David Warren: http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/Comment/Mar04/index205.shtml has an interesting article making the case that continental Europe really hasn't changed very much since World War II. That weakness and appeasement that led to its near destruction in World War II runs as strong as ever. This article http://www.coldfury.com/Sasha/archives/004682.html#004682 is even more explicit on the matter. Personally, I don't know what to think. During the early days of World War...
The anti-war people are just anti-action.I have no respect for the position of the "anti-war" people. They just want to make it tougher for the people who are stuck having to make real decisions. The Bush-bashing is usually the most amusing though becaue it demonstrates the lack of rational thought by some people. Bill "multilaterialsm" Clinton suffered more terror attacks on the United States than Bush has. After 9/11 there have been zero attacks on the United States. By contra...
The political season brings out the worst in both sides. Too many people treat real world politics as a game. Not as a computer game , but a game of intellectual exercise. What they forget is that there are monsters out there. And once in a great while, a monster gets loose. In the 20th century, Hitler and his ilk were allowed to run amok across Europe and besides the 30 million or so who died in actual in the war, another 12 million were executed simply because they weren't the correct race...
The terrorist attack in Spain may or may not be the work of Al Qaeda or some other Islamofascist terrorist network. But based on what's coming out of Europe, one thing is clear: The Europeans are starting to "get it". As France's Le Monde put it: "If she did not know it yet, she knows it now: Europe is part of the battlefield of hyper-terrorism ... Nothing, evidently, no cause, no context, no supposedly political objective, justifies this kind of [large scale] terrorism ... If the trail ...
Hopefully you've begun to see a gradual speed up of JoeUser. We've been adding more servers and the guys continue to add new features and speed ups to the site. We did have some problems last night during the transition but hopefully everything is back to normal now.
We've been working on the Blog Navigator for a few months now. We've been on the net and found various RSS readers out there but they always seemed to lack something. If only we could combine all the best features of them together. So that's where the Blog Navigator comes in. We're going to release a free version that just works on JoeUser.com. But the enhanced version, which will be $19.95, will help support the site and allow users to interact with any site with RSS feeds. But it ...
Over the years, Americans have died all over the world fighting for causes that, at the time, seems pointless. It is only in the long view that many of these actions can be judged. The war on terror, which includes the "battle" in Iraq is no exception. Bringing democracy to Iraq will, in the long term, bring peace and prosperity to those people and make us a lot safer. We are a lot safer having Saddam removed than leaving him there for the inevitable day when sanctions were lifted and ...
I've been re-reading Ender's Game from Orson Scott Card. It's probably one of the best all time sci-fi books out there. The other books in the series degrade substantially. The first book, however, is totally self-contained. The book exhibits the types of things I always enjoy in a good story: The good guys are very intelligent. The bad guys are very intelligent. It's a book just full of smart people in every sense and you can see each character trying to accomplish their goals while fully...
Whether you’re talking to a right-wing nut or a left-wing zealot, they will insist that their opinions are in the mainstream. No one ever thinks that they are somehow out of touch with everyone. They’re not extreme. Everyone else is – particularly those who disagree with them. Who, exactly, is the arbiter of far left or far right? The answer is: Everyone else. By definition, you’re a right-wing or left-wing extremist if your positions on various issues are in conflict with the ...
Some people have complained that Bush doesn't have the right to make use of any 9/11 related images in his campaign commercials. I disagree. But I also strongly believe that he needs to tread carefully as to not seem to be exploiting a national tragedy. The reason I think he can and should bring up 9/11 is because it was the defining moment of is presidency. I remember thinking as the months passed after 9/11 how thankful I was that Bush had won and not Gore. I could imagine th...
Got this in an email today. Thought you'd get a kick out of it: EXCERPTS FROM A DOG'S DIARY 8:00 AM - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite! 9:30 AM - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite 9:40 AM - Oh Boy! A walk! My favorite! 10:30 AM - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite! 11:30 AM - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite! 12:00 Noon - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite! 1:00 PM - Oh Boy! The yard! My favorite! 4:00 PM - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite! 5:00 PM - Oh Boy! Dog food! My fa...
Got this in an email today. Thought you'd get a kick out of it: EXCERPTS FROM A DOG'S DIARY 8:00 AM - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite! 9:30 AM - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite 9:40 AM - Oh Boy! A walk! My favorite! 10:30 AM - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite! 11:30 AM - Oh Boy! Dog food! My favorite! 12:00 Noon - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite! 1:00 PM - Oh Boy! The yard! My favorite! 4:00 PM - Oh Boy! The kids! My favorite! 5:00 PM - Oh Boy! Dog food! My fa...
Blogs occasionally seem to have a Europe vs. United States mentality. I've seen it since the beginning of blogging. Why is that? Why is so much scorn reserved for Americans from Europeans? Why is such contempt shown for Europeans? I think I have the answer: Drastically different philosophies on life. Europeans are focused on fairness. Americans are focused on freedom. Europeans look at Americans as a bunch of uncultured barbarians running amok in their country and worse, through the...
As Bakerstreet recently wrote, a website like JoeUser.com represents an evolutionary step in blogging. The idea is for people to be able to have their own blogs about whatever they want. But where JoeUser.com differs is that we want to create a system in which people who write blogs have a chance of having their works get more exposure than they would elsewhere. Hence, the point system. People come to JoeUser.com, they then are presented with top articles of the day, newest articles, top arti...
Feedback on today's alpha build: 1) Default view should be the awareness view of the map 2) Whenever something improves awareness, a subtle and tasteful animation should appear (and very small) and then zip over to where the awareness field in the UI is so that players can see that stat. 3) When a media event shows up, the player merely needs to fly to that state. WHen they do, a dialog should show up "Do you want to appear on The Oreilly Factor ?" (or whatever show it is). If it shows...