Thursday, February 27th, 2003 | 4:16 am
Good to see LJ is workin’ again. I don’t know how long I can go without it.
Today I lead a meeting because Paul was out and we seemed really productive, but at the end of the meeting, it really didn’t seem like we had done much.
$24 million awarded in cross-burning case
That’s just unbelievable! “We wanted to send a big message,” said the foreman of the jury, Shirlene Williams.
Far be it for me to try to begin to explain the justice system, but isn’t a civil complaint supposed to redress a loss of some sort? If you are using the court system to send a message to anyone, you don’t deserve to take part in the process. Yes, I believe in deterrence. But I want that deterrence to be based on a rational fear on the part of criminals that they will be made to pay for the damage they cause, not the fear that some irrational jury will use your case to “send a message” to anybody!
If, for some ridiculous reason, the jury had found that the mental anguish, loss of privacy, lost wages, and other damages were worth $24 million, then I could understand. The criminals already received a sentence that constitutes payment of their debt to society. Their specific debt to the family they hurt should equal the cost of reparing any damage to their yard, removal of debris, and an amount specified by a court-appointed psychologist or precedent to offset the mental anquish suffered by the family.
This all boils down to the issue of hate crimes, an artificial distinction I have a great deal of trouble with anyway…
Wednesday, February 26th, 2003 | 12:44 pm
So, Livejournal suffered yet another DDOS attack.
It’s rather upsetting and I appreciate their attempts to get the service
back as quickly as possible. In other news, I am currently working on a
new personal site to bring together all of my fun sources of diversion
(IE this LJ, my school journal, my
photo album, and my resumé
and other fun stuff.)
That site will eventually be at garrettvonk.com. g a r r e t t v o n k @ g a r r e t t v o n k . c o m
currently works, but is not my official address. (I’ll still use
g vonk @ uga . edu while I am at school)
Monday, February 24th, 2003 | 8:34 pm
Well, my intention was to find a new, more interesting, more applicable quiz to take so it would be more interesting than an operating system quiz. Guess what happened?
Monday, February 24th, 2003 | 8:29 pm
I am going to a Halo tournament tonight. On the Xbox. Does that make me a loser? I mean, it is social interaction.
At any rate, I played intramural tennis today and since Skippy was way late showing up, I had to be the team captain for the first hour or so. Thus, when push came to shove, I ended up playing first position singles. Against a guy who was really, really good. So good that I lost 8-0. Losing is somewhat embarrassing, but getting swept like that is somewhat humiliating.
Monday, February 24th, 2003 | 7:02 am
src="http://www.bbspot.com/Images/News_Features/2003/01/os_quiz/slackware.jpg" width="300" height="90"
border="0" alt="Which OS are You?">
Which OS are You?
Hrm, that’s the first of those little “What X are you” things I have completed, because I usually don’t think anyone, including myself, would care “Which Size Battery” or “Which Particle, Quantum or Otherwise” I am. (for the record, I am a nm)
But hey, I’m an operating system I’ve never used. I can really only think of one person who would be happy I’m Slackware…
Anyway…
Thursday, February 20th, 2003 | 4:40 am
We had another meeting at UPS yesterday (Wednesday). It was nice because I was actually able to drive down the night before, after work on Tuesday and stay the night in Norcross. Why was this nice, you may ask? Well, that way, while everyone had to get up at 6 and meet to leave at 7:30, I was able to wake up at 8 and leave at 8:30. Of course, I almost got lost due to my own incompetence, but at least I made it before our official meeting time of 9:30.
Thursday, February 13th, 2003 | 1:37 am
Going back and forth from Athens to Atlanta is one of those weird things. It doesn’t bother me and yet it does. It definitely doesn’t bother me because I am often going down there to do something fun and exciting, like eat salad with Heather or watch some lame TV show with Heather (which is 1000 times more fun than watching a cool show by myself). The drive itself is about 60 miles, which is just short enough to make it something I am willing to undertake on a semiregular basis, and just long enough to be more than just a “jump in your car and drive over there” kind of thing. At least I’ve got good music.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2003 | 8:47 pm
Just when I thought work was going to be boring tonight, I went and found a great flash game where you can build a slot car race track and then race on your track against a parrot.
All in another language.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2003 | 1:07 am
Going to bed now. Gotta get up early in the morning to go down to Atlanta.
Lame.
Not totally lame, but just the same, I’d rather be in Athens, sleeping*cough* uh, I mean, working on my job search. Yeah, that’s it.
See you at 6.
And by you, I mean the internet, because no human will be awake to greet me, I guaran-damn-tee ya that!
Monday, February 3rd, 2003 | 12:11 pm
So, my issue right now is with the ubiquitous bumper stickers proclaiming “It is impossible to simultaneously prevent and prepare for war- Albert Einstein” Now, I know that Einstein’s participation in the Manhattan Project was tempered with the very sentiment which caused him to make this statement, but don’t the massively destructive technologies he helped create play a crucial role in disproving these words?
I mean, from my rudimentary history classes in high school, I know that the mutually-assured destruction offered our nations by our reliance on nuclear weaponry had a hand in preventing excessive bloodshed during the cold war.
In fact, I would argue that preparing for war is a fine way to prevent it. Look, we are going to have to operate on the assumption that you cannot fully prevent war, nor can you fully prepare for it, so there is some sort of gradient here. If you were to not prepare at all for any type of war and focus all efforts on preventing one, what happens when a war breaks out? You aren’t prepared.
If preparing for a war helps prevent it, as has happened in the past, how can one argue the two are mutually exclusive? I would prefer to build planes and bombs and be able to quell those who threaten me without even using the planes or bombs. I don’t want a war any more than the stupid dreadlocked guy running around the bars in Athens right now shouting “No WAR!” wants a shower. Instead, I will support action that will defend our people and our nation.
