From MSN - "Why I Went AWOL"

This sounds so familiar.  I pray for people like this.  Whether they protest their involvement in the war out of conscience or more earthy matters.

If I were a soldier deployed to Afghanistan, I would be so discouraged that I was paying such an enormously high price, and that my civilian leadership had gotten distracted from our goals by deciding to invade Iraq when it did.  "This is MY LIFE, man.  I got Nothin' more VALUABLE than what I'm giving to this war...", I would think, and I'd think of my strained marriage and kids whose dad had been gone for half of their life - the price that THEY'RE paying, and I'd be VERY tempted to desert.

If I were a soldier in Iraq - well, I wouldn't be a soldier in Iraq.

Our troops have a right to certain expectations.  They should be able to expect us, as a nation, to honor the magnitude of the sacrifices (remember, their LIFE, shattered homes, mental stress and psychological trauma, risk of physical mutilation, etc. etc. etc.) that they make not with words, but with deeds. 

First among these: DO NOT SQUANDER the currency they provide in flesh and blood and pain on unwise or unneeded military ventures, plain and simple.

Second among these: BE RESPOSIBLE and A-POLITICAL about our war efforts.  The military is over-stretched.  Where's the draft to help us fight our two-front war?  Well, we can't have one, because then there would be no war.  Suddenly, people would get a lot less distracted and busy and the pressure would be applied.  So, miliatary families: sorry, you're boned.  Says the commander and chief: I can screw my troops and get my war, or I can be a man about this and not get my war.  It's evil that he's doing it, and it's evil that we're letting him.

And Thirdly:  God help us, why are we not giving these soldiers the support they need when they get home?  Why can we ALWAYS find budget for the fight, but NEVER find budget for the post-war care?  What is WITH US!? 

We owe our soldiers such a huge apology.  We (as a nation) were so busy letting ourselves be defined by the experience of the 60's that we couldn't stand up against a war that many of us (including me) KNEW didn't make any sense, even if we took the intelligence of the time at face value.  When we spoke up, we were shouted down as unpatriotic and "against the troops", and so we clammed up.  I'm sure that this is what happened to many members of congress as well.

Chris, Terry, Jon, & Ethan - I'm sorry.  I don't know what I could have done to stop this, but I am SO sorry that I didn't at least talk more often and more loudly about how it was enormously bad judgment to invade Iraq when we did and in the way in which we did.

I'm sorry that our political system is one in which we can elect such a thoughtless commander in chief who would squander your LIVES on a war that was over-reaching and absurdly damaging, with little return for the high price paid. 

I'm sorry that the major reason that this man is in office is that my Christian brothers and sisters see every national election as a one-issue race, and have sold their minds, if not their souls, to the Republican party; to the extent that Republican/Conservative & Christian are used synonymously in my church in the same way that Liberal and Sinner are.
 

Jesus is the what, now? (4)

Donnie Miller expresses this really well over here.

Jewish Voice for Peace ...

I was deeply moved by a video message that Monty Asbury linked.

"Palisentians
Isreali
Jews
Muslims
Christians
athiests
everyone ...

we all need to stand togeter
against violence
against repression
no matter who does it
take a stand with us for peace, coexistence, and real future for children like us everywhere.

Sign the letter today."

www.December18th.org

Amen...

Jesus is the what, now? (3)

warning: This is a brain dump and should be summarized and better organized.

BibleGateway.com - Passage Lookup: John 15:5,8

5"I am the vine; you are the
branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;
apart from me you can do nothing.

So, in programming terms, Jesus is an interface? He's the IDL (Interface Definition Language) that defines the contract between the ineffable "Father" and the hairy (some more so than others), smelly mammals that NEED Him to sustain them in ways they cannot even fathom.

This metaphoric device would have Jesus marshaling and unmarshaling the
love between the Inneffable reality and the mundane organism. There's a proxy and stub that makes Two things separated by a vast distance and uncrossable barrier become conjoined.

Interesting, too, is the fact that the vine and branch are one organism, composed of the same stuff. The two things are primarily different in function, not substance.
By the above logic, Jesus might be though of as a specialized strutcure within the humanity organism.

