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Lisa writes: Ok, so I am not highly motivated about private viewing of naked ladies. I am concerned about Microsoft. I have gone through the hate, seething, loathing, gosh it’s like getting away from a bad boyfriend. In this cycle, I really have had to look at why I was having these shifting feelings. In the end, I decided the reason is that I fear Microsoft. But, I am stuck, I do not know how to install or use any of the open source systems. I just upgraded my machine, and though a fantastic machine, it probably is not compatable with open source materials and won’t be for a year (or five, about how long it took my last new computer to become compliant) or more.

So, through my doubt, because I fear Microsoft (corpo-socialism, ack!! but true), I will ask you what you suggest as far as becoming a free-tech. How do I start, what would be useful reading, what is legitimately feasable for a tech-twit to get in the way of software to at least begin looking at this stuff? If you state something, I hope you have ideas about doing something about it?!?

You have to walk before you can run, and only about 10 percent of the computer-using community is really ready to seriously go for broke and ride the tank right now. But it’s easy to take the first steps, which consist of getting losing Explorer, Office and Outlook/Outlook Express. Explorer is the easiest and you have lots of options. I would start with downloading Opera and giving it a whirl. The ability to turn pop-up blocking on and off at will is really nice. There are other options too, including Mozilla and Mozilla Firebird.

The second step, and probably the most important with regards to getting comfortable with the concept of Open Source software, is making the move to OpenOffice 1.1. You can download this for Windows – or buy the CDs – and get the functional equivalents of Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc. They aren’t perfectly identical, but are similar enough that you won’t have any problem operating things. Nor will you have to change your files. I use .sxw (Writer format) files for my new stuff, but my current novel is still in the very same .doc file I was using with Word.

Email can be a little more problematic, since conversions can be a pain and Hotmail requires the use of poppers that require a bit of technical fiddling, but there are many, many options here. Eudora is probably the most popular, although both Opera and Mozilla have email components which will serve as an integrated suite ala Explorer/Outlook express. And then, of course, there’s the big leap to Linux, which encompasses all of these steps and then more.

But there’s no need to make the migration all at once. Take one step at a time, try each application out, and move on from there. It’s worth it, and if you value freedom, I think it’s worth investing the time and effort involved. The Trusted Computing threat is real; this is neither paranoia nor media hype, but the considered opinion of many informed people in the technical field. It is Palladium and the TCG, more than anything, that has turned me from a Microsoft user and fan to an outspoken opponent.

LMC writes: I work for a major oil company and I can tell you unequivocally that we have thousands of computers here and abroad that use Microsoft exclusively for not only desktops, and their servers, but our Control Computers (those that get you heating oil and gasoline) which also run using Microsoft. Even if you are right, IT IS TOO LATE and for you to tell someone to migrate to something else to ward off Microsoft is ridiculous. No offense.



None taken. I imagine we’ll need a new bumper sticker soon: “I’ll give up my unTrusted Computer when they pry my cold dead fingers off the keyboard.”

Ride the tank. Be the Penguin.

RSL asks: Where are the sources of the information that you quote in this artice? I.e what are the “Non-Governmental Social Control Box” and “Totalitarian Control Group?”

Didn’t you see the link in the column? Anyhow, TCG = Trusted Computer Group and NGSCB = Next Generation Secure Computing Base. The Trusted Computing FAQ is the best place to start and has links to original material, including the Totalitarians own web site.

At least we finally know where that phrase comes from. The aliens were at Microsoft all along! I always thought that “Bill Gates” looked as if he were wearing a rubber mask. These people are obviously in on the conspiracy, trying to hide the truth.

HR writes: I was delighted when I found your articles on WorldNetDaily. I like the way you express strong Christian conservatism with wit and erudition. Your work is a rare combination of solid values, bold style, and intelligence. Good job, and I hope we hear a lot more from you.

