LinuxWorld: What a Show!

Ah, I wish I was there. Where? LinuxWorld San Fransisco! For those of you not familiar with it, LinuxWorld is the twice a year show during which all the biggest names in the GNU/Linux world (and computer world for that matter) come together to promote their wares. Best of all, dozens of exciting announcements come out of the show.

Consider this week's headlines over at OfB.biz. So far, I've written or linked to stories about IBM Suing SCO, Real Networks announcing a new GNU/Linux media player project, Red Hat Suing SCO (see a theme here?), Oracle becoming completely Linux-ized, Disney switching over to GNU/Linux desktops in some cases, Apple getting a more Free Software friendly license for the poorly named Darwin, and Novell purchasing GNU/Linux desktop supporter Ximian. Interested in these stories? Take a look.

But beyond that there is the experience. All the big names promote new products and let you see the latest — AMD, Intel, Red Hat, IBM, Novell, even Microsoft (yeah, that sounds strange, but it is true). Then there is the .Org pavilion where the great developers and projects of the community show up: KDE, Gnome, Debian, and more. Linus Torvalds, Jon “Maddog” Hall, and Richard Stallman have all been spotted at LinuxWorld.

Maybe I'll make it next year.

Le Sabot Post-Moderne: Not Down... Moved.

John, Discoshaman himself, wrote me about his site. I just mentioned that I added it to my blogroll last night. Unfortunately, it seems, in the process of moving to a new location, his old site went down due to lack of bandwidth. He asked if I would mention the new address, so here ya go… If you are looking for Le Sabot Post-Moderne, stop by www.postmodernclog.com instead of the old address you may have.

Blog Roll'n

Well, I've added a few good links to the ol' BlogRoll (see right) over the past few weeks. I just added Elevation, a new blog (I just got word about it!) that should prove very interesting, I think. Gavenagain is a very nice guy I know and I'm really looking forward to hearing what he has to say here.

I've also finally added a link to Darren Rowse's Living Room, a blog I've been following for some time, but hadn't linked to. It's a great blog with lots of thought provoking content. Darren recently did a cool series on “Underblogs,” those of us who have blogs that aren't quite as well known.

Finally, I've added Discoshaman's Le Sabot Post-Moderne. It's somewhat of a political/culturally focused blog. I really like it so far.

There is a logical explaination for this, sir.

You're Tony Nelson! It doesn't get any more stable
than you. You love peace and quiet, manual
reading and gardening are among your exciting
weekend endeavors.

So who are you? Does Dr. Bellows need to analyze you too or can you blink your problems away?

But the real question is: Does it Come with Free Shipping?

It seems that someone is working on copying Dell's build-to-order model in another industry: Cars. Build-to-Order Inc. is hoping to create an on-demand car manufacturing business with low inventory and quick arrival of parts from suppliers.

It works well for computers, but I wonder how well it works for cars?

Rebates, Rebates, and More Rebates

Yikes! I had a stack of rebates that had been waiting on my desk to be filled out for several weeks. sigh It ended up taking me thirty minutes to get through the stack, although fortunately with the new technique of printing the rebates on the receipts themselves, it makes things easier. Still, I just don't like doing rebates for some reason… at least I don't have to think about it any more.

The Case of the Lost Comments

I think I figured out what might have been causing some comments to get lost after posting. If you did post and your comment didn't stay online, please try again. I think everything should be working now. Thanks!

What about Forgiveness?

Consider the case of President Clinton. There is no getting around it: Clinton made lots of mistakes. He made some of what we tend to think of as “big” sins. He was not really helpful to Christian causes.

But, let's especially focus on that “big” sins thing. My Bible doesn't have a “big” sins category; Jesus blew that concept away. Consider what he said during the Sermon on the Mount. President Clinton committed adultery, yes, but according to Jesus, “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) President Clinton lied, but I think I can safely say anyone who said they never lie would have to be lying to say that.

Even if we could avoid falling into the types of sin Mr. Clinton often gets condemned for, we ought to still consider the cost of sin. “[T]he wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), the Apostle Paul reminds us. No, it isn't the wages of the really big, get on national TV sins is death. It is simply the wages of any and all sin. We are all in the same boat.

Indeed, “[a]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) In other words, “[t]here is none Righteous, no not one.” (Romans 3:10) Yes, we are all sinful and dispicably marred by sin in the eyes of God.

We need forgiveness to fix that problem, and speaking of forgiveness, we are also reminded that “if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14) and “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1-2)

It should strike us as ironic that we, believers in something that revolves around the concept of forgiveness of sin, can't seem to forgive sin. It is fine for us to say “hey, this is wrong — that's sin,” but it is very very wrong for us to go around condemning people and not forgiving them. It may be politically handy to do so, but not Biblically right. Yet, I think President Clinton could come out tomorrow in sack cloth and beg for forgiveness from the nation and it wouldn't do any good at all. (I say all this keeping in mind that I have been as guilty of condemning him and others as anyone else.)

President Clinton has been condemned by Christians for years. Five years after his attempted impeachment we are still busy condemning him and certainly not forgiving him. Why is that? Does God keep condemning us for past sins? Does he take years to forgive us? No! Yet we judge others, such as Clinton, with a holier-than-thou attitude. What kind of example does that present to the world? What kind of testimony does it give when we talk about forgiveness but show nothing of it? Where is that Change?

This is coming out far more jumbled than I had hoped, but I guess what I am trying to say is that it is time to forget what is politically beneficial and worry about what gets the important goal accomplished (bringing more people into a relationship with Christ Jesus). I fear that in our maneuvering to get more votes we may do so at the price of losing souls.

So, it seems to me — to bring this back to where I started — that when President Clinton says something nice, we shouldn't be so quick to start the condemning process again. That just makes us look (and in reality, quite possibly be) hypocritical. We certainly wouldn't want that type of behavior directed toward us. In the recent case, as Kevin pointed out, he didn't have to say anything nice, but he did. We should have said something nice in return… did we?

Phew... what a day.

Well, you may be wondering were I've been. Yesterday I spent the day in a hospital waiting room. Dad went in for a angiogram and possibly an angioplasty (after the doctors noticed a small anomaly during a stress test) and instead ended up getting a quadruple bypass surgery. It was, needless to say, very worrisome — he had several passages with 90% blockage and a few with 70 or 80%.

Going in yesterday he really didn't expect more than possibly an angioplasty (where they use a balloon to clear blockages), since it didn't even look like he had more than a blockage-in-formation. We are just thankful it was caught when it was — leaving it alone for longer possibly would have caused a massive heart attack.

At any rate, he's doing fairly well today. The hospital moved him out of ICU ahead of schedule, and he might be released by Monday, which is amazing, to say the least. While the toughest part is (hopefully) over, prayers would still be appreciated.

Mr. Former President: Thanks.

In part, Clinton stated, “I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying 'we probably shouldn't have said that.'” He continued, “You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president. I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in a while. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now. That's what I think.”

Unlike other democrats that have seen this as an ideal way to hurt the Bush Administration's chances for reelection, most notably Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), Clinton urged that it was time to move on. He urged that “People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.”

Of course, not everyone of the former President's staff agreed. You can read the full report here.

In all, I'm left a bit speechless by this. Everyone knows Clinton was critical of the administration's moves toward Iraq earlier this year. Yet has shown a very commendable view at a time when he could have easily been a strong voice for the Dem's best hope at hurting the administration thus far. I can't believe I'm writing this, but I'm impressed with former President Clinton's forward focus on the issue.

For that, I thank you Mr. Clinton. Let's hope that this is the action people try to copy from you.