Ubuntu Linux Update - UPDATED

 

No, my problem is still not solved, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to say a few things about Ubuntu Linux as an environment in which to work and play.

• From a user standpoint, Linux is not Windows. And it is not the Mac OS, though there are similarities in any two *-nix-based systems. Windows users will find that things are not in the same places, and many things do not work the same. If you do your own system administration and maintenance, familiar tools are missing, and others take their place.
  
• That said, most familiar tools, apps, games etc. have more or less exact equivalents in the Linux world:
  
  
  • notepad becomes gedit in Linux;
  • the Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail/news software have exact equivalents (and I do mean exact) in Linux;
  • the OpenOffice.org office suite, authored by Sun and used by Sun, HP, Dell, IBM and other familiar names, is a functional equivalent of Microsoft Office Word, Excel, etc., even to the point of reading/writing the same file formats if you wish;
  • the games are simpler and a bit slower-running than those on Windows, but Solitaire, Mahjongg and Tetris are all present in some form (sometimes in many forms);
  • Both simple and high-powered graphics editing software is available; some say that gimp beats PhotoShop, though I'm not one qualified to confirm that;
  • There's a simple photo manager, FSpot, that will exasperate you if you are accustomed to the Microsoft tools.

The good news about Ubuntu Linux (and many other, um, Linuxes? Linuces?) is this: everything is free... almost all software support is available without cost to the home user. This is a philosophical decision by the foundations that produce the software.

The bad news about Linux is this: everything is free. If you as an end user need support on a software product, you put your name in the queue and wait until someone with expertise recognizes your problem and feels like answering you. For my one big problem so far, I have received no answers in several days... none. Commercial support is available if one wants to pay for it. The whole concept is unfamiliar to (former) Windows users.

A lot of times, the problem emerges from the home-brew software that so typically fills the gaps in the operating system as shipped. For example, there is no intrinsic backup software in Ubuntu Linux, and you are pointed to a freeware product called Simple Backup Suite for what would be a rather nicely turned backup system with facilities for automation, etc. ... if it worked properly. Instead of working properly for me, it broke my filesystem; I have lost access to about 80 percent of my hard drive. Such is the cost of free software. Of course, all this free software is supplied with source code; I actually waded through reams of Python source in an attempt to find what, in the backup software, was wrecking my home. No, I didn't find it. But the source code is there, as is the legal license to modify it, if one feels inclined to a do-it-yourself approach... and if one is a developer by trade, has an environment set up for doing the job, etc. etc. Good luck.

Is Ubuntu (or any other) Linux a suitable free replacement for Mac or Windows in a business setting? Only if you have a support staff and environment equal to the task. It is cheaper to install, but no cheaper (and no easier) to support. I'd think long and hard before I committed a business of any size to a Linux-based network. Then again, there are the examples of IBM, HP, Sun, etc. There's no one answer: as in the rest of the real world, you have to evaluate by your own criteria and live with the decision you make.

I'll write more on the subject as it occurs to me.

---

UPDATE: The solution to my problem began with a reboot, a rare animal in the *nix world in my experience. Apparently, the memory image... but not the disk content... of the part of the filesystem containing the backup directories was somehow corrupted. A reboot (at least; other things I did may have had some effect) allowed me to see the previously invisible backup directories and to use 'sudo' to remove the files and then the directories. I have about 85GB (or 85 GiB, as it seems to be known in this universe) of free space now, having kept two of the full backups, one from yesterday and one from the beginning of June when I started this unplanned OS transition. For an old machine, 85 GiB is quite a bit of elbow room, especially given my reduced picture-taking habits these days. It's a good thing I don't have one of those new 20+ megapixel dSLR's...

Soon It's Gonna Rain... I... Can... Read... It...

 
Houstonians, expect a really rainy week. I... can... tell...

Exterior Decoration

 
TPM quotes from the Kagan confirmation hearing:

...

Ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) criticized Kagan for having "associated herself with well-known activist judges who have used their power to redefine the meaning of our constitution and have the result of advancing that judge's preferred social policies," citing Marshall as his son, Thurgood Marshall Jr., sat in the audience of the Judiciary Committee hearings.

In an example of how much the GOP focused on Marshall, his name came up 35 times. President Obama's name was mentioned just 14 times today.

Sessions said Kagan's reverence for Marshall "tells us much about the nominee," and he meant that more as an indictment than a compliment.

Kagan has said Marshall, who served as the lead attorney in the Brown v. Board of Education case leading to the desegregation of schools, is one of her heroes. ...
...