Frankly, I’m not so sanguine about the blog. I think your gravitas is on the line. My concern is that you’re going to undermine the reputation you’re earning as a thoughtful, educated, conservative writer. The more I hear about [list of recent blog subjects], the less I’m able to take seriously your writing elsewhere and on other subjects.

What do you all think? Obviously, there’s around 650 visits a day, so people are reading this, but that’s not even 5 percent of those who read the column at WorldNetDaily alone. I started this blog as a means of providing some personal connection to my readers since deciding to drop the Mailbox after the vast majority of hate mailers and critics were scared off. I certainly enjoy blogging, but not so much that I think it’s worth sabotaging the column over.

I have some sympathy for HR’s opinion. It’s always easier to have a high regard for a writer when you know nothing about them except their more or less polished craft. I happen to know a few SFWA pros I used to read as a kid, and while they’re great people, by and large, they just don’t appear to be the same sort of higher beings that I once considered them. I make no claims to having much in the way of gravitas – my friends would laugh at that, especially since Wildboyz is a pretty reasonable approximation for our collective approach to Life, the Universe and Everything – but I can see how the difference between my columns and, say, Maureen Dowd’s might give one that impression.

“Dude, that’s a lot of black mamba!”

I may have to check out The Tale of Murasaki. It could be a complete disaster, but the author’s website indicates that she’s at least done her homework and that she does have at least a modicum of the aesthetic sensitivity required to even begin thinking of writing such a book.

I briefly considered writing something similar about ten years ago, but I quickly realized that I fell significantly short in the aesthetics department. Sure, I enjoy a beautiful sunset over a mountain lake as much as the next person, but it’s just not going to send me into tearful raptures without some significant chemical alteration of the brain chemistry.

“Dean has provided no reason to expect from him especially elevated reasoning…. He seems to be an Everett Wharton. “The Prime Minister,” one of Anthony Trollope’s parliamentary novels, introduces Wharton, who was, Trollope wrote, “no fool”: “[He] had read much, and although he generally forgot what he read, there were left with him from his reading certain nebulous lights, begotten by other men’s thinking, which enabled him to talk on most subjects. It cannot be said of him that he did much thinking for himself — but he thought that he thought.”

Dean seems like that, which is not surprising or disqualifying: Most political leaders are not people of reflection, but of ambition-dictated action, living off borrowed intellectual capital. Given the accumulating evidence, the professors’ pin-up should dismount his intellectual high horse.

“He thought that he thought.” What a fantastic summary. It should serve as the epitaph of the entire Left.

So, Howard Dean says that Lao Tzu is his favorite philosopher. I happened to pick up a major in what used to be called Oriental Studies, and I’m willing to bet that if you gave him a list of 100 quotes from Confucius, Mencius, Mo Tzu, Han Fei and Lao Tzu, he couldn’t identify more than five of them without guessing. Granted, I’m not sure I could get more than 20 correct myself – it’s been a while – but then, I’m not claiming that Lao Tzu is my favorite philosopher.

If you’ve seriously studied any aspect of Asian culture, then you know that the vast, vast majority of Westerners who claim to like one form of it or another actually know next to nothing about it, and understand even less. This goes triply for an American talking about anything relating to the Tao. One thing that I love about The Tale of Genji is that it always serves as an excellent reminder of how I know so very little about what is truly a very alien mindset.

As for my favorite philosopher, it’s a toss-up. Douglas Adams or Friedrich Nietzsche. And yes, I could nail those quotes, for I am so hip that I have difficulty seeing over my own pelvis.

Minnesota’s football team was segregated then, as were those in the South when Warmath arrived [from Mississippi]. By 1958, he had started recruiting black athletes from Pennsylvania, North Carolina and elsewhere. Warmath was hung in effigy on campus during the 2-7 season of 1959. He survived the attempt to buy out his contract, then took the Gophers to back-to-back Rose Bowls. Murray remained through 1971 — an 18-year run that took him from Southern outsider to a Minnesota legend.

