When our current president vocally, candidly and not since Andrew Jackson oh so petulantly lambasted—in a forum no less important than the State Of The Union address—the SCOTUS for the Citizens United ruling, it prompted Associate Justice Alito to silently mouth “not true” at the numerous falsehoods spewing from the mouth of the boy-king. Our… Continue reading this entry
While Liberals gleefully celebrate the arrest of investigative journalist James O’Keefe, Conservatives are wringing their hands. The most telling thing I see about this, is that the young man has not even been convicted and the Left and Right have prejudiced this man for their own reasons. For the Liberals, it’s easy. He shed light… Continue reading this entry
For a few moments, appreciate the paintings below. Composition and technique really aren’t all that exemplary, but they show practice. They capture what seems to be the intended qualities in each scene: the bustle of city life, the majesty of a palace, the tranquility of a lake. If one were to use the work alone… Continue reading this entry
Not too many people know the actual terms for the ethical concepts of deontology (formalism) and consequentialism (utilitarianism), but in their lives they feel the full conflict of these two moral “schools” when facing moral dilemmas and trying to do “the right thing.” The third school, which predates these two, is virtue ethics. As a… Continue reading this entry
Having grown up in the Philippines and being politically aware since high school, most of the campaigns for national office revolve around pandering to the massive throngs of urban and rural poor. Most of this pandering involves some version of eat-the-rich class warfare rhetoric that aims to promise redistribution of wealth. The Philippines is not,… Continue reading this entry
Last night during a monthly meetup with a few Howard County friends, I brought up the topic of awareness camapaigns and the values of charity. I’ve always believed in fostering prosperity at home—the USA—instead of throwing money at third world countries “to help develop” them. I have made the distinction between “donation” and “investment” in… Continue reading this entry
In matters of criminal investigation, intent can be proven by certain actions. However, in these cases, there is a jury to be convinced and a victim to be vindicated. Thankfully, when it comes to disputes in the tech community, one need not try to prove intentions through actions. One need only ask. Following the remarks… Continue reading this entry
One of the biggest failures of the open-source community, and the GPL-istas particularly, is not clarifying the concept of libre versus gratis when talking about free. It’s for this same reason that I’ve learned to use FLOSS—Free/Libre Open Source Software—to refer to projects such as WordPress. This distinction hurts developers when they release plugins to… Continue reading this entry
It’s conventional wisdom that Liberals beat Conservatives in activist organization, mobilization and passion. Spurred by the election of a far-Left president and the implementation of his policies by a dictatorial Congress, Conservatives took to the streets in 2009 in protest. Even Liberals know that when Conservatives protest, it’s because they’ve awoken—or been laid off—from the… Continue reading this entry
I’m not one for public retrospectives on my blog, as I keep the most sentimental and introspective of material private. 2009 however, despite all the woes and worries that the political climate has spawned this year, was a year to remember. This was the year that my online and offline lives converged. I have to… Continue reading this entry