Xaiu

I opened a snail mail from my brother and found this photograph of my first chow in it.  It looks like its at my parents house at some family thing.  Although, it might not be since during my father's final illness which lasted for several years I would drive up there every other weekend and usually bring Xaiu along with me.  He was always a hit with the folks at home and especially the kids because he looked like a teddy bear.  The trouble with that was that he didn't like people, especially kids.  He was never mean, but miserable when the kids tried to get him to play with them.  Once about four of them chased him down the hall and caught him in the corner.  He didn't bite or growl, but his tail uncurled and he looked more miserable then I've ever seen him look.  He was always a gentleman with people though.

He was one of the most dominate dogs I've ever had and he was more then willing to point this out to other male dogs many times his size (he weighed about 45 pounds).  In the end that is what killed him getting in a fight with another dog that was many times his size.  I wasn't there at the time.  I still miss him and that was over ten years ago.

Well this mail came and this photo dropped out and I couldn't believe it.  I walked away from it at least three times before I could actually come back and look at it.  I"m glad I've got it, but it was a shock to first see it.without a warning.

(I'm playing with a scanner and I experimented with this to see if I could scan it and cut the edges so there was nothing other then the photo.  I think it worked well.)

I Want My Scroll Back

There are days that I think I am almost monk like in my attempt to comprehend our electronic world. Perhaps I would be in better mental shape if I just took a little time and surfed the web and read some simple books concerning the stuff that goes on inside these little thingies.

Ubuntu?

A crush of work, worry about my office mate, a general feeling of malaise and my normal sloth have prevented me from writing much recently. Many things have caught my eye including the report from that well known reporter, Anonymous concerning the apparent belief by the congressional democrats that the only reason they lost was that the people just didn't know how much they had indeed done and that they just couldn't get their message out there. And that because and therefore they got their asses handed them on a platter.

I have worked with people who were in an active stage of an incapacitating delusional mental illness, and they were not, I believe, as delusional as that. There are certain things believed or statements made by a person which I normally feel I cannot respond to because the statement made or belief held is so far from an even fleeting brush with reality that that person does not exist in the real world and that without entering that (kind of) parallel universe: A democratic senator thinking that they have performed admirably in the last two years and the only reason they lost was because they didn't explain it well enough to me; is just one of those things. (Some one arguing that the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or Yeman are necessary for our nation's safety is another. The continuing war on the use of marijuana is another, at least when some one insists that marijuana is a dangerous drug.) I suppose these later two things can be justified because they help the powerful get and maintain control over the hoi poli. Not, however for the reasons put out there.

But a democratic politician thinking that his party lost because they were unable to explain their governing brilliance to the electorate is a level of delusion that is simply breath taking. It evidences an ignorance that is just well, special.

Now one other reason I haven't been writing much and the cause of the title of this little piece is that I have been coming home at night and attempting to install Ubuntu on to one of my older computers to see how I would like it. It is I am told no problem at all, but I cannot get it done and now I am in a quest mode sort of like Arthur or Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Vacation, if you will.

Curse you Bill Gates. (Incidentally this is being written on a version of Linux called Xandros if you are interested.

UPDATE: My wife points out that perhaps I should have used the Google and typed in say: "Installing Ubuntu on an older computer." But I think that that would have been cheating don't you?

More Nihilism

Crooks and Liars has a post up about NetRootsNation in Vegas and about the divide there between those who see Obama as mostly a sellout and those who apparently applaud him for his "realistic pragmatic" approach to governing. I started to read the comments and then realized that I had a ten year old DVD of Midsomer Murders to watch.

I went back this morning, and saw that there were nearly 200 comments and since I generally don't bother with threads that are over about 75, I'm probably not going to bother to read all the comments.

The post is a "one the one hand there are some people who think, but on the other hand there are other people who think differently" kind of thing. I guess it is interesting to see someone admitting that there is that kind of divide, but all I have to do is to go to Balloon-Juice and then to Firedoglake to see that kind of fight going on between one kind of liberal and another kind. Particularly, if one reads the comments sections.

One of the irritants of that post, is that if one goes to B-J and reads those comments there are a great deal of gratuitous swipes at FDL, but not so many the other way around. Although to be fair (and why should I do that?) I haven't done any real statistical stuff, it is more anecdotal, so I guess I could be wrong, but I doubt it. So I'm saying that it is a false equivalency and more or less like the MSM: He said, She said.

Essentially, I think that what is going on is that those who have put their trust in Obama and the Democrats have to believe, no matter what they do, that their trust has not been misplaced. The longer they refuse to admit what is going on the less likely they are to look at Obama's policies in a rational and critical light and therefore they continue to insist that we must support him, no matter what. That is what happened with Clinton after all. After NAFTA after GATT after gutting welfare leftists still went all out to back him in the 1996 election. I suspect that 2012 will be a version of "second verse same as the first" if one considers the first verse to be Bill Clinton. Whether the re-election of the president will be the outcome is another question.