“Someone very high in the administration came to me in those early years and said, ‘Coach, how many black players do you have now?’ ” Warmath said. “I said, ‘I never counted, but if I had two or three more like these young men, we would be really good.’

“He was trying to tell me I had enough black players, and I was saying, ‘Take a hike.’ “

It’s quite common in the liberal North to assume that all Southerners are racist, because all good Northerners know that race is what the Civil War was about, and why would the South have fought it if they weren’t all racists. I know what I’m talking about – I’m a Minnesotan after all, and when I have a serious conversation with another man I stand shoulder to shoulder with them and look 90 degrees away from the direction of the other guy the way you’re supposed to in civil Minnesota society. As this account of Murray Warmath, one of the U of M’s two great football coaches, shows, sometimes it’s actually the left-liberal PC college administration people that are the racists. These days, that’s usually the case. Now they just think that their schools have too many Asians and Whites.

”I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, ‘I’m against everything’? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don’t think anybody did.”

– Senator John Kerry, Democratic presidential candidate

I’m really starting to enjoy this election cycle. The Democratic candidates are imploding like frogs with firecrackers inserted inappropriately. It’s like Nine Little Indians, except that it’s funny instead of frightening. What with Lieberman and the jelly doughnut threat, Kucinich’s dating reality show, Dean being Dean and now this, we may get that dream ticket of Dean-Sharpton for which everyone with a sense of humor is hoping. I thought Kerry had hit the height of his absurdity when he went on Leno wearing that stupid leather jacket, but this is even better. We’re reaching Perot-Stockton levels of unintended humor here. I just wish that he’d posed for a matching photo sticking his tongue out and making devils horns.

Dude, that would have been too radical! You totally would have gotten the “rock” vote! Of course, the only zeros who a) think it’s cool to talk like that, and b) vote, are on the UT Issues Committee – or were on the committee until recently – and are probably Deanie weenies anyhow.

Rock,

Vox

The Sports Guy: “it’s like comparing Jessica Biel to Jessica Alba. Hey, you’re fine with Jessica Biel. She may even appear in a few All-Star Games. But Jessica Alba … good Lord.”

I’m so disappointed in Mr. Simmons. He has it exactly backwards. Clearly, he’s still recovering from the Grady Little affair. But this next bit doesn’t surprise me at all, since I happen to be on a mailing list of more than a little interest to Mr. Curt Schilling.

“I’m a longtime member of SOSH, a den for diehards that weeds out weaker members and has 250-post threads on subjects like “Does Casey Fossum’s delivery point seem different to you?” and “One Man’s Thoughts on Nomar’s Last 500 At-Bats, In Order.”… An admitted internet junkie hoping to get a handle on Sox fans, Schilling couldn’t have picked a better place. He stumbled into a SOSH chat room at 2:30 in the morning and found about 20 fans in there, which is my favorite part of the story — only the guys from SOSH would be chatting about the Sox at 2:30 A.M. on Thanksgiving night. After he introduced himself, they verified his identity with a barrage of questions, then spent the rest of their time pleading for him to come to Boston. He ended up staying in the chat room past 4 o’clock, talking about anything and everything. I’m not making this up.”

Hope Curt gets his Cy Young in Boston. The World Series? Well, let’s face it. For the rest of the world, the failure to win a World Series is a lot more amusing.

In reference to increasing discrimination against Christians, David Limbaugh writes: “I continue to encounter liberals who pooh-pooh the idea that it is even possible to discriminate against a majority group.”

I imagine the Shiite majority in Iraq would be able to explain the concept to these benighted, unimaginative folk. If they couldn’t do it, then I’m sure the Islamic majority in Algeria would be happy to. Perhaps I should put it in terms the Left can understand. Why are there no openly Baptist character on prime time television, despite the fact that there are more Baptists (12%) than blacks (11%) in the United States, much less homosexuals. By every left-liberal standard, this is horrendous discrimination and must be immediately addressed with a proper quota.