tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84025069916168098072024-03-05T04:28:30.244-08:00mrontempsuccinct and all-encompassing; mrontemp is an official Ontario Emperor blogOntario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comBlogger2939125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-35954315998897845642012-10-18T12:30:00.000-07:002012-10-18T12:30:00.274-07:00Revisiting mrontemp, 3 1/2 years later<p>On March 17, 2009, I wrote a post entitled <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009/03/not-last-mrontemp-post-but-you-may-want.html">Not the last mrontemp post</a>. This, of course, meant that I needed to write a last mrontemp post. I don't know if this is the last one, but it could be.<p>
Back in March 2009, I announced that I would primarily blog under my real name, John Bredehoft, and that I would do fewer things under my pseudonym, Ontario Emperor. That's what I've done; other than my lastfm account, I don't really do much online as Ontario Emperor any more. <p>
The blog empire has remained fairly consistent. As of today, it consists of five blogs: the <a href="http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/">Empoprise-BI business blog</a>, the <a href="http://empopprise-ie.blogspot.com/">Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog</a>, the <a href="http://empoprise-mu.blogspot.com/">Empoprise-MU music blog</a>, the <a href="http://empoprise-ntn.blogspot.com/">Empoprise-NTN NTN Buzztime blog</a>, and <a href="http://tymshft.com/">tymshft</a>. (Actually, there's one more, but you have to find it.)<p>
And, of course, the whole debate over real names vs. pseudonyms has continued. Facebook continues to insist on real names, Google+ initially enforced a "real names only" policy, and many other online sites do something similar. This is because the real customers of Google, Facebook and everyone else insist on knowing real names. Remember that you, the users of the services, are not the customers - the advertisers are the customers. Unfortunately, this insistence on real names causes problems, ranging from crackdowns on Middle East democracy advocates to the outing of people who are placed into Facebook groups.<p>
These issues are not going away, but the mrontemp blog has gone away.<p>
Pretty much.<p>Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-73893132249804827442012-10-18T09:17:00.000-07:002012-10-18T09:17:06.507-07:00Elvis Costello, "Accidents Will Happen"<strong>OCTOBER 18, 2012: THIS POST INITIALLY CONSISTED OF A LINK TO A YOUTUBE VIDEO. UPON LOGGING IN TO THIS LONG-NEGLECTED BLOG TODAY, I RECEIVED A NOTIFICATION THAT THIS POST WAS THE SUBJECT OF A DMCA COMPLAINT. THE HECK WITH IT; I JUST DELETED THE POST CONTENT. IF YOU'VE READ MY MORE RECENT BLOG POSTS, YOU REALIZE THAT I'VE HAD ENOUGH PROBLEMS WITH YOUTUBE ALREADY.</strong>Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-28549325281937235842009-03-17T13:00:00.000-07:002009-03-17T13:00:00.091-07:00Not the last mrontemp post, but you may want to check out the Empoprises FriendFeed and Twitter accountsOn Tuesday, March 10 at 1:00 pm, I shared a post in this mrontemp blog entitled <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009/03/of-spans-and-series-or-why-i-havent.html">Of spans and series, or why I haven't written in mrontemp that much</a>. <br /><br />On Saturday, March 14 at 11:25 pm, I shared a post in my Empoprise-BI blog entitled <a href="http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2009/03/empoprise-bi-temporarily-focuses-on.html">Empoprise-BI temporarily focuses on self-referentialism</a>. Toward the end of the post, I wrote:<br /><br /><strong><em>...a lot of it boils down to the fact that my primary interface with the online world is under the "Ontario Emperor" name.<br /><br />Well, until Saturday afternoon. I made one of those snap decisions and decided to change the precedence of the two personas, and formally make Empoprises (and thus John Bredehoft) my primary persona.<br /><br />I'm not quite sure what this means yet. It probably means that some of the stuff that "Ontario Emperor" would do will now be done by Empoprises. It could mean a sharp decrease in "Ontario Emperor" activity. And it may also mean that I will spend less time looking at things like technology (unless there is a business focus), politics, and religion.</em></strong><br /><br />I've already done some shifting, moving many of my Google Reader subscriptions to my Empoprises Google Reader account, making "John Bredehoft" an administrator on <a href="http://friendfeed.com/rooms/lastfmfeeds">the FriendFeed lastfmfeeds room</a>, and making some other changes that will become more apparent in the coming days.<br /><br />In essence, while I suspect that things will still pop up here and in my related "Ontario Emperor" properties from time to time, my interests have focused elsewhere. <br /><br />If you want to follow what I'm doing, check out <a href="http://friendfeed.com/empoprises">http://friendfeed.com/empoprises</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/empoprises">http://twitter.com/empoprises</a>.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-55012374271457530072009-03-16T07:00:00.000-07:002009-03-16T07:00:00.550-07:00Who is Rozita Swinton?A little over a week ago, a trial date was set for Rozita Swinton in Colorado Springs, Colorado. <a href="http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705289354,00.html">The charge against Swinton</a> is only part of the story:<br /><br /><strong><em>During a hearing in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Friday, a judge scheduled a May 19 jury trial for Rozita Swinton on a misdemeanor charge of making a false report. She is accused of calling authorities in February 2008, pretending to be a 13-year-old girl drugged, chained in a basement and being sexually abused.</em></strong><br /><br />But that's not the case that interests everyone. <a href="http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2009/mar/08/arizona-the-center-of-flds-texas-warrant/">Here's what happened</a> a couple of months later in 2008:<br /><br /><strong><em>March 22: A caller to a Washington battered women's shelter gives her name as "Sarah Jessop" and describes physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband, Dale Barlow, who she says lives in an Everett, Wash., apartment complex. She calls 27 more times in the next three weeks.<br /><br />March 29-30: A caller to the NewBridge Family Shelter crisis hot line in San Angelo [Texas] also giving her name as "Sarah Jessop" describes abuse and underage marriage at the YFZ Ranch in Schleicher County and says she is married to Barlow, who she says lived at the ranch.</em></strong><br /><br />This then launched the raids at the YFZ Ranch, but "Sarah Jessop" could not be found. However, the calls continued:<br /><br /><strong><em>April 10: "Sarah" calls again to the Washington shelter, this time detailing her allegations on a three-way call with a Schleicher County deputy sheriff. She also says her "sister wives" are instructing her to lie about her identity to caseworkers interviewing the women and children removed from the ranch. Each time the deputy asks how he can identify her, she hangs up.<br /><br />April 12: Texas Rangers meet with [Dale] Barlow in [Colorado City,] Arizona but do not act on the arrest warrant filed against him.<br /><br />April 13: A request to the FBI for phone records of the number used on the three-way call is returned, showing the number registered to someone in the household of Rozita Swinton, who has been accused of making numerous false reports to police and women's shelters. The records show she called NewBridge 16 times between March 22 and April 12. A second number also traced to Swinton called NewBridge seven more times.<br /><br />April 16: Swinton is arrested at her Colorado Springs home on a charge of making a false report to authorities in an unrelated case. Texas Rangers accompany authorities on the arrest and seize evidence from her home, calling her a "person of interest." She has not been charged with any crime related to the FLDS raid.</em></strong><br /><br />So who is she? Someone who suffers from a multiple personality disorder? Someone with a grudge? <a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/253755">Digital Journal mused on this</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>The psychotics and sociopaths among us rarely stand out as unusual characters. Most are actually quite socially affable and hide their mental illnesses well. For the most part. Until you hear the sensational news stories and the interviews of shell-shocked friends, co-workers, relatives and neighbors saying in disbelief, "he/she was the nicest, quietest, most sane person you'd ever want to meet.'...<br /><br />The Dallas Observer blog <a href="http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2008/04/it_would_be_no_surprise.php">'Unfair Park'</a> raised the following question on April 18th:<br /><br />'How does a mentally disturbed Colorado woman become aware of a secretive polygamist sect hundreds of miles away in Texas? More importantly, how does she get the phone number of Flora Jessop?'<br /><br />You could also ask, how did she obtain very hard-to-get stacks of FLDS materials, names and phone numbers, which Flora Jessop stated the Texas Rangers found during their search?<br /><br />That blogger, Jesse Hyde, obviously never had to deal with an obsessed person. Every woman who's ever had to deal with a persistent stalker, or psychotic ex-husband or boyfriend, knows exactly how resourceful an obsessed psychotic can be....<br /><br />Somehow she got the information, but Rozita Swinton's obsessions went far beyond the hoax 'Sarah' calls to the YFZ ranch, which continued long after the April 3 raid. Flora Jessop stated that 'Sarah' had called her AFTER she posted bail for last week's arrest, and finally admitted that her name was 'Rose.'</em></strong>Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-71720646048496102482009-03-14T07:00:00.000-07:002009-03-14T07:00:01.093-07:00Merril Jessop - Normally you don't associate an FLDS leader with a fifth, but there are exceptionsI've been remiss in my Merril Jessop reporting. <a href="http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2009/jan/28/breaking-news-flds-leader-pleaded-fifth-267/">This story</a> comes from January:<br /><br /><strong><em>Citing federal conspiracy and Mann Act investigations, YFZ Ranch leader Merril Jessop invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination more than 250 times....</em></strong><br /><br />So why did he refuse to answer the questions?<br /><br /><strong><em>The deposition was conducted principally by Denton family law attorney Natalie Malonis, who has said she sought information about the sect's finances in the hopes of providing financial means for her 17-year-old client, a daughter of Jeffs who sect documents say was married at age 15 to Raymond Jessop, Merril Jessop's then 36-year-old son.<br /><br />Jessop refused to answer all questions relating to the sect's finances - including those apparently based on sect documents referring to efforts to create a trust in Texas with funds taken from the Utah-based United Effort Plan trust.</em></strong><br /><br />When all else fails, go for the money. Remember that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Prison_time">Al Capone was eventually brought down on tax evasion charges</a>. <br /><br />Oh, and I do stand corrected - Jessop's first name only has one L. Or at least <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merril_Jessop">Wikipedia</a> says so, for what it's worth. <br /><br />And by the way, <a href="http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2009/mar/13/17-year-old-dropped-from-flds-investigation/">the FLDS case has diminished significantly</a>, according to this March 13 article:<br /><br /><strong><em>The state's Child Protective Services agency has dropped a 17-year-old mother from its investigation of alleged abuse at the YFZ Ranch, leaving just one child of the 439 initially removed from the polygamous Schleicher County compound....<br /><br />The only child remaining in the case is a 14-year-old girl that sect documents and pictures show having been married to sect leader Warren Jeffs at age 12.<br /><br />CPS on Thursday filed a request that the girl, who has struggled to adapt to outside life with two foster families since 51st District Judge Barbara Walther gave the agency custody of the girl last summer, be placed with a distant relative, Bandera resident Naomi Carlisle.<br /><br />Carlisle, 52, is an FLDS member but has never been a resident of the YFZ Ranch, and five of her 11 surviving children have left the sect upon adulthood, according to investigation documents filed Thursday with the agency's request.