Posts by Galimatias

Biden projected to be the next US President, Microsoft joins rest of world in telling Trump: It looks like... you're fired

Re: Not if Republicans run the senate

Amazing... every point you made has no connection with reality of Black people who have had to deal with direct targeted voter suppression by the Republican party for the last 50 years.

"I think the "Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters" is simply political rhetoric."

"There are indeed 10s of millions of people who cannot obtain one, but it is because they are in the country illegally."

I could go into the closing of DMV offices in majority Black counties in some southern states (ie. Georgia, Alabama, etc.) causing people to have to travel farther distances to get to available offices - which by the way, may only open for a limited time on certain days of the week (and no, not weekends) thus having to take time off of work, which may not be a option economically. Then, needing ID documentation that may be difficult to obtain or even available; it's not unusual for older Black people in the south to have difficulty in obtaining an original birth certificate.

Then there is the tactic of closing polling places in minority areas such that people in have to travel longer distances to their polling places (and not "walking to the polls", but, outside of town, as in Dodge City, KS in the 2018 midterms), meaning they may have to stand in longer lines. And since you were(n't) asking, yes, Black people on average have statistically longer average wait times to vote than people in majority white areas.

Oh, and let's not forget the fact that after the Voting Rights act was defanged by the Supreme Court, with several states then precisely targeting minority populations with gerrymandering and other tactics.

I respectfully suggest that you might want to do a little research before disseminating your incompletely informed opinions, or, even better, ask a politically active Black person who lives in a Republican controlled battleground state before making comments about Republican voter suppression tactics.

Oh, and 2 personal notes: I don't drink and have far better uses for $16 than a buying f*****g "case of beer", and two, don't be so arrogant to assume that the only reason someone is not able to get an ID is because they are "in the country illegally".

User thanked IT department for fast new server, but it had never left its box

Re: "It's the only way to be sure"

"Game over, man! Game over!"

... as someone else said...

... RIP Bill

President Trump to his council of industry CEO buddies: You're fired!

Re: Oh, dear

Hi John. Thanks for the thought provoking post. Just to add some meandering thoughts...

"This is why, even in this day and age, removing statues of Confederate generals wherever they may still stand is not a completely non-controversial no-brainer in the United States."

Of course, whether there is controversy depends on the community and people who's "brains" are being considered.

In Baltimore, MD there *was* a statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney - you know, the justice who wrote the main opinion in the Dred Scott v. Sandford saying that Black people, well - in his words:

"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in regard to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted; but the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Maryland never seceded from the Union, but Baltimore was sympathetic to the southern cause. So in the 1870's a statue was erected of Justice Taney {the man who wrote the previous paragraph saying that people of my race weren't deserving of citizenship} right across the street from a monument to George Washington, a man who fought for the emergence of our nation and the freedom of her citizens {most of them at least}.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Taney_(sculpture)

The statue was removed earlier this week - no violence or protests, unanimous consent of the City Council, and with widespread approval of the community. Personally, while I begrudgingly accepted its presence when walking in the area, I appreciated the removal of what was a basically a 'fuck you, you don't count' reminder to me and people who look like me.

I suppose for some people the removal of these statues might be a matter of debate: allowing the Confederacy to retain it's self-respect in defeat {respect which, after the war, they never extended to the Blacks living in their borders} - historic significance {perhaps, but there are thousands of detailed histories, volumes, books, historical sites and contemporary writings that can be referenced regarding the history behind the insurrection against the US} - and other arguments presented with immaculately constructed semantic and logical constructs which, while satisfying to the persons voicing them, don't honestly address the motivation and true message of those who created these objects, nor the deleterious spiritual and emotional effects on those who were the intended targets.

For me, their existence and the reaction they elicit is real and visceral. While I passively tolerated the Taney statue, it was to me a physical symbol of a persistent racial pathology that this country has only with great difficulty acknowledged or dealt with. If the saddening death of Heather Heyer "manipulates" the government to remove or relocate some of these statues, so be it. The reality of the murders of Black people, throughout history, at the hands of those malignantly motivated by the ideologies these statues represent has never "manipulated" the government to eradicate these statues. The peaceful protests of Black people and others has barely been able to "manipulate" the government to remove or relocate the statues.

I wonder sometimes if a root of the problem is a "feature" of the American social-economic-political-racial construct to bestow unconditional "supremacy" to the attitudes and voices of some individuals or groups over others. Maybe that partly explains the macabre irony of a Taney statue in a town with what is now a majority Black population... I see the German people not having such "debates" regarding public representations of their WWII "history", and wonder if it might be because they are a culturally monochromatic society, capable of unified introspection without equivocation or delusion??

Anyway, thanks again for your post. It's been a long and emotionally upsetting week for some of us here in the USA, and I guess I just needed to vent & ramble a bit. My apologies to the forum for any annoyance for the not entirely on topic post...

Apple admits the iPhone 6 Plus has 'Touch Disease'

Re: Absolutely agree

Interestingly, a couple moths ago I rescued an 2007 Dell Inspiron 1720 - http://tinyurl.com/zb3gn8c - from oblivion in the bottom of a closet at a friend's house. I did some computer geek work for him, and after paying me he says, as I'm leaving, 'Hey, can you do anything with this? You can have it.' The model had a 17" diagonal 16:10 screen {!}, so I figured it was worth downloading a service manual and doing a bit of research on the model. I can't stand the whole 16:9 display format either: I have a HP Zr2440 monitor on my main desktop, and I gave a friend a NEC EA244WMi-BK monitor as a Christmas gift - both excellent 24" 16:10 models.

Of course, the 1720 not cutting edge tech, but a 17" 16:10 screen is very nice, and it's fun to snoop around for parts to rebuild/upgrade older good tech and re-purpose it for different things. A lot of times you can add upgrades like a WUXGA screen, SSDs, CPU, updated WiFi, etc. at really low prices, and have a decently performing second rig - you just have to find a good balance between the costs / benefits I think. Anyhow, it will be a nice platform to use on long trips where carry around portability is not a concern.