Whistleblowers

     I recently read an article about procedures for encouraging employees that work for companies actively engaging in fraud to blow the whistle. Rather unsurprisingly, the two Republicans voted to require the employees to notify their bosses prior to any contact with the authorities. This would give the company the opportunity to fire the "troublemaker" and then say that he was just making the accusations because he was a disgruntled ex-worker. Fortunately, the two Democrats and one Independent did not go along with that. Securities fraud does not happen by accident. It is done deliberately. And confronting a powerful criminal before notifying the authorities is foolish.

Rhomphaia is writing about the "gay agenda"

     Below is my response.


     For homosexuals to proselytize straights they would have to be trying to recruit them into becoming homosexual -- something that would be about as effective as recruiting people to have brown eyes.
     But, instead, you object to them having the agenda of wanting to be treated as normal people rather than targets for persecution (e.g. people that you can drag down the freeway tied behind your pickup truck.) You will excuse me if I do not fault anyone for having an agenda like that.

EDIT:

     Rhomphaia now objects to my bringing up the persecution that homosexuals experience and which drives their agenda. After all, she said nothing about the persecution or the violence. Below is my response.


     "There was nothing in there AT ALL about taking any rights from homos"
     "in which he admits homosexual activists do want to 'recruit' children to accept homosexual behavior as normal."
     Well, you consistently clamor that your rights are being taken away and say you need to be able to present your faith as "normal." I rather sense a double-standard. And it is true. You never once mentioned the violence that is a direct result of homosexuals being regarded as "not normal." But since that spurs them to their agenda, and you are talking about and condemning that agenda, it is an important point.
     So, no, you talked about their seeking normal treatment as though it came out of thin air, you never once mentioned the horrors that they face every single day in not being treated as normal. They are currently treated as objects of persecution. They want to be treated as normal. You object to their efforts in being treated as normal. Of course, mentioning the persecution makes your position look bad, so you don't mention it.


     Oh, by the way, I did gloss over your fellow believer "playing homosexual" to say that he was trying to recruit people into homosexual behavior. I do this in much the same way as I gloss over your fellow believers when they say they are/were atheists who really believe in your god but are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. It is not a lack of reading comprehension that induces me to reject christian propaganda. The fact is that you cannot turn someone homosexual and you cannot turn someone straight. It just doesn't work that way. And they already tried hiding; that didn't work out very well.


Rhomphaia:

     I do not doubt that this fellow is a real person. I also do not doubt that the article you quote exists. However, I do already know that "homosexuality is a choice" and "they're trying to turn our children into homosexuals" are bits of christian propaganda. They have been so for quite some time. And neither one is true.
     As for your claim that the original article is on a "homosexual site," I can dismiss it out of hand because you have shown that you only turn to christian sites for references. That explains why CBN is the only recognizable source that you give me. The others are all christian apologetics that I have never heard before. It is possible that someone set up a site to pretend to be a christian site. I have similarly seen sites that pretend to be christian sites that "admit that christianity is deceiving the world." But you would not appreciate any of that being brought up as "true admissions from christianity."
     An inconvenient fact for you is that I don't lie. You like to claim that I am a liar; but it is simply not true. As for the opportunities to have a straightforward discussion, you offer none. The phrase "This post has been removed by a blog administrator" says it all. If you were offering any such opportunity, my posts, which have never violated any of your stated rules, would never have been removed. It really is as simple as that.
     You accuse me of fighting with hype and emotionalism. But quite frankly, that is what you are doing with "they're trying to recruit our children."

Rhomphaia is now cheering that Moscow is banning "gay pride" parades

     Yes, yes, I know she actually had her "cat's paw" make that post. But as she give her full endorsement to everything he writes, The cheers are just as much from Rhomphaia.
     I wonder if she also cheers the muslims for their similar stance. Seriously, has she even considered that the primary reason Moscow doesn't allow the parades is because it fails to worship the state? Now, I realize that she considers homosexuals to be less than human. She is just celebrating another aspect of hate. Still, if you are going to have respect for human life, you can't pick and choose which people qualify as "human."

Why I do not capitalize certain words that christians want to see capitalized

     Simply put, it would be a lie for me to give such capitalizations. The capitalization of these words is based on the concept of worship for the biblical god. For me to capitalize those words would be an implicit statement that I thought the biblical god worthy of such worship. I do not. And, please, let's leave behind the excuses for why it would be "grammatically necessary" to capitalize those words. The word "he" does not become a proper noun just because it refers to your preferred god. I am not being disrespectful if I treat your god the way I (and you) treat all others.
     The purpose of language is communication. My refusal to capitalize a word that does not warrant capitalization (despite a long tradition of an improper capitalization) does not impede communication -- aside from your taking an unwarranted offense. Randomly capitalizing letters in the middle of words does impede communication. The brain gets stuck because it expects the capital letters to be at the beginning of words or (for emphasis) fully capitalized throughout a word. And yet christians like to make that false analogy. Grammar rules reflect the way people write and speak, not the other way around. Customs and traditions ultimately have a source. And, when I must reject the source, I also reject the tradition. The source of capitalizing words that refer back to your god (as most nouns and adjectives identifying a religion do) is a desire to enforce special honor for your god. Your god warrants no special honor. I would be engaging in an implicit lie if I were to "go along to get along." I can't do it, not in good conscience.