Remember that the republicans are crazy and corrupt where the democrats are only corrupt. I think that those who continue to back Obama and the democrats think that is a good thing.

So all I can say is: Nihilists of the world unite.

UPDATE: So as soon as I write about the BS along comes Balloon-Juice.

On The Road Again

Getting ready to hit the road. Got a great house sitter the dogs love her and she likes to stay at our place so it all works out well.

On the other hand my traveling computer, the ASUS solid state is sitting in the computer shop because one or more of the cats decided that the wire from the charger was tasty and of course that specific computer is rare and they have to ship the part from Indonesia or where ever to get the thing up and running.

For some reason all the cats are still alive.

Phished?

So that is what it means. My wife is back on Yahoo (with much more security)(if we told you we would have to kill you), but never to be permitted on Facebook under her former handle.

Friends who made the mistake of responding to the original emails, are still getting follow ups that are more specific and more detailed.

Her "christian" "friend" is still angry and calling to complain about getting the emails. We must get a land line to speak to her she says. My wife says that is no problem she will not be speaking to her in the foreseeable future. She will not be going into the book store, but will be buying things on the Internet instead of at a local place owned by a person who used to be a friend.

It is very strange, all our mostly not very computer literate (and christian) friends chuckle and move on but this person is still angry at us for compromising her. How she was compromised we have no idea, nor I suspect does she. Although she is now positive that her bank account and her adult children's bank accounts have been breached, no amount of reasoning can convince her otherwise.

Oh yeah, she has told my wife that if we lived a righteous life this would not have happened and we wouldn't have caused her so much trouble. Of course my response is one word: Job.

It is kind of sad since the previous owners of the bookstore were real wackallones who were more than willing to sell the Clinton murder tape and she is not willing to participate in that kind of silliness.

An absolute fear of something she does not understand and does not want to understand. So she blames the "victim." Although really not much of a victim and since the email was simply a request for money and since no one sent the money ............................. more of an irritant I'd think.

I guess the attack by her long time friend is what is so disturbing. I now see how people in worse situations were more than willing to turn friends and neighbors in to the police state de jour. Well I guess I do not understand why or how, but I see it happening.

Perhaps it is just because we watched Trumbo the other day that it seems to resonate. Frightened people.

Hacked

So my wife's Yahoo and Facebook accounts have been hacked. Most of the people have either deleted the requests for money or called us and then deleted the requests.

However, one person, the owner of the christian book store in our town called the cops. Now the email said that we were in London and had been robbed and needed $1,500.00 to get home and gave a place to send the money. Most people either knew that we weren't out of the country or called or sent emails to see what was really going on.

However, one friend of my wife's, the owner of the christian book store freaked out. As I said she called the cops and then when my wife went in to the store to pick something up that she had ordered, she informed her that she (the bookstore owner) was now compromised and that we could no longer communicate with her either through email, facebook, or on the telephone (unless we obtained a land line). Further that she would contact the other law enforcement agency (the sheriffs department) if she got any other emails. My wife told her that she was concerned for the safety of our dogs (since cops were known to shot dogs) the woman said she didn't care.

I am kind of amazed. This is the only person who has responded this way, but I would expect that she represents a certain per cent age of people who are that scared of everything that they don't understand.

Explains a lot doesn't it?

A Brain Transplant

Well the H.P laptop required a brain transplant and so now we are starting over. I'm trying to figure out how to make things work and to down load some stuff. Right now Open Office is coming in so, and then I guess I'll do CCleaner. I'm also trying to figure out how to put the bookmarks back in the order I want.

Well I guess it will keep me busy ignoring my trial for tomorrow. Down in flames we go.

Computers

It is distressing regular computer no work. It turns out that there is a recall concerning the wireless of a lot of HP Computers. So even though mine is almost two years old the time bomb just went off so trying to get the thing working has prevented me from ranting (on line at least) about the MSM and Palin.

On the other hand one of the major problems concerning this campaign is that none of the real party leaders have really come out on attack. I remember when the Clenis stuff started and Hilliary said it was part of a vast right wing conspiracy. That forced the MSM to talk about it. Of course, the Blue Dress ended that. But of course that doesn't mean there wasn't a right wing conspiracy. Just because your paranoid, etc.

UPDATE: Well for those with a certain kind of HP computers.............. It turns out that even though my computer was out of warranty, there was in essence a secret "recall" of those particular kind of computers. They would just stop working as far as at least the wireless feature was concerned. Of course, I just found out about it because I had a secondary warranty that ran for a second year. Those people didn't want to fix the puter and told me about the HP extended warranty, thingy.

Of course this isn't quite as bad as when I got my brand new Plymouth Tourisimo several years ago. After several weeks my wife at the time kept saying that she heard something weird when we were moving. She insisted on taking it into the dealer and he told us: "Oh, yeah. About one in ten tires come apart from normal wear." Sweet.

God, I'm glad I live in a country where the corporations are totally crushed and controlled by the government and forced to reveal their inner-most secrets to the hoi poli.