Wow... check out the prices the Vista beta's getting on eBay...

[Lang Murphy]

Yeah, with my kids it was "Walk This Way" by Run-DMC. "Who's Aerosmith?"

 

[Lang Murphy]

Had the pleasure of seeing McCartney and Wings in Madison Square Garden on
the Venus and Mars (I think... too many years ago...) tour.

 

[Raven Mill]

Katelyn is 18. Actual quote:

"Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings??"

I can't make this stuff up...

So...do you have fun with it like I do and come up with ways to freak them
out with how the "gross old guys" wrote the songs they listen to now? lol

 

[Mark D. VandenBeg]

So...do you have fun with it like I do and come up with ways to freak them
out with how the "gross old guys" wrote the songs they listen to now?
lol

Oh of course! And other things, like reminding her my Bachelors Degree and
my car are older than she is, that sort of thing. But she is (usually)
rather knowledgeable about 70's and 80's Pop Culture, so sometimes it's a
challenge.

 

[Donald McDaniel]

So ... you think all the rich people should give you all their money, right?
Move to China.

Raven, WHERE did I say that "all the rich people should giv ME all
their money"? Show me, please...

First of all, before I go into this diatribe, because I think many people
will hate me afterwards, I want to point out that I am NOT, by ANY means, a
republican. I suppose I am more of the Teddy Roosevelt sort of republican.
(He called it the "Bull Moose" party) I believe that there should be almost
NO federal government.

This is not possible in a modern industrialized society, Raven.
It may be possible in an agrarian society, much like Alaska. But it
is definitely not possible in the lower 48.

No welfare.

This only shows me your youth and cultural upbringing, Raven. You've
never lived in poverty, so have no understanding of it. You can
probably call your parents right now, and they will give you what you
need.

Ect... I call myself undeclared

I too am an "Independant", and vote (when I do) for whoever I believe
will do the best job. Of course, I thought that Mr. Bush would do the
best job. But LOOK around you, my friend. OPEN your eyes. And even
more, open your HEART to all the hurt and pain around you.

Well, we know how Mr. Bush's government has "done the best job" don't
we? Homelessness is at an all-time high. And I assure you, all those
"lazy" people you refer to don't exist. The greater majority of the
homeless would LOVE a job, any job. And a large part of those
homeless are completely unable to work, even if they wanted to (most
of them don't even know where they are most of the time). Can you
HONESTLY tell me that a confirmed drunken First Nations person, who
has probably been drunk all his life, and can't even stand up straight
without help, is going to be able to get ANY job? Even the most
demeaning one? No, my friend.

Think about the homeless for a moment, please:

Most of them have no address, and would be immediately passed over by
almost all employers.
Most of them cannot even wash themselves on a regular basis, even
though they might want to.
They can't wash their clothing, to be presentable to an employer,
They are usually so hungry they can't do ANYTHING but spend their time
looking for something to eat.
Many of them have excellent skills. But no one is looking for their
skills right now.
Many of them have families, with children crying for food for just
today. How can they leave their children to strangers while they go
looking for food somewhere? Do you have ANY idea how many children go
missing in the US every day? Not a few, I assure you.
How can a nursing mother carry her infants around with her while she
looks for work? How can she even NURSE them, when most people do not
like to see nursing mothers in public.

I can't go on, my friend. You just have no understanding yet. You
have no empathy for hurting people. I really feel sorry for you. You
live in a world which is composed of exactly ONE human being: YOU.

because I vote for whoever I think will do the best job, not by whether they
have a "D" or an "R" after their name. I voted for the Alaska Independance
Party candidate for president. He didn't stand a chance, and there were a
LOT of things about him I didn't like, but he sure as hell was a better
proposition than Kerry. (I hate liars...)

I also hate liars, Raven. Men like those in power are lying to the
American people every day. George Bush lied to the American people
and brought us into a war which has sucked us dry. Almost a TRILLION
dollars has been spent on his war, while our cities grow more lawless
every day. Don't you realize this yet? I too had your opinion about
America. But I am able to recognize the truth when it is shoved into
my face enough. It was shoved into my face every day, as I watched
the News.

