phpBB, Iran, and McEnroe
These are the things on my mind today.
phpBB
Last night I upgraded Connexity to version 2.0.2 The upgrade went about as smooth as possible which pleased me greatly. I'm not sure but this new version seems a bit faster. I really like phpBB!
Iran... McEnroe...
I heard about this on the radio news and I'll just let this speak for itself:
Man Beheads Daughter Thinking She Was Raped
Mon Sep 9, 8:37 AM ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian man cut off his seven- year-old daughter's head after suspecting she had been raped by her uncle, the Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper said on Sunday.
A post-mortem, however, showed the girl was still a virgin.
"The motive behind the killing was to defend my honor, fame, and dignity," the paper quoted the father as saying.
Rape often goes unreported in Iran where the conservative society sees it as bringing shame on the victim and family.
Local people have called for the man, who has been arrested, to be hanged, but under Iran's Islamic law only the father of the victim has the right to demand the death sentence.
The paper said the father, named as Khazir, has three wives.
I also hear that John McEnroe made some of his profound thoughts known to the world in an article entitled The horrifying memories are never far away
. I'm not going to bother describing my disgust, shame, disappointment or any of that. I'm just going to respond to a few things he says.
Apportioning blame was not as cut and dried as people liked to think. I mean, didn't we arm Iraq in their war against Iran? And didn't we back that same Osama bin Laden, who wreaked such havoc and misery upon our country, in his fight against the Russians?
It doesn't come much more cut and dried than being able to answer who was to blame for an act like that. If you're going to be confused about something, please make it about something worth the confusion.
I cannot explain how he sees a connection between 9/11 and arming Bin Laden and Hussein. There is no logical connection there. We armed Iraq against Iran and Iran against Iraq for a reason, to maintain a balance of power in that region. We didn't ask Iraq to start the war. We didn't want a million young Iranian men to be slaughtered. And we sure as Heaven didn't want either of those countries to defeat the other and gain control of that region. We were in the middle of the Cold War and had to make tough decisions! The same goes for helping the Afghanis to defeat the Russian invaders. Both of those things were the right thing to do at the time. There is simply no connection between us doing that and the attacks on 9/11.
The lack of uniformity in the world's approach to dealing with terrorism is only further proof that we need to find common ground. I think that President Bush has realised he doesn't have the support he thought he had for an attack on Iraq; like all politicians he has just been seeing which way the wind is blowing before he bends with it.
There are very few people who lead in the way Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, did during last year's tragedy, who have a set of convictions and don't give a hoot about the next election. In Britain, you had it with Winston Churchill during the Second World War. The world needs more people like them.
Transport yourself back to the 1930s and ask yourself whether John McEnroe, had he lived then, would have been for taking preemptive action against Hitler. I seriously doubt he would have been behind Churchill prior to the war just like so much of Europe at the time. The political wind was blowing strongly in appeasement's direction so if there is a parallel to draw here, I think Dubya just may be more like Churchill than McEnroe has the insight to notice.
In travelling the world as a tennis player, I have a better appreciation of other countries than most Americans. We could do with being a little less besotted with money, money, money, win, win, win. When I am in England each summer people always ask: "Why don't English players win Wimbledon? They ought to be more like Americans and play to win." To my mind, it's time Americans started being more like the English - or at least learnt to lose with grace.
"lose with grace"??? Excuse me? What exactly is he saying? Am I to infer that we should sacrifice a few more thousand lives to the terrorists? When it comes to opposing the evil that they represent, I'm thank God that we want to win, win, win. We should prevail against them, it's the right thing to do, and I think we will do just that.
so 2.02 it is then, and it seems faster as well. Cool. Did you do the /contrib template cahcing mod? Wouldn't mind a report on that...
As for John McEnroe: kill him! Burn him hang him! Oops. That was the popular extreme getting the better of me ;-)
It's sad when people equate their fame with wisdom and make a fool of theyself. Kinda funny too, I can't help it, shouldn't be funny, it is. I'm workin on that :p
Hmm... I haven't had time to add any mods since the upgrade. I'll have to look into that and let you know.
One of the other mods that the youth pastor, Dennis(surfduke), really wants is the real name mod and the file transfer mod. They look like they take a bit of effort and I'm just not up to it lately. My mind is not in that mode, I guess.
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