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A Thread for Random Musings


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Guest Skaramine

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Busy gunmaking day. Baby Desert Eagle (actually, a CZ-75 made to look like a Desert Eagle), another Kimber 5" 1911 made from scratch, and a Taurus 24/7.

 

Good use of the printer and photoshop.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

The Scorpion and the Frog

 

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the

scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The

frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion

says, "Because if I do, I will die too."

 

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream,

the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of

paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown,

but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"

 

Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

So far my city is off Cyclone Warning. It appears Ingrid has passed. On the other hand, my region is one of the worst (or the worst) for the unpredictability of cyclones. So She might decide to pay a visit after all. Please :no: .

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

I jsut posted this on a mailing list I've recently joined. Anyone want to comment, feel free.

 

Yes. Since Fed 2003 almost daily I've been a member of another group (The Non-Gaming Discussions @ Hero Games aka the NGD) that is both friendly and curteous...most of the time, with a moderator that has a hands off approach to moderation. He prefers much like we to deal with out own problems. Just recently for a bit of fun we had an election for president. My candidate lost is disgrace. :(

 

Like this list the other one frequently has off topic discussions, so much so that the compony specifically created a seperate board/discussion forum (NGD) so that it wouldn't interfere with the regualar gaming/product based questions. We talk about politics, post pictures of girls (and guys), have threads specifically created to say Happy Birthday. People have posted messages that their parents have died and there is a genuine sympathy. Also (and I suspect this is true for this list) alot of the people there know each other by meeting them at conventions. For this list it would be meeting each other at concerts.

 

The NGD also has a thread set up that has been running for over a year where people can post their current doings, like a message board. For instance I posted that last weekend (12-13 March 05) a cyclone was close by hitting the city where I live. There are also fun threads like the recent NGD presidential election.

 

The NGD as we like call it, is an online community, people go away to handle "real world stuff" and then come back to join in. The reason I stay is for the community atmosphere, it is fun, and I get points of view that I don't regularly get access to from likeminded geeks.

 

So yes, I've found a place on the Net that is as happy, cheerful and where "off topic" is more common than the actual topic that united us in the first place.

 

Surprised by Joy.

 

Baz

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

a muse of mine. posted to the same list as above.

 

After doing a bit of thinking, I'm dismayed at the way the media tosses "genius", "legend" and "hero" about like cotton-candy. Those words have classical meaning not that anyone nowadys would remember that. I'm equally disturbed by the facination the twentieth century has (had) with the antihero (Ned Kelly, John Dillinger, Mafia Don). I think noone will dispute that these people have a talent that the "average" person doesn't possess, that is one reason we admire them. But admiration is not "genius", "legendry" or "heroic".

 

If anyone called me "genius" I'd politely disagree but accept it for what it is intended to be -- a compliment. I think that is it in a nutshell, a compliment, whether the word is "genius" or "is a good bloke", the intention is the same.

 

Is Shakespeare a genius? That is for you to decide. Will there only be one

Shakespeare? If you count Marlow and Bacon, that is two suspects...

 

And my personal hero is Count Claus von Stauffenberg.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

One of my colleagues is now on holiday and heading for Malaysia to see the Formula 1 Grand Prix there this coming weekend (I believe).

I have to attend a mediation tomorrow which I am not looking forward to. My boss and I were both accused of not looking after a temp member of staff properly by said member of staff. Having read what he wrote I wanted to kill him. In one ear out the other.

Finished one book (The Diamond Age) and started another (Name of the Rose).

Saw a film on Sunday at the cinema (A Very Long Engagement).

That's all folks !

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Guest Skaramine

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Got a new idea.

 

Novel's called "Throwdown" about a police taskforce tracing illegal gun sales into Chicago, uncovering a crooked cop's murder and disposal of a throwdown piece while busting a gun ring.

 

Inspired by the news.

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Guest Skaramine

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

You know, every time I hear some Euro pontificating about American simplisme, I shake my head. Their mindset is that we are child-like (when we’re not being brutal murderers or whatever), and require “adult†supervision in order that we do not do something that everyone will later regret.

 

The emphasis on the short-term rather than the long-term is a mark of childishness, yes.

 

But who has been more child-like, in living memory?

 

I remember the famous “peace in our time†speech of Nevil Chamberlain after caving in to Hitler in 1938. Never mind that the “peace†barely lasted a year. It’s bullshit, because Chamberlain, and all those in Europe who breathed a sigh of relief after Munich, missed the essential point of diplomacy: appeasement of tyrants is only a short-term solution.

 

Well, we all know how that turned out; but what about nowadays?

 

 

 

As always, Victor Davis Hanson rides in to the rescue:

Every time the United States the last quarter century had acted boldly — its removal of Noriega and aid for the Contras, instantaneous support for a reunified Germany, extension of NATO, preference for Yeltsin instead of Gorbachev, Gulf War I, bombing of Milosevic, support for Sharon’s fence, withdrawal from Gaza and decapitation of the Hamas killer elite, taking out the Taliban and Saddam—good things have ensued. In contrast, on every occasion that we have temporized — abject withdrawal from Lebanon, appeasement of Arafat at Oslo, a decade of inaction in the Balkans, paralysis in Rwanda, sloth in the face of terrorist attacks, not going to Baghdad in 1991 — corpses pile up and the United States became either less secure or less respected or both.