I worked hard all my life, Raven. I had the same attitude you have. I
always paid my bills, and expected everyone else to do the same. I
judged all others by myself, rather than on their own merits and
conditions. I hated the poor. I spit on them when I passed them by
on the sidewalk. I spit into their hungry faces: "Get a job!!!". Many
times to totally physically disabled men and women, who obviously
could never hope to "get a job". No one would ever hire them, no
matter what. Even the Christians I knew did the same. But after a
while, the Holy Spirit began opening my eyes to their plight. I began
to see how proud I was, how hateful my heart was. How much these men
and women were hurting inside, and how POWERLESS I was to help them.

God taught me how haughty I am. How hurtful my words can be. And also
how helpful they can be. I learned that "life and death are truly in
the power of the tongue".

I learned how selfish I was. And now I have no excuses for myself.
When I stand before Christ, He will pass judgment on me according to
the way I treated others while on the earth.

You really make a huge mistake when you imply that all poor are liars,
or greedy, or want all the "rich men's money".

God brought me into poverty myself. He taught me their condition in
this world. He also taught me how evil men can be (rich and poor
alike). He taught me what hunger was like. He taught me how it feels
to be insulted simply because I am poor. He taught me to have
compassion on others, as He has compassion on me.

And He taught me that the more money men have, they more evil they
become. He taught me that the more power men have, the more apt they
to use it to HURT others. I no longer want power, Raven. I no longer
want glory in the world. I have no ambition, but to be acceptable to
Jesus when I stand before Him.

Even non-Christians tell us "Power corrupts, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely."

(i.e.: If you want the government to give you money for food,

I want the government to give me only what my due is. I paid taxes
for many years. I am entitled to the Social Security I now get. Mr.
Bush is trying to take this away from the elderly, Raven. He wants it
for his war.

you had
better not sit on yer butt getting welfare.

I no longer get welfare, Raven. I have no need for it. It is there
for those who truly need it. There was a time I did need it. But no
longer. And I am not alone, my friend. There are millions in the US
like me.

There are a LOT of places that
need cleaning, repair, etc... I've always believed in public works
programs...much different than welfare and people who are just lazy don't
get to collect money simply because they think the world owes them
something. Our Bill of Rights promises us Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT of
happiness. It doesn't promise us that we will be happy. You're on your own
to do that.

To the people who say they can't find a job: Move up here to Alaska. There
are HUNDREDS of jobs waiting.

You would't want our poor, Raven. They are the poorest of the poor.
The mentally ill ones. The truly helpless ones.

If you aren't willing to move up here to get
a job, then you are just lazy and are trying to get money for being lazy.

Such lack of understanding deserves no answer, Raven. I will simply
tell you that you don't know what you're talking about.

As
a matter of fact, I don't EVER remember a time when I didn't see help wanted
signs on some shop in ANY town I went to. Might be a menial job, but hey,
if you aren't willing to get off yer butt looking, then that's what you get.

You make me so sad, Raven. But not sad for myself, or the poor. Sad
for you.

What I don't understand: If you don't like Capitalism, why do you live
here?

There is nothing wrong with "capitalism", Raven. But what we now have
in the United States is not "capitalism". It is out and out robbery
and abuse of the poor. It is oligarchy, rule by a priveleged few.

If you don't like the fact that there are people with more money than
you,

You just don't get it, Raven.

move somewhere like France, where they claim that isn't the case.

One of the things I wonder is why, when the "eastern" culture people sit
around screaming how much the american culture is evil,

How sad. How racist. How evil, Raven. How did you grow into
adulthood with such little understanding of the world of men?

they are STILL
trying to come here and get into our universities, hospitals, etc. Many
come here ONLY to get on welfare.

Many also come here because their FATHERS want them to. Their fathers
PAY for the privelege of going to our universities. Many also come
here because they love America. Many come here because they have
nowhere else to go. Did you know that my ancestors came here in the
bottom of a steam ship? Packed like animals, so the owners of the
ships could make a larger profit. While the priveleged few sat on
deck, sipping their tea, and speaking of how dirty and smelly the ones
were who were allowed to come to the top for a few minutes of clean
air.