I believe there are some blatantly racist GOPers who need to spend some time having their faces rearranged. Would anybody care to join me for a couple of Sessions of nose redecoration?

Senator Robert Byrd (1917-2010) On The Eve Of The Iraq War

 
The lamentably late Senator Robert Byrd speaks out against the needless, preemptive, invasive, aggressive war the United States entered in 2003 and still pointlessly and destructively pursues today:

Byrd was unquestionably the greatest orator of our time in the US Senate. Watch his persuasive condemnation at the beginning of the pointless war that may yet destroy our nation, and see whether you are not moved to tears.

Byrd was not a perfect public official. It seems unlikely that someone who accumulated that much power over a political career could resist the temptation to apply that power in behalf of enriching his friends (and his state). But the good in him unquestionably outweighed the bad. His knowledge of and devotion to the principles of the US Constitution were unequaled and irreplaceable. What we have lost in Byrd is hard to estimate at this point, but as time passes and votes in the Senate transpire, that loss will be revealed, event by event, to our great sadness. R.I.P., Robert Byrd.

Need Ubuntu Linux Advice

... and cannot find it on the web site or any of the forums. Ubuntu Linux 10.04 Desktop; a third-party product called Simple Backup Suite 0.10.5ubuntu2.

Problem: Product went south after Linux version change 9.x-10.x. Continued backing up to local directories, filling my HD to within 1.0 GB of full. I decided to uninstall the backup s/w, and chose the "complete" uninstall, which wasn't: it didn't remove the backup files themselves. They're all under root-root ownership; I'm an Administrative user but that didn't help me delete them. Tried the famous "sudo" command; that didn't work. Weird internal format file that the filesystem doesn't even recognize. I need my HD back. I posted my woes on the SourceForge forum for the product, but my problem may be simpler than that, a simple misunderstanding on my part of user privilege in Ubuntu Linux. Any suggestions, folks?

(That's what I get for trusting a free product written in an event called the Google Summer of Code.)

(There goes Blogger, tinkering with the way its basic formatting works again...)

Friday Kamikaze Kat Blogging - UPDATED

 
Here's Esther, with Lily, in one of their more peaceful moments:

(CLICK TO SEE FULL-SIZE IMAGE)

Lily has a habit of backing up, running full tilt and crashing into the blind side of... a cat? a person? a wheelchair? It doesn't seem to matter much to her; it's the full-tilt part and the blind-side crash that appeal to her kitten's sense of play.

Night before last, it finally got to her. I was in my wheelchair, stopped at a hall crossing. I could not see Lily at all. I knew she was around, so I looked left, right, ahead and behind for about 30 seconds. She was none of those places. But she was directly below me. As I inched away from my parking spot, Lily made her typical move, a dash-out-in-front followed by a sudden reverse and face-off of the wheelchair.

She never made it. Let me emphasize right now that ultimately she was unharmed... but that was no certainty at the moment, as she let out a blood-curdling yowl. I had no idea which way, or even whether, to move. Eventually I inched forward. Wrong direction, as it turned out. Lily, who was still yowling, yowled louder. Esther (Lily's mom, remember) dashed in front of me, whirled, did a bit of yowling and growling herself, extended her claws at me and questioned my goodwill. I, in turn, questioned the legitimacy of her offspring. "What's 'legitimacy'?" she effectively replied. "That's where you find a smarter tomcat next time," I snarked, forgetting for a moment that she would know no more tomcats. She stalked off with her aggrieved kitten; I inched off toward the bathroom, which is where I was headed in the first place.

Two days later, all is quiet. Lily has made no further moves toward the wheelchair. I use the walker instead of the chair whenever I feel strong enough to do so. Ruffled fur and raised voices are much less frequent today. It's a good thing cats tend to forget conflicts! What concerns me most is that Lily is one of those kittens who have no fear, and I don't know how that can be taught in the proper degree without harming or terrifying the poor thing.

---

UPDATE: I think Lily is suicidal. First, Stella spotted her crawling through a hole in the base of the built-in dishwasher; one presumes the works are in there somewhere. Since Stella saw her, we didn't start the d/w until she emerged, and she was unharmed. Later, about 4:30am today, I heard a racket near the base of the lamp plugged in next to the easy chair I sleep in: of course it was Lily, doing her best to bite through the live power cord (the lamp was on). She did not stop even when I poked at her, shouted at her, etc.; I had to get up and chase her away in person. Stupid, stupid kitten, and fearless to boot! I hope she survives to a size where she cannot crawl inside equipment, and that she learns not to use power cords as chew toys. Sigh!