</em></strong>Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-19287772725944299282009-03-13T12:10:00.000-07:002009-03-13T12:10:00.705-07:00And I thought the Jolt cola was bad - NASHE "youth group" executes denial of service "defense"When I hear the phrase "youth group," I end up thinking of things such as church youth groups. I was a member of one when I was a youth, and later as a young adult I was a counselor for another such group. The worst situation that I ever had to deal with as a counselor was when one of the junior high kids drank some Jolt cola before coming to youth group. Afterwards, we decided that this particular youth should be banned from drinking Jolt cola before meetings.<br /><br />Well, youth groups can do a whole bunch of things, as HS Daily Wire noted in its story <a href="http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=7585">2007 cyber attack on Estonia launched by Kremlin-backed youth group</a>. <br /><br />Now that's heavy.<br /><br /><strong><em>A country being outwitted, overwhelmed, and paralyzed by a group of teenagers? Apparently, yes. Members of a Kremlin-backed youth movement have claimed responsibility for May 2007 cyber attacks that crippled Estonia's Internet in the midst of a diplomatic argument with Russia....<br /><br />Russia has consistently denied any involvement. Yesterday, however, Konstantin Goloskokov, a "commissar" in the youth group NASHE, which works for the Kremlin, told the Financial Times that he and some associates had launched the attack, which appears to be the first time anyone has claimed responsibility. "I wouldn't have called it a cyber attack; it was cyber defense," he said. We taught the Estonian regime the lesson that if they act illegally, we will respond in an adequate way."</em></strong><br /><br />For the record, the Russians were defending themselves from Estonia's belligerent act of...um...removing a Second World War Soviet memorial from Tallinn. Considering the way in which Estonia joined the Soviet Union in the Second World War, Estonia's cool feelings about the memorial are understandable.<br /><br />HS Daily Wire also discussed the technology used in the cyber attack - I mean cyber defense.<br /><br /><strong><em>Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks, an Internet security company, is an expert on the Estonian attacks and said they measured about 100 MB per second of traffic, compared with the largest recorded attacks of 40 GB per second. He said that generating such an attack was quite simple, requiring "just a lot of people getting together and running the same tools on their home computers".</em></strong><br /><br />Sounds like a fun way to spend an evening. Back to Konstantin Goloskokov of NASHE:<br /><br /><strong><em>"We did not do anything illegal. We just visited the various Internet sites, over and over, and they stopped working. We didn't block them: they were blocked by themselves because of their own technical limitations in handling the traffic they encountered."</em></strong><br /><br />Well, I guess that's one way to look at a distributed denial of service attack - I mean defense.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-81127199484901333692009-03-10T13:00:00.000-07:002009-03-10T13:14:06.968-07:00Of spans and series, or why I haven't written in mrontemp that muchIt is now March 10, 2009, and this is only the seventh post that I've written at mrontemp <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html">this month</a>. <br /><br />Compare this with <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html">January 2009</a>, during which I wrote 59 posts in this blog, or almost two posts per day. <br /><br />Or how about <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html">January 2008</a>, when I wrote 202 posts?<br /><br />One could reach the conclusion that I've quit writing in the long form and have instead reverted to just <a href="http://friendfeed.com/ontarioemperor">shooting the breeze on FriendFeed</a>. <br /><br />But actually, that's only part of the equation. I've been blogging up a storm - just not here. <br /><br />I've talked about my Empoprises project before <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009/01/update-on-now-four-blog-empoprises-blog.html">on this blog</a>. For those who aren't aware, I author a series of four blogs under the "Empoprises" banner. Unlike the "all-encompassing" blog mrontemp, the Empoprises blogs are each devoted to a specific topic.<br /><br />Far from restricting me creatively, the existence of four separate blogs has actually given me more freedom.<br /><br />For example, I will often make a game of taking the same event and spanning it across as many Empoprises blogs as possible. Take my weekend visit to the Wal Mart in Chino, California - a <a href="http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2009/03/gaming-chair.html">business</a> in the <a href="http://empoprise-ie.blogspot.com/2009/03/ontario-doesnt-need-revenue.html">Inland Empire</a> that sells <a href="http://empoprise-mu.blogspot.com/2009/03/music-store-post-tower-and-virgin.html">music</a>. Yeah, I milked that one.<br /><br />But I'm having just as much fun writing various series of posts in the blogs. My longest-running series, <a href="http://empoprise-ntn.blogspot.com/search?q=empoprise-ntn+high+noon">Empoprise-NTN High Noon</a>, takes a look at various restaurants and bars that offer NTN Buzztime trivia. And I'm getting close to wrapping up a series entitled <a href="http://empoprise-mu.blogspot.com/search?q=when+madonna+was+hot">When Madonna Was Hot</a>. And I just wrapped up <a href="http://empoprise-ie.blogspot.com/search?q=a+piece+of+the+p.i.e.">A Piece of the P.I.E.</a> (Professionals of the Inland Empire). <br /><br />But sometimes, rather than planning a series, I just fall into one. For example, on Monday I wrote a post entitled <a href="http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2009/03/payola-pay-per-post-or-1984-commercial.html">Payola, pay per post, or the 1984 commercial? An inconsistency of moral outrage re product placement business practices</a>. Today, I followed it up with <a href="http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2009/03/or-perhaps-i-am-outrageous-opposing.html">Or perhaps I am outrageous - an opposing view on disclosure and pay per post</a>. Although this doesn't have a cutesy title, I hope to pursue the topic in the future.<br /><br />If I hold up.<br /><br />You see, I've been able to keep these blogs running by writing scheduled posts at odd hours (for example, unless I change the schedule, I've already written a Thursday post for Empoprise-BI, "Words aren't only cool, they make you money"). But time is finite, as <a href="http://www.winextra.com/index.php/2009/03/02/think-long-and-hard-before-starting-that-second-or-third-blog/">Steven Hodson noted</a> in a post entitled "Think long and hard before starting that second or third blog." An excerpt:<br /><br /><strong><em>The problem is that time and energy are never kind to us – especially if our work on our main blog is our primary concern. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence as the web is littered with blogs that have been long forgotten for one reason or another. We only have so much time and/or energy and no matter our first rush of getting that new blog up and running at some point we run out of steam.</em></strong><br /><br />So perhaps this may falter along the way, and Empoprises may give me nightmares in the future. But at the moment I'm having fun.<br /><br />P.S. Steven Hodson wrote his cautionary post on March 2. I've wanted to write a formal response to it, but it's taken me eight days to do it. Although this post is a non-scheduled post, one problem with writing scheduled posts is that they often aren't all that timely. But what does that matter to me? <a href="http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/12/you-cant-afford-to-lose-mobile-readers.html#comment-4605160">I am not trendy</a>.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-37084252935075098162009-03-05T16:00:00.000-08:002009-03-05T16:00:00.539-08:00Where's Willard? All over!I'm working in my hotel room, typing up notes from two days of meetings.<br /><br />And I actually turned my last.fm off, and turned the TV on. <br /><br />And there was Jim Vance.<br /><br />You have to understand that when I was growing up in the Washington area in the 1970s, Jim Vance was the newscaster back then. Of course, his Afro was big, and his hair wasn't white, but he was still around on NBC.<br /><br />Along with a weathercaster who got a bit of national fame later, in the 1980s - a man named Willard Scott.<br /><br />So where is Willard today? <br /><br />He'll be celebrating his 75th birthday on March 7, 2009 (or so <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Scott">Wikipedia</a> tells me). And <a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/3684316/">MSNBC still promotes</a> Scott's centenarian birthday greetings. <br /><br />Scott's wife died in 2002, resulting in <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0305/21/lkl.00.html">an emotional interview</a> with Larry King in 2003. But, according to <a href="http://www.parade.com/celebrity/0808/personality-keira-knightley-doolittle">PARADE</a>, as of August 2008 he was seeing someone else.<br /><br /><strong><em>Q Has the Today show’s Willard Scott remarried since the death of his wife? —Melody Perry, Newport Beach, Calif.<br /><br />A Not yet. “But I have a lady that I squire around a lot,” says Scott, 74, whose wife of 43 years, Mary, died in 2002 from breast cancer. “I like my new lady so much that I bought a house in Connecticut to be closer to her.”</em></strong><br /><br />Going a bit back, if you go to <a href="http://www.thejoyboys.com/">The Joy Boys website</a> you can see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9IxNqYIbUE">a YouTube video</a> with excerpts from the last Joy Boys radio broadcast. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/q9IxNqYIbUE&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/q9IxNqYIbUE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Ed Walker, by the way, <a href="http://wamu.org/programs/bb/">is still on the radio</a> at WAMU. <br /><br />Here are some recent articles about Willad Scott from <a href="http://zip06.theday.com/blogs/guilford_courier/archive/2008/07/31/share-some-time-with-willard-scott.aspx">Guilford, Connecticut</a> and <a href="http://www.localkicks.com/community/community_local_leaders/LOCAL_LEADER_Willard_Scott_Americas_Weatherman_Returns_to_Alexandria">Alexandria, Virginia</a>. <br /><br />But Scott has also participated in P.D.Q. Bach concerts (as part of "New Horizons in Music Appreciation"). See <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2008/12/16/222312/26/11#c11">Daily Kos</a>, and <a href="http://www.loudounsym.org/notes_issue2.htm">this piece</a>. <br /><br />Wait a minute?<br /><br />A Copland parody?<br /><br />More later.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-30437526606000412652009-03-04T20:30:00.000-08:002009-03-04T20:30:00.258-08:00Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter - What does it don't?One of my FriendFeed buddies, <a href="http://friendfeed.com/cristoblanco">Chris White</a>, has been busy this evening.<br /><br />I was sharing some things in Google Reader a little earlier, and White has responded to a couple of them. <br /><br />For example, <a href="http://friendfeed.com/e/e28cbf4c-e44f-15ae-a6ef-0d34decb4ded/Facebook-s-redesign-appears-to-target/">I shared</a> something that postulated that Facebook's just-announced changes are an attempt to counter Twitter. White commented via FriendFeed:<br /><br /><strong><em>What is Facebook, what is Twitter?</em></strong><br /><br />A few minutes later, <a href="http://friendfeed.com/e/09671407-2e28-6a48-8bfb-71689ad3453f/Why-Twitter-Matters-To-Me/">I shared</a> Dana Franks' post <a href="http://ariedana.com/2009/03/twitter-matters/">"Why Twitter Matters to Me."</a> White commented on the FriendFeed share for this item also:<br /><br /><strong><em>What is Twitter?</em></strong><br /><br />I figured that White was executing a master plan - and frankly, I think that master plans are stupid things unless I'm the one executing them. And, with apologies to Jim Bakker, <a href="http://friendfeed.com/e/80665564-2af8-4f29-8f19-a3957a9abdec/I-am-going-to-respond-to-every-Facebook-and/">I was right</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>I am going to respond to every Facebook and Twitter post with the question "What does it do?" I'm sure you will be annoyed, and then you will know how I feel.<br /><br />I might use some variation, such as "What is it?"</em></strong><br /><br />Actually, White is asking a valid question, especially since Facebook and Twitter tend to get a lot of press. But you can ask yourself, do the applications do anything?