Failure to understand the phrase "Peace Movement"

Gaza aid flotilla 'leaves Cyprus'


The Palestinian territory has been under an Israeli and Egyptian economic blockade for almost three years, with only limited humanitarian aid allowed.

The activists, from the Free Gaza Movement, want to break the blockade.

Israel imposed the measures after the Islamist movement Hamas took power in Gaza.

Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel over the past decade.
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For days, human rights activists aboard the flotilla of ships have been saying they are due in Gaza soon, but they are now running days late.

In the 60's , as I'm sure everyone knows, there were these peace protest. People didn't want war anymore. They wanted you to stop shooting at each other , stop fighting, etc etc. And they organized protests. They had sleep ins. They had love ins. they invented non-violent protests. This was where Green Peace was born.

In the new century, a new form of war has broken out.

Some people have noticed the tactics that the war protesters used in the sixties , and decided that must work on the western nations, so instead of bullets , they'll use non violent protest.

But they're not interested in stopping war. They've taken sides, and the definately want one side to win , and the other side to drop dead. Peace is just a tactic, world domination of Islam is their end goal. So all western non islamic nations will now be subject to "peaceful protests" until they all drop dead and die.

OH thats not what they say , that would be too violent. What they say is "they should go someplace else". Trouble is they want the whole dang planet , so there really isn't any "some place else" when you're out to take it all.

And the whole peace and harmony and love they neibour and brother hood of man thing ? Only if you're a muslim. Only if you're THEIR variety of muslim. And there's a bunch. And they fight each other constantly. With bullets and riots and using unarmed civilians as armies in wave attacks. And it's pretty obvious by their actions they don't give a dang about the welfare or lives of their true believers.

umm...yeah. Failed to understand the concept of "Peace Movement".

These people don't want peace. They want to conquer it all. Bullets didn't work , they'll try something else.

But peace is not what they're interested in.

And living under their system would incurr a breif hellish life and a nasty death.

I'll pass thanks.

Sink that flotilla. Those guys are soldiers , not civilians.

Privacy : Why do I care ?

Facebook changes are 'not enough,' say groups

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says that "more is needed" from Facebook to address privacy criticisms.

In a blog post, the civil liberties group praised Facebook for a "great first step" towards giving members of the site more control over their data.

However, it warned members against choosing the site's recommended privacy control setting.


So. Why do I care about privacy ? Why am I running a blog under an anonymous name instead of my real name ? Why the hassel ?

The truth is , I didn't care about privacy. No one cared.

Until I went to work one day , and my employer asked me if I played guitar, if I was in a band. Yes I played guitar , no I'm not in a band or thinking of starting one , why do you ask ?

He did a search on google. Some guy with the same name as me was starting a rock and roll band and he was worried I was going to leave him.

I went to a job interview at a personel agency. They asked for my Facebook page. I said I didn't have one. They demanded it , insisted, threatenned not to hire me if they found out I was lying to them.

And by the way , why don't you have a facebook page ?

It's too big a violation of my privacy. I'll get spammed by half the world. And can I have my resume back ? I don't want to work for you.

I used to post on the old usernet news groups. You always had to be careful not to leave an email address, because automatic programs sifted through all the usergroups looking for anything that even looked like an email address and put you on a mailing list to try and sell you viagra and gawd only knows what else.

I got drunk one time, and I stumbled across the email address of Sadam Hussain (dictator of Iraq at the time, he's been deposed by the americans since then). Did I send him hate mail ? No , I signed him up for every homosexual porn site I could find.

Why do I care about privacy ?

I didn't, until a hotmail email address got spammed out of existance. And hten hotmail actually shut it down because there was too much traffic but for 30$ / month they'd be happy to reactivate it.

I didn't, until people started calling my cell phone , from the USA , to sell me junk. On my dime.

I didn't, until a job interview gone wrong where they demanded my facebook page so they could check up on me.


I didn't , until I started looking for a job, and whenever I answered the phone, it wasn't for a job interview, it was a telemarketer trying to sell me stuff, and they had my name.

Now, I care.

Schizophrenic Windsor man gets life for murder

Article

Assistant Crown attorney Gary Nikota said the sentence was appropriate, since the beating of Kearley was not the first time Downs displayed violence.

