"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
WARNING: This may be too geeky and “inside baseball” about connectivity for some. If so, move along. These are not the ‘droids you are seeking. The geeky voices in my head are just all jabbering too loudly for me to ignore them completely.
Continue reading “ISP Meddlers, Bumblers and Cretins, Oh My!”
Seen on Facebook:
Dear Mr. Grim Reaper, So far this year you have taken away my favorite dancer and entertainer Michael Jackson, favorite actor Patrick Swayze, and favorite actress Farrah Fawcett. Just so you know, my favorite politician is Barack Obama. Thank you.
Hmmm, reminds me of a lil ditty by W.H. Auden:
As poets have mournfully sung,
Death takes the innocent young,
The rolling-in-money,
The screamingly funny
And those who are very well hung.
Well, The 0! is certainly rolling in money, but he’s not all that young anymore, and I don’t have any idea how well hung he is, so everyone: please send him your best jokes. Two out of four ought to do the trick…
The Armed Geek linked to this Whizbang! post, and it’s worth passing along and commenting on, I think:
“There’s a trend emerging in American politics. I don’t think it’s a new one, but it’s growth is disturbing to me. And it’s the amazing hostility to the common people.”
Go read it. Now. I’ll wait for you to come on back. Go.
While a reverence for the “wisdom” of the common man is silly, even more silly–and dangerous–is the self-reverence our political masters engage in and the complete disregard and disdain for the views of those they supposedly represent. It is “They” who are the real problem in these (dys)United States nowadays. And I’ll tell you who they are, plainly.
We all know who the “They” of the Whizbang post THINK they are–those who deem themselves our political masters, our social and intellectual betters. Instead, “They” are themselves the scum of the earth, little minds wearing other peoples’ shopworn and discredited ideas with pseudo-intellectual pride, the self-enstupiated, self-absorbed glitterati whose entire lives are all hat, no cattle; all sizzle, no steak. “They” are the Beltway elites deafened by their own echo chamber, the vacuum-headed Hollyweird script readers and the Mass MEdia Podpeople. “They” all fluff each other in a never-ending circle jerk of self-congratulatory rape of our liberties.1
There is no way to dehumanize this “They” that “They” have not already claimed as their very own by their empty, bobble-headed, vile, venal2 behaviors.
And now that I’ve listed their good qualities…
*heh*
But still, remember this:
“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time… the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.”–Thomas Jefferson
Or, in Randall Thompson’s presentation of Jefferson’s thoughts on liberty, from “Testament of Freedom”:
[audio:http://www.thirdworldcounty.us/Media_Files/The-God-Who-Gave-Us-Life.mp3]Or, for those not using Flash,
The bastards may destroy our lives, but apart from taking our lives, “They” cannot take our liberty… without our cooperation.
Don’t let the bastards wear you down.
Lastly, despite the destruction wrought on our society by the appeal to the lowest common denominator (I typoed, “demoninator” there. Freudian slip?) by the “They” seeking (apparently) to enstupiate the common man with toxic cotton candy (the end result of The Revolt of the Masses *sigh*), this:
[audio:http://www.thirdworldcounty.us/Media_Files/fanfare-common-man-excerpt.mp3]And again, for non-Flash users,
Fanfare for the Common Man–excerpt
Despair is a deadly sin. Again: don’t let the bastards wear you down. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” as Dylan Thomas put it.
1BTW, the couple of vulgarities–verging on the obscene–I included in my indictment of “They” are just that: vulgarities. In the past, I’ve had some object to vulgarities such as that as “profanity” or some other subliterate appellation (“cursing”? *feh* Save me from burgeoning enstupiation and subliteracy!). I chose the specific vulgar comment consciously, because the very least, most inoffensive behavior of “They” is so far beyond the most offensive vulgarity I can imagine that it was just about the mildest way I had available to describe “They’s” obscene, evil, “…iniquitous, nefarious, sinful, vicious, wicked… ” etc. nature. Blame them, not me.
2“venal” is used here as shorthand for “mercenary; crooked, cutthroat, dishonest, unethical, unprincipled, unscrupulous; corrupt, debased, debauched, degenerate, degraded, demoralized, depraved, dissipated, dissolute, perverse, perverted, warped; bad, evil, immoral, iniquitous, nefarious, sinful, vicious, wicked, etc.”
Wow! Maybe The 0! really is the messiah he thinks he is. Jobs created ex nihilo!
Jobs ‘Saved or Created’ in Congressional Districts That Don’t Exist
Amazing! Jobs not only “created” out of nothing, but where were they “created”? NOWHERE, mon frere!
