force.

We cannot afford to free every nation on earth. We cannot afford to take out Rice’s Outposts of Tyranny. And frankly it’s not our job to free every nation on earth. It’s not our job to sacrifice billions of dollars and thousands of lives for every little third-world dictatorship.

Of course tyranny is wrong; ruling without the consent of the people is wrong. But if the oppressed people are not willing to stand up and fight for their own freedom, as we did, then they’ve granted their consent, have they not?

We can offer aid; we can send guns and supplies to freedom-loving revolutionaries in Cuba, Belarus, and Zimbabwe, to name some of the “Outposts.” But we ought not be in the business of undeclared wars against an unknown number of opponents.

We ought to be in the business of self-defense. If a foreign nation is supporting terrorism against the United States, and especially if that nation has threatened us with WMD’s, then by all means, go to war! Stop terrorism at its source! But mere oppression of native populations cannot be sufficient cause for us to step in, however heartless that may sound.

Netpilot, in the next post, quotes John Quincy Adams; I reproduce the quote in full below, my emphasis:

“Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been unfurled, there will America’s heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own….She well knows that, by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the color and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlets upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished luster the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.”

My media writing textbook has a section about various “Grammar and Style Trouble Spots,” such as subject-verb disagreements, clichés, various misused words, etc., etc. About jargon it states, “Jargon’s main purpose is to exclude those who don’t speak the jargon. In other words, those who speak the jargon (and know what it means for a company to “right-size its human resources applications”) can exclude those who don’t.”

Our author here sounds bitter. It’s as if he at one time held dreams of becoming a businessman, but couldn’t figure out the word “right-size” and was thus scorned and rejected from management. Or perhaps he was a journalist and once had the opportunity to conduct an interview with the CEO of Ford, but misunderstood some of the buzzwords and wrote such a bad article that he was fired and forced to write textbooks for a living.

Jargon doesn’t exist to exclude people; it exists to make communication easier. It’s shorthand. Do you remember your first days on the internet? You quickly had to learn what the acronyms like BRB and AFAIK and AFK and IMHO meant. Or perhaps when you’re first introduced to blogging, and you wonder what in the world “fisking” someone is. Watch ER: You’ll see people pretending to be doctors shouting acronyms at each other.

Every topic has its jargon: business (kaizen, EOQs), religion (traducianism, hyper-Calvinism), Hollywood (key grip, gaffer), computers (bus speed, XML), statistics (standard error of the mean, z-score), and yes, even journalism (skybox, key-subject blocks structure).

The point of jargon is to speed communication; it’s specialized language. Anyone is welcome to learn the vocabulary, and it’s usually not hard if you understand the concepts behind the vocabulary.

Of course, the media does have to avoid jargon, because most readers won’t understand it. That’s fine; just don’t pass blanket judgment about the motives of all those who use a specialized language–including yourself.

I had a great idea: My own podcast. Each week I’d read each entry from the Carnival of the Capitalists and record for all the world to hear. I got everything together: I made the XML feed, set up a space on my server to host my mp3 files, and even created a cool webpage for it. This afternoon, I began reading the posts, editing them with Audacity, and getting them to an acceptable level of quality, largely by eliminating the places where I tripped over my own words. Four entries in, I look at the clock: An hour and twenty minutes has passed by. There are more than 30 entries in this weeks Carnival. At this rate, it will take me something like 39 hours to read and edit every entry.

No. Unless I can figure out a way to get a full-time salary out of this thing, there’s no way I can afford to spend 39 hours a week on the idea. No. No.

But, here’s an idea: If everyone posting to the Carnival of the Capitalists would record an mp3 of themselves reading their posts, then one person could assemble them all into a single podcast. It’s really easy to set one up using Feedburner. In fact, I’d be willing to set up the feed myself; I’ll have to email Jay Solo, who apparently keeps track of the CotC’s hosts and gets the entries, about getting this idea together.

Here’s a contradiction found on The State newspaper website.

So which is it? Change, or no change?

I’ve joked that BJU considers denim to be the devil fabric, judging by their restrictive policies against jeans: Guys aren’t allowed to wear jeans unless they’re working outside (and maybe while playing sports, but I’m not sure); girls are allowed to wear denim skirts on the weekends. But that’s it: Apparently wearing jeans at any other time is an open invitation to let the demons in.

Apparently, some preacher in Tennesee seriously believes it.

“You’re not wearing pants in my church, you demon,” Storey claimed the preacher said. “I said, ‘I’m glad I serve a God who can work through my pants.’”

That’s when, according to Storey, Love allegedly grabbed her and hustled her to the door.

“He said, ‘I got all the demons out of my church, and I want you out,’” she said. “I said, ‘I don’t believe you’ve got all the demons out yet.’”

I was trying to get back to my homework after lunch today when my RSS reader greeted me with the headline “Pres. of Bob Jones Univ. to retire in May.”