"Five months before, he engaged in a vicious attack on a mother and a young child for no apparent reason," said Nikota.


So your first incident was when you , for schizophrenic reasons, decided to beat on some random woman and her kid passing by ? Because God told you to ?

Let me guess. before that you were completely non violent, never did a thing in your life , right ?

It's sad to watch people walk down this path. Especially when one of them is known to you. It's like watching one of those dumb zombie movies where your best friend is slowly turned into some kind of monster and then comes chasing after you trying to kill you.

I hate when that happens.

US cartoonist apologises over Facebook Muhammad row

Article

A cartoonist whose work inspired an internet campaign inviting people to draw images of the Prophet Muhammad has apologised for her role in the row.

Writing on her blog, Molly Norris said her satirical cartoon was "hijacked" and that the campaign was "offensive to Muslims".

The problem is that as is the case many times, her first instinct was the correct one. The religion of Islam is attempting to tell the entire world how they can live their lives, and attempt to control all commentary on Islam, and this is not acceptable.

I'm sorry if you don't like the things we say and think about your religion, but shooting people who say bad things doesn't help. It only makes it worse. Your religion, in fact any religion , isn't protected over here. People have a right to comment on these things and decide they don't much like them , or think they're silly or foolish or what not.

And running around saying "You have insulted our religion , you must die" is like a politician running around saying "I take insult to that , kill all those people."

Islam is a dominant religion , it is a political force. And it has entered the field of politics and that's life. It gets rotten tomatoes thrown at it just like every other politician , that's the price of power. That's what you have to put up with when you seek to rule any large group of people.

Deciding there can be no criticism allowed of a political force, be it a person or a religion , that is the real intolerance. That is what is truly unacceptable.

And that's why this whole cartoon thing is a flash point. You're stifling criticism of a ruling power.

Gnumeric Disapointment

Yeah, now they tell me I'm diabetic. And they gave me this thing to stab my finger with and take readings and I'm supposed to write down those readings and everything.

Hmm....a spread sheet can do that job easy.

So I got my free copy of Gnumeric, which |I recommend to all my friends, and I have to tell you , I've never really used it before. Oh I did quick demo's and tried one or two things, but I never actually used the dang thing on a daily basis to actually perform work.

So I stab myself, and I take readings, and I put them in the spreadsheet.

And a bunch of readings suddenly go missing.

Maybe I made a mistake. Enter the latest readings , save adn close , open , and make sure they're there. Perfect.

next day their gone.

Amn I losing my mind ?

There was one very high reading it stuck in my mind. It's gone.

Gnumeric ... doesn't work. All that effort. All that enthusasm I got a free spreadsheet I don't have to pay a few hundred dollars etc etc etc....

Dang thing just doesn't work. Your "saved" data has a habit of simply evaporating.

I hate crud like that.

Kick 'em to the curb

In Greek Debt Crisis, Some See Parallels to U.S.

What an interesting news article. They are seriously proposing that it's too expensive to treat sick people. What are you going to do with them ? Kick them to the curb like you're doing right now ?

Every other nation in the world can afford health care, why can't you ?

And yeah , Greek has a debt crisis, but Cuba doesn't , and it's got a great health care system doesn't it ? Ditto Canada.

It is interesting that such articles receive serious consideration in the american news media.

But when I talk with people online, in online games, I get a very different response from joe average down in america.

The Stream of Life

Ever just lie in the grass, when you were a kid , and just look up at the clouds, and think "That one looks like a rabbit" , or "that one looks like a face" ?

Of course we all know, there's no rabbit in the clouds. It's your mind playing tricks on you, trying constantly to organize everything around it into meaningful patterns. And it's funny when you set that automatic part of your mind onto something that has no pattern , that is totally random ... like clouds ... what does that cloud look like ?

Life is like that too. A stream of events. People interacting , talking , fighting , misunderstanding. Throw in government agencies and over eager bureaucrats that will actively lie to you (just met one the other day when I was applying for retraining) , and life might as well just be a random stream of events.

Like looking for rabbits in the clouds.