Killer Drones With Broken Phones... That Enough To Chill Your Bones?

 
emptywheel thinks so:

As bmaz pointed out last week (and Darkblack illustrated so brilliantly), killer drones are coming to America.


In fact, they’re coming to America in more formalized fashion, as Janet Napolitano confirmed that the US will add drones to the Texas border.

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it will station an aerial drone in Texas as part of its stepped-up surveillance of criminal trafficking along the Mexican border.

[snip]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) had pressed for months for a pilotless drone, and when it was slow in coming, Cornyn blocked Senate confirmation of Michael Huerta to be deputy director of the FAA.

On Wednesday, after learning that the agency had given its approval for the unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, to operate in Texas, Cornyn said he would allow a vote on Huerta.

...

Wunnerful, jes' wunnerful.

Supremes: Skilling Skates

 
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling's conviction on conspiracy because the law which he allegedly violated covered bribes and kickbacks, but Skilling was not alleged to have engaged in either of those activities.

Skilling is at present serving a 24-year sentence for this and other convictions in a prison in Littleton, CO. It is not clear yet whether the Court's reevaluation of the conspiracy conviction will affect the other crimes for which he is serving sentences.

I said it when the whole Enron scandal blew up: every Enron exec will eventually walk free. That's how it is in a corporatist society, and Dog knows corporations run America. So far, Ken Lay has died (that's one way to escape a sentence*) and Jeff Skilling may walk (or may not). At this point I'm 2 for 2 on our watching the bastards skate free. Anyone want to make predictions for the rest of the charges against Skilling or anyone else?

Welcome to America! Steal a little money, go to jail; steal a lot of money, go to the club and have a drink. May we join you at the club, Mr. Skilling?

---

*The most overtly Christian among Stella's friends, herself a former Enron employee, assures us that Lay got right with the Lord before he died. So... not serving his conviction on Earth, and not punished in the afterlife. Would you say Lay got a (ahem) damned good deal?

Obama Was Right To Relieve McChrystal Of Duty

 
McChrystal, or perhaps his staff, but certainly with his go-ahead, released statements which supposedly we will see tomorrow that are unacceptable to his role as a high-ranking military commander. It was an in-the-face challenge to the Commander-in-Chief, who happens to be Obama at the moment. If it was a deliberate affront by McChrystal to see how far he could push matters, well, the General learned exactly that. If it was an unintended overreach (unlikely in my opinion), it represented a failure of essential discipline of himself and his staff. Either way, Obama had no choice but to follow Harry Truman's course of action with General MacArthur: effective insubordination, whether it meets the legal definition or not, is simply not to be tolerated in an effective military.

BP's Catastrophic Spill

 
... of coffee:



(H/T Needlenose.)

DNS Slow, Blogger Fucked - I'm Going To Bed Early

 
At present, my domain name service takes nearly a full minute to look up www.google.com, with other lookups comparably slower. Yes, in answer to the typical first question from the AT&T Indo-Pak help guy's script, I've taken the whole connection down, rebooted the computer and reconnected, all in the proper order... twice. (I wish there were a way to poke those guys with a stick when they begin that script. This time I simply omitted calling altogether.)

As if that were not enough, Google is making changes to Blogger that are passing strange. On three separate posts, I clicked the link to the specific post, and found myself at the bottom of the page. I looked at the link behind "Link to this Post" and sure enough, there it was: a link to the #links anchor. Why? Ya got me; it makes no sense at all.

So I'm giving up for the night. By morning, it'll all be working properly, right?

RIGHT??

Don't let that stop you from reading the post below about the judge's ruling against Obama's moratorium. As chaotic and incremental as the post is, it contains something you need to know.

---

UPDATE: I must be tired to have clicked the "Links" link instead of the link to the post. Oh well. Unfortunately, the DNS really is count-on-your-fingers slow tonight. I'm going to bed anyway!

---

UPDATE: Next morning, everything's fine, including domain name service. So it (the DNS) was out, or at least very slow, for about 12-16 hours. It does make one think about the alternatives to land line DSL; there seem to be more of 'em every week.

Once Bought, Does He Stay Bought?

 
Clearly this anonymous federal judge is wholly owned:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday ruled against the Obama administration's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a blow to the White House which had hoped the ban would provide time to ensure other wells are operating safely.

A lawsuit was filed by Louisiana-based Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC and was joined by more than a dozen companies involved in offshore drilling operations to reverse the drilling ban imposed by the U.S. Department of Interior.

