Linux Longevity 1

The last year or so, my search engines have been clogged with blots (I decline to dignify them as blogs) about what is right/wrong with Linux. Most of the instances I have actually traced seem to be from folks with only a few (very few) months of Linux time. As someone who started using Linux in the previous century – and blossomed with it on retirement (freedom from Yankee government paranoia,) I have a few comments to offer. These comments are based purely on my own experience I don’t pretend to speak for others who use Linux.

I should mention that as a Civil Service employee I had to use Microsoft WINDERS, Apple OS, as well as Linux and its relatives. The first desktop I used was an HP-9830 which was great for simulations and number smashing but as word mangling friendly as a CDC mainframe.

What is the HARDEST thing about Linux? ANS: the First Install. Simply put what is hard about Linux is 

• download the distribution: this is in a range of difficulty of impossible to circumcision sans anesthesia because the Yankee government considers downloads to be acts of espionage;
• burn the distribution on a USB stick: this is actually even harder because it takes a signature from a senior civil servant (GM-14 or higher) to be issues a USB stick;
• Install the distro on an old PC: this is semi-criminal. There is no rule – that I know of – to install a non-authorized OS on a old junker PC but it’s the sort of thing that brings the security wonks out in force with their long knives and blood lust.
• Of course, these are also hard for folks in private industry or working at home on their own system. The rest of Linux is easy.

Alabam Polantics Too

The race is heating up. I hear more and more prevarications from candidates. My favorite is the use of the term “Professional Politician” as a hate term.

I realize that a substantial fraction of our Alibam voters did not actually graduate high schule, much less collech, but this one is so bad it makes me hurt with laughter. The question is: what is a professional? The answer is: someone who gets paid for what they are doing.

I should also comment that the opposite of a professional is an amateur, which is someone who is ignorant, incapable, and dangerous.

All of these seem to be dead-on descriptions of many of our candidates, especially the prevaricator Dur-Ain’t. 

Simply put, any politician who hasn’t been elected to ANY office is an AMATEUR and any politician who has been elected to any office is (at least partly) a PROFESSIONAL since they get paid. (I should comment that I know some elected politicians who decline their pay. They hold offices in small towns with smaller budgets and they want that money spent on keeping their citizens safe and secure rather than lining their retirement accounts. But these guys are few and honest, which isn’t the majority.)

So all these blow hards who denigrate “Professional Politicians” are people who are either untested, wet-behind-the-ears, amateurs or self-evident prevaricators.

In particular, I am fond of the so-claimed aviator Dur-Ain’t. Seems his prevarications are deeper than I thought. A couple of his FORMER engineers left because of his cowboy attitude towards workplace safety. And, of course, having an Ass Hat for a boss. But then all engineers think any boss who isn’t an engineer is an Ass Hat. 

They also claim his vaunted combat record is as overinflated as the Hindenburg (and evidently just as flamable?) I can’t confirm any of this but if you lose good technical talent because of your management incompetence – and then blame it on real public servants – I sure don’t want to trust you with my tax payments and health.

Let’s take a leaf from the Alibam chief quack. Keep these irresponsible politicians at home where we’re safe from them.

Amerikan Rot

There is an old joke about the “height of stupidity.” Now there is an example in real life [Link] Sems this Louisiana chap was struck down by the Bat Plague and having been rescued by a hospital and attendant medical staff, is now refusing to be vaccinated.

I’m not sure how high this is but it is probably comparable to the “red” moon I saw this morning on my daily constitutional.

Speak of seeing, it seems like Herr Drumphf will not repeat his choice of vice if he runs in the next presidential election.[Link] What the article doesn’t say is that Herr Pence likely has more sense than to play second seat to Der Schiser and – we hope – will run for the oval office on his own merits, one of which was surviving four years as deputy to the worst marshal in Amerikan history.

Let’s see, Herr Drumphf was the nincompoop who infected most of his Secret Service detail. Which about sums up how well he served the nation.

Youth versus Stupidity

Yesterday was a Noah day here in Greater Metropolitan Arab. Not a great lot of water but a little bat continuously. So the robins in my back yard were trying to figure out how to emulate ducks and make swim fins. And this morning I looked at the ten day forecast and saw that the whole week will be a grace of deluge.

The week does not foretell well. Every so often the “gotta-do”s condense and this week is one of something tedious, even unpleasant, every day. The only good thing I can say about it is that it’s completion will be a boon. 

I also got an exposure to some news that I can only characterize as stupidity in action.

First, [Link] the young Pakistani woman Malala is in the news again, advocating some personal relationship other than marriage. And the Bubbas of Pakistan are upset and threatening her life again. 