I do NOT like Windows 7.

     They took away the ability of a DOS box to be full screen. They removed my favorite text-editor for DOS/Windows. (That would be EDIT.EXE.) They took away DEBUG.EXE. Essentially, all the utilities that made the system more useful to someone like me have been removed. I realize that the primary target audience consists of imbeciles. But you can still include the useful utilities. They won't notice.

     The following comment goes here.


     "Cameron speaking out like that could make some angry with him."
     But none of them supply him with income. His bottom line is safe.
     "Many who earn their living in the "Christian industry" are quite poor."
     Perhaps. I'm sure the people who clean the office floors don't make a lot of money. But the people who make television and film appearances for the "ministries" do.

Norman:

     "Here's more 'tolerance', the leftist 'Media Matters' is pressuring advertisers to drop Fox News because they are a 'political operation masquerading as a news network'"

     Such "pressure" is complete nonsense. Advertisers don't care whether a publication is a news medium or not. They care whether their advertising dollars drive sales. A group called "Media Matters" may, indeed, be trying to apply such "pressure." But it is as useless as telling someone not to drive his car because it can't go to the moon. It's not the point.



Note: The above is not a verbatim transcription of the comment I had previously as, there being no valid reason to delete it, I did not preserve a copy. I am reconstructing it from memory as best I can. The flavor and character, however, are the same. I do find it interesting that Norman complains of cheap shots and name-calling, which I did not use, when he calls a network "MSLSD." I find him to be quite hypocritical.

EDIT:

     As Norman is deleting comments that do not violate any stated rules, I will give a screenshot of another comment he will likely delete.

About the return to earlier borders

     Of course Israel wasn't going to go for it. Israel doesn't recognize the rights of Arabs to exist any more than Arabs recognize the right of Israel to exist. That was the whole point in putting up the settlements to begin with. The Israelis, however, are a little more savvy politically. If they were to announce their intentions, they would only receive support from the followers of John Hagee and the like.

The best way to keep your personal files secret

     Okay, and now my answer. The best way to keep your personal files secret is to keep them on an isolated system that no one else uses. That means no internet.

Government secrecy vs. government accountability

     There are some instances when it is justified for the government to keep secrets. Plans for future military operations that they want to keep out of the hands of potentially invading forces springs to mind. However, the government is theoretically supposed to be accountable to the people. When the government keeps things secret because they cast a negative light on its actions, it prevents any such accountability. The clamp-down on information surrounding the Bin Laden affair is just such a situation. This gives them time to concoct an "official story" that looks better than the reality. Hey, maybe they will say that he ordered attacks just minutes before his death. It already slipped that, had word not gotten out that Bin Laden was unarmed, the "official story" would have been that the mission was to capture him but that they had to kill him before he gunned them down. In other words, the government was going to lie to us.
     On the other hand, there was an (unknown) real mastermind behind the attacks. It wouldn't take much for him to order attacks in the days following Bin Laden's death. After all, he is presumably alive and well. Over the coming years, there may be many attacks somehow "ordered just before Bin Laden died." And the public will eat it up. It doesn't make it true, though.
     Another blogger actually wants more secrecy, rather than less. She thinks that at first no information should have been let out beyond "we got him!" Then, later, they could have presented the official lie that they were planning. Of course, she also asked what the big deal was that he was unarmed. Well the big deal is that, were they real soldiers, or Navy SEALS, they could have brought him back alive to stand trial. A police officer is not supposed to go around shooting unarmed suspects that he doesn't like. He is supposed to do everything in his power to bring suspects to trial. Now, a rogue officer will gun down innocent men and make excuses. And this is exactly what we see happening. Excuses are being made for why he could not be captured when clearly he could. And these excuses are being made after they make sure that no information can get out to contradict the "official story."

One thing that annoys me about Microsoft Windows

     Strictly speaking, there are several things that annoy me about Microsoft Windows. But I'm only going to talk about one of them today. When you insert a CD-ROM or USB drive that contains a file that Windows recognizes, Windows wants to open it right away. Now, I personally usually have other ideas. For example, I might be copying a file of my very own from one computer to another using the auxiliary drive as an intermediate. And an executable that I create (yes, that's a file type Windows recognizes) might not really be set up to run off of a USB drive.

Here's something to think about.

     What is the best way to keep your personal files secret? Note that this refers to the files that only you personally need access to. Files which must be shared between several users would use other mechanisms.