<br /><br />In an attempt to answer that question, I'd like to invite you to <a href="http://empoprise-mu.blogspot.com/2009/03/johnny-go-to-gaithersburg-instead-youll.html">dinner</a> with me. The dozen or so diners who gathered at <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-flaming-pit-gaithersburg#hrid:WTgFEh7KniVfJpdrdNTsjw">the restaurant</a> earlier this evening came from different backgrounds - some were scientists, others were forensic people, and others were salespeople or marketers. But all of us were interested in technology. Which meant that several of us brought out our phones at some point in the evening. <br /><br />Now, as Louis Gray happens to know, my current phone is a 2 1/2 year old Motorola Q (or, as Gray lovingly calls it, an "8-bit rotary phone") with the equivalent of Internet Explorer 4. But Gray will be happy to know that I associate with people that have more modern phones, such as the Apple iPhone that Gray <a href="http://likaholix.com/louisgray/537045/apple-iphone">likes</a>. Perhaps you've heard of this phone. And perhaps you've heard of some of the applications that you can get for the iPhone. <br /><ul><li>You can get an application that allows the iPhone to act like an ocarina.</li><br /><li>You can get an application that makes irritating noises, like the sound of a dentist's drill.</li><br /><li>You can get an application that imitates a glass of beer - you hold the iPhone upright to pour the beer into the "cup," then you tilt the iPhone to "drink" the beer.</li></ul>Actually, you can get three applications that imitate a glass of beer - and one of my fellow diners knew someone who had all three. <br /><br />Now when you hear about these applications, you're forced to ask a probing question about the iPhone:<br /><br /><center><strong><em>What does it do?</em></strong></center><br /><br />The answer, whether you're talking about the iPhone, Twitter, Facebook, or a hammer, is that the item in question does whatever you want it to do.<br /><br />Let me share something more serious from that same dinner. My day job is as a product manager, and part of my responsibility is to set overall direction for my product. As part of my job, and because of my fifteen years in my particular industry, I sometimes pretend like I know what the product should do. <br /><br />But I've learned something over the years. As soon as I use my imagined knowledge to make a statement such as "This product will never need feature X," I will receive a request from a customer asking for...you guessed it; feature X. <br /><br />You see, I don't determine how my product will be used. Steve Jobs doesn't determine how the iPhone will be used. And the Facebook and Twitter people don't determine how their products will be used. (Although Jobs and Zuckerberg try to dictate uses.) In the end, it's the users that determine how these products will be used. I say it again, it's the users that determine how these products will be used.<br /><br />Just like Google doesn't determine how Blogger will be used. This post was originally entitled "What does it don't?" But then I changed the title to "Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter - What does it don't?" knowing full well that the title of the post would eventually end up on FriendFeed...and that Chris White would see it...<br /><br />Told you that my master plans were brilliant.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-59777799953269883532009-03-04T10:16:00.001-08:002009-03-04T20:02:52.904-08:00Gaithersburg (Maryland) History Park<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTqDe_wtuepOwPsb407KbqvyjCYmbZT_f-GHaCX3x48jND82x4YC-A6rYwFN9xw95-cV6JNBjizhfM3wrVQEPsyFrNrQR_XCrW_xJkKZdbxw3Uqo0N2QgqZcQiQw1iZaM6ShLIE1qNSswS/s1600-h/img577-768660.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTqDe_wtuepOwPsb407KbqvyjCYmbZT_f-GHaCX3x48jND82x4YC-A6rYwFN9xw95-cV6JNBjizhfM3wrVQEPsyFrNrQR_XCrW_xJkKZdbxw3Uqo0N2QgqZcQiQw1iZaM6ShLIE1qNSswS/s320/img577-768660.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309398064476870834" /></a></p>Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-44036348158782655122009-03-03T19:32:00.000-08:002009-03-03T19:34:22.393-08:00Using the winter coat, part 2<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDy7fvjruqGs3xJV8b0wDaZcNyc3V7gM9l62kkGRiJKVZ-Z4z4Eywm5BcZAQgpXJOTJcodG2hX41eP0X10yazdpePAddP9eYt9265btq1KfZv0AMocE78NO59zXlJUGH9aj4ZSg4RRN41/s1600-h/img576-785574.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDy7fvjruqGs3xJV8b0wDaZcNyc3V7gM9l62kkGRiJKVZ-Z4z4Eywm5BcZAQgpXJOTJcodG2hX41eP0X10yazdpePAddP9eYt9265btq1KfZv0AMocE78NO59zXlJUGH9aj4ZSg4RRN41/s320/img576-785574.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309170502231134322" /></a></p>I am NOT going swimming this evening!Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-20569064184610317092009-03-03T19:25:00.000-08:002009-03-03T19:34:22.394-08:00Using the winter coat, part 1As I've mentioned in some other forums, I had to take a business trip to Maryland today (Tuesday). Luckily I didn't have to fly on Monday, because it was still snowing in the area at the time. (I was monitoring <a href="http://twitter.com/insidecharmcity">the @insidecharmcity Twitter account</a> very carefully on Monday.)<br /><br />After a four-hour layover in Denver (I like to not be rushed), I landed at BWI early this evening East Coast time. The roads are clear, and I made it to my hotel. <br /><br />See the next post for something I found at the hotel.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-24851263990470326012009-03-02T12:15:00.000-08:002009-03-03T19:35:12.419-08:00Clinton 2.0The President of the United States isn't the only government official trying to display some electronic communication savvy. Look at what's on <a href="http://www.state.gov/">the Department of State website</a>. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0dPliLZAgl8LrPwonXGNLH59HtgJhK59YPegbboyAY0oPBwuErFgp_hA5tej9HIDF5n7nuk6cvDLdfKFIc1u-F6p-DiGFXD_sXgwPa9V78vykFTbxg-bDJJkZkuLeMSV8Eb7BGhEnAkPL/s1600-h/dos_text.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0dPliLZAgl8LrPwonXGNLH59HtgJhK59YPegbboyAY0oPBwuErFgp_hA5tej9HIDF5n7nuk6cvDLdfKFIc1u-F6p-DiGFXD_sXgwPa9V78vykFTbxg-bDJJkZkuLeMSV8Eb7BGhEnAkPL/s400/dos_text.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308632229978332194" /></a><br /><br />Yes, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is waiting for your texts.<br /><br />Wonder if Barack recommended that she use a Blackberry.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-21184200195242334132009-02-26T12:15:00.000-08:002009-02-26T12:15:00.473-08:00Yes, hell has frozen over...I've joined Facebook<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8bg_soQOuJ6nWZ3BGGc0o4fkrLuANtjJvx7Ars_nihXg3kWKZ4fq9_zXVDbRJiYNeVtj3Z82rwVa9XAhdX_Bf7IqQX8OTS-ycMM421eDAVwOsuqsKuWgffdZOzmTq3CQqiu0px_0FY30-/s1600-h/hell_113830985_09f377146d.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 222px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8bg_soQOuJ6nWZ3BGGc0o4fkrLuANtjJvx7Ars_nihXg3kWKZ4fq9_zXVDbRJiYNeVtj3Z82rwVa9XAhdX_Bf7IqQX8OTS-ycMM421eDAVwOsuqsKuWgffdZOzmTq3CQqiu0px_0FY30-/s400/hell_113830985_09f377146d.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307195334909140306" /></a><br /><br />(This <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billmurray/113830985/">picture</a> is from Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billmurray/">billums</a> and is used under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">this license</a>)<br /><br />Back on October 9, 2007 <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2007/10/uhnot-everyone.html">I blogged the following</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>So I'm thinking that I may have to set up a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> account at some point if I want to be only slightly non-trendy. I know I'm supposed to be the "I am not trendy" guy, but my MySpace account is so non-trendy that it's like leeches.</em></strong><br /><br />Of course, trendiness is not the sole reason to join Facebook. It's potentially an excellent way to contact people you know.<br /><br />But, over the years, I've been reluctant to join Facebook for a couple of reasons:<br /><ul><li>Their view on pseudononymous accounts. Basically, they prefer that you use your given name on Facebook, even if you market yourself under another identity. Until recently most of my online interactions were under the Ontario Emperor name, and I didn't want to jettison my brand just because Facebook wanted me to do so. If you really want to explore my thoughts on this in detail, check out my link-heavy <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008/01/sympathy-for-pseudonymous-blogger.html">song parody</a> that I wrote on January 9, 2008.</li><br /><li>The horror stories about Facebook policies. There are numerous examples of these, the whole thingie about the terms of service being the latest example.</li></ul>Lately, my attitude has been changing on both the counts. I have started several projects (such as Empoprises) that use my real name, so I am establishing an online presence under that "brand" for better or worse. And, while Facebook may have onerous terms of service, so does everyone else.<br /><br />Last night I spent some time on LinkedIn, and ended up sending connection requests to two people that I knew from high school. This in itself was unusual, because I have only maintained regular contact with one person from my high school. Not because I hated the school or anything like that, but because I left town in 1979 and have rarely been back since, so I've naturally lost touch with a lot of folks. So anyways, I sent the two connection requests, and got the following response from the second person when my request was accepted:<br /><br /><strong><em>John, get on facebook</em></strong><br /><br />Well, when that person talks, I listen. (I'd tell you the name of the person who sent this message, but if I did that, I'd be violating that person's privacy, wouldn't I?)<br /><br />So I signed up for Facebook and was immediately befriended by <a href="http://www.theworklady.com/">Jan McInnis</a>, as well as by a former co-worker who is very social media-savvy. I've sent out a few more friend requests and gotten two responses, but have not yet heard from the classmate who urged me to join Facebook in the first place.<br /><br />So how will I use Facebook? I've read the suggestions in <a href="http://friendfeed.com/e/749c577c-d78c-44aa-b9d3-69062dadb610/I-connected-with-two-former-high-school/">this FriendFeed thread that I started</a>, and my initial thought is that I will use it in conjunction with my LinkedIn and Plaxo accounts (and, to a limited extent, with my MySpace account). I won't be following over a thousand people like I do in Twitter or FriendFeed, but the Facebook account may not just consist of people that I've physically met either.<br /><br />In essence, I've provided the answer to my own question:<br /><br /><strong><em>Has Facebook become one of the services that you must join, whether you like it or not?</em></strong><br /><br />Perhaps. Theoretically you could use one service to do everything that you want to do, but there are going to be people who are on Facebook and not on LinkedIn, or vice versa. (This is one of the reasons that I maintain my MySpace account; certain people are only reachable there.)<br /><br />The only disturbing part of this is that the number of "must-use" services could potentially mushroom out of control. Think about it; in addition to various Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo properties, I have a presence on a ton of services, including:<br /><br />Allmusic<br />Am570radio<br />Amazon<br />Chumby<br />del.icio.us<br />Disqus<br />Excite<br />Facebook<br />Frappr<br />FriendFeed<br />Getsatisfaction<br />Gospelr<br />InfoWorld<br />Inside the IE<br />Jaiku<br />last.fm<br />Mojipage<br />Monster<br />Mychurch<br />Myheritage<br />MySpace<br />Ning<br />Pandora<br />PBwiki<br />Perplexmi<br />Scrine<br />Soup.io<br />Stumbleupon<br />Technorati<br />Tripod<br />Twit2Fit<br />Twitter<br />Velvet Rope<br />Wetpaint<br />Wikipedia<br />Yelp<br /><br />And that's probably just one third of the services to which I have memberships. There are some memberships that I have for corporate reasons, and there are some memberships that I just plain am not going to talk about (for a variety of reasons).<br /><br />Frankly, some of the services listed above haven't been visited by me in months, if not years. Some I use every day. But what happens if a situation arises where I <strong>have</strong> to use five of these services every day? Ten? Twenty?<br /><br />But <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm">I'm not concerned about that now</a>. The immediate concern in my mind is this - what the heck is a poke, and what is the etiquette to follow if I get one? <a href="http://danicar.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/poke-me-poke-you-back-facebook-social-networking-context/">Belgrade and Beyond has expressed some thoughts</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>How many times you have been poked by a friend, colleague, and affiliate? And what was your reaction? I had to write few lines on this as I am recently (massively) poked on Facebook. It was regular, surprisingly massively poking (not superpoking), not explicitly poked, but – just regular poke with two choices given: to poke back or remove poke....