-
Permanent link to “Police brutality and racial profiling protect NO ONE. It's time for…”
-
Serious questions…
Could someone please tell me how a federal judge can not only move against the will of the people of a state by repealing a state constitutional amendment that we overwhelmingly voted for, but can also strike off our books the law that has been in effect for many many years, which the constitutional amendment was written to uphold? Is no one aware of the fact that the repeal of the law that Amendment 1 upheld was never brought to a vote, nor was it even discussed, in our General Assembly, yet the law was effectively repealed by a single federal judge who happens to hold office in this state? I’m no political science or constitutional law scholar, but this just seems like an end run around the political process that we are said to hold in such high regard in this state and in this nation. So bills are no longer introduced in the North Carolina General Assembly, to become law when voted for and signed by the Governor. Instead, the federal court, and yes, even one single federal judge,…
-
It is now legal in…
In related news, polygamy and consensual incest are still illegal in the entirety of the United States. Someone tell me how this possibly could make any sense at all? How is it legal for two men to obtain a marriage license, but it is not legal for a brother and a sister to be married? Why is it that two women can be legally married to each other, but 3 women or 2 men and a woman can’t? The ironic thing is that I’ve heard all kinds of talk about how love is love, and that the government should stay out of our business, but love is still not love when siblings can’t be recognized legally as being married, and the government is certainly in the people’s business when they can dictate that a woman can’t have multiple husbands or a man can’t have multiple wives. If so-called gay marriage is the law of the land, then we must by the same laws be granted the rights to have polyamorous and incestuous relationships recognized as marriage also, so long as all parties are in agreement and…
-
So this is real…
Here's a history lesson you won't find in any schoolbook. Ultimately, Abraham Lincoln did free the slaves, but for what purpose? What was he really thinking, or what pressure was put on him to ultimately do the right thing? Did he suddenly find Jesus when he unconditionally freed the slaves, or did he have some other possibly sinister motive for such a sudden reversal, perhaps just out of spite, trying to hit the south where he knew it would hurt rather than actually doing what was right because it was right? There’s no doubt in my mind that God did use him to fulfill His will, but I remain skeptical of the idea that Lincoln actually did the right thing because he knew it was right, especially when reading this quote. "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer…
-
Banking security?…
I just found out some very disturbing news. Even after a “major systems upgrade,” our bank is still running its online banking system from Microsoft Windows machines running the known to be insecure IIS web server. And I’ve been sending my login credentials to this system for years, and even making transfers between accounts and paying bills from this insecure online banking system. It’s easy to see that ssl encryption is no guarantee of security, especially when viruses can easily destroy and compromise sensative personal and financial information stored on the underlying operating system and web server infrastructure. I urge everyone to check the http headers and served files on your banking website, or the website of the bank you are thinking of doing business with in the future. If you see asp or aspx in the address bar in your browser, or if you see “Microsoft IIS” or anything similar in the http headers, run the other way, or don’t do your online banking from their website.…
-
100 Black Pastors…
Thank God for these pastors and these churches! I’m not a pastor myself, but as a Christian, I stand firmly with these pastors and pray for the devine favor of God on their lives and on their churches. Thank you for saying almost exactly what I wrote about in my blog post last August, which was prompted by the public performance of “Same Love” during last year’s VMA Awards, and thank you for having the courage to take a stand for God and for what you believe. Pastors from North Carolina, where we have a similar constitutional amendment, need to come together and set the record straight as well, especially since North Carolina is one of the southern states where the struggle for Civil Rights, that’s the capitalized Civil Rights, as in integration and racial equality, was most hard fought and most painful for those who were forced to endure the horrors and atrocities of racism and slavery. We must let the Church and God be our conscience in this matter, just as the Church and God were…
-
My favorite…
I just got a message on my WordPress dashboard that Markdown On Save Improved, a plugin I use quite a lot due to its ease of use and flexibility, will no longer be updated. The following message has been added to the description of the plugin on its wordpress.org page as well: "This plugin is deprecated. Use the much-better-supported and more-frequently-updated Markdown module in Jetpack, by the same author. This plugin will not receive any updates or support from here on out." Here's the problem. I've looked at this Jetpack plugin, and it appears it does way more than I would ever need or even want, and it appears to rely quite heavily on third-party products and services to do many of the things it does, including some of the things I’m already using other plugins to do, such as e-mail subscriptions and social features, many of which I handle internally rather than using a third-party API, with the obvious exception of the social networking stuff, which communicates…
-
A petition that…
I just got a petition in my inbox today, stating that I should be concerned with the fact that Google reads my e-mail and uses it to sell targeted advertising. While I do think that reading my email, even via computerized methods, and using it for targeted advertising is a bit shady at best, I just can’t convince myself to sign this one. The problem is not the wording of the petition, nor is it the idea that Google should stop reading email and using it to show targeted advertising based on its content. Privacy is indeed a major concern for me, and under most circumstances, a petition like this would have gotten my signature immediately. My problem, however, is the fact that this specific petition didn’t originate from a group of concerned Gmail users, nor did it even originate from any consumer advocacy or similar type of organization that should be concerned with the privacy of its members. No, this Care2 petition lists its author as outlook.com which is of course a Microsoft…
-
Some great Linux…
Sonar 2014.1alpha3 is out First of all, for some months now, I’ve been working alongside Jonathan Nadeau and the ([Manjaro]https://manjaro.org/) team to redesign Sonar GNU/Linux around the Manjaro distribution, which is based on Arch Linux, adding ease of use, stability and a great out-of-the-box experience to the already great and venerable Arch Linux. I am pleased to announce that the redesigned Sonar 2014.1 has reached alpha3, and now includes the long-awaited talking login screen via gdm. It can be downloaded at the Sonar GNU/Linux SourceForge page. As always, it is available for both 32-bit (i686) and 64-bit (x86_64) systems. TalkingArch gets a new team and a new website In addition to my work with Sonar, I am very happy to be one of the new maintainers of TalkingArch, an unofficial respin of the Arch Linux live CD/USB image that adds speech and optional braille output so that blind and visually impaired users can perform eyes-free installations of Arch Linux. Chris Brannon, who…