November 2008 Archive
November 23, 2008 Posted by mitch |
linux, redhat |
I'm getting tired of Enterprise Linux Releases... I'm tired of how difficult it makes things. I fully understand why they are locked into specific versions of software, and that maybe I just need to upgrade... but business in my experience doesn't like not using the "Enterprise" versions of software and that the open source tools I need to use seem to want the latest versions. (Lilac requires PHP 5.2 for instance, so a PHP 5.1.6 release on CentoOS 5 isn't going to work) I've also run into some compile options lately that get quite annoying... like no mysql support for pam, or mysql support in postfix. It does cause me quite a bit more work, and I'm honestly seeing it all built into Ubuntu and Debian (I use both on my personal systems) and I'm thinking of starting to switch other people systems as well.
I found the following in a post on Digg... I rather like it so I thought I'd repost it here...
*Create a lower tax environment for foreign companies to build plants in the US, because it is obvious our own companies do not want to stay.
*Allow companies that are in trouble to fail. You will lose a lot of jobs instantly, but they will all be regained with the auctioning off of the assets of the deceased. You want alternative energy? Imagine what can happen it Tesla, Aptera, or THINK get there hands on the plants, machines, and assembly processes of Ford or GM.
*Close almost every overseas military base and reopen some our closed military bases here in the states. Instant increase in sales in the areas of base openings and lower cost for the US tax payer. Need to keep some bases open? Fine, Bahrain can stay since Bahrain gives us a nice kick back for keeping that base open, maybe Okinawa...
*Get rid of a lot of Government departments such as Education, HUD, Susquhenna river basin commission, etc.
*Obviously, the president is not going to toss the FED out the window -- like they should -- so since they are going to keep them, raise rates and keep them high. Because, if they really want to be Keynesians, they need to have VERY high rates when times are good [12% and above], and lower rates if ***** hits the fan. Under REAL Keynesian economics, you are to be a capitalist when times are good, and a socialist TOWARDS YOUR PEOPLE (not companies), when times get bad. Keynesian economics do not state BAIL OUT COMPANIES.
*REMOVE ALL SUBSIDIES! PERIOD! A lot of people say that Alternative Energy Companies should get a subsidy. Well, guess what? Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco can count as alternative energy companies just by changing a few bylaws since they both cumulatively own the majority of alternative energy patents out there. I don't my tax dollars going to private companies -- period. If all else fails, please remove the subsidies that you have on the Oil, gas, and coal industries.
*REMOVE ALL COMMODITY related subsidies. A lot of people do not know that American sugar, rice, cotton, etc are subisidies thereby keeping the price of these commodities [and more] high? Billionaire Trader Jim Rogers actually calulated that it'd be cheaper to pay every farmer $100,000 per year for the rest of their lives, give each a Porsche, and pay for their housing for the rest of their lives, and it'd save the government AND US Tax payers 50Million per year.
*Fix restrictions on patents please. If there is anything that should be done on this list it should be this. As matter of fact, this is the number one thing to do. PERIOD!
*Legalize weed and tax it via licensing at the federal level [like you do the alcohol and tobacco companies], then aggressively pursue those who violate the licenses [like you do moonshiners]. Granted, with weed it is harder to do this, and lot of potheads are going to hate me for saying this, but although it comes from the ground, and although it does wonderful things for us, if they legalize it, consider it a gift.
*Allow America to regain our status as the #1 Hemp leader in the world. Hemp Oil, Hemp Clothe, etc., kicks ass and can help create jobs.
*But man, we really need to do a NEW DEAL!!! Fine, take every non violent criminal and put them to work on this thing then. Give them a choice: Max punishment for sentence, or work 1-2 years fixing roads or digging ditches and *****. I'd love to see the CEOs of Lehman and Goldman shoveling asphalt into a road.
TL;DR: Legalize hemp, stop subsidizing *****, create more favorable tax laws to promote foreign companies to open here in states, close almost all overseas military bases, and number one: REDO LAWS ON PATENTS!!!
I am Strafefire, and I approve this message!
