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Site Design By: nix
by way of OSWD |
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The personal rantings of an avowed Conservative, Linux-loving Christian .
Archives
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Up,Up,Dn,Dn ver. 2.0 :::...::.:.::.
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Tuesday, August 27, 2002
An update to yesterday's post.
*sigh*
Diana, we hardly knew ye.
posted by ZaMoose at 8/27/2002 08:34:00 AM
Monday, August 26, 2002
I am in shock. After spending most of last week in New Hampshire, I returned to find an email in my inbox from my best friend, the upshot of which was: his life sucks. He took some extra time to graduate and was all set to (finally) get an engineering job that was ideally placed (i.e., a couple hours' drive from his girlfriend). In interest of doing so, he took a complete physical. Turns out he has ITP, a fairly rare blood disease where his antibodies eat his own platelettes, making blood clotting impossible.
Since he couldn't pass his physical, the engineering firm he was slated to work for said "Why don't we hold off on your actually working here until you're all better, mmmkay?"
So now, he's up the proverbial creek, sans flat-bladed hydropropulsion device, because said firm wrote back and said "You know what? This is taking too long. Why don't you reapply for the job when you're ready, mmmmkay?"
Still haven't gotten to the shocking part, though. I found out last night that his younger sister was killed in a car crash Saturday night on Route 206 near Princeton. The weather was so bad that they couldn't medivac her; they had to take her by ambulance to Children's Hospital in Philly.
I just don't know how to take it. She was a very intelligent, very beautiful young woman taken from us far too early.
The Trenton Times blurb can be seen here.
posted by ZaMoose at 8/26/2002 11:09:00 AM
Thursday, August 15, 2002
Verizon (*shudder*) has switched its techies to Linux workstations, saving $6 million in equipment costs alone. Nice exposure for Linux, but why did it have to be Verizon?
In other news, Larry Ellison is still a jerk. A jerk with some valid points, yes, but still a jerk.
posted by ZaMoose at 8/15/2002 10:34:00 AM
Been busy here at work. Have I mentioned that I hate Oracle and Perl? Have I mentioned that the current project I'm working on employs both of those?
It's so hard to go back to Perl after using php for so long and Oracle is just overkill for what I need to do. *sigh* Oh well.
posted by ZaMoose at 8/15/2002 10:08:00 AM
Monday, August 12, 2002
Why have I never watched Iron Monkey prior to tonight? Is it possible for kung fu movies to kick this much butt and go completely unnoticed by Y.T.? Apparently, yes.
'Twas funny to realize that Ronguang Yu played Po in Jet Li's The Enforcer.
Anyways, highly reccommended.
posted by ZaMoose at 8/12/2002 10:54:00 PM
They shouldn't let me near the Internet. There's just so much good stuff out there that I get Informational Work Paralysis. To put it bluntly: my need to inhale information supersedes all other concerns, and my work thus suffers.
Seriously. The Wall Street Journal and Gamespot need to start charging to let people read their opinions in full, if only for my career's sake. Little Green Footballs should go, too, along with Instapundit, NRO, etc.
How can I possibly code Perl when the War With Iraq is being planned and endlessly opined about?
posted by ZaMoose at 8/12/2002 11:43:00 AM
Had a busy weekend. My good friends Aron and Heather got married yesterday in Cherry Hill. That was in addition to:
- Aron's bachelor party Friday night
- My grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary party on Saturday
- A now-traditional Wedding Day IHOP visit (side note: a modification to said tradition has been put in place. We forgot to do IHOP prior to the wedding this time. Luckily, A&H were married in a Jewish ceremony. So, from now on, all Gentile weddings will be preceded by IHOP, while all Jewish weddings will be celebrated in a like manner afterwards). We'll be employing this tradition at Doug&Renee's wedding (if it should ever happen) and Brad's wedding, should he ever consent to marrying Lauren.
- A hurried trip to Macy's for pantyhose, shoes, and a wrap for the wife. I'd like a round of applause for what was probably the shortest, most effective shopping expedition I've ever been on with my wife. We actually employed the Navy Seal Shopping Method™ successfully. One for the record books.
- More driving than I care to account for.
The wedding itself was beautiful. I have never attended a Jewish wedding before, and I was lucky enough to be chosen as best man for this one.