Below deck, there was cholera from drinking dirty filthy water
grudgingly given them out of some sort of guilt, or what was left of
their common humanity. Many even drank their own urine for want of
water. When they arrived in the U.S. many did not make it, because
they had died from cholera, and hunger. They were called "dirty
Mics", and given the filthiest hovels to sleep in, the poorest food.
The only work they could find were the filthiest jobs, the most
demeaning work the so-called "capitalists" could come up with. They
cleaned those "capitalists" sewers, built their railroads, built their
cities, for a few pennies a day, while the rents on their hovels were
raised beyond their abilities to pay. Our women were made servants of
their women, beaten if they stole a biscuit to take home to their
children, treated like animals, raped by their husbands, then cast
into the streets when they became pregnant with their bastard
children. All by those "capitalists" you love so dearly.

This is how men treat others, my friend. Men are evil through and
through, rich as well as poor. There is no moral high-ground to be
had by being rich, nor is there any to be had by being poor. Poverty
is not a good thing, Raven. It is evil, and eats at the spirits of
men and women. And it can turn them into saints, or demons, depending
on how truly human they are. Those who are not human become evil,
and bullies, murderers, and rapists, and abusers. And the saints
become their servants, out of love for their common humanity, and out
of love for God.

Yet men heap up great fortunes, and leave the poor in the dust.

Do not seek great riches, my friend. Seek instead true humanity.

There are a LOT of things I don't like about the government and how they do
things. I hate the democrats a little MORE than the rest, but as of yet, I
haven't seen a politician who wasn't a liar in some form or another.

God tells us that "all men are liars", Raven. Until you can see that
you too are a liar, like all other men, you have no right to call
another man a liar.

So, if
YOU have better ideas than those we have, get off yer ass and run for
office. Lets here what YOUR better ideas are and maybe I'll vote for YOU.

I don't want your votes, Raven. I want you to grow into a human being,
instead of a brute beast, like the rest around you.

Everyone wants to complain about what's there, but no one wants to step up
to the plate and change it.

The rich only complain about the poor, Raven. They complain because
they don't want to treat the poor fairly and justly, and others make
them at the point of a gun.

Those without power can change nothing, Raven. Not even their own
lives. In the US, the man with all the money has all the power. This
is why Inner-city children become drug-pushers and pimps.

Hypocrites and Whiners.

All men are hypocrites and whiners, Raven. Until you learn that, you
will not be able to pass judgment on anyone.

THAT'S what's wrong with this country.

You have no vision, Raven. You cannot see. You don't know how to
discern right from wrong. You have no idea of what "wrong" truly is,
or can be.

The fact that there are people who
have more money than you and they don't give that money to you has no
bearing on it what-so-ever.

I want nothing from anyone but fair and just treatment, Raven. I am
not asking anyone for anything, except fair, just, and humane
treatement for my brothers and sisters, the ones who have no defender,
the ones who have no fathers, the ones who have no hope.

I ask my leaders, placed over me by the Creator, to judge fairly and
equitably, to provide in times of need, to treat other nations with
respect, to give a fair wage for my brothers and sisters fair and
honest labor. A workman is truly worthy of his hire, Raven. We are
not animals, to be driven until we drop with exhaustion and thirst.
All men are made in the Image and likeness of our Creator, my friend.
We should treat each other as we would want to be treated. As Jesus
tells us, "Do unto others what you would have done unto you." When we
look into another's face, we should see the reflection of God in his
eyes, not our own reflections.

To those who live here and think they have it bad because they are poor: I
am "poor" also. I make about 10k a year. But I don't sit around and cry
that it's the "rich people's fault" that I'm poor. As a matter of fact, I
make less now than I have since I left home at 12 years old...and I'm
probably happier now than I ever have been, because I grew up and realized
that this world doesn't OWE me anything. I owe mySELF, and if I want more,
then I go out and do more work. I pity the people who can't think of
anything other than how it's the rich people's fault that they are poor.
You will grow old and bitter ... if you grow old...