November 23, 2008 Posted by mitch |
politics |
I'm intrigued by this notion that Obama is a socialist. How so? Really? I don't get it.... How does him wanting to give healthcare to people because they can't afford it on their own because of Job cut backs and horrible HMO's that don't cover anything make him a socialist? Alot of americans have had to quit jobs and file bankrupcy because their HMO wouldn't pay for medical bills. Guess what happens then? You end up footing the bill for them anyway, I'd much rather we all pay into a system that keeps such things from happening.. The US has a lot of current plans that are like socialism already... in fact Ronald Regan called Medicade and Medicare socialistic practices, cause they are in a sense. Having the government pay for TSA is also socialism. There are alot of other things that also fall into it, but you get my point right? Claiming one candidate over another is a socialist is, well... dumb. Fact of the matter is Dems and Republicans aren't all THAT different. Knowing my family, friends and relatives are LDS, I would just like to point out one thing you may have missed in some of your "research". Senate Majority Leader (D-NV) Harry Reid IS LDS. Also there have been a few Apostles that were also Democrats, the one I know off the top of my head, Apostle Hugh B. Brown who said in his biography, "I am a Democrat because I believe they are kinder to the poor.".
A few other things you might have missed in all the research was that the crap that goes on in the Middle East and the bombings here in the US, is CAUSED BY US. Our meddling and support for various dictators in those countries (Courtesy of the 9/11 Commission Report). It makes people not like us. So... we should pull out, and leave them the hell alone. Its not that they hate our freedom, its in how we try to "spread" it... they're perfectly capable of doing it on their own should they want it.
And another thing I hear a bit... that its all the Beginnings of the Second Coming... I'm dumb founded by this type of comment... I mean... your saying we should continue to fight and cause all sorts of ruckus because of the writings of the second coming in the bible? Really? So... may I pose a few questions... Why would you agree to life saving surgery's and medicines if you believe this? I mean, if you die, not by your own volition, and you've lived well... then you go to heaven right? So... why agree to it? I'm just wondering, because I know you all would.... Everyone will do anything possible to save their own life, and yet its somehow ok just to continue having our solders and those Middle Eastern Muslims die in the name of the Second Coming. Some how Though shalt not kill has been underwritten to include text something like "unless your Muslim/Middle Eastern/In the way of the second coming". And I'm ashamed of everyone of these so called Christians that are wishing ill will towards ANYONE (That's not in the bible). As far as writing me back about any of this, don't. Because I don't care what you say. You've justified all these actions to yourself until you whole hardily believe it. However, just because you believe this way, does not mean I will treat you any differently. I will still always be civil, and I expect the same from you. We can agree to disagree of sorts.
I also want to point out some retarded claims of Obama causing the worst 4 years in history. You obviously haven't lived in this country for the last 8... Cause I could have sworn that the last four years were the worst ever. Apparently there are quite a few that agree with me, being that George W. Bush has the worst approval rating of ANY president EVER, even Nixon had a higher approval rating. I have seen my digital rights as well as my privacy be striped over these last 8 years more than any year previous. The government has gotten to its BIGGEST point EVER, and somehow its the Dems fault? The Department of Homeland security is the biggest joke and excuse for a department if ever there was one. Guess what... we had a department that was dedicated to homeland security... you all know it... three initials, FBI. So why is it we believe that the Dems cause bigger government? Bush and cronies have done a real bangup job of getting the Government to its largest size ever. And I'm an equal opportunity complainer, I know that the Clinton Administration created the current housing debacle, the fact still stands that the Bush Administration AND congress knew about, and have known about it for years and have done nothing to fix it. BOTH parties. Which leads me to a position I've held for quite a while... I've been saying to vote out EVERY incumbent. I don't care what party they were apart of, if they've been in office for more than 4 years, VOTE THEM OUT. I don't like McCain because of this... he's been a career politician for a long time, and had the ability to stop, or even attempt to try to change things. The only people in office I've liked that can stay, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich. Why these two? They're both from different parties and actually have completely opposite view points about government. Ron Paul has constantly stood out against alot of the crap that goes on in Washington. Dennis was the only politician pushing for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney for High Crimes(which they both deserve jail time for). AKA, they were BOTH going for CHANGE. That is what I want. The current system isn't working out well. One thing Obama's been for is transparency in the Legislative branch. He wants all bills to be put on the Internet and able to be viewed by the public at large as soon as they're proposed on the house and senate floors. As well as a way easily track how each candidate voted. Being in technology, I know that such a thing isn't difficult. He however was getting lots of opposition (mostly from republicans) about the bill. Sounds like someone wants to keep hiding the pork? By the way, hear about the 7 counts of illegal gifts received by Alaska's Republican Senator Ted Stevens was found guilty for? Good thing they replaced him... Finally.
