(no subject)

[warthog9]

Ok, thats it! Am I really on the right planet? Did I get abducted and am on some weird screwed up alien world?

Ok it might not be that bad but some quick highlights for the last 10 days or so go along these lines:

In the News Diebold, one of the largest manufacturers of electronic voting machines, has been publicly humiliated by the STATE of California. (For the record it's nice to see California do something intelligent for once!) Basically California found that Diebold's voting machines were completely flawed, miscounting votes, loosing them, etc. and has now banned the purchase and/or use of Diebold's voting machines in California. Score one for the side of democracy! Prediction for the future: Diebold sues the state of California for mis-representation, slander and defimation of character. Whats worse, I bet Diebold wins

In the News SCO, the most pathetic excuse for a Unix/Linux vendor, is starting to waffle and give up. Anyone who's followed this has been waiting for this to happen. They're largest investor has asked for a bunch of their money back, their lawsuits are getting mean TOWARDS them, and more and more people are coming out of the woodwork with evidence against them. Go figure, sadly the geeky amusement of the week will go away, sadness. Prediction for the future: Linux will gain credibility, the GPL probably still won't be put to the legal test in this battle, SCO folds before the lawsuits actually make it to trial.

In Real Life The end of the semester draws near, I work on a lot of back homework in an attempt to pass all my classes. I go nuts. Prediction for the future: I go insane, eventually have a massive caffiene crash, sleep for 3 months

In the News Ok this one takes the cake. Saw in the news paper an article concerning very religious students havinga serious conflict with High School Proms. The article pointed out that they see the prom as a morally degrading experience with grinding, dancing in the precence of the oposite sex, and the ever popular after prom activities. There were several things that struck me as outstandingly INSANE in this article. First, and for the redord, I'm a Baha'i which just happens to be one of the smallest religious minority's out there. Also for the record I'm getting absoluetly SICK of all the "Political Correctness" that has permiated our society. Winter Break is and always will be Christmas Break, regardless of their being a few other convient religous occurances around the same time. Those other religous occurances are minor by comparison to Christmas. I can go off into an entire tirade here but I won't, suffice it to say the world is currently walking a really fine line of being completely accepting of religous difference and giving everyone fair shot, and going back to dealing with the majority and calling it good. Honestly I just want them to choose. However back to topic, I am FLOORED that this even made it into the paper. Well.... duh there are people who are going to take offence to anything. I mean come on, you can please ALL of the people SOME of the time OR you canplease SOME of the people ALL of the time, not both and on top of that you can always find someone that will object to anything, this is the way the world is. But for crying out loud this drove me nuts. You have a religious minority now trying to dictate possible policy to the VAST majority, and an attempt to sway opinion and force the value structure of their beliefs on everyone else. Unbelievable. I mean I came to the conclusion a LONG time ago that the path I choose, being a Baha'i, was what made sense to me, myself and I. If it made sense to someone else kudos to them, if not well honestly I can't say with 100% certainty that what I've found is "right" but I've made the choice and I'm agreeing that others are free to find their owns paths. Just argh.

I dunno the article just made me rather angry, and I'm finding it hard to explain why. Best guess is that it boils down to being sick of every little minority trying to tell everyone else exactly what they should do, what they should believe and if you don't than your a horrible individual regardless of your reasoning or beliefs. I'm sure I can't be alone in this, because there are a lot of minorities that do this. Luckily there are minorities out there that don't try to force their entire beliefs on you, the Baha'is are an example of this and there are others I merely use the Baha'is as an example. Saw a really good qoute the other days on of all places slahdot.org in the comments of all places (a rare occurance to be sure) but to qoute it:

The United States is a democratic republic whose objective is to rule by the majority while protecting the rights of minorities. Political Science 101. I'll have to disagree. The United States is a representative republic whose function is to represent vocal majorities, rich minorities and sympathetic, guilt-inspiring minorities, while completely ignoring non-vocal and non-rich minorities and even majorities. Poltical Science 102.

Yeah, that sums up my feelings. At least I'm not alone in thinking this.

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Lets see anything else? No I think that satisfies my angst for now. Back to homework, I have 5 days to finish everything for the semester. Than finals. Wish me good luck..........