...

There's not much more in the article. Note, though, that the whole thing was done so secretively that it is not even clear which Louisiana federal judge made the ruling. Here we go again...

---

UPDATE: Sierra Club is appealing the decision. We still don't know what date, what court, etc. We must be mushrooms...

---

UPDATE: AP (sigh) has more details.

---

UPDATE: Ooooh, interesting, from the last-named article:

...

Feldman's financial disclosure report for 2008, the most recent available, shows holdings in at least eight petroleum companies or companies that invest in them, including Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon. The report shows that most of his holdings were valued at less than $15,000, though it did not provide specific amounts.

It's not clear whether Feldman still has all of the energy industry stock listed in the report. Recent court filings indicate he may no longer have Transocean shares. He did not own any shares in big companies such as BP PLC, which was leasing the rig that exploded, or ExxonMobil.

Feldman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his current holdings.

...

Once bought...

---

UPDATE: My DNS is going out again, so this is probably my last post on the subject for the moment. The blog Slabbed has a link to Judge Feldman's 2008 Financial Disclosure Report (.pdf), on which it appears that Energy is his middle name, or perhaps Offshore... in any case, he bought lots of such investments in 2008 (mostly reinvested dividends from the look of it), and there's no indication whether he sold it. This should be veeeery interesting, unless the good Judge manages to squelch the ensuing investigation of his potential conflict of interest. (Now we cross our fingers as I attempt to post this through whatever 'net problems I'm experiencing out there...)

---

UPDATE: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is preparing to issue a new ban, of which he says the following:

He promised that the new order will include evidence that "eliminates any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate, and within our authorities."

Anyone who is not blind, deaf and dumb can see and hear the evidence on the evening news, but I suppose Salazar will offer something a bit more formal.

Supremes Include Some Speech In "Material Support" Of Terrorism

This is not the first time the Supreme Court has ruled that some speech is not covered by the First Amendment (other than the classic "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater"), but most previous such rulings have been of the nature of "publishing a recipe for building an atomic weapon" or something similarly tangible and undeniably dangerous. Now the Court has ruled that Congress and the Executive branch may decide that providing "material support" to a designated terrorist organization, even if that support is advice and even if the aspects of the organization being supported are admittedly benign, is illegal, in spite of the First Amendment:

WASHINGTON — Rejecting a First Amendment challenge, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal law that bars providing “material support” to terrorist organizations.

...

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority in the 6-to-3 decision, said the law’s prohibition of providing some forms of intangible assistance to groups said by the State Department to engage in terrorism did not violate the First Amendment.

“At bottom, plaintiffs simply disagree with the considered judgment of
Congress and the executive that providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization — even seemingly benign support — bolsters the terrorist activities of that organization,” the chief justice wrote. He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr,

...

Please note that the decision breaks the usual majority split in the Court by including John Paul Stevens. Note also that Sonia Sotomayor, whom many of us were more than a bit concerned about at the time of her confirmation, once again voted in the civil-liberties bloc.

If Congress and the Executive branch are able to enforce a particular view of constitutional rights, then they aren't rights; they're privileges granted by the powers-that-be. That is not how the First Amendment was taught to me: even unpleasant speech, offensive speech, and unpatriotic speech are protected, according to tradition.

But tradition means nothing these days. If we have lost Stevens in his last year, we have lost the Court; if we have lost the Court, we have lost civil liberties. Let us mourn the death of protected free speech in America. How long will it be before what I am writing at the moment will be legally disallowed as "pro-terrorist"? It would never happen, you say? How recently would you have assured me that no American would be ordered killed by the government with no shred of due process, let alone a trial? What about "extraordinary rendition"; how recently would you have said such a thing was impossible in America? "Sedition" will return as a crime within my lifetime... and I'm rather old. Good work, fearmongers!

The One That Is 3 Feet Tall, Round, Wearing A Hemispherical Hat...

 
I just sent a comment to TCEQ (the state agency in Texas most like the EPA at the federal level) complaining about some of their staff revisions to water quality regs, specifically, changes to classifications of water for recreational use that would almost certainly result in adverse bacterial level changes in bodies of water designated safe for for swimming, boating etc. The comment, like most of them, was directed at a half dozen government officials, including the Governor's Office. So what did I receive in reply from Gov. Goodhair?

Thank you for sharing your opinion with the Office of the Governor. It will be forwarded to the appropriate staff member.
This message has been automatically generated. Please do not respond to this email.