 

So it is also in this present war, in which our unheralded successes far outweigh our notorious mistakes. A number of books right now in galleys are going to look very, very silly, as they forecast American defeat, a failed Middle East, and the wages of not listening to their far smarter recommendations of using the U.N. more, listening to Europe, or bringing back the Clinton A-Team.

 

America’s daring, not its support for the familiar — but ultimately unstable and corrupt — status quo, explains why less than three years after September 11, the Middle East is a world away from where it was on the first day of the war. And that is a very good thing indeed.

 

And the rest of the world, who cringed away from confronting the Islamist threat (and Saddam), look exactly like what they are: a bunch of cowardly appeasers, for whom “peace in our time†was more important that starting along a journey towards a worthy goal ("our time†being, as noted above, usually of short duration).

 

That goal, for the benefit of any stray liberals who happen upon this page, is the spread of freedom throughout an area which has known only oppression and corruption since the year Dot.

 

Free people, as we all know, do not make war on other free people (although I have to admit that the current Canadian government has recently been testing that statement to its very limit). Free people, we also know, become prosperous—which reduces the allure of revolution and extremism.

 

So to all those wankers who babbled about “root causes†of terrorism, and espoused the loathsome corollary of how we should kowtow to those who were attacking us, let me say this:

 

The root cause of terrorism is a lack of freedom.

 

And what we’re trying to do in the Middle East is doing more to eliminate that root cause than anything the rest of the “world community†has managed to do in over a century. The only oeople “surprised†by the reaction of the people (and governments) of the Middle East are the Terminal Appeasers. (Pejman Yousefzadeh isn’t at all surprised, for one.)

 

If we’ve learned one thing over the course of history, it’s that freedom is unstoppable—ask the Soviet Union—and I suspect that once ordinary Arabs start to experience freedom, the mullahcracies and “royal houses†are doomed.

 

Yeah, there are going to be obstacles on the way, and a setback or two, or three. But it’s unstoppable.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Took full advantage of my illness-based insomnia last night to work on a quickie trailer for my book, and I might still be high on NyQuil, but DAMN! It looks good!

 

Really damned awesome for about two hours' work, start to finish...

 

Then I slept til 10:30am... so much for trying to get onto an earlier sleep schedule.

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

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Guest Skaramine

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

From Stars and Stripes:

 

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — The population of Afghanistan grew slightly Saturday, thanks in part to a pair of Black Hawk crews and a 25-year-old flight medic from Wiesbaden, Germany.

 

Army Spc. Kyle Storbakken helped an Afghan mother deliver a healthy 6½-pound baby while aboard the Black Hawk flying to the U.S. military base Salerno.

 

“This was my first delivery,†Storbakken said via a phone interview from Salerno, a remote base a few hours away by helicopter from Bagram.

 

It was the first such delivery that anyone associated with the current medical mission in country had knowledge of. Col. John Giddens, the commander of the 249th General Hospital at Bagram, said most Afghans the hospital sees are those critically injured by mines, accidents or attacks by anti-coalition forces.

 

“It’s very nice to have a joyful emergency coming through our doors,†he said.

 

Peer Mullah Khan, the baby's father, is a leader of the village next to the U.S. outpost at Skhin. Through a translator, he said he came to U.S. troops for help when his wife started struggling during labor.

 

Giving birth isn’t a new experience for his wife, Melawa. The baby girl, who hasn’t been named yet, is the couple’s 14th child. Two have died, but the others — ranging from the newest addition to a 19-year old girl — make for a large family. Two sons currently serve in the Afghan army.

 

American officials said they agreed to take the mother and father aboard the aircraft because it appeared that the placenta was between the baby and the birth canal, potentially putting both lives at risk. Fortunately, that turned out to not be the case.

 

In order to save time, one helicopter was dispatched from Salerno to Skhin to pick up the mother while another left Bagram to fly to Salerno. While the first helicopter was on its way back from the village to Salerno, the mother gave birth.

 

Storbakken, assigned to the 159th Medical Company (Air Ambulance) at Wiesbaden, said he couldn’t recall any specific emotions he had while helping deliver the baby.

 

“I guess you don’t really think about what’s going on until it’s all over,†he said.

 

Capt. Richard Mangini, the executive officer of the 68th Medical Company, of which Storbakken is a part, said in-air births are a rarity. And it was even more special because of who was delivering the baby.

 

“He’s our youngest and probably most inexperienced medic in terms of time on the job,†he said.

 

Storbakken said he’s already received several good-natured jabs by his peers.

 

“Some of the guys have been calling me daddy,†he said.

 

The real father and mother were expected to travel back to Salerno from Bagram on Monday with the newest member of their family.

 

Not bad for a bunch of people supporting a hooded commander in chief.

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