Month: September 2009
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Faceless Americans That Make This Country Work Stand Firm, Mo Brooks MIA
Les Phillip at the March on Washington 2009 warning everyone to grab their gatorsLes Phillip didn’t stay home working on the campaign waiting to get elected to Congress before making his voice heard. Instead, he came to Washington not as a candidate for AL-5, but as one of the faceless Americans that get up every day and make this country work.
Two million government-unsubsidized Americans made their way to the Nation’s Capitol yesterday to stand firm and let this Administration know that we’re “mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.” Les stood with those of us from the Shoals2DC, Birmingham, Montgomery and volunteer representatives from around the country.
Where was Mo Brooks?
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Arrival in DC
- There are several attractive young ladies that are on our buses.
- The iPod shuffle had strong representation on our bus.
- Suduko was also popular on my bus.
- Number I saw expected to attend march from across the nation: 50,000.
- Trip takes 14.5 hours because of poor management when stopping and trying to make a dinner stop 30 miles out from the hotel.
- Upon arrival at the hotel, I am told that no less than 500,000 are expected from across the fruited plains.
- I make these posts and go to bed expecting to be sleep deprived in the morning.
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Traveling to DC
Intro, Disclaimer, and a Word about Networking
Although I won’t be able to post in real-time, I will, however, try to keep the posts in order when I do post. I’ve been promised a wifi connection in the hotel, but I don’t count on it. I believe that I am also the only one who had the foresight to bring a CAT5 cable in case there’s a hard drop. Since upgrading to Snow Leopard, the wireless keeps dropping connection to miniMax0r’s AirPort.Perhaps I need to change the channels. I read on a forum recently that Macs have certain channels that they like. We shall see.
I was going to make a post this past weekend while I was at the lake house talking about the shitty DSL they have. The loop keeps doping connection, but that’s independent of the connection outside of our loop, i.e. life outside the substation. While end-user internet connectivity has always been shoddy at the lake, I did get m0bil30n3 and the router to play nice together by bumping the MTU down from 1500 to 1492.
I learned a bit more about networking because of this. While the concept of jumbo packets is not new to me, I did run across it again this past weekend. I assume that Wikipedia has an article on the subject, but as I do not have connectivity as of the time of this writing, I cannot further my research in this endeavor. If the networking guys would be kind enough to leave relevant links in the comments, I would greatly appreciate it.
Our meeting place for the bus was 5 min from the Interstate. I thought that we would take 65N and go through Nashville, but instead we’re going South. I assume, therefore, that we will take 565 into Huntsville, 72 across to 24 and continue the progression thereafter.I thought it was fitting that the weather was overcast when we pulled out, but since we are now on 565 the sun is out.
Pictures
we’ll see. Give the fact that I’m in a moving bus with a point and shoot, I doubt that anything I take on the road will turn out. Nevertheless, if I see anything interesting, I’ll snap it for you. Since we can’t have metal poles on the march, I didn’t bother to bring the tripod. Prepare for shitty pictures because of this.Entertainment
I still wish I had a larger capacity iPod with a screen. I would say that I could be watching movies on it, but then I would have to tell you how I got fucked by Warner Bros. Inc. -
Where Were You?
As those of us who still care for things like Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness take a moment to reflect on the tragic events of eight years ago, I thought I would take this opportunity to tell my story.We were still living in Susanmoore. I know that I had just started school for the day, so it must have been one of those days where we got up at 0400 to take care of the chickens. I remember dad was still in his farm clothes. He had just come from the BP and said that someone had flew a plane into one of the Twin Towers. I remember thinking that it was some kind of a joke because of the way he said it so matter-of-factly.
He wasn’t joking.
I don’t really remember when exactly the panic set in. I do remember calling Timon and telling him.
We went down to Grandmother’s to watch the news and kept flipping between the news stations. I don’t remember any of the emotions I had at the time. I suppose I was still in my “we report the news” mode waiting to see what would happen next.
There was a cameraman who was on top of one of the news buildings that they put on the air.
I guess we all thought that the towers would be evacuated, the fires put out, damage repaired and life would go on. Then the towers fell. I was stunned.
One of the few times that I can recall sharing outrage with my mother is when we flipped over to TBN. Why the hell mother and Grandmother thought that TBN would have anything to say other than “This is God’s judgement on America! We’re all going to hell! Send us money!” I have no clue. But I shit you not when I say they were broadcasting a special on a golf course that some church had just bought that could be used as a pastor’s retreat. They must have put a phone number on the screen because I remember mom calling them and pouring out her indignation over their choice of programing. TBN sheepishly replied that they were aware of the situation and would be changing their programming ASAP. Assholes.