(This is the disadvantage to me only having MWF classes and staying home on the other days; I miss out stuff like this.)

A quick trip to the BJU Website confirms the story, and adds that Dr. Bob Wood, 29-year COO of the university and occasional chapel speaker, is also stepping down, as is a Dr. Philip Smith with whom I’m less familiar.

All three will be retiring at graduation this year.

Scott Buchanan over at To Give An Answer has more.

Whenever an organization changes chief officers, things change. It will be interesting to see how the younger man’s vision for the university guides it. What policies will change? What programs will be emphasized? How interesting will chapel be?

We’ll soon see. Anyway, grace and glory to our new retirees, and best of luck to our new president, who reportedly is changing the school’s name to Stephen Jones University. No doubt you’ll need it.

My mom sent me a link to Thomas Sowell’s column from last week entitled I beg to disagree, which emphasizes the importance of logical, factual disagreement vs. mindless tribalism. It’s quite good. Go read it.

I promise I’ll post something of my own at some point when I don’t have homework to do or a résumé to prepare.

The Times of India reports that some jerks have taken it upon themselves to harrass call center workers in India with racist comments because of the “outsourcing” of American jobs.

Way to go! Very mature! Harrass people in a country with a per capita GDP of $2,900. The average Indian worker receives something like 7% of what an average American makes per year. I think that you can find something that will pay more than that. They can’t.

It’s nice to see that we’ve matured from the No Irish Need Apply days. And from the anti-semitism, anti-hispanic, and anti-black days. I guess we can move on to having racist attitudes about Indians and Pakistanis.

Come on already, people! Must we go through this with every single ethnic group on the planet?

(Via InstaPundit)

They say that first impressions are everything; scientists even tell us that students’ impressions of a teacher after “five seconds of soundless videotape… matched those given by his own students after a full semester of classes.”

So, today, my first day of classes, could conceivably set the tone for the whole semester. If that’s the case, this semester will be pretty good.

The rest of this post contains my initial thoughts about this semester.

Have you ever had a day where the weather seemed to perfectly match your mood?

The weather today in Greenville: Heavy rains, thunderstorms, and tornado warnings.

Today is not one of those days.

I’ve got six classes tomorrow, plus an evening evangelistic service. I will be at school for approximately twelve straight hours.

Tomorrow may be one of those days.

Hugh Hewitt: Great talk show host, but his blog lacks something. The one thing that would keep me coming back every day. The one thing that would get him a larger readership, and thus, more advertising revenue. And that one thing is:

An RSS feed.

Come on now, Hugh. If you wrote a book about blogs, you have to know what an RSS feed is. In case you somehow missed it in your research, an RSS feed is a file like this one. People can copy the link to this file into what’s called an RSS reader, such as BlogMatrix Jager. This program lets me know when you update your site and the first few words of what you say in each post. It’s a list of headlines that updates automatically.

The problem is that if your website doesn’t have RSS, people will forget to read it. I almost never remember to read your blog, because it doesn’t have RSS. If you installed RSS, I would instantly become a daily reader, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to think that way.

I understand that investigating how to install an RSS feed on… whatever arcane blogging software you use could be time consuming. You wonder, why should I, a nationally syndicated talk show host, bother about such trivial things as RSS?

To help provide you and your staff incentive to work on the project, I turn to the power of the blogosphere: I’m pledging five dollars for your tip jar if you install RSS, and I call on my fellow bloggers to make more pledges in the comment section of this post. Not only will your readership and influence expand, but so will the coffers of the Hewitt Treasury.

Please, for the love of Pete and all the other would-be RSS subscribers to your site, install RSS on your weblog!

As I mentioned last post, I’m the proud owner of a Creative Zen Touch, a Christmas gift from the folks. (I’ve never called my parents that before, actually.) I’d heard of something called “podcasting” before, and decided to give it a try.

What is podcasting? Well…. It’s like blogging, only with mp3 files instead of webpages.

Here’s what I do: When I find a podcast I want to listen to, I drag the link to it from the web browser to BlogMatrix Sparks!. After a few moments, Sparks! figures out what to do with it and it pops up on my list of Podcasts.

As you can see, there are two different kinds of posts on the list. The ones with just a blank page icon are text posts; the ones with a green note on them have MP3 files attached. The next step is to right click on the new blog’s title and click “Settings,” then to select the Attachments and Podcasting tab. Check the “Automatically Save Attachments” checkbox and hit OK.

Now Sparks! will download all the attachments automagically. I have Creative MediaSource, the horrendously ugh-ly Media Player software that was included with the Touch, set to monitor the folder that Sparks! downloads to. When I plug my MP3 player into my computer, MediaSource detects it and opens, again, automatically. I then click the “AudioSync” button, click next, and the new files are added to the player.

Now, whenever the new website is updated with a new MP3 file, all I have to do is to plug in my MP3 player and click a button. A minute later, I can listen to the new content wherever I go.