So, thank you Mr. Obvious. Why does this all bear saying?
Well, I'm not searching for the role that Jesus plays in my own salvation. I think I'm wondering at the role He potentially plays in the salvation of, say, the "un-saved" ;-)>. Example: A devout Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, etc.

Here's my problem when it comes to Jesus:

I almost HAVE to reject the notion that just God would damn a good and devout person because he had not accepted, intellectually at any rate, the concept of Jesus as savior.

Combine that with the fact that I KNOW there are so many things we DON'T KNOW.

Makes me wonder - is there another way to find the Way? To walk through The Gate? To be grafted to The Vine? or to be found by the Shepherd? Is there a sort of salvation that we Christians might not recognize? For example, is it not possible that Ghandi was bearing fruit, somehow, through the Vine of Jesus?

Maybe Jesus is a REALITY as much as a savior? And here's where I can't express what comes next. *Frustration*

Or, maybe I'm reaching for something that just isn't there.

We Christians are taught that you confess with your mouth, but is there some deeper reality by which the Christ connects humanity with Divinity even when there is no profession of faith in the biblical Jesus? If a man (like Ghandi) follows the teachings of Christ and displays the heart of Christ but won't convert to Christianity, what does that make him? It seems arbitrary to say that Ghandi is in hell today because he didn't profess faith in Jesus as his personal savior, doesn't it?

But, I'm being presumptuous - who knows what God's really up to, and who am I to say what is just and what is not based on my fractional and fractured view of reality. Maybe that's really what I'm driving at. Maybe, just maybe, those of us who say Jesus is the way but really mean that my religion is the way aren't as correct as we think. But what would be the alternative?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and the Word was the God...

I am the way, the truth, and the light. No man comes to the father but by me.

I am the Vine and you are the branches

I am the Gate

I am the Good Shepherd

Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice ...

My kingdom is not of this world
You are ever hearing, but not understanding

My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are not your thoughts...


So, Jesus is the what now? *fingers rapping...*

My future's so bright, I gotta wear ...

We just bought a house and we love it - it's great
in every last way it is truly first rate

well, every last way? Perhaps every but one
I've no shades on my windows, and that's no darn fun

I've just one complaint and it's oh so sincere
my neighbors can see me undressing up here!

I've told all my girls - we've no shades and that blows
so I would suggest that you sleep in your clothes

and by all that's holy - please stay on your toes
or if you get naked, well, everyone knows!

and to my wife I say DON'T LET THEM SEE YA
You're too darned HOT - it could be like Bathsheba!

and why, you may ask, are my shades not up there?
why am I stuck with the state of affairs?

My shades, they sit idle beside my back door
and some have grown tired and lay down on the floor

and await my next coming to cut them and place
them into my windows to hide my red face

they want to be placed - they don't like things this way
they call from my kitchen, and here's what they say:

OH - when will you fix us? - This isn't a game!
you need to cover you girth and your shame

I've seen you undressed as through this house you race
and I must observe that your hair is mis-placed!

the hair on your head, OH! the sight makes makes me gak
it seems to have moved to your ass, ears, and back!

Their point is well made, and although it sounds crazy,
they'll sit on, I'm afraid, because I am quite lazy.

so drive by my house and if you care to peak
I'll be running, quite naked, singing "call me the streak"

OK - Tell me this isn't cool ...

PS3Cluster Guide: By The Cluster Workshop

You can perform enormously complex calculations by day, and play a wicked game of Crisis by night ;-)>

The PS3 is doomed to go down in history as one of those amazing contraptions that was just too far ahead of it's time.

Q: Why the PS3?



A: In short, the Cell Processor ‘packs a punch’. One of the authors
(Khanna) estimates that his MPI computations run much faster than on
desktop workstation chipsets, and that his original 8 PS3 (i.e. 64
core) Cell cluster had comparable if not better performance to a 200
Node IBM Blue Gene system.

Mmmmmm.....  $4,000 super-computer.   *drool*

If programming languages were religions

Aegisub: If programming languages were religions...

Nice :-).

I would add that:
Middleware is the rich demagogue that demands your money and gives you only a twisted semblance of the underlying truth in return.
The WebSphere library is the necronomicon.
Jython is what happens when you put some fundamentalist (Java) in charge of your humanism (Python), kinda like a self-help guru.