[geeks] FYI: CompUSA is offering OS X 10.5 for $99 (after rebate)

[Phil Stracchino]

Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Organized piracy only exists in a power vacuum.  The Ottoman military  
> fleets were no threat  by then.

Point of information:  Organized piracy is alive and well to this day in
the South China Sea.  (As a matter of fact, it's been on the increase
lately.)

> Six frigates were built, all specifically created to beat any vessel  
> afloat, including anything England had.  They had better hulls that  
> were faster and stronger, and better and more accurate artillery, and  
> we trained our crews to be more tactically flexible.  We also put  
> soldiers on most of our ships who were trained for grapple and board,  
> giving them high leather collars and strong uniforms to protect them  
> from swords and knives.
> 
> Those guys became the US Marine Corp and that's why they are still  
> called Leathernecks today.

Thank you for THAT interesting point of historical information.  :)
Semper Fi!


> I made a list of islamic governments and it seems to me most of them  
> are on the list of terrorist supporters.

Yeah, the fuckers pretty much all condemn terrorism with one hand while
funnelling arms and money to them with the other.  The truth is a lot of
the Middle Eastern governments, including the House of Saud, hate the
West as much as any of the terrorist groups do, they just want our money
more.

> I'd agree with you if you said most islamic people don't like or  
> support it.
> 
> Their governments are often another story, frequently treating their  
> people like crap, so support of terrorism doesn't seem out of  
> character to me.

Right.  Most of the Middle East is, in practice, effectively pretty much
still feudal under the skin.  And then there's the Horn of Africa, which
we (the West, not the US specifically) ROYALLY fucked up because we
didn't make any effort to understand how their perfectly functional
existing form of government worked or even that they had one, we just
charged in as usual, secure in our God-given mission to Bring God And
Civilization To The Benighted Heathen Fuzzy-Wuzzies, blindly certain
that Our Way must be better.

> That's hardly the only example in history.
> 
> Who was the primary target of the Crusades?  The Holy Lands?  No, it  
> was innocents in Europe that suffered more than anyone else,  
> including some of the very people who made their weapons and their  
> supplies.

There's a joke about a Pole who found a magic lamp and was granted three
wishes by the djinn inside it.

"For my first wish," he said, "I want the Golden Horde to ride forth to
Poland, sack Cracow, then go home."
"As you wish," said the djinn.  And the Golden Horde came and sacked
Cracow, killing everything that moved and leaving not a building
standing, then went back to Mongolia.  "Your second wish?"
"For my second wish," the Pole said, "I want the Golden Horde to ride
forth to Poland, sack Warsaw, then go home."
"...As you wish," said the djinn with a shrug.  And the Golden Horde
came and sacked Warsaw, killing everything that moved and leaving not a
building standing, then returned to Mongolia again.  "Your third and
last wish?"
"For my third wish," he said, "I want the Golden Horde ..."
"OK, OK, I get the picture," the djinn sighed.  "Which city this time?"
 The Pole names a city, and the Golden Horde came, sacked the city, and
went home to Mongolia.

"I have to ask," said the djinn.  "Why did you want the Golden Horde to
come and sack the three biggest cities in your own country?"

"Because," said the Pole, "on their way, they marched across the whole
of Russia ... six times."


-- 
        Phil Stracchino                CDK#2
 Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net   alaric at caerllewys.net
 Landline: 603-429-0220           Mobile: 603-320-5438
        It's not the years, it's the mileage.