I upgraded to Intrepid Ibex long before I should have... Hardy Heron(8.04) is an amazing release, where 8.10 seems to have a lot of fine tuning still needed. I reinstalled back to Hardy yesterday on my laptop because of some issues with wireless (Intel 4965 - 802.11n), suspend wasn't as great any longer, and vpnc wasn't working. I also had upgraded my Mythtv/Router box as well... and now I wish I could take that back, however that ones not an easy reinstall, so I'll work with it for now.
anyway, after my reinstall back to hardy, my vpn is still not working, and I get the error: vpnc: receiving packet: Message too long
After some googling and not turning up anything, I decided to launch wireshark on my laptop and watch while I ran my vpnc-connect. Turns out the Message too long is a rather obscure way of saying that it was getting an ICMP fragment error... the IPSEC packet was set not to fragment and the packet was to large for some MTU setting on my uplink some where. I thought I'd check my router box... which has three nic's in it... one for wireless, one for wired lan, the third is my internet(eth0). Since it was doing the same thing on both wired and wireless, I checked eth0 which is where it plugs into the cable modem. Sure enough the MTU size on eth0 was set to 576 bits. I ran "sudo ifconfig eth0 mtu 1500" and tried my vpn connection again and it connects. My cable has been up and down all week (Thanks Comcast!), it could be an issue with the cable modem or it could just be the new kernel in intrepid ibex... so, for now, I'll add the following line in /etc/rc.local
ifconfig eth0 mtu 1500
this sets the MTU to 1500 on boot(if it wasn't DHCP I could add an mtu 1500 line for the interface in /etc/network/interfaces)
November 8, 2008 Posted by mitch |
politics |
I find it somewhat amusing at the rhetoric I hear living in one of the most red states in the union. Especially from members of my own family, just because I lean more left than I do right(But I don't consider myself aligned by any party in particular, as I believe they're all not without fault). Let me help you with my position on life a bit... I grew up with a thirst for technology, and naturally, a love for science and logic are a result. I don't respond to emotional plea's and scare tactics, because I immediately wonder why, what the purpose of such an action is based on... Logic and Facts? or someone's belief? If it can't be backed by something other than belief, then its placed in a "to be determined" state in my mind. After all... that's what my Critical Thinking classes have pointed out to be the correct response.
Now on to why I voted Obama. I voted for him, not just because he's a democrat, not because he is African American, not for his stupid slogan of "hope", and "change". But for the change he has already brought to the senate, and the change I expect to see from world leaders. World Leaders like him, and we could use some help from the world at this point in time. Having world leaders getting along and talking is a *GOOD* thing, regardless of how we actually like their policies. Fact of the matter is... the world hasn't liked Bush's policies with regards to them, and I must agree. I don't want war, I'm tired of the war we are in, I don't want to go to war with Iran, Venezuela or any other country. I want the focus to be on our homeland. If the Iraqi's want to kill each other... let them, they need to figure it out for themselves. Being in the US I don't understand their culture, nor will I make any such claim to. What I do know is... spreading "Democracy" isn't something you can slam down someone's throat, they need to want it. Just stop meddling in their affairs. Take care of home. Supporting various Regimes for some sort of desired outcome has only come out to bite us in the end (Hussein AND Bin Laden anyone?).
I love Ron Paul's take on foreign affairs, and we could use some more of that. However, He's unlikely to get elected in my lifetime because libertarianism is only favored by a small select few. Everyone wants the government to step in and monitor and control everything.... and for a system such as Paul's to work, people would have to stop wanting that, and stop allowing the government to get bigger and bigger. Individual liberty needs to be EVERYONE's top priority, so the whole illegal NSA wire-tapping would not be tolerated, Gay Marriage should not even be an issue, and what content is in Movies/TV/Radio/Video Games, is not an issue for ANY government agency. No Medicaid, no Medicare, no social security. No to a ot of things... there are some good things that result from such, but as I said... we are so far from accepting anything that closely resembles it, that its... not vote-able. So, I'm left with picking someone that can work in the political and social structure that we currently have, but still enact change that I believe to be beneficial. I don't like war, so, I want someone that will get us out of it and focus on the issues at home, not run off and start a new one with Iran. And considering all that I've heard bush say over the last 8 years... I don't want anyone close to him... Obama being a lawyer is a good sign he is more intelligent than Bush. I never believed McCain to be a bad guy, however I do believe he was being influenced by the NeoCons of Bush/Cheney and company. That I don't like, for him to have ever had a shot with me, he should have pushed that off instantly.
Now, do I believe I made the correct choice, absolutely. Will I be paying higher in taxes? who knows, from the analysis from his tax plan that I keep seeing on CNN, latimes, and other sources I'll be paying less with Obama. Will he bankrupt coal power plants, from what I heard him say... he could bankrupt new, non clean, coal power plants. Will we get the socialized medical attention that the rest of the modern world has? doubtful, least not in the first 4 years. As for the other negatives I've heard about him... They're not even worth mentioning because their ridiculous.