Elsewhere, I found a photo of the staff member to which the comment was referred...

Ouch!

 
I awoke in the small hours of last night with a sharp pain mostly in a single point on the top of my left shoulder-blade, a sort of "cold" in the shoulder. It is difficult for me to type; worse, it is difficult for me to move to and from the computer. (Ever try propelling a standard wheelchair when your shoulder hurts?) A bit of aspirin and a little time have improved matters (even kitten Lily has offered sympathy and seems to understand not to afflict me with her usual rough play today), and I have every expectation of being able to blog more easily by sometime later today. But for the moment, it's really uncomfortable. Thanks for your patience; check back later.

Krugman On Washington's Replay Of 1930s Stupidity

 
Krugman:

Suddenly, creating jobs is out, inflicting pain is in. Condemning deficits and refusing to help a still-struggling economy has become the new fashion everywhere, including the United States, where 52 senators voted against extending aid to the unemployed despite the highest rate of long-term joblessness since the 1930s. 

Many economists, myself included, regard this turn to austerity as a huge mistake. It raises memories of 1937, when F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget helped plunge a recovering economy back into severe recession. And here in Germany, a few scholars see parallels to the policies of Heinrich Brüning, the chancellor from 1930 to 1932, whose devotion to financial orthodoxy ended up sealing the doom of the Weimar Republic. 

...

Yes, both political parties are acting as if fiscal austerity will result in saving the American economy. Oh, yes. All those jobless people and starving families will do a world of good, just as they did in 1937. Learned lessons are so easily forgotten, one wonders why historians and economists even bother to write anything down. Obama and Republicans alike are intent on proving which of them can act the bigger fools, which might be amusing if it weren't on the verge of driving millions of Americans to economic ruin.

I hope the Villagers end up eating like the very worst-situated of the people harmed by their actions. GODDAM FOOLS!

Whacking Social Security Because It's Not Solvent

 
Somebody with a good, sturdy right fist needs to plant it about two inches deep into Alan K. Simpson's face. Aside from his utterly unfeeling attitude toward the poor and the elderly, he is one of the rudest motherfuckers ever born in the U.S. of A. Read Jane Hamsher's account of the interview by Alex Lawson. What would Simpson's mother think?

Utah AG Offers Execution Play-By-Play On Twitter

 
That's right... on Twitter. Here are Mark Shurtleff's three tweets, as provided by TPMLiveWire at the link above:

A solemn day. Barring a stay by Sup Ct, & with my final nod, Utah will use most extreme power & execute a killer. Mourn his victims. Justice

I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims.

We will be streaming live my press conference as soon as I'm told Gardner is dead. Watch it at www.attorneygeneral.Utah.gov/live.html

Oh, yeah, now that serves a purpose. If nothing else, it labels AG Shurtleff as one of the most self-righteous SOBs in the nation. But it's worse than self-righteousness or even self-promotion: Shurtleff is enjoying the whole proceeding.

I'm sorry: no one, not even the victims' families and most certainly no government official, has a right to enjoy an execution. If it were anywhere other than Utah, I'd urge citizens to impeach Shurtleff, to throw him out of office immediately. But you know there's no hope of that.

Friday Cat Blogging Re-Run

 
See Tuesday's post. I can't possibly top that, and Lily isn't exactly being cooperative. It's a good thing Esther is so (relatively) calm...

Hayward To Be 'Sliced And Diced' By Angry Congress

 
BP group chief executive Tony Hayward will face Congress today after he and chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg met with Obama on Wednesday. Word has it that Congress is "fuming" at Hayward's interactions with the U.S. government to date.

BP's chief executive faces a flaying from furious US lawmakers Thursday over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a day after the energy giant pledged at least 20 billion dollars for compensation claims.

Tony Hayward faces fuming US lawmakers, some of whom have publicly suggested senior BP officials should "commit hara-kiri," after he and BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg were summoned to the White House on Wednesday.

...

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee, and the full committee chairman, California Democrat Henry Waxman, wrote Hayward this week to expect questions on documents showing company decisions before the explosion "that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense."

Ahead of the session, Stupak said of Hayward's appearance, "I expect him to be sliced and diced."

(I'll wager you never thought I'd quote Bart Stupak on this blog. Well, you lose!)

I hope Congress does the job with good, sharp knives, not those "it slices, it dices" devices (doggerel, anyone?) they advertise on late-night TV.

---

I'm off to the doc in a few minutes. If you see the event, let me know how it goes. If anyone ever deserved it...