     By the way: Norman is trying so hard to convince me that he is ignoring me that he forgot that he wasn't going to allow any off-topic comments to be published on his blog. He used another sock-puppet to tell himself that I and another person were being "juvenile." A hint to Norman: You are the only one that used that particular insult; and you failed to have the sock-puppet identify the individual who criticized Farmville. If you were truly ignoring the people you claim to be ignoring, you could never have identified the critic in a subsequent post.

     As to the main question: Yes, I do have an answer. I plan on posting it sometime over the coming week. However, I would like people to think about it.

EDIT:

     It seems than Norman has removed the entire post in which he made the off-topic comment to himself. Oh, well, it's not like his supporter is going to call him on it.

     My mistake. It's still there.

Remember, security depends on you.

     Okay, security training is making its rounds at work again. Those of you who have experienced it know what I'm talking about. I especially like the part where you have to choose a password that is impossible to remember from one day to the next (they word it differently) and are not supposed to write it down. (Half of the office has Post-It notes with their passwords on them.)
     I like an analogy. A store could have a safe with 2-ft thick steel walls and a protocol for opening the door that took ten minutes for legitimate access. But if the workers have to get in there ten times a day or more, I can guarantee that the door is going to get propped open. Yes, I understand the importance of security. But the designers of these systems need to understand that it should not be an obstacle to doing one's job.

Norman is agaain claiming that he is only "giving back what he gets."

     In other words, he is lying. I still remember my first encounter. That was on Dan's blog. I also not that, before Rhomphaia became so enamored of Norman, she said that I seemed a lot more civil with Dan than I did with Norman. There is a reason for this. I am hostile only to those who instigate the hostility. Norman knows this. He knows full well that he is an instigator. I am not interested in how he treats christians posing as atheists for the sole purpose of pretending he is not an instigator. Instead, I would ask all non-christians to consider how he treats them. His first comment to me, and the first time I saw him at all, was filled with venom. He can't have been "giving back" anything, because I had never addressed him before.

EDIT:

     It's amazing how upset he is and saying I'm giving the delete button a workout, when the reason you don't see my comments on his blog is because he pre-screens and deletes them. Then he can say "Prove it, prove you made a comment. Do you have a screen capture with the comment showing as posted?" knowing full well that it is impossible to have such evidence with someone who prescreens and deletes them.
     Remember, Norman, if you want to see your comments stay here, you have to allow mine through on your blog. I'm making no secret that I am hiding your comments. You earned it. And, if you want to convince people that you are civil, try being civil with me. You can start with the fact that my screen name is Pvblivs, something you haven't used yet. And when I first dealt with you, I did call you by your preferred screenname. But then, you probably don't want your comments to return here. I didn't exactly delete them. They're hidden. But I can restore them.

Note to Norman:

     I allow multiple disagreeing commenters. However, as long as you persist in your display of power over on your blog, I will hide all comments you make no matter what sock-puppet you use. Got it?

Okay, now the officials admit that Bin Laden was unarmed.

     Now they are saying that he made "threatening moves." I'm sure they were very threatened by someone throwing up his hands and saying "I surrender." No one was trying to capture him. They wanted him dead. After all, they knew he was just a face. If they had a public trial it would come out undeniably that he was as clueless as anyone and couldn't have been behind any attacks. Then people would realize that the government was wasting massive amounts of time and money on this guy.

Must be a slow news day

     Today all the media seemed to want to talk about was the fact that some men in uniform (I refuse to call them "soldiers") killed Bin Laden. We are talking about a defenseless old man who never posed a threat himself. He was a cheerleader for anti-NATO actions; and that's it. He did not plan strategies. He did not select targets. He cheered when things blew up. As a result, he is nothing more than a face to attach to the two minutes of hate. I have no use for hate. So, now there will probably be more attacks. After all, we've managed to create a martyr. We have done what Bin Laden could never hope to do while alive -- make the U.S. look like a country who seeks out and murders critics. The best thing would have been to let him die of old age. Nothing to rally around there. And it's not like having him alive gave our adversaries any military advantage. They can be just as effective without him as they were with him. Perhaps more so. Now they have a "cause of righteousness."

There he goes again

     Norman is talking about "dictator Obama" again. Here's a hint. Obama is not the one who said "I'm the decider." I get that Norman dislikes unions. After all, they probably forced his daddy to pay his workers a living wage -- something the idle rich don't like.

EDIT:

     I am unable to find a direct article corresponding to Norman's latest claims. That would be an original news story not an editorial. In fact, all I can find are opinion pieces from groups that are so right-wing that they would call Reagan a leftist.

     Oh, he is so cute when he is trying to claim that Fox News is not a right-wing organization. Okay, stating a truth is not a logical fallacy. In fact, to have a logical fallacy you need something that is drawing at least a partial conclusion in an argument that claims to be logical. As for "stupid": I would suggest that anyone who does not regard Fox News as a right-wing organization is either stupid or has been living in the equivalent of a cave for the last 20 years. According to Fox News, the Republicans are always right and the Democrats are always wrong. It's not like their bias is subtle.