I tell ya, the guy’s amazing.
I posted this a few years ago, but since it’s soup and stew weather, and since I just put a batch of this in the slow-cooker (well, actually in the Wolfgang Puck rice cooker, but that’s another story), I thought I’d repost it.
This is a really, really simple recipe with a Southwestern flair. Since it’s mostly just “open cans, dump” it’s also quite fast to assemble. The only “cooking” required is to pre-cook some chicken.
Cook–any old way that’s easy or comfy for you–a chicken, or just cook 5-6 chicken thighs. White meat’s not as juicy and tasty, so I major in dark meat for this, but you can pick and choose for your own taste. I generally skin the chicken before cooking, but whatever suits you. Cooking the day before and store the chicken in the fridge–or even a week and freeze–then cool and de-bone the chicken.
Just assemble the ingredients listed in any order you want in a slow cooker:
Chicken, as above
1-28oz (or two 15oz) can of green enchilada sauce
2-4oz cans chopped green chiles
2-15oz cans white hominey
1-15oz can of cannellini beans
1-4oz can chopped mushrooms
1-chopped onion, pre-“sautéed” (the quotation marks are cos I “sautée” onions for such as this by placing them in a microwave safe container with a lil olive oil and nuke ’em for a minute or so. YMMV. 2 mins at half power works best in my microwave.)
about 2C water
You can feel free to add some “sautéed” minced garlic–do the garlic with the onions so as not to overcook the garlic–some freshly ground black pepper and even some cumin to taste. I do. Heck, I’ve also been known to add some Rotel’s Diced Tomato & Green Chilies for a lil added taste touch. But not the tomato and habaneros Rotel also sells. (Too much heat for my Wonder Woman.)
Crock pot as normally. Eat with (white, if you have ’em) corn chips, corn bread, lightly toasted corn tortillas, or whatever suits your fancy.
A couple of small notes: while I do rinse the cannelini beans, I do not rinse the hominy. While most folks do rinse the hominy, I’ve not found it adds any benefit to do so. 😉
This is a chicken “white bread” version of a pork posole recipe. If you prefer, you can pre-cook some pork chops, pork shoulder or whatever, and substitute that for the chicken. It’s just as good but with a slightly different flavor. 😉
The 0!’s entire administration to date has been a Kabuki theater production written by Jean-Paul Sartre on crack, produced by Karl Heinrich Marx and Friedrich Engels (without benefit of the opiate of the masses), and directed by Chairman Mao.
For the American Sheeple, attendance and applause is mandatory. For the rest of us, the response is more complex…
Apparently I don’t. *heh* Sharing folders between my Linux Mint VM and the Windows 7 it was running on wasn’t really all that straightforward and I “needed” (OK, wanted) access to some files while in Mint–and to “drop some files off” in appropriate places from Mint to Win7. So, rather than sit down and just make file sharing between the physical computer and the virtual one work “right” I just used the Opera Unite feature I’d already enabled on the Opera 10.10 beta I was running on the Win 7 “side”.
Yeh, yeh, that meant I had to download and install the same Unite-enabled beta for Linux, too. Big deal. A few seconds’ download and install. Seriously. Mind you, this is really only so I can designate shared folders on the virtual machine as well.
And there I was: able to log onto folders I’d already shared using Opera Unite on the Windows 7 physical computer and drop in files I’d downloaded on the Linux “side” as well as access some media files and a pdf I wanted to read on the Linux side.
Nice. Now, if I just pack up the Opera Unite (XXXX computer, whatever :-)) url and password onto a flash drive, I can easily and securely access files on my physical machine (and even the VM, if I keep it “on”) when I’m out and away. Yes, I can do a similar thing using Logmein, but this is easier, more lightweight and just plain more elegant. Fun.
Robert Heinlein, speaking in “Take Back Your Government”, a handbook for neophytes in politics:
Your object… is to win elections, not arguments. If you will always remember that, you can’t go far wrong.
The second thing to remember is that elections are won with votes; those votes are out in the precincts, not down in the politico-financial district, not in political clubs, not at political rallies.
The third thing to remember is that a vote for your side never becomes a reality unless you see to it that the holder thereof gets down to the polls and casts it. This should be printed in red ink and set off with flashing lights.
The fourth thing to remember is not to waste time arguing with a hard case. In the years I have spent in politics I cannot honestly say that I recall ever having persuaded anyone to change his mind about how he was going to vote on an issue or for a candidate if he had already made up his mind when I approached him. Yet I know that I have influenced and sometimes changed the outcome of elections through my own efforts.