My favorite podcast is the Rip ‘n’ Read Blogger Podcast. Every day I can listen to a quick summary of the most popular topics of the previous day. I’m also subscribed to The GodCast Network for The Whole Truth, a podcast which will read the the whole New Testament over the course of 2005.

It’s all very cool. All I need to do is figure out some way to make it so that I don’t have to click *anything*.

UPDATE: I don’t recommend Adam Curry’s podcast, seen in the screenshot. Here’s a tip for any podcaster wanting my attention: Watch your language. And say something interesting. Thanks.

One question: The regular iPod doesn’t have a shuffle mode?!

My Creative Zen Touch does.

Ha Ha!

That is all.

Apple’s latest computer, the Mac Mini is pretty impressive. Aimed at the first time Mac acolyte, it actually has a decent price ($500), claims to be compatible with your monitor and your (USB) keyboard and mouse, and advertises that “It Just Works.”

It’s also pretty slick; as befits the name, it’s tiny–just 6×6x2, about the size of a car stereo. Check this out:

It’s a very nice computer. The specs are OK, for such a small device: 1.25 GHz, 40 gig hard drive, 256 MB ram (upgradeable to 1gig).

BUT: Here’s where the Mac and I part ways:

Enchanting Enhancements

Mac mini offers plenty of juice to power your digital life, but you can kick it into overdrive with extras. Add the SuperDrive option to burn DVDs of your home movies or to make a backup of the music or audiobooks you buy at the iTunes Music Store. You can minimize the desktop clutter of cables with wireless connections. Surf wirelessly with an AirPort Extreme Card installed in your Mac mini. Or configure your Mac mini with internal Bluetooth to use wireless keyboards and mice. You can also choose up to 1GB RAM and increase the 40GB hard drive to 80GB. Some of these options must be installed by Apple at the factory; the rest can be added in-store at an Apple Store or an Apple authorized reseller.

I’m sorry? I can’t upgrade my own computer? I can’t even slap in my own RAM? No, no, and no.

I can put up with not upgrading my laptop much, but even that lets me slap another stick of RAM in. That, and it’s portable. The tradeoff between a desktop and a laptop is less power and customizability for portability. The Mac Mini has the worst of both worlds: It’s virtually un-upgradable, it’s less capable than other desktops because of its small form factor, and it’s tied to the desk, unlike other small computers.

I mean, it has its niche, but I don’t want one. Especially when you consider that I hate using Macs.

Why, why, why do I have to mess with that weird little clover-leaf key instead of using my trusty old keyboard shortcuts? I hit Alt-F4 cloverleaf-F4 to close my program and…nothing happens. So I click the red button on title bar of my program’s open window. The window closes but… the program stays open. I have to go to the menu bar, which is strangely detached from individual windows, click File then Exit Program, and it finally goes away. ARGH!

I like my Windows OS. I’m used to it. I can (usually) make it cooperate with me. The buttons do what I expect. Microsoft Word doesn’t make noises at me. The Mac OS is pretty, but it’s darn near unusable.

Whoops. I didn’t mean to get into all of that. Now I’m going to get some Macolytes in here. I’ll quit kicking the anthill now.

This does make a nice entry-level Mac. But you can’t just go grab a new and improved video card off the shelf and install it. You have to take the unit to the Temple of Apple where the highest members of the Order work their magic to make your games (all 5 games that work with the Mac) run faster.

Now, I’ve never built my own PC. (I want to sometime, but I can’t justify it to myself at this time.) I rarely do my own upgrades, and it’s usually a pain in the rear end when I do. But I can. I have the freedom to easily modify my own device. I can’t on a Mac.

But if you really, really want to switch to Mac, you can try it (kind of) cheaply now. But, why not get a Dell Dimension 3000 and get a monitor, twice the RAM, and twice the processing power, for the same price as the Mac Mini?

I’ve had to use a script to close all the comments on my Movable Type blogs. I just got sick of getting comment spammed. The downside is that legitimate comments can no longer be left on those entries either.

I hate spammers.

This entry is designed to hold any future comments from the “All About Me!” link in the sidebar.

VariFrank has an “unprofessional” post today. I’m late to the party on this one; InstaPundit and at least 44 other sites have linked to this article, but this is good stuff. It’s in reference to the Asian tsunami disaster.

Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:

” See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier…”

After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud.

and then they looked at me. I wasn’t laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.

I’m afraid I was “unprofessional”, I let it loose -

“Hmmm, let’s see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want?

Something with its own inexhuastible power supply?

Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water?

Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?

Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies?

Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?

Well “Franz”, us peasants in America call that kind of ship an “Aircraft Carrier”. We have 12 of them. How many do you have? Oh that’s right, NONE. Lucky for you and the rest of the world, we are the kind of people who share. Even with people we dont like.

Read the whole thing.