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Last week was the most productive I've had in several years. I developed a new remote voice tracking system for my NH client and a way to view the status of uploaded tracks. I also got RF interference out of the keyboard-video-monitor extender going into their AM studio, and figured out how to make conference calling work with Comcast phone lines. And that was just on Tuesday.
I've not found much time to post in, or even read, most of my online forums lately. Meanwhile, the evil ice outside has been receding and it is starting to feel like early spring. The first frogs will be out in a couple of weeks.
I am following the news from Libya, having just learned from peoplesworld.org how to get Al Jazeera on my Roku box. Libya is not Egypt or Tunisia, but neither is it Iran; there is a genuine civil war raging, and we can only hope it ends quickly. If Qadhdhafi keeps recruiting mercenaries, the other side may need something like the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. I do not, however, favor U.S. intervention; not only is the U.S. already overstretched elsewhere, but the U.S. is on nobody's side but that of its rich masters, and I fear any return of the Marines to the shores of Tripoli would do the Libyans little good.
It's not Gaddafi or Khadafy, by the way, except in vulgar dialects; in proper classical Arabic it is Qadhdhafi, with 'dh' pronounced as voiced 'th' in 'there' or 'then'. He is named for the Qadhdhaf tribe out of which he presumably came.
The ultimate lesson for the West is the same as that of 1989: when political systems become so corrupt that they no longer serve the people, they will fall. It is a lesson the privileged and powerful in our own country would do well to heed.
I've not found much time to post in, or even read, most of my online forums lately. Meanwhile, the evil ice outside has been receding and it is starting to feel like early spring. The first frogs will be out in a couple of weeks.
I am following the news from Libya, having just learned from peoplesworld.org how to get Al Jazeera on my Roku box. Libya is not Egypt or Tunisia, but neither is it Iran; there is a genuine civil war raging, and we can only hope it ends quickly. If Qadhdhafi keeps recruiting mercenaries, the other side may need something like the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. I do not, however, favor U.S. intervention; not only is the U.S. already overstretched elsewhere, but the U.S. is on nobody's side but that of its rich masters, and I fear any return of the Marines to the shores of Tripoli would do the Libyans little good.
It's not Gaddafi or Khadafy, by the way, except in vulgar dialects; in proper classical Arabic it is Qadhdhafi, with 'dh' pronounced as voiced 'th' in 'there' or 'then'. He is named for the Qadhdhaf tribe out of which he presumably came.
The ultimate lesson for the West is the same as that of 1989: when political systems become so corrupt that they no longer serve the people, they will fall. It is a lesson the privileged and powerful in our own country would do well to heed.