Now, go tattoo those on your forehead between now and next November…
Dated though it is, after 63 years of political degeneration, this book by Heinlein detailing what he had learned in his own political experiences is proving to be a very valuable investment of a (very) little money and my time to read. Dated? Well, yes. Heinlein goes on at length about “honest politicians” being the norm in his experience, but his definition of “honest politicians” doesn’t seem to fit many nowadays. *sigh*
Thanks to Instapundit for the mention.
“A nation of sheep will surely beget a government of wolves.” -Henry de Jouvenel
The ever increasingly lupine nature of our “feddle gummint” tells me that our political elite and “feddle gummint” bureaucraps definitely think we are a nation of sheep.
Is it so?
🙂
The last time I tried VirtualBox for Vm environments, it just didn’t ring my chimes. I have since (mostly) used VMWare’s (mostly) free software offerings to build virtual machines with some successes… and a very few failures.
The last few days attempting to build VMs for various ‘nix boxes inside a Win7 environment have proven to be mixed successes and frustrations with VMWare’s solutions. The big problem: input devices and other peripherals that I just have NOT been able to get working right. Oh, “working” (for low-expectancy values of “working” *heh*), but not working well–particularly mousing.
*Hair Pulling* And the VMWare Tools that usually fix these irksome little things have proven intractable. Install VMWare Tools? Always a snap in the past. Now? *Pulling Hair*
Sooo, VirtualBox got another look. It just works. Mousing and keyboard capture work better OOB. And installing “Guest Additions” (the VirtualBox answer to VMWare Tools)? Not only easy-peasy, but also slicker integration of peripherals and the guest OS. Very nice.
So far, just Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu 9.04) installed in a VirtualBox VM, but I’m liking it lots better than the same OS in VMWare’s VMPlayer. Lots.
Oh, and Linux Mint itself? A slicked up version of Ubuntu. Navigating around is much simplified, and it’d be an easier transition for most Windows users to transition to Linux using Mint than even a stable version of Ubuntu (like 9.04, and soon–I hope–9.10). Still as usable as regular-drip Ubuntu, just lots slicker.
Mini-example: getting to the “Control Center” is trivially simple, now, and it just looks cleaner and more easily navigable:
Oh, and Mint comes with a buncha stuff thrown in to make things “just work” OOB, like… flash player, whereas regular, unleaded Ubuntu can take some fiddling to get media things (particularly flash stuff) working right. Hmmm, even recognized my red eye dongle for my media center remote. Now, that’s an accomplishment I never achieved in regular, unleaded Ubuntu! Nice. Next? A 64-bit version of Mint, I think… Then a VM using regular, unleaded 64-bit Ubuntu (9.04, for now I think). Then, PCBSD and one or two more.
Oh, and I started this post on the Windows 7 side and finished it in the Mint VM. Easy-peasy. Now, to install and configure WINE…
Oh! That was trivially easy! I decided to try installing WINE as though I were a (slightly brighter than average *heh*) typical Windows user, so I poked around in the Menu of the taskbar until I found something called “Mint Install”. Clicked it, entered my password and “Wine” in the search field and… didn’t see Wine as a package available for installation but did see “Wine Doors”–an app to make installing Windows apps in Wine easy. “OK,” thought I, “let’s see what that does.”
It installed the latest Wine along with the Wine Doors Windows apps installer.
Could not be easier. Of course, for Windows apps not in the Wine Doors list of apps available for installation, I’ll need to use the typical Wine installation procedures, tricks and such, but I had immediate success installing Irfanview using the lil helper app for Wine, so I can see this sort of thing making a transition easier for Windows users that simply canNOT give up World of Warcraft (2,3 available for installation in WD), for example. *heh* Such as this is definitely going to make offering a Linux option to folks easier.
Micro-mini-update (11/16/09):
*sigh* Had some weird memory errors and a “freeze” in my Mint VM. Oh, well. Easy fix. I just specified more memory to be allocated to the VM and, presto! Memory errors went away. Hmmm, if I’m going to run very many more of these VMs simultaneously, I guess I need to look at increasing my system memory overall. Oh! My! What horrors! Buy more memory? Add it to this system (well, actually, replace the memory in the ststem in order to DOUBLE it)? That’s like when I just HAVE to buy more tools (Ooo-Ooo! *heh*). What a terrible burden… *VBG*
Unfortunately, memory for this system is almost twice as expensive today as this time last year… Oh, well.