a crank’s progress

I have been struggling with some brittleness in my FreeBSD installation here: the ports tools which have worked flawlessly have started breaking on me, for reasons I can’t work out. Usually, all that’s needed is to type portinstall archivers/rpm or portupgrade archivers/rpm4. Dependencies are looked up and built, the package database is updated, it all [...]

I have found Ike to be quotable before now. In the run-up to the 60th anniversary of D-Day, I decided to look up some more information on him.
This quote struck me as germane to the current military adventure (bonus points if you can recall a link between the current White House incumbent and Eisenhower [...]

Chad Dickerson @ InfoWorld follows up on the question“Does IT matter?” with a look at the book of the same name.

The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: It Was the Porn That Made Them Do It:
The [...] hypocrisy of the blame-the-culture crowd is that “normal Americans” . . . . don’t partake of the “secular” entertainment that is doing all this damage. In other words, the porn that led to prison abuse is [...]

CNN.com - Army finds Tillman probably killed by friendly fire - May 29, 2004:
U.S. Army Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former professional football player killed last month in Afghanistan, was probably killed by gunfire from his own unit during an intense firefight, the U.S. Army said Saturday.
As the article reads, this in no way diminishes his sacrifice: he [...]

Sit through the ad, if you’re not a member: it’s worth it.
Salon.com | Washington’s Chalabi nightmare:
Washington, which was just weeks ago in the grip of neoconservative orthodoxy and absolute belief in Bush’s inevitability and righteousness, is now in the throes of agonizing events and being ripped apart by investigations. Things fall apart; all [...]

Eschaton:
[Kelli] ARENA: Neither John Kerry nor the president has said troops [will be] pulled out of Iraq any time soon. But there is some speculation that al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House.
There you go. We’re fighting al Qaeda in Iraq and [...]

apropos of Iran using the US to rid themselves of Saddam Hussein:
Persian Proverb“Use your enemy’s hand to catch a snake.”
[Motivational Quotes of the Day]
This is the same part of the world that gave us “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This one is just a little more to the point. Maybe we’ll [...]

a friend writes: “a .sig quote I liked”
“Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren.”
-George Washington, speaking to the officer he placed in charge of 211 prisoners taken at Princeton.
According to a recent [...]

Remove Rush Limbaugh from American Forces Radio Petition
:
We request that Secretary Rumsfeld remove talk radio host Rush Limbaugh from the American Forces Radio and Television Service (formerly known as Armed Forces Radio). Mr. Limbaugh, whose program is broadcast for one hour per day to U.S. troops overseas, has spent the past four weeks condoning and [...]