<br /><br />In social networking terms, poke is contextual, and the context of poke is dependent upon the current level of familiarity between the ‘poker’ and the ‘pokee’. I remember last year I was invited to a group “Enough with poking, let’s just have sex “, and ignored request for the membership as I observed then poking as friendly virtual gesture with friends and colleagues , usually denoting verbal phrase: “Hey , what’s up?” , or “Look at me!”, saying” ”Hi”, to someone you already know well or screaming background form: “Hey, I’m here, online!,” or “Hey, I’m busy but just poked you to say I didn’t forget this and that or will be back soon’, followed usually by message/email. And there are pokes that are expressing more than friendly, primarily school behavior with connotation: “I poke you and now you have to poke me back”.<br />Poking for fun? “I won’t pull your hair/ponytail – but I’m poking you” - elements of (naïve) and light weighted flirtation. Therefore, poke can be flirting. Poke can be “I am shy but won’t to say hi”.<br /><br />There are numerous possible meanings and interpretations behind the poke....</em></strong><br /><br />Oh boy. Learning a new culture <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009/02/exclusionary-and-self-justifying-nature.html">and its terminology</a> is complex.<br /><br />#TINOSP.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-10649711651196960582009-02-26T08:00:00.000-08:002009-02-26T08:08:45.899-08:00The exclusionary and self-justifying nature of hashtags #DYSPEarlier this morning, in complete compliance with California law, I entered <a href="http://friendfeed.com/e/ef0edf8d-f72b-41f7-88c9-f205ad968cab/stopped-at-a-train-track-dysp/">the following message</a> into fftogo:<br /><br /><strong><em>stopped at a train track. #dysp</em></strong><br /><br />All industries and societies, probably including your own, have their own jargon which not only makes it easier for people within the industry or society to communicate, but also serves an exclusionary purpose by ensuring that outsiders have no idea what you're talking about. <br /><br />Among the other things that hashtags such as <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23dysp">#dysp</a> do, they also serve these two purposes. In this case, the second purpose (exclusionary) is beneficial, because if I had spelled out the words in the acronym "dysp," people unfamiliar with the phrase in question would probably misconstrue it. <br /><br />"What do you have against Steven Perez?" they would ask. "Why are you slamming Steven Perez? What has this guy ever done to you?"<br /><br />Now perhaps you're one of the readers of this blog who has no idea what "dysp" stands for. The acronym stands for a phrase which took currency on FriendFeed and elsewhere, the phrase being "Damn You Steven Perez!" (often typed in ALL CAPS, but it's early in the morning so I'll spare you). This phrase was used frequently in FriendFeed, and eventually led to the creation of <a href="http://friendfeed.com/rooms/secret-plans">a (then-)private FriendFeed room</a>, the sole purpose of which was to assemble <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gMViRu2nH8">a video</a> of people saying <a href="http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS240&=&q=%22damn+you+steven+perez%22&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f">the golden phrase</a>. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-gMViRu2nH8&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-gMViRu2nH8&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />The video was released mid-day on Perez's birthday, but he did not have a chance to watch it until later, so <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFR8csWhbVQ">his reaction</a> was delayed. (Oh, and be sure to watch past the first minute and 30 seconds.)<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vFR8csWhbVQ&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vFR8csWhbVQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />For me, use of <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23dysp">#dysp</a> instead of the full phrase also confers another benefit. You see, I have a problem saying, or even typing, the word "damn." Even when it is not <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2020:7;&version=31;">preceded by the name of a deity</a>, the implications of the term are truly <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%209:19">harrowing</a> when you think about them. So I'll use <a href="http://friendfeed.com/search?required=q&q=dang&from=ontarioemperor">this substitute</a> or <a href="http://friendfeed.com/search?q=danged+from%3Aontarioemperor">another substitute</a> here and there, and when referring to <a href="http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS240&=&q=%22damn+you+steven+perez%22&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f">the golden phrase </a>I'll use #dysp and feel better about myself, telling myself that I'm not damning anyone, but just d'ing them.<br /><br />Of course, that is a danged crock, and my <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%207:2-5;&version=31;">self-justification</a> of my actions isn't fooling anyone. Or <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2018:14;&version=31;">Anyone</a> with a capital A.<br /><br />Oh well...so should I just say, "This is not optimal, Steven Perez"? TINOSP?Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-39796339989949091532009-02-24T12:50:00.000-08:002009-02-24T12:51:04.490-08:00Fundamental rights, one more time - can two fathers marry their two sons?I've previously blogged about this on <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008/10/fundamental-rights-and-wrongs-legal.html">October 25, 2008</a> and <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008/12/again-addressing-rick-warren-multiple.html">December 23, 2008</a>, and it's time to revisit it. <br /><br />As you may know, California's Proposition 8 is being challenged in the California courts, and <a href="http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/presscenter/newsreleases/NR08-09.PDF">a hearing will be held on March 5, 2009</a>. One of <a href="http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/highprofile/documents/agresponse.pdf">the arguments</a> against the proposition is worded as follows:<br /><br /><strong><em>Proposition 8 Is An Ultra Vires Amendment Because It Abrogates Fundamental Rights Protected By Article I, Section 1 Of The California Constitution Without A Compelling Justification.</em></strong><br /><br />There are those words "fundamental rights" again. For the record, here is how <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_1">Article I, Section 1 of the California Constitution</a> reads:<br /><br /><strong><em>CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION<br />ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS<br /><br />SECTION 1. All people are by nature free and independent and have<br />inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and<br />liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing<br />and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.</em></strong><br /><br />Note that this states that all people may pursue happiness - not just all straight people, and presumably the 2008 decision of the California Supreme Court is based upon this idea that "all people...have inalienable rights...[for] pursuing...happiness."<br /><br />Um...all people?<br /><br />On February 23, <a href="http://randythomas.org/2009/02/23/another-version-of-family-polyamory-up-next/">Randy Thomas linked</a> to <a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29239960/?GT1=43001">an MSNBC article by Kathleen Lewis</a>. The title of the article? "I have two husbands."<br /><br /><strong><em>...My first husband was Alan.<br /><br />We fell together like a couple of old shoes, somehow instantly comfortable with each other. We had similar opinions about plural relationships, and neither of us was averse to the idea. Around a year and a half after we were married, we met Eric. He and I were instantly attracted to each other and, as Alan had no objection, we began getting to know each other better. Over time, I found myself falling in love with Eric. Alan certainly wasn't blind to this, so we all got together to discuss it. This turned out to be one of the most important conversations of my life, and led to an increase in my family’s size.<br /><br />Alan and Eric let me make the sleeping arrangements, and I worked to make sure I spent time with both of them. To all outward appearances we were a married couple with a male friend living with us. While some found it awkward when the three of us occasionally attended parties and such together, very few people attempted to pry. To avoid legal troubles, I remained legally married to Alan, and we all decided a larger house was in order when we met Leslie.<br /><br />Fast forward to today, and our family is now composed of Alan, Eric, Leslie, Amber, and myself, plus our children: Todd, Steve, Jennifer, Lisa, and Amber is currently pregnant.</em></strong><br /><br />The MSNBC article goes on to describe the logistics of the marriage, and then criticizes the restricted worldview of "Big Love":<br /><br /><strong><em>When ‘Big Love’ came out, we all thought it was pretty silly. To start with, we all consider ourselves to be one family, not three separate but connected families. The ideas that plural marriage is restricted to the one man and several wives model — and that it has to have a religious basis — are both ridiculous. We also don't consider the political jockeying, the backbiting, and the attempts to get more of the husband's attention or money, to be loving behavior.</em></strong><br /><br />Lewis then concludes:<br /><br /><strong><em>With all the traditions we have coming from other cultures and various parts of the country, who's to say what is or isn't mainstream? Kind of makes "non-traditional" lose its meaning.</em></strong><br /><br />So presumably this family has a fundamental right to be recognized as such in the state of California. And anyone who disagrees is an oppressor. <br /><br />But let's take this a step further. <strong>What if the two dads - Alan and Eric - decide that they want to marry a couple of the children - let's say Todd and Steve?</strong><br /><br />After all, why not? It's not like <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus%2018&version=31">Leviticus 18</a> has any binding force in the state of California. And anyone who would try to apply Leviticus 18:6 and the rest would be extremely insensitive. Take <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/21/AR2008122101966.html">Barney Frank</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>"Mr. Warren compared same-sex couples to incest. I found that deeply offensive and unfair."</em></strong><br /><br />Or, in other words, Barney Frank is displaying his hateful attitude toward people who, in the words of the California Constitution, "have inalienable rights...[for] pursuing...happiness." Sounds like a fundamental right to me. You know, if people would just be accepting and not be such haters, Michael Jackson might still be living in Neverland today. <br /><br />But let's go back to Randy Thomas, who <a href="http://randythomas.org/2009/02/23/another-version-of-family-polyamory-up-next/">has a different view</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>Because I am a Christian I believe a family should be a Husband and Wife coming together as one. Both Husband and Wife have very specific, wonderful roles and responsibilities that complement each other. The blessing of their unique gender roles and giftings add to a level of healthy interdependency that helps both become more together than they would ever have been alone. They don’t mirror each other in bland “gender neutral” definitions. They celebrate each other’s equal capacity to bear the Image of God uniquely as well as when they bear His Image together. Their union is transcendent in that it bears the Image of God in a way that no other union can. If the Lord chooses to allow them to have children or adopt … great! The family increases to Gramps, Gramma, Mom, Dad … Punkin’ and Dot! And of course it goes without saying … uncles, aunts … cousins. I believe that God created that to be His ideal “version” of family so, I am biased.</em></strong><br /><br />Thomas concluded his post as follows:<br /><br /><strong><em>My question is this, do same sex couples condone polyamorous/polygamous relationships? I will offer my view (from my past experience and current ear to the ground) either in the comments below or in a follow up post. But I want to give you all some time to respond too. Don’t be shy :). Oh and I hope that there may be other things in this post you might want to chime in on so … go for it.