And it's a fun game to see what kind of patterns emerge from trying to impose order and meaning onto something that has neither. The most bizzare things pop out and you cannot help but laugh at them.

Until one day you realize that you may understand it's all a game your mind is playing on you , but not everyone around you does.

That would be when your friend, who's been a little off , a little too deep into the conspiracy theories for years, runs into a stream of bad luck. And then one day blythly informs you that you are a secret agent of some sort working for the goverment to interfere in his marriage.

Wow...what a pretty bunny rabbit you found. That is totally bizzare, and yes , it's perfectly defensible, the string of events could be interperted to mean that, with just a little imagination.

Except for the part where the mystery government agency has neglected to send me any paychecks.

And you realize he doesn't think it's all a game , or doesn't realize (or accept) it's just your mind playing tricks on you . It's a random stream of events, your mind is going to produce random results. It means nothing, there is no order to be deduced. There is no pattern there no matter what you see.

I wonder sometimes , if we're all doomed to go crazy. To see patterns where there are none , and come to believe in some vast conspiracy where powerful government agencies and other groups are for unspeciied reasons concearned with the comings and goings of unimportant no bodies such as ourselves.

The only pattern I see is randomness. Or perhaps a complexity so vast it is beyond prediction by anyone and thus is close enough to randomness that you might as well just call it that.

And I think it's a cool game to let your mind chew on this randomness and see what outragous results you can come out with. But other people are doing the same thing ... and they're not playing a game.

They seem to think it's for real.

Goodbye Rich Dude. I know why you do what you do , but you've locked the keys inside of you , and there's no way for anyone to let you out back into the sunshine. All we can do is not be there when you decide to take the next step and "defend" yourself against phantom attackers by becoming violent. As it seems is the fate of most people who wear your shoes.

Goodbye.

Paranoid schizophrenia

Positive symptoms
Positive symptoms are symptoms that indicate the presence of unusual thoughts and perceptions that often involve a loss of contact with reality. Delusions and hallucinations are considered positive symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

* Delusions. In paranoid schizophrenia, delusions are often focused on the perception that you're being singled out for harm. Your brain misinterprets experiences and you hold on to these false beliefs despite evidence to the contrary. For instance, you may believe that the government is monitoring every move you make or that a co-worker is poisoning your lunch. You may also have delusions of grandeur — the belief that you can fly, that you're famous or that you have a relationship with a famous person, for example. Delusions can result in aggression or violence if you believe you must act in self-defense against those who want to harm you.

Goodbye Old Friend

Article = none, personal experiance.


I have a friend. Lets call him rich dude. He isn't much better educated or anything , he didn't inherit anything from his parents. But he made it. He got the nice job, the shiny car , the string of girl friends. And he got it with no help from anyone else.

I've always admired him for that.

Today I had to leave him.

Apparently , according to him , I"m a government agent of some agency or another , and this agency has stooped way down to interfere between him and his wife and their divorce. And he's been acting a little off for years. I'm pretty well convinced he's lost it , and his next step will be to kidnap me and try and beat a confession out of me.

He had it all , and he got it himself. But he was always ... a little off. He was always a conspiracy theory nut. When the store down the street from his home burned down , he decided organized crime meant it as a warning to him personally. Umm..sorry , if organized crime wants to give you a warning it will be your sister or your mother they put a hit on , not the store down the street.

But dont tell him that. He won't listen.

And don't get him started on the subject of government experiments and feeding LSD to test subjects, which apparently he was one of. Don't even go down that road.

Him and his father fought , for years , over a house. He lost it all , and went deeply in debt. Then his marriage went bad, and his job as well. He went from having it all to losing it all.

And it's all a big conspiracy to him , nothing you say will convince him otherwise.

This goes on for years.

Today he announced he was convinced I was a government agent acting on his wifes behalf to ... to do what ? I have no idea. He has no money, and no one will listen to him, but don't tell him that. To listen to him he's got dirt on everyone.

There's no way to argue with a paranoid, no argument you can present , no proof that you're not part of some vast conspiracy against him.

I bought him lunch , and then I took a taxi home.

I'm hoping I don't have to get a restraining order. He's now dangerous to be around. And I got a wife of my own to protect.