There are great similarities between Alibam and Pakistan. Both are largely populated with religionist Bubbas, lacking cognitive ability but stalwart in their acceptance of religionist nonsense. Both have thieving, evil politicians. Except in Pakistan they are sometimes religionist leaders akin to the preachers in Alibam. Neither do anything beneficial or positive but they are very good at hurting people and taking their money. 

Second, [Link] a young Hispanic fellow was supposed to graduate from high schule last week but because he draped his gown with a Mexican flag, the local schule politicians eradicated his graduation.

Because he “violated the dress code.”

Great similarity here. Two young people violating social mandates in the interest of better living. Sound like something capitalists and communists alike would detest. I’m not sure which the Pakistani religionist Bubbas are but they are definitely of the same ilk as the people who ran the Hispanic kid’s high schule.

Evil oligarchs who cannot abide any expression of individuality or creativity. The same people who are causing poverty, starvation, and the collapse of the environment.  The same people who want to keep everyone else in mental and physical chains.

SO I have to say to the young: fight for what you want, you’re going to die anyway, and free is better than slave.

In The Bow-Wave 29

Yesterday, while motoring back to Greater Metropolitan Arab from provisioning, I was treated to a discussion of which capitalist parasitic organizations were and were not advertising on the (American) Football “Super Bowl.”

I have to admit to always wondering – when I hear this latter term – why (American) Football is equated with an appliance for the disposal of bodily waste? And what is the proportion of urine and feces in (American) Football? 

I also have to admit to not having attended a football competition since I was a first year graduate student and was exposed to U Illinois football boredom. One quarter was enough to fully encourage me to return to my books. And aside from my daughter’s – a “leader” of cheers in high schule – participation, I have not attended a game since. Besides, those latter were high schule competitions and rather as incompetent as only Alibama can be. Besides, my attendance was an embarrassment for her since I totally lacked something she called “spirit,” which so far as I could ascertain had nothing to do with either usquebaugh or imaginary post-demise beings. Although either would have been welcome as relief from the complete inanity and vacuity of the competition.

So far as I know, the same appertains to this toilet match that major parasitic capitalists will not be enabling. I somehow doubt such has anything to do with moral adversity to the pornographic nature of such competitions. (For the benefit of the unenlightened but learable – which excludes Bogs and Bubbas – the effect of spectator sports on human endocrine secretion while observing spectator “sports” is functionally identical to the secretion while observing films of human reproductive congress. And since the latter is considered to be pornographic, so must be the observation of spectator sports.)

What I found interesting in this boycott (?) of spectator athletics is that the products not being advertised were also not products that I purchase or use. Since the basic idea is that advertising increases sales of the product advertised, how then is it that I do not use any of these products? Presumably, some of these should be essential, but if I can live a healthy, useful existence without them, then how can they be any more justified than the tripe they are sponsering?

The world wonders and does useful things instead.

And then there’s just plain stupidity

“Face masks: what the data say” [Link]

It never ceases to amaze me of how dyscalculate and science ignorant some parts of the medical community are.

Is it because the general public ignores almost all of what they advance?

And why?

State of the Rational Nation

“If Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it,” Harris said of a vaccine, “But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I’m not taking it.”

So, Fartus Maximus, Killer of Americans – NYET!

Tony the Tyger – Finest Kind!

Arabian Metahumor

I find it rolling on the floor hilarious that the Pizza Hut (R) in Greater Metropolitan Arab folded Tuesday. [Link] 

What makes this laughable is the vast amount of effort and taxpayer funds that have been incompetently expended by the city government to attract “chain” restaurants to Arab. 

All they have accomplished has been failure and horrible swill in place of food.

Hurrah!! for Arab City Government!

Stercus Store Spotlight

This is a new series of blots that will spotlight commercial enterprises that are STERCUS by word or deed.

This first award goes to PUBLIX grocery stores [Link] who loudly announced a month ago that they were establishing special shopping hours for Seniors and Essential Workers and then this week, without any prior notice to either population, dropped those special shopping hours.

We seniors found out about this when we showed up Tuesday morning and got told to “pound sand” by the local management. 

So let us all show our support for PUBLIX by taking our business elsewhere and leaving them to rot in bankruptcy. I personally went to KROGER where they have good service and the staff isn’t as fakely congenial.

Congrats, PUBLIX, on being NUMBER ONE on the STERCUS SPOTLIGHT!

District Drek 2

The question is not why is the Justice Department charging Chinese hackers.

The question is why isn’t the Justice Department charging Equifax Management for Criminal Negligence?

Time to put C level oligarchs in prison.