</em></strong><br /><br />As I write this Thomas has only received one comment to <a href="http://randythomas.org/2009/02/23/another-version-of-family-polyamory-up-next/">his post</a>, but a spirited discussion has broken out in <a href="http://friendfeed.com/e/c4a37c91-05ca-9c13-d19f-8d4ee0543106/Another-Version-of-Family-Polyamory-Is-Up/">this FriendFeed thread</a>. In the conversation, Mark Trapp pointed out how the California Supreme Court may evaluate different proposals to limit marriage:<br /><br /><strong><em>The ruling also provides two standards by which the state must determine any (not just same-sex marriages) marriage validity: "Under the strict scrutiny standard, unlike the rational basis standard, in order to demonstrate the constitutional validity of a challenged statutory classification the state must establish (1) that the state interest intended to be served by the differential treatment not only is a constitutionally legitimate interest, but is a compelling state interest, and (2) that the differential treatment not only is reasonably related to but is necessary to serve that compelling state interest."</em></strong><br /><br />Of course, it all depends upon what the compelling state interest is. For example, if the compelling interest is to encourage procreation, then gay marriages may not be valid, but marriages of eight teenagers who have hit puberty may be valid. After all, <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008/12/again-addressing-rick-warren-multiple.html">as I've noted before</a>, marriages of young people existed well before the California Constitution was written. If, on the other hand, the compelling interest is to create stable relationships, then the only valid marriages may be ones in which people have certain beliefs opposing divorce, and in which the married participants have income levels that lend themselves to stable relationships (not too poor, not too rich, but just right). <br /><br />This will be an interesting ruling when it comes out.<br /><br />P.S. If you have comments specific to polygamy and polyamory and whatever other poly- word you can conceive of, you may want to enter your comments into <a href="http://randythomas.org/2009/02/23/another-version-of-family-polyamory-up-next/">Randy's post</a> directly.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-29194162343584870242009-02-24T07:00:00.000-08:002009-02-24T07:00:00.311-08:00Those who are condemned to repeat history are bound to remember it<a href="http://www.sociosophy.com/2009/02/louis-gray-blogger-week/">Louis Gray was interviewed in Sociosophy</a>, and something that he said caught my eye:<br /><br /><strong><em>I would like to find a way to...make it easier to find older content that is relevant. I know that 95% or more of my posts from 3 months ago and before get very little visibility now, even if they are still extremely relevant.</em></strong><br /><br />I was musing on this as I was getting my hair cut (hey, you gotta do something), and I figured out three ways in which older content can be highlighted again:<br /><ul><li>The Ann Landers way. Matthew and Sarah Gray aren't the only twins around; the most famous Ann Landers was a twin of the most famous Dear Abby (Ann was really Esther, while Abby was really Pauline). At one point, <a href="http://www.thestar.com/Obituary/HtoM/article/107689">Ann Landers got into a bit of trouble</a> for re-running old columns without advertising them as such.</li><br /><li>The Unclutterer way. There is a blog called the Unclutterer (I can definitely use it), and they'll often run a post with the title "A year ago on Unclutterer." (<a href="http://unclutterer.com/2009/02/22/a-year-ago-on-unclutterer-8/">Here's</a> the February 22, 2009 version, which looks at posts from February 2008.) This serves to remind you of good stuff from the past.</li><br /><li>The "Where Are They Now?" way. Normally used in music and entertainment (whatever happened to Foghat???), this potentially provides a way to recycle the old content and update it, making it wonderful and fresh and relevant.</li></ul>The last way is the most intriguing, since it actually adds value to the content. For example, what would happen if Gray added value to his earlier content? Let's pretend that he wrote a post like this <a href="http://www.louisgray.com/live/2006_01_01_archive.html">back in January 2006</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>Portable computing devices just keep on getting smaller and smaller. I don't have kids, but someday I may have a kid, and I wonder if the portable devices that are around at that time will be small enough to fit in my infant child's hand?</em></strong><br /><br />Well, Gray (to my knowledge) never wrote a post like that, but certainly he could update the post today and speculate on devices that TWO kids could hold.<br /><br />I'm am not Louis Gray, but I'm intrigued about using this "where are they now" method myself. I've done it here and there on occasion, but perhaps I could make a concerted effort to recycle my content. And it would definitely require a concerted effort, because I've generated a lot of <strike>quality</strike> content over the years. I contributed 3,072 posts to my first main blog, the <a href="http://oemperor.blogspot.com/">Ontario Empoblog</a>, between October 2003 and February 2007. My current main blog, this very <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/">mrontemp</a>, already has 2,925 posts (not counting this one). Plus I've written a few hundred in various other blogs, ranging from my fake radio and TV station blogs to my current series of Empoprises blogs.<br /><br />So I've got a lot of recycling and updating to do, should I choose to do so.<br /><br />Perhaps Empoprise-MU is due for a post on <a href="http://oemperor.blogspot.com/2003/10/when-patti-smith-married-fred-smith.html">Fred Smith</a>. I've <a href="http://oemperor.blogspot.com/2006/02/lets-get-tangential-tangential.html">covered</a> Patti Smith pretty well already.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-14326285517542488502009-02-23T17:15:00.000-08:002009-02-23T17:15:00.974-08:00If he had used the name "John Doe," no one would have suspected anythingNormally I don't post work-related stuff in my personal blog, but this one was too good to pass up. Put this in the dumb crime category.<br /><br />From <a href="http://www.manchesternh.gov/website/Departments/Police/PoliceBlog/tabid/1177/EntryID/290/Default.aspx">the Manchester, New Hampshire Police Blog</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>Manchester Police Officers conducting a routine traffic stop on Hanover St. [on the afternoon of February 15, 2009] were greeted by a local man who provided the name John Brown and claimed to have a Maryland driver's license. When no record of the license was found, the man was arrested and brought to the Manchester Police Department. Despite his insistence that he was giving his true name, the officers sensed a problem.</em></strong><br /><br />Now I don't see why the police were jumping to conclusions. Just because a local guy claims to have a Maryland driver's license, which he doesn't have, is no reason to think that any hanky-panky is going on. After all, he gave his name, John Brown. What more do you want?<br /><br />Well, for whatever reason, the police decided to investigate a little further:<br /><br /><strong><em>They then brought the man over to the department's Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) machine and entered his fingerprints. The officers then made contact with NH State Police, who were able to provide an immediate identification of the subject. As it turns out, the officers' instincts were correct and the subject had in fact provided a false name. He was identified as:<br /><br />John Hilliard DOB: 9-7-1973 of 45 Bradley St. Manchester<br /><br />Through further investigation, it was found that subject Hilliard had two outstanding Bench Warrants and an active Arrest Warrant for a Parole Violation. Along with the warrants, Hillard was charged with Disobeying a Police Officer and Unsworn Falsification.</em></strong><br /><br />Oops. <br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=45+bradley+st,+manchester,+nh&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=JzujSYzEOZCKngfawLX9DQ&ll=42.967791,-71.444864&spn=0.008778,0.022745&z=14&iwloc=addr&output=embed&s=AARTsJrGN2AlEq1h_ETBdoTaSb3RH7RYow"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=45+bradley+st,+manchester,+nh&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=JzujSYzEOZCKngfawLX9DQ&ll=42.967791,-71.444864&spn=0.008778,0.022745&z=14&iwloc=addr&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small><br /><br />As you can see rom the map, Brown's - I mean Hilliard's residence is right next to Nutts Pond.<br /><br />Sounds about right.<br /><br />P.S. While there have been cases over the years that have challenged the accuracy of fingerprint searches, it should be noted that tenprint searches - i.e., searches in which a person's complete set of prints is compared to a previously captured complete set of prints - are very accurate. The cases that have come under question, such as the Brandon Mayfield case, have involved searches of latent prints, or prints (or partial prints) that are recovered from crime scenes. Since the criminal is not courteous enough to leave a high quality print at the crime scene, these prints are much more difficult to search. <a href="http://www.reallygoodquotesonline.com/2009/02/23/">Chris in Utah explains the difference</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>While it is pretty technical, CSI isn’t really rocket science. And while fingerprint evidence isn’t nearly as reliable as DNA, it IS reliable. What your article was talking about is what is called a partial fingerprint. If you are lucky enough to find what is called an "AFIS" (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) quality fingerprint, and it matches your suspect, it is so close to the reliablilty of DNA that the difference is not worth mentioning. But we very very rarely get that quality of fingerprint. We do find partial prints. They say that they are of comparison quality, if you find a suspect, you can match it to that person, but you can’t run it through the AFIS system. Those prints are not nearly as reliable as DNA. Those prints are the ones that cause problems.</em></strong><br /><br />If you're interested in the subject of latent print examination, from both a forensic and a legal basis, I highly recommend Ed German's website at <a href="http://onin.com/fp/">onin.com/fp</a>. <br /><br />Disclosure - my employer provided the Automated Fingerprint Identification System to the state of New Hampshire, but this case would have resulted in the same outcome had John Brown - I mean Hilliard lived and committed crimes in a state with an AFIS from another company, such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, or New York.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-56110279386251281962009-02-22T17:50:00.000-08:002009-02-22T17:54:32.986-08:00On Saturday's FriendFeed meetup, and on meetups in generalSome people may think it odd that communicating via computers can lead to increased non-computer communications, but I've known that for decades.<br /><br />I've previously blogged about some of my BBS experiences in the early 1990s (see <a href="http://empoprise-ie.blogspot.com/2008/11/bbses-in-old-909-area-code.html">this list of BBS systems I frequented</a>), but some of the most fun from that time would be when the people from The Grotto and other WWIV boards would gather at places such as Benjie's (long gone), drink cold brown thingies, and shoot the breeze about Ralph the iguana and other topics that were the BBS generation's equivalent of bacon/mango conversations. <br /><br />After that, most of my online communications remained strictly online until I began going to Oracle OpenWorld and blogging about it. When I first went to Oracle OpenWorld I'd only stay for a day or two, so it's wasn't until <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2007/11/well-recorded-gathering.html">2007</a> that I got to personally meet the other Oracle bloggers at the Thirsty Bear. I've joined them again in <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008/09/in-which-i-muse-about-what-oracle.html">2008</a> and, depending upon <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-what-will-my-next-computer-be.html">what transpires in my future</a>, I hope to join them again at Oracle OpenWorld 2009.