I think the fear set in as the decision was made to ground all flights except for Air Force One. The reporting then was focused on where the President was going. Panic set in on the reporting of United 93 and the plane that hit the Pentagon.
We watched and watched the news. I remember there being a lot of concern over a fire that started in Tower 7 and how that building was expected to collapse.
I don’t remember much about the rest of the day. I can’t remember if mom called school or not. I’m assuming not. It seems like Rush canceled his show for the day I think but I’m also having a memory of him talking politics during such an event.
Congress was evacuated of course, though I don’t know why. It’s not like anyone would have noticed them missing.
The last thing I remember about the day was going back to Grandmother’s (which is why I think we didn’t suspend school that day.) and watching coverage of Tower 7, and discussion with experts.
I don’t have a sob story to tell of that day. I was safe and sound in the Heart of Dixie, thanks to the Men and Women of the Armed Forces.
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Not a *nix Admin
Task: Given the following output of the command
psql -lwrite a script that will automatically back up the databases with a filename format ofdbname.backupprogram@library:~$ psql -l
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding
-----------+----------+-----------
andrew | program | SQL_ASCII
ants | postgres | SQL_ASCII
burr | program | SQL_ASCII
central | program | SQL_ASCII
district | program | SQL_ASCII
garfield | program | SQL_ASCII
lincoln | program | SQL_ASCII
postgres | postgres | SQL_ASCII
smith | program | SQL_ASCII
template0 | postgres | SQL_ASCII
template1 | postgres | SQL_ASCII
wilson | program | SQL_ASCII
(12 rows)
program@library:~$Now at first, this doesn’t seem like to hard a thing to do. You should just be able pipe this command to
awk, grab the first column and then script the rest, right? Well, there’s a few problems.First, look at the first couple of lines of output. See how that was designed to be more readable on the screen? Pipe that to auk and you’re just SOL because you’re not picking up the database names in the first column.
The next problem is a bit more subtle: you don’t need the databases that are owned by postgres backed up because they don’t contain customer data. Those databases are there for reference, maintenance and other esoteric reasons that only the developers of both PostgreSQL and “Program, Inc.” know and fully understand.
So if you were a unix admin, how would you go about solving this problem? Can you do it without looking past the cut?
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Joe to Barry: “You’re a liar!”
The only real news from Barry’s speech last night (since I’m across the time line now) is the fact that Rep. Joe Wilson heckled Our Dear Leader Supreme Dictator for Life His Royal Majesty Lord Barack Hussien Obama, The Most Merciful in the middle of His soporific pouting session. Representative Wilson called Barry a liar.
Nation to Obama: FUCK YOU!
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A Little Gun History
This is in honor of the men and women who have served this country only to come back and find out what a mess we’ve made of it with our complacency.
In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control.. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, 1 million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.
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Rain on the Lake
Rain on the LakeI wound up working just shy of 8 hours yesterday after the weekly support the troops rally. I was supposed to go deliver food that evening, but by the time I finished work for my primary job and paid bills, it was already 2000. When I went to reach for my razor, I didn’t have any blades to shave with, so since I hadn’t been of any use to the delivery place yesterday and would be worth even less by the time I finally got there, I had the night off. So I headed to the lake house.
Of course, by the time I finally got here just after 2200, I finally woke up from the stupor I had been in all week, so after fiddling with the non-working internet connection for what seemed like hours, I gave up and watched The Dark Knight on m0bil30n3 finally crashing around 0230.
I had another one of my nightmares where my apartment was being broke into and I didn’t have a weapon to defend myself with, so I was made to do things against my will while watching the destruction of my property. Then I awoke at 0730 to the above sight. i don’t know what is causing the lines on the water, but I thought it was cool to capture them. If you look through the slide show you can see that it was raining too.
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G. I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra should be Retitled Sloppy Boring Joe
Tinseltown has failed to produce a real hit this year and G. I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra is no exception. Sure Angels & Demons came close to being a home run, if only an infield one. Even the much hyped Watchmen suffered from a badly edited theatrical cut as LA continues to dump on itself, licking its wounds from last year’s strikes and this year’s recession.
G. I. Joe isn’t anything new or spectacular; it is, in fact, quite the opposite: overused CGI, actors chosen for looks, not ability; too many plot lines that turns into tiring exposition; lots of pointless effects; unneeded comedic relief; pointless love interests and plenty of eye candy.
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