RE: [SLE] so OT it hurts...Merry Christmas!

From: Stephen Villano (steve_at_LWR.yi.org)
Date: 12/24/03

  • Next message: Timothy Johnson: "[SLE] Xfree86 and LIRC, but would also like to say thanks" 
    To: "'William G. Westfall'" <wgwestfall1@hotpop.com>, "Suse-Linux-E@Suse. Com (E-mail)" <suse-linux-e@suse.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 02:11:19 -0500

            I *REALLY* feel your pain. Especially around the ribs from the belly
    laughs...
    Been saying much of the same for years. Probably why I haven't been promoted
    as I'm not "progressive". I come from a much older Army. The one that meets
    the enemy and kills the hell out of them, thereby not having any more
    enemies (or at least the few remaining are sufficiently frightened as to not
    cause the nation any trouble).
            That doesn't mean I want to go to war "at the drop of a hat", I'm a
    professional. As such there must be sufficient reason to wish to break the
    peace. I'll advise against an ill conceived military action. I will follow
    orders, but any objection will be quite well documented...
    Frankly, professional soldiers are the *LAST* people who wish to visit harm
    against another human. However, once the necessity is present visit said
    harm with vehemence.
            I've shaken hands and tipped back a drink with an officer who some
    years before was shooting at me as we are no longer dire enemies. We were
    both professionals and acknowledged that past was past, we were both doing
    our jobs for our respective nations.
            Has our nation done wrong in the past? Will it do so again in the
    future? How about a simpler question: Are we human?
    We'll make mistakes. We made some MAJOR ones in the past, current events are
    the direct result of some of them. I'm certain we'll make them in the
    future, we haven't stopped being human.
    The second biggest test is what we'll do about them in between to prevent
    another disaster. The biggest test is what we'll do about them if we *CAN'T*
    prevent another disaster.
    I've found that you can tell a LOT more about a person NOT when things are
    at their best, but indeed when things are at their absolute worst.
    Now if only we could learn as a species to bring the best of ourselves
    displayed during a disaster forward to our normal existence...

    Sorry for the long OT bit, just HAD to vent...

    Closer to topic: 9.0 is the best thing to come out since they put handles on
    popsicles.
    I am a bit confused though if the sparc platform is available in a current
    version...

    Gonna try playing with the 2.6 kernel as soon as I can shoehorn in some time
    on my calendar...

    Happy holidays to all, for those who don't observe our holidays: Have a
    pleasant, peaceful and prosperous year.
    And to those few who can't even observe the latter: Welcome to my world...
    ;)

    -----Original Message-----
    From: William G. Westfall [mailto:wgwestfall1@hotpop.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 1:42 AM
    To: suse-linux-e@lists.suse.com
    Subject: [SLE] so OT it hurts...Merry Christmas!

    General speaks out

    Merry Christmas;

    I thought that you might enjoy quoting General Hawley over the holidays.
    This four-star says it pretty well.

    For those who don't know General Hawley, he's a newly retired USAF
    4-star general. He commanded the USAF Air Combat Command [our front-line
    fighters and bombers]. The Command headquarters is at Langley AFB, VA.
    General Hawley is now retired and no longer required to be politically
    correct. His short speech is very much to the point. The following are
    excerpts:

    "Since the attack [9-11], I have seen, heard, and read thoughts of such
    surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed. You've heard them too.

    "Here they are:

    1) "We're not good, they're not evil, everything is relative." Listen
    carefully: We're good, they're evil, nothing is relative. Say it with me
    now and free yourselves. You see, folks, saying "We're good" doesn't
    mean, "We're perfect." Okay? The only perfect being is the bearded guy
    on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The plain fact is that our country
    has, with all our mistakes and blunders, always been and always will be
    the greatest beacon of freedom, charity, opportunity, and affection in
    history. If you need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see what
    happens.

    2) "Violence only leads to more violence." This one is so stupid you
    usually have to be the president of an Ivy League university to say it.
    Here's the truth, which you know in your heads and hearts already:
    Ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more violence. Limp, panicky,
    half-measures lead to more violence. However, complete, fully
    thought-through, professional, well-executed violence never leads to
    more violence because, you see, afterwards, the other guys are all dead.
    That's right, dead. Not "on trial," not "re-educated," not "nurtured
    back into the bosom of love." Dead. D-E --Well, you get the idea.

    3) "The CIA and the rest of our intelligence community have failed us."
    For 25 years we have chained our spies like dogs to a stake in the
    ground, and now that the house has been robbed, we yell at them for not
    protecting us. Starting in the late seventies, under Carter appointee
    Stansfield Turner, the giant brains who get these giant ideas decided
    that the best way to gather international intelligence was to use spy
    satellites. "After all (they reasoned), you can see a license plate from
    200 miles away." This is very helpful if you've been attacked by a
    license plate. Unfortunately, we were attacked by humans. Finding humans
    is not possible with satellites. You have to use other humans. When we
    bought all our satellites, we fired all our humans, and here's the
    really stupid part. It takes years, decades to infiltrate new humans
    into the worst places of the world. You can't just have a guy who looks
    like Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93 sweatshirt plop himself down in a
    coffee shop in Kabul and say "Hiya, boys. Gee, I sure would like to meet
    that bin Laden fella. "Well, you can, but all you'd be doing is giving
    the bad guys a story they'll be telling for years.

    4) "These people are poor and helpless, and that's why they're angry at
    us." Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozen head collection was just a
    desperate cry for help. The terrorists and their backers are richer than
    Elton John and, ironically, a good deal less annoying. The poor helpless
    people, you see, are the villagers they tortured and murdered to stay in
    power. Mohammed Atta, one of the evil scumbags who steered those planes
    into the killing grounds is the son of a Cairo surgeon. But you knew
    this, too. In the sixties and seventies, all the pinheads marching
    against the war were upper-middle-class college kids who grabbed any
    cause they could think of to get out of their final papers and spend
    more time drinking. It's the same today.

    5) "Any profiling is racial profiling." Who's killing us here, the
    Norwegians? Just days after the attack, the New York Times had an
    article saying dozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin Laden
    family living in America were afraid of reprisals and left in a huff,
    never to return to studying at Harvard and using too much Drakkar. I'm
    crushed. Please come back. Let's all stop singing "We Are the World" for
    a minute and think practically. I don't want to be sitting on the floor
    in the back of a plane four seconds away from hitting Mt. Rushmore and
    turn, grinning, to the guy next to me to say, "Well, at least we didn't
    offend them."

    So here's what I resolve for the New Year: Never to forget our murdered
    brothers and sisters. Never to let the relativists get away with their
    immoral thinking. After all, no matter what your daughter's political
    science professor says, we didn't start this. Have you seen that bumper
    sticker that says, "No More Hiroshimas"? I wish I had one that says, "No
    More Pearl Harbors." 

    -- 
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