<br /><br />So over a week ago, <a href="http://friendfeed.com/e/d25b8508-1721-4b9b-bff7-b60ee3139424/FRIENDFEED-MEETUP-02-21-09-2pm-Five-Guys-Burgers/">Anika Malone began planning a FriendFeed meetup</a> for FriendFeed users in the Los Angeles area, at the Five Guys in Cerritos, California. While part of the attraction was the chance to sample a Five Guys burger (my parents had told me about them), obviously another part was the opportunity to meet Anika and other FriendFeeders, none of whom I had met before (other than the Oracle people, of course). <br /><br />So my wife (who is not on FriendFeed or Twitter, but who did get active in the Grotto and some other BBS systems back in the day) and I drove down to Cerritos, a little later than usual (tips: make sure you leave on time, and that your just-repaired car seat actually works, and that you have money for food). After I got <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009/02/lunch.html">my lunch</a>, I got a chance to visit with some other FriendFeeders: not only Anika (<a href="http://friendfeed.com/faboomama">faboomama</a>), but also <a href="http://friendfeed.com/adrianculici">adrianculici</a>, <a href="http://friendfeed.com/krynsky">krynsky</a>, <a href="http://friendfeed.com/geekandahalf">geekandahalf (Derrick)</a>, <a href="http://friendfeed.com/elzbeth">elzbeth (Pea)</a>, and <a href="http://friendfeed.com/faithx5">faithx5 (Jandy)</a>. <br /><br />While my wife and I skipped out on post-burger geek store goodies, we had a fun time. <br /><br />Incidentally, I've written three additional posts which are at least tangentially related to the FriendFeed meetup:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://empoprise-mu.blogspot.com/2009/02/buffalo-in-hovercraft-or-why-i-dont.html">Buffalo in Hovercraft, or Why I Don't Direct Videos (Empoprise-MU)</a></li><br /><li><a href="http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2009/02/five-guys-burgers-and-fries.html">Five Guys Burgers and Fries (Empoprise-BI)</a></li><br /><li><a href="http://empoprise-mu.blogspot.com/2009/02/van-hagar-and-stringless-phenomenon.html">Van Hagar and the stringless phenomenon (Empoprise-MU)</a></li></ul>And no, I couldn't think of any way to work the experience into my other two blogs, since Cerritos isn't in the Inland Empire, and since Five Guys doesn't have NTN Buzztime trivia.<br /><br />But this isn't the last meetup that I'll be attending; <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groupInvitation?groupID=136826&sharedKey=182F97572480">the LinkedIn group Professionals of the Inland Empire</a> will be getting together on Tuesday, and I hope to stop by there for a little bit (although I have another commitment later that evening).Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-11842071959009017972009-02-21T15:34:00.001-08:002009-02-21T20:29:08.786-08:00Lunch.<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhflgZxcPwplCKr9KJR676aGNnIhtO2mE318uhCLtS2fmvOsCZeMkikUVbuzhF0t6wqxfj0mAkTzsR4vkKhYCc0sReEzq_ISliMEbQH9ER4LU-547pIRLfsO_kP-xsv_i3FHH3kMQalXU30/s1600-h/img564-766145.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhflgZxcPwplCKr9KJR676aGNnIhtO2mE318uhCLtS2fmvOsCZeMkikUVbuzhF0t6wqxfj0mAkTzsR4vkKhYCc0sReEzq_ISliMEbQH9ER4LU-547pIRLfsO_kP-xsv_i3FHH3kMQalXU30/s320/img564-766145.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305398152932545506" /></a></p>Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-47862972841075403282009-02-20T07:00:00.000-08:002009-02-20T07:00:00.619-08:00The Lausanne Covenant, business, and religionI noticed that one of my LinkedIn contacts had joined a LinkedIn group called "Christian Professionals." <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=3470">The group</a> includes a statement, part of which reads as follows:<br /><br /><strong><em>The Christian Professionals Group exists to be: <br /><br />- a welcome place where God's Kids, at all levels of maturity, and from all walks of life can encourage and be encouraged to grow in relationship with Jesus and each other. <br /><br />- a growing place where Christian principles are taught, caught and internalized, leading to application in interpersonal relationships in the home, the business world and all of life. <br /><br />- a disciplined place - where respect for God and each other is accepted and exemplified.</em></strong> <br /><br />It then goes on to say:<br /><br /><strong><em>The statement of Beliefs we agree to can be found at: http://www.lausanne.org/lausanne-1974/lausanne-covenant.html</em></strong><br /><br />Having not previously been familiar with this covenant, I went ahead and <a href="http://www.lausanne.org/lausanne-1974/lausanne-covenant.html">read it</a>. <br /><br /><strong><em>The Lausanne Covenant<br /><br />INTRODUCTION<br /><br />We, members of the Church of Jesus Christ, from more than 150 nations, participants in the International Congress on World Evangelization at Lausanne, praise God for his great salvation and rejoice in the fellowship he has given us with himself and with each other. We are deeply stirred by what God is doing in our day, moved to penitence by our failures and challenged by the unfinished task of evangelization. We believe the Gospel is God's good news for the whole world, and we are determined by his grace to obey Christ's commission to proclaim it to all mankind and to make disciples of every nation. We desire, therefore, to affirm our faith and our resolve, and to make public our covenant.<br /><br />1. THE PURPOSE OF GOD<br /><br />We affirm our belief in the one-eternal God, Creator and Lord of the world, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who governs all things according to the purpose of his will. He has been calling out from the world a people for himself, and sending his people back into the world to be his servants and his witnesses, for the extension of his kingdom, the building up of Christ's body, and the glory of his name. We confess with shame that we have often denied our calling and failed in our mission, by becoming conformed to the world or by withdrawing from it. Yet we rejoice that even when borne by earthen vessels the gospel is still a precious treasure. To the task of making that treasure known in the power of the Holy Spirit we desire to dedicate ourselves anew.<br /><br />(Isa. 40:28; Matt. 28:19; Eph. 1:11; Acts 15:14; John 17:6, 18; Eph 4:12; 1 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 12:2; II Cor. 4:7)<br /><br />2. THE AUTHORITY AND POWER OF THE BIBLE<br /><br />We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We also affirm the power of God's word to accomplish his purpose of salvation. The message of the Bible is addressed to all men and women. For God's revelation in Christ and in Scripture is unchangeable. Through it the Holy Spirit still speaks today. He illumines the minds of God's people in every culture to perceive its truth freshly through their own eyes and thus discloses to the whole Church ever more of the many-colored wisdom of God.<br /><br />(II Tim. 3:16; II Pet. 1:21; John 10:35; Isa. 55:11; 1 Cor. 1:21; Rom. 1:16, Matt. 5:17,18; Jude 3; Eph. 1:17,18; 3:10,18)<br /><br />3. THE UNIQUENESS AND UNIVERSALITY OF CHRIST<br />We affirm that there is only one Saviour and only one gospel, although there is a wide diversity of evangelistic approaches. We recognise that everyone has some knowledge of God through his general revelation in nature. But we deny that this can save, for people suppress the truth by their unrighteousness. We also reject as derogatory to Christ and the gospel every kind of syncretism and dialogue which implies that Christ speaks equally through all religions and ideologies. Jesus Christ, being himself the only God-man, who gave himself as the only ransom for sinners, is the only mediator between God and people. There is no other name by which we must be saved. All men and women are perishing because of sin, but God loves everyone, not wishing that any should perish but that all should repent. Yet those who reject Christ repudiate the joy of salvation and condemn themselves to eternal separation from God. To proclaim Jesus as "the Saviour of the world" is not to affirm that all people are either automatically or ultimately saved, still less to affirm that all religions offer salvation in Christ. Rather it is to proclaim God's love for a world of sinners and to invite everyone to respond to him as Saviour and Lord in the wholehearted personal commitment of repentance and faith. Jesus Christ has been exalted above every other name; we long for the day when every knee shall bow to him and every tongue shall confess him Lord.<br /><br />(Gal. 1:6-9;Rom. 1:18-32; I Tim. 2:5,6; Acts 4:12; John 3:16-19; II Pet. 3:9; II Thess. 1:7-9;John 4:42; Matt. 11:28; Eph. 1:20,21; Phil. 2:9-11)<br /><br />4. THE NATURE OF EVANGELISM<br />To evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gifts of the Spirit to all who repent and believe. Our Christian presence in the world is indispensable to evangelism, and so is that kind of dialogue whose purpose is to listen sensitively in order to understand. But evangelism itself is the proclamation of the historical, biblical Christ as Saviour and Lord, with a view to persuading people to come to him personally and so be reconciled to God. In issuing the gospel invitation we have no liberty to conceal the cost of discipleship. Jesus still calls all who would follow him to deny themselves, take up their cross, and identify themselves with his new community. The results of evangelism include obedience to Christ, incorporation into his Church and responsible service in the world.<br /><br />(I Cor. 15:3,4; Acts 2: 32-39; John 20:21; I Cor. 1:23; II Cor. 4:5; 5:11,20; Luke 14:25-33; Mark 8:34; Acts 2:40,47; Mark 10:43-45)<br /><br />5. CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY<br />We affirm that God is both the Creator and the Judge of all men. We therefore should share his concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression. Because men and women are made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, colour, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he or she should be respected and served, not exploited. Here too we express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive. Although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty. For both are necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and man, our love for our neighbour and our obedience to Jesus Christ. The message of salvation implies also a message of judgment upon every form of alienation, oppression and discrimination, and we should not be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist. When people receive Christ they are born again into his kingdom and must seek not only to exhibit but also to spread its righteousness in the midst of an unrighteous world. The salvation we claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social responsibilities. Faith without works is dead.<br /><br />(Acts 17:26,31; Gen. 18:25; Isa. 1:17; Psa. 45:7; Gen. 1:26,27; Jas. 3:9; Lev. 19:18; Luke 6:27,35; Jas. 2:14-26; Joh. 3:3,5; Matt. 5:20; 6:33; II Cor. 3:18; Jas. 2:20)<br /><br />6. THE CHURCH AND EVANGELISM<br />We affirm that Christ sends his redeemed people into the world as the Father sent him, and that this calls for a similar deep and costly penetration of the world. We need to break out of our ecclesiastical ghettos and permeate non-Christian society. In the Church's mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary. World evangelization requires the whole Church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. The Church is at the very centre of God's cosmic purpose and is his appointed means of spreading the gospel. But a church which preaches the cross must itself be marked by the cross. It becomes a stumbling block to evangelism when it betrays the gospel or lacks a living faith in God, a genuine love for people, or scrupulous honesty in all things including promotion and finance. The church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology.<br /><br />(John 17:18; 20:21; Matt. 28:19,20; Acts 1:8; 20:27; Eph. 1:9,10; 3:9-11; Gal. 6:14,17; II Cor. 6:3,4; II Tim. 2:19-21; Phil. 1:27)<br /><br />7. COOPERATION IN EVANGELISM<br />We affirm that the Church's visible unity in truth is God's purpose. Evangelism also summons us to unity, because our oneness strengthens our witness, just as our disunity undermines our gospel of reconciliation. We recognize, however, that organisational unity may take many forms and does not necessarily forward evangelism. Yet we who share the same biblical faith should be closely united in fellowship, work and witness. We confess that our testimony has sometimes been marred by a sinful individualism and needless duplication. We pledge ourselves to seek a deeper unity in truth, worship, holiness and mission. We urge the development of regional and functional cooperation for the furtherance of the Church's mission, for strategic planning, for mutual encouragement, and for the sharing of resources and experience.<br /><br />(John 17:21,23; Eph. 4:3,4; John 13:35; Phil. 1:27; John 17:11-23)<br /><br />8. CHURCHES IN EVANGELISTIC PARTNERSHIP<br />We rejoice that a new missionary era has dawned. The dominant role of western missions is fast disappearing. God is raising up from the younger churches a great new resource for world evangelization, and is thus demonstrating that the responsibility to evangelise belongs to the whole body of Christ. All churches should therefore be asking God and themselves what they should be doing both to reach their own area and to send missionaries to other parts of the world. A reevaluation of our missionary responsibility and role should be continuous. Thus a growing partnership of churches will develop and the universal character of Christ's Church will be more clearly exhibited. We also thank God for agencies which labor in Bible translation, theological education, the mass media, Christian literature, evangelism, missions, church renewal and other specialist fields. They too should engage in constant self-examination to evaluate their effectiveness as part of the Church's mission.