If you think that being poor locks you into that all your life, you
obviously don't know anything about the history of most of the people who
ARE rich.

You say that as if wealth is a virtue, not a cause for sorrow, and as
if the wealthy are somehow better than the poor, or more moral, or
more virtuous. But the opposite is true of the rich, Raven. The rich
think their wealth will protect them. But it will not. The day will
come when they will throw their riches into the dirt, and try to
repent for the way they treated the poor. And no place will be found
for their repentance. God does not want their gold. He does not want
their glory. He wants them to feed the poor, and clothe the naked,
and provide for the orphans and widows. He wants them to heal the
sick, and teach the ignorant. He does not want them to heap up riches
for themselves. He wants them to heap up those riches for the poor.
He wants them to become like His Son, Who gave His great wealth, so
that we may be made rich.

Look at Jesus, if you want to see a rich man who gave of Himself to
the poor.

I am a student of history, Raven. I have been a student of history
all my life. And I have learned the lessons History teaches men.

History does not teach us to be selfish. It teaches us to give to
others. And it teaches us that if we do that, expecting nothing in
return, we shall be made rich.

If you want great riches, give of yourself, unselfishly, and you will
truly be made rich.

And if you think that this country/government/president is at
fault for you being poor,

I don't just "think" this, my friend. I KNOW it, with every fiber of
my being. I see it every day on the nightly news. I read it in the
newspaper, and experience it on a daily basis.

you should move somewhere like India, where you
don't ever have the chance to be anything BUT what you're born to.

This is my country, for good or evil, Raven.

Okay...I'm done ranting now...sorry for the topic break, but people who
EXPECT the world to coddle them REALLY piss me off.

You know what really pisses me off, Raven? Selfish, uncaring brutish
creatures, who care for no one but themselves.


==

Donald L McDaniel
Please Reply to the Original Thread.
========================================================

 

[Raven Mill]

This only shows me your youth and cultural upbringing, Raven. You've
never lived in poverty, so have no understanding of it. You can
probably call your parents right now, and they will give you what you
need.

Hmmm...that's funny, due to me, in those same statements, having said that I
left home when I was 12 in 1975. (I'll let you do the math...) I haven't
seen or heard from my "parents" ever since. How old are you? I have
probably seen more poverty, having not only been in it myself, but having
travelled, quite extensively, throughout almost every country that would let
me in. How long did YOU stay in the slums of Panama? In the Decade of
South Africa? In the Pero sector of Brazil? Thought so.

 

[MICHAEL]

I don't do religion. Religions suck. I can be an arsehole at times.
However, Mr. McDaniel, I have never spit on a homeless person
or anyone else. Your momma should have slapped your face and
your daddy put a whoopin' on your arse. I don't need god to show
me anything- I live with my eyes wide open.

You ramble on like an out of control popinjay.

The good ol' days, when life was so much "better"?
Is that what you long for?
Give me a year, a time period- I will break it down
and tear it apart for you.


--
Michael
______
"The trouble ain't that there is too many fools,
but that the lightning ain't distributed right."
- Mark Twain

 

[Donald McDaniel]

Hmmm...that's funny, due to me, in those same statements, having said that I
left home when I was 12 in 1975. (I'll let you do the math...) I haven't
seen or heard from my "parents" ever since. How old are you? I have
probably seen more poverty, having not only been in it myself, but having
travelled, quite extensively, throughout almost every country that would let
me in. How long did YOU stay in the slums of Panama? In the Decade of
South Africa? In the Pero sector of Brazil? Thought so.

Raven, I was dealing with poverty while you were still just a gleam in
your parent's eyes. In fact, you're younger than my second wife, and
I was 14 years older than she was when we married, and had dropped out
of High School many years earlier.

"I'll let you do the math".

