Tuesday, September 28, 2010

ExplanationFor Conservatism

FATHER/DAUGHTER A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying. Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?” She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.” Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.” The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, “That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!” The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the conservative side of the fence.” If anyone has a better explanation of the difference between conservative and liberal or progressive or neocon I'm all ears.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

VERY Helpful Do you know the difference between http and https?

Do you know the difference between http and https? Don't know how many of you are aware of this difference, but it is worthsending to any that do not. The main difference between http:// and https:// is.... It's all aboutkeeping you secure!! HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol... The S (big surprise) stands for "Secure". If you visit a website orwebpage, and look at the address in the web browser, it will likely beginwith the following: http://. This means that the website is talking to yourbrowser using the regular unsecured language. In other words, it is possiblefor someone to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website.If you fill out a form on the website, someone might see the information yousend to that site. This is why you never ever enter your credit card number in an http://website! But if the web address begins with https://, that basically means yourcomputer is talking to the website in a secure code that no one caneavesdrop on. You understand why this is so important, right? If a website ever asks you to enter your credit card information, you shouldautomatically look to see if the web address begins with https://. If it doesn't, you should NEVER enter sensitive information....such as acredit card number.
PASS IT ON (You may save someone a lot of grief).