<br /><br />(Rom. 1:8; Phil. 1:5; 4:15; Acts 13:1-3, I Thess. 1:6-8)<br /><br />9. THE URGENCY OF THE EVANGELISTIC TASK<br />More than 2,700 million people, which is more than two-thirds of all humanity, have yet to be evangelised. We are ashamed that so many have been neglected; it is a standing rebuke to us and to the whole Church. There is now, however, in many parts of the world an unprecedented receptivity to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are convinced that this is the time for churches and para-church agencies to pray earnestly for the salvation of the unreached and to launch new efforts to achieve world evangelization. A reduction of foreign missionaries and money in an evangelised country may sometimes be necessary to facilitate the national church's growth in self-reliance and to release resources for unevangelised areas. Missionaries should flow ever more freely from and to all six continents in a spirit of humble service. The goal should be, by all available means and at the earliest possible time, that every person will have the opportunity to hear, understand, and to receive the good news. We cannot hope to attain this goal without sacrifice. All of us are shocked by the poverty of millions and disturbed by the injustices which cause it. Those of us who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple life-style in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism.<br /><br />(John 9:4; Matt. 9:35-38; Rom. 9:1-3; I Cor. 9:19-23; Mark 16:15; Isa. 58:6,7; Jas. 1:27; 2:1-9; Matt. 25:31-46; Acts 2:44,45; 4:34,35)<br /><br />10. EVANGELISM AND CULTURE<br />The development of strategies for world evangelization calls for imaginative pioneering methods. Under God, the result will be the rise of churches deeply rooted in Christ and closely related to their culture. Culture must always be tested and judged by Scripture. Because men and women are God's creatures, some of their culture is rich in beauty and goodness. Because they are fallen, all of it is tainted with sin and some of it is demonic. The gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another, but evaluates all cultures according to its own criteria of truth and righteousness, and insists on moral absolutes in every culture. Missions have all too frequently exported with the gospel an alien culture and churches have sometimes been in bondage to culture rather than to Scripture. Christ's evangelists must humbly seek to empty themselves of all but their personal authenticity in order to become the servants of others, and churches must seek to transform and enrich culture, all for the glory of God.<br /><br />(Mark 7:8,9,13; Gen. 4:21,22; I Cor. 9:19-23; Phil. 2:5-7; II Cor. 4:5)<br /><br />11. EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP<br />We confess that we have sometimes pursued church growth at the expense of church depth, and divorced evangelism from Christian nurture. We also acknowledge that some of our missions have been too slow to equip and encourage national leaders to assume their rightful responsibilities. Yet we are committed to indigenous principles, and long that every church will have national leaders who manifest a Christian style of leadership in terms not of domination but of service. We recognise that there is a great need to improve theological education, especially for church leaders. In every nation and culture there should be an effective training programme for pastors and laity in doctrine, discipleship, evangelism, nurture and service. Such training programmes should not rely on any stereotyped methodology but should be developed by creative local initiatives according to biblical standards.<br /><br />(Col. I:27,28; Acts 14:23; Tit. 1:5,9; Mark 10:42-45; Eph. 4:11,12)<br /><br />12. SPIRITUAL CONFLICT<br />We believe that we are engaged in constant spiritual warfare with the principalities and powers of evil, who are seeking to overthrow the Church and frustrate its task of world evangelization. We know our need to equip ourselves with God's armour and to fight this battle with the spiritual weapons of truth and prayer. For we detect the activity of our enemy, not only in false ideologies outside the Church, but also inside it in false gospels which twist Scripture and put people in the place of God. We need both watchfulness and discernment to safeguard the biblical gospel. We acknowledge that we ourselves are not immune to worldliness of thoughts and action, that is, to a surrender to secularism. For example, although careful studies of church growth, both numerical and spiritual, are right and valuable, we have sometimes neglected them. At other times, desirous to ensure a response to the gospel, we have compromised our message, manipulated our hearers through pressure techniques, and become unduly preoccupied with statistics or even dishonest in our use of them. All this is worldly. The Church must be in the world; the world must not be in the Church.<br /><br />(Eph. 6:12; II Cor. 4:3,4; Eph. 6:11,13-18; II Cor. 10:3-5; I John 2:18-26; 4:1-3; Gal. 1:6-9; II Cor. 2:17; 4:2; John 17:15)<br /><br />13. FREEDOM AND PERSECUTION<br />It is the God-appointed duty of every government to secure conditions of peace, justice and liberty in which the Church may obey God, serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and preach the gospel without interference. We therefore pray for the leaders of nations and call upon them to guarantee freedom of thought and conscience, and freedom to practise and propagate religion in accordance with the will of God and as set forth in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We also express our deep concern for all who have been unjustly imprisoned, and especially for those who are suffering for their testimony to the Lord Jesus. We promise to pray and work for their freedom. At the same time we refuse to be intimidated by their fate. God helping us, we too will seek to stand against injustice and to remain faithful to the gospel, whatever the cost. We do not forget the warnings of Jesus that persecution is inevitable.<br /><br />(I Tim. 1:1-4, Acts 4:19; 5:29; Col. 3:24; Heb. 13:1-3; Luke 4:18; Gal. 5:11; 6:12; Matt. 5:10-12; John 15:18-21)<br /><br />14. THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT<br />We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Father sent his Spirit to bear witness to his Son; without his witness ours is futile. Conviction of sin, faith in Christ, new birth and Christian growth are all his work. Further, the Holy Spirit is a missionary spirit; thus evangelism should arise spontaneously from a Spirit-filled church. A church that is not a missionary church is contradicting itself and quenching the Spirit. Worldwide evangelization will become a realistic possibility only when the Spirit renews the Church in truth and wisdom, faith, holiness, love and power. We therefore call upon all Christians to pray for such a visitation of the sovereign Spirit of God that all his fruit may appear in all his people and that all his gifts may enrich the body of Christ. Only then will the whole church become a fit instrument in his hands, that the whole earth may hear his voice.<br /><br />(I Cor. 2:4; John 15:26;27; 16:8-11; I Cor. 12:3; John 3:6-8; II Cor. 3:18; John 7:37-39; I Thess. 5:19; Acts 1:8; Psa. 85:4-7; 67:1-3; Gal. 5:22,23; I Cor. 12:4-31; Rom. 12:3-8)<br /><br />15. THE RETURN OF CHRIST<br />We believe that Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly, in power and glory, to consummate his salvation and his judgment. This promise of his coming is a further spur to our evangelism, for we remember his words that the gospel must first be preached to all nations. We believe that the interim period between Christ's ascension and return is to be filled with the mission of the people of God, who have no liberty to stop before the end. We also remember his warning that false Christs and false prophets will arise as precursors of the final Antichrist. We therefore reject as a proud, self-confident dream the notion that people can ever build a utopia on earth. Our Christian confidence is that God will perfect his kingdom, and we look forward with eager anticipation to that day, and to the new heaven and earth in which righteousness will dwell and God will reign forever. Meanwhile, we rededicate ourselves to the service of Christ and of people in joyful submission to his authority over the whole of our lives.<br /><br />(Mark 14:62; Heb. 9:28; Mark 13:10; Acts 1:8-11; Matt. 28:20; Mark 13:21-23; John 2:18; 4:1-3; Luke 12:32; Rev. 21:1-5; II Pet. 3:13; Matt. 28:18)<br /><br />CONCLUSION<br />Therefore, in the light of this our faith and our resolve, we enter into a solemn covenant with God and with each other, to pray, to plan and to work together for the evangelization of the whole world. We call upon others to join us. May God help us by his grace and for his glory to be faithful to this our covenant! Amen, Alleluia!</em></strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.cephas-library.com/church_n_state/church_and_state_lausanne.html">Cephas Library has published</a> a very long denunciation of ecumenicism in general and the Lausanne Covenant in particular. And <a href="http://www.emnr.org/lausanne.html">Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (EMNR) noted</a> that there are different versions of the Lausanne Covenant (they prefer the 1974 version). The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is apparently silent on the Lausanne Covenant, but <a href="http://www.icm.org/about">International Cooperating Ministries</a> supports it, as does <a href="http://www.lcje.net/about.html">the Lausanne Committee on Jewish Evangelism</a>. <br /><br />Oh, what a tangled web we weave. And this post just touches the surface.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-89748441124588055532009-02-19T08:00:00.000-08:002009-02-19T08:15:45.222-08:00Deep Springs revisited...or not (I never went there)Last night I was at a college night, during which various college/university representatives spoke about their institutions. <br /><br />One of the speakers was Peter Osgood, Director of Admission at <a href="http://www.hmc.edu/">Harvey Mudd College</a> in Claremont, California. Osgood was not merely there to represent Harvey Mudd; he was charged to represent <strong>ALL</strong> private colleges and universities. (Other speakers spoke about the UC system, the Cal State system, community colleges, and the like.)<br /><br />While Osgood noted that the median size of a private school is smaller than the median size of a public school, there is still great diversity in private schools. He cited the University of Southern California as an example of a very large private school, and then asked if anyone knew what the smallest private college in California was.<br /><br />Out of the crowd of a couple of hundred people, yours truly ventured to guess, "Deep Springs College?"<br /><br />And yours truly is now the proud owner of a Harvey Mudd banner for getting the answer right.<br /><br />I didn't get a chance to talk to Osgood afterwards, so I couldn't tell him how I came across this bit of trivia. (Hmm...<a href="http://empoprise-mu.blogspot.com/2009/02/business-or-music-stock-charts-via.html">another case</a> in which a post could have gone into another of my blogs. But I don't see this as <a href="http://empoprise-ntn.blogspot.com/">an NTN Buzztime question</a>.)<br /><br />So anyways, back in the dark ages of the 1970s, when Robert Plant was all the rage and the Pittsburgh Steelers dominated football - wait a minute, <strong>THE FIRST TIME</strong> when Robert Plant was - let me start again.<br /><br />So anyways, back in the dark ages of the 1970s, when there were only three commercial television networks, I was back in Virginia, getting a lot of mail from colleges and universities. I forget whether I got this in the mail or read about it somewhere, but one of the colleges that I heard of was Deep Springs. My impression at the time was that the college was an interesting place, to say the least. Located in one state with an address in another state, the students (all male, I believe) read the classics for two years, when they weren't working on the ranch at which the college was located. I decided that was a little too far out for me, so I went to Reed College instead, where I read the classics for four years and worked on the Reed College Quest. (Any educator who reads this post is probably smirking right now.)