Poverty is poverty, no matter where it appears, Raven.
Hard-heartedness and lovelessness are the same everywhere they rear
their ugly heads, and whether they appear in the young or the old.
Slumlords are the same everywhere, no matter what language they speak,
since they all speak a common language -- greed, hatred,
fear-mongering, and abuse of humanity.

At least if one is younger, he/she has a smaller weight of greed and
evil to overcome, so your youth is an advantage for you.

We are all human beings, Raven, and all are tempted by the same
things. As St. Paul tells us, "there is no temptation which has faced
a man which is not common to all men."

Apparently, all those good opportunities you had to learn the human
condition did not enter your heart, since you have ended up with so
little compassion for your fellow-man.

Hopefully, they will eventually enter your heart, and you will begin
to turn into a child of God, instead of an animal. Don't worry,
though, Raven. God will give you all the time it takes. But the time
grows shorter with each passing day, my friend. The more we give into
our lower natures, the harder our hearts become. The more we give of
ourselves and our resources, the softer our hearts become.

Men are becoming more animalistic every day. They don't learn the
lessons God sets before them, and so become brute beasts, tearing at
each other's throats, since resources grow scarcer and scarcer as they
consume them in their lusts.

Eventually, the Creator will be forced to dispose of them all. But He
does not desire to do this, although He has set a Day and Hour for
this destruction, and so bears with them patiently, as a father bears
with his rebellious sons or daughters.

So sad...

==

Donald L McDaniel
Please Reply to the Original Thread.
========================================================

 

[Donald McDaniel]

I don't do religion. Religions suck. I can be an arsehole at times.
However, Mr. McDaniel, I have never spit on a homeless person
or anyone else. Your momma should have slapped your face and
your daddy put a whoopin' on your arse. I don't need god to show
me anything- I live with my eyes wide open.

You are like the Pharisees of Christ's day: While seeing, you do not
see, and while hearing, you do not hear.

They justified themselves, thinking that their gifts of gold to the
Temple would buy them entrance into the Kingdom of God.

All men are sinners, Michael. None of us can stand before God being
spotless. You may not have spit on a homeless person as I did, but
you did other things, equally as guilt-bringing. Perhaps you robbed
your fathers wallet, or your mother's cookie jar.

I don't know your sins, my friend. But I do know you are a sinner,
like all men, because God, whom you claim you don't need, has told us
this. Whether you believe what He says or not is completely
irrelevant to Him. He knows that you do sin, as all men do. He will
pass judgment on you for those sins, whether you believe Him or not
today. All men must stand before His Throne of Justice. All men must
give an account of their behavior in that Day.

You ramble on like an out of control popinjay.

The good ol' days, when life was so much "better"?
Is that what you long for?
Give me a year, a time period- I will break it down
and tear it apart for you.

I long for one thing, and one thing only, Michael: To be found in
Christ when I stand before Him.

The past is the past, and useful for nothing but learning our lessons
properly. If we do not learn them, we are doomed to destruction.

It is the future we look for, my friend. But while looking for the
future, we live as Christ would have us live, today.

==

Donald L McDaniel
Please Reply to the Original Thread.
========================================================

 

[MICHAEL]

Popinjay.


--
Michael
______
"The trouble ain't that there is too many fools,
but that the lightning ain't distributed right."
- Mark Twain

 

[Raven Mill]

Eventually, the Creator will be forced to dispose of them all. But He
does not desire to do this, although He has set a Day and Hour for
this destruction, and so bears with them patiently, as a father bears
with his rebellious sons or daughters.

Damn...and I thought this was a discussion about Windows and how the "rich
people" were evil. And it turns out you're a doomsday preacher?

Oh well...there goes the intellectual aspect of the conversation.

I can HALFWAY understand politics being part of a discussion about a beta
OS, but I seriously doubt, if there IS a g`hod, that he/she/it/whatever is
relative to this newsgroup. So, for this part, I'll just stop now, so that
the rest of the people don't have to see anymore posts regarding whether or
not the planet rides on the back of four elephants, which are, in turn,
riding on the back of a turtle, which is swimming through space ... etc.

Takali Omega
The UnHoyle Ghost