Aron's dad looked like he was about to burst from pride and Heather's mom couldn't stop crying. Par for just about any wedding, I guess. *grin*
Reception was nice, and I didn't flub the toast too badly. Aron's dad raised a "mazzletov!" from the crowd; I drew an "Amen." Guess being a PK shows through at the weirdest times, eh?
posted by ZaMoose at 8/12/2002 10:14:00 AM
Friday, August 09, 2002
Daniel Henninger struck gold in today's WSJ. Have we forgotten they're trying to kill us?
We need more people at higher echelons of the gov't to think/speak this way. Rumsfeld can't do it all, after all!
posted by ZaMoose at 8/09/2002 04:00:00 PM
Doug Forrester, former mayor of West Windsor, NJ (my high school hometown) has drawn even with Bob "The Torch" Torricelli, who continues to be plagued by ethics problems.
Go Forrester.
posted by ZaMoose at 8/09/2002 03:19:00 PM
My wife called me yesterday afternoon, practically in tears. She had found an article in US News titled Odd Bedfellows (side note: Was US News intentionally trying to avoid a cliche, albeit in a half-hearted fashion? Or do they honestly not know that "strange" is the generally accepted word-of-choice in said cliche?).
For those too lazy to click on the link: a synopsis, if I may.
Evangellical Christians have poured millions of dollars into Zionist funds, in US News' view, in order to fulfill Biblical prophecy and hasten the End Times. Many Jewish leaders are extremely suspicious of the motives of Christians and are therefore reluctant to accept the funds.
The article itself struck me as fairly par-for-the-course. A media outlet, either willingly or unknowingly, misunderstands basic Christian philosophy. Jewish groups, more than likely unknowingly, misunderstand basic Christian philosophy. The confluence of the two results in a typically short, poorly-researched piece which adds to the current month's US News' page count. On my first reading of it, I had a very hard time seeing why my wife would get worked up over such an article. She even went so far as to say that it was "one of the most anti-Christian things [she had] read in a long time".
On subsequent readings, I have begun to see what she meant. The not-so-subtle suggestion that Christians aren't trustworthy when it comes to topics touched upon by Biblical prophecy. The idea that we'd like to hasten the second coming of Jesus by way of making monetary contributions. The notion that the incarnation of a Jewish state signals the End Times being "popularized in the bestselling Left Behind fiction series". Armageddon featuring a "nuclear holocaust that is stopped at its climax by the arrival of Jesus". Poor research all around, which can be forgiven, but this seemed more like willful cluelessness.
The biases of the author are simply accentuated by the outright suspicion expressed by the Jewish sources cited in the story.
But where does this misconception come from?
Read Psalm 122:6-9 (NIV):
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
May those who love you be secure.
May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels.
For the sake of my brothers and friends,
I will say, "Peace be within you."
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek your prosperity.
I draw my inspiration for my views on Israel almost directly from the above passage. Such a strong exhortation is hard to ignore.
I and my wife can both recount many conversations wherein Jewish friends of ours express genuine shock and amazement that Goyiim such as ourselves do actively support Israel and the cause of the Jews. "Why would you support that? What's your motive?" seems to be the overarching sentiment we encounter. We must want something, right? We're just Millenialist wackos trying to bring about the end of the world. We just want to convert all Jews on the spot and strip them of their "Jewishness".
It's extremely disheartening to realize that we're not trusted. I couldn't agree with James Hutchens (of Christians for Israel/USA) more: "The best friends Israel has are those of us whose theology calls for the continued existence of the Jewish people in the land that is rightfully theirs." Why can't mainstream Jews see this? Why is there so much distrust?
Ultimately, the article will stand as Yet Another Example of Liberal Media Bias and yet, at least for me, it will remain a sad reminder of a rift that should not exist. I guess the only solution is to continue to be unwavering in our support of the right of the Jewish people to their homeland and to let God take care of others' hearts and perceptions. Any other course will lead to heartbreak and disappointment, I fear.
posted by ZaMoose at 8/09/2002 08:48:00 AM
Figured it was time to latch on to the blogging bandwagon ("blandwagon"?), since everyone and their brother's dog now seems to have one.
Need to come up with a better title for this h'yar blog; "rm -rf /bin/laden" was the first thing that lept to mind, as it's sitting here on the whiteboard in my office, staring me in the face.
On a side note, I'm continually blown away by how other people seem to have independantly come up with my nickname/screenname of choice.
Unless they saw my stint at Halflife.org as an inspiration and yoinked my nick.
The world may never know.
posted by ZaMoose at 8/09/2002 08:34:00 AM
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