<br /><br />Well, Deep Springs is still around today. Still two-year, still all-male. But, unlike the 1970s, you can read <a href="http://www.deepsprings.edu/about">about</a> the college on its website:<br /><br /><strong><em>Deep Springs is an all-male liberal arts college located on a cattle-ranch and alfalfa farm in California's High Desert. Electrical pioneer L.L. Nunn founded the school in 1917 on the three pillars of academics, labor, and self-governance in order to help young men prepare themselves for lives of service to humanity. The school's 26 students, along with its staff and faculty, form a close community engaged in this intense project.<br /><br />Deep Springs operates on the belief that manual labor and political deliberation are integral parts of a comprehensive liberal arts education.<br /><br />Each student attends for two years and receives a full scholarship valued at over $50,000 per year. Afterwards, most complete their degrees at the world's most prestigious four year institutions.</em></strong><br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=deep+springs,+california&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=38.826758,93.164063&ie=UTF8&ll=37.63816,-117.850342&spn=1.220119,2.911377&z=9&iwloc=addr&output=embed&s=AARTsJrridjkF-cFX-JHTRMCgxGjhqkOqw"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=deep+springs,+california&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=38.826758,93.164063&ie=UTF8&ll=37.63816,-117.850342&spn=1.220119,2.911377&z=9&iwloc=addr" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small><br /><br />But <a href="http://www.guppylake.com/nsb/deep.html">not everyone has the most positive experience</a> at Deep Springs:<br /><br /><strong><em>n 1975-76, I attended Deep Springs College, arguably the strangest college in the world. It was an interesting place; the academics were actually much tougher and more challenging than anything I had to do in graduate school....<br /><br />I hated my time at Deep Springs, actually. The year I was there I was the only vegetarian, and the cooks were hostile, cooking even corn in pork fat. As a result, I ended up with some serious nutrition-related medical problems and a bad attitude, and I ended up leaving early. Nonetheless, you can't go to Deep Springs without having it shape you in some significant way.</em></strong><br /><br />I could say more about very small schools...but I won't. <br /><br />But small private schools, as well as large private schools, have similar challenges in some ways. Osgood noted one obvious difference between private and public schools: namely, that private schools are much more dependent upon non-government sources of funding. And <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/04/deepsprings">fund-raising issues hit Deep Springs also</a>, as this January 2008 article shows:<br /><br /><strong><em>Louis Fantasia — an acclaimed Shakespeare scholar and theatrical director — has been ousted as president of Deep Springs College after only six months in the position.<br /><br />Fantasia’s sudden departure, announced with little detail on New Year’s Day, stunned many alumni and others who have since learned of it. Fantasia would not comment, and board members released only a vague statement indicating a “divergence of visions” for the college by Fantasia and the board.<br /><br />Sources familiar with the conflict at Deep Springs say that the difference of opinion had to do in part with fund raising....<br /><br />According to those who are sympathetic to what the board did, Fantasia did not understand the unique nature of Deep Springs governance (although he had taught there several times) or of the role of its president, and was too focused on fund raising....<br /><br />Critics of Fantasia said that his interest in fund raising risked setting up a situation where donors’ views might take precedence over those of students, potentially endangering the self-governance of which alumni are so proud.<br /><br />Supporters of Fantasia talk about similar issues, but with a different take. They argue that he has correctly identified a need to significantly increase the college’s endowment (currently about $15 million) and to make the institution more visible. By keeping fund raising ambitions more modest, these supporters say, the current board leaders are placing a higher priority on preserving the status quo than on improving the college.</em></strong><br /><br />The whole thing is odd when you consider the state of education today. I could be wrong, but it's possible that Deep Springs is the only private educational institution in which the board has criticized the president for doing <strong>TOO MUCH</strong> fund-raising.<br /><br />Pass the alfalfa sprouts - the branded alfalfa sprouts, please.<br /><br />Hmm...maybe this belonged in <a href="http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/">my business blog</a>...Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-72402882813687850762009-02-19T07:00:00.000-08:002009-02-19T07:00:01.075-08:00Christian Behavioral Medicine Practitioner?I was checking my email to see who was disturbed enough to follow me on Twitter, and I found that I am now being followed by <a href="http://twitter.com/mdcounselor">@mdcounselor</a>. So I followed @mdcounselor back.<br /><br />It turns out that @mdcounselor is George Trimble, M.D. of Dallas, whose Twitter profile says he is a "Christian behavioral medicine practitioner."<br /><br />I followed <a href="http://mdcounsellor.blogspot.com/">the link</a> on his Twitter page...and ended up at <a href="http://mdcounsellor.blogspot.com/2009/02/under-construction.html">an "under construction" notice</a>. But Trimble wrote it in good humor:<br /><br /><strong><em>Under Construction -- please drop back by. I know. I'll never see you again. C'est la vie, mon ami.</em></strong><br /><br />Trimble sounds depressed. He should see a Christian behavioral medicine practitioner.<br /><br />Which reminds me - what IS a Christian behavioral medicine practitioner? <br /><br /><a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=rZY&q=%22christian+behavioral+medicine+practitioner%22&btnG=Search">A Google search</a> shows that Trimble is the only person who advertises himself in this way. <br /><br />So, taking a step back, let's see what a behavioral medicine practitioner is. Here's what <a href="http://www.careers.state.mn.us/specs/3825.pdf?http=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.careers.state.mn.us%2Fspecs%2F3825.pdf">the state of Minnesota says</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>Under administrative direction, provides technical consultation and direction to a broad spectrum of other clinicians, including medical specialists, psychologists, nurses, therapists and community health care providers in a specialized field of clinical psychology such as Adolescent Psychology, Behavioral Psychology, Neuro-Psychology or Forensics. Designs, develops, implements and evaluates psycho-social based treatment programs for clinically complex clients, including those with multiple diagnoses, conflicting diagnoses and unidentified disabilities. Testifies in court proceedings as an expert witness. Performs related work as required.<br /><br />The Behavioral Medicine Practitioner provides specialized consultation to treatment teams in multiple programs serving a specific disability group (e.g. Mental Illness, Chemical Dependency, DD, etc.) at multiple facilities within a geographic region of service. It designs specialized treatment programs and directs the implementation of these strategies in multiple facilities within a region. It is also responsible for directing outcome analysis for programs within the specialty area, developing and delivering training in specialized assessment or treatment strategies for medical staff; directing and implementing quality improvement strategies and developing and monitoring utilization management. <br /><br />The level of technical knowledge required for this position is typically acquired through additional specialized experience and educational training beyond that required for a Ph.D. in Psychology. Specialized certification is preferable.</em></strong><br /><br />You can probably tell that a human resources specialist (with appropriate degrees) wrote the text above. But the text below was written by an actual BMP - in Texas, no less. <a href="http://www.texasbmed.com/">Dr. Greg Hupp</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>Behavioral Medicine is the interdisciplinary field concerned with the<br />development and integration of behavioral, emotional, psychological, social, and medical knowledge and techniques relevant to the understanding of health and illness, and the application of this knowledge and these techniques to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.</em></strong><br /><br />So presumably my good Twitter buddy Trimble also integrates Christian belief into his practice. He's not the only one - <a href="http://wisecounsel.wordpress.com/about/">Phil Monroe</a> is a Christian psychologist who has <a href="http://wisecounsel.wordpress.com/">a blog</a>. <br /><br />But he's not from Texas.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-76400829945391819312009-02-18T17:20:00.000-08:002009-02-18T17:20:00.384-08:00Senator Ontario Emperor, revisited #DYSPIn case you missed it, <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2008/12/so-whats-your-unrealistic-goal-for-2009.html">I previously blogged</a> about <a href="http://friendfeed.com/e/da8d63fa-1c2b-4812-80a9-2c09ea1073b1/Perhaps-I-should-set-unrealistic-goals-for-myself/">my unrealistic goal</a> that I set for myself on December 31, 2008:<br /><br /><strong><em>I want to become a U.S. Senator from Illinois in 2009. (Even though I haven't lived there since 1970, I'm not rich, and I'm a registered Republican.)</em></strong><br /><br />As time went on, however, Rod Blagojevich appointee Roland Burris became more and more acceptable both inside the Beltway and inside the Land of Lincoln, <a href="http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2009/01/were-not-doing-this-because-were-greedy.html">I was forced to concede</a> that my chances of realizing my dream were becoming increasingly unlikely.<br /><br />But that was January. This is February. And now Burris is running into a little bit of trouble. <a href="http://twitter.com/Outsanity/status/1223816026">Outsanity tweeted about it this morning</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>#Chicago's #Roland #Burris is in hot water. #DYSP</em></strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.americablog.com/2009/02/chicago-tribune-to-senator-burris.html">AMERICAblog linked</a> to <a href="http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/vox_pop/2009/02/roland-burris-resign.html">a Chicago Tribune editorial</a>. Here's an excerpt:<br /><br /><strong><em>Let’s see if we have it right: Burris had zero contact with any of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s cronies about his interest in the Senate seat being vacated by President Barack Obama— unless you count that conversation with former chief of staff Lon Monk, and, on further reflection, the ones with insiders John Harris, Doug Scofield and John Wyma and, oh yeah, the governor’s brother and fund-raising chief, Robert Blagojevich. But Burris didn’t raise a single dollar for the now ex-governor as a result of those contacts because that could be construed as a quid pro quo and besides, everyone he asked refused to donate.<br /><br />The story gets worse with every telling.<br /><br />Enough. Roland Burris must resign.</em></strong><br /><br />So this may work out after all. I'd better start following the Cubs and/or White Sox or something.Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8402506991616809807.post-33441541489760062052009-02-18T12:25:00.000-08:002009-02-18T12:25:00.460-08:00Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins' no news is good news #DYSPTechCrunch (yeah, the blog that TIME says is no longer relevant) <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/17/twitterhr-for-future-reference-use-bcc-when-rejecting-applicants/">posted this on February 17</a> regarding Twitter's ongoing search for someone to tell them how to make money:<br /><br /><strong><em>At around 11 AM...the company sent out a rejection notice to many of the candidates who had applied for its open Product Manager position. But instead of using BCC to hide the identities of the applicants from each other, Twitter HR goofed and sent them all the message using a standard Carbon Copy, allowing everyone else to see who the other 185 applicants were.</em></strong><br /><br />But there's good news in this, as <a href="http://rizzn.com/socnets/2009/02/ev-you-got-that-thing-i-sentcha-twitter.php">Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins noted</a>:<br /><br /><strong><em>What is interesting is the fact that I wasn’t on the recipient list for those rejected.</em></strong>Ontario Emperorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00468229071024779982noreply@blogger.com