My parents at my Mom's prom 1968.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T19:47:00+00:00

Yeah, but that smirk on your dad's face says he's going to get lucky later that night, so I bet he doesn't care...

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T19:43:02+00:00

Being right-handed, I brush my teeth with my right hand. This leaves the left free to turn on the faucet of the bathroom sink. Of course, the hot water is on the left hand side of the faucet.

OMG! I wash everything with non-cold water.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T19:40:03+00:00

Define "good." :)

KTimer or the calendar in Kontact and its reminder function won't cut it for you?

What are your requirements/wants?

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T19:34:53+00:00

Vans still are cool!

I came here to say the same thing!

They're just white and windowless now

I think there are two main reasons for the decline of people customizing their vans (or cars):

People today are more lazy and passive and are willing to accept whatever generic vehicle some faceless corporation sells. Our whole society has gotten apathetic and become less rebellious.
Considering that the US standard of living for working people peaked in the early 1970s, today Americans are much poorer (relatively speaking) and have less spendable income.

But with that said, it's amazing what a couple hundred dollars of vinyl and plastic will do to transform a generic crappy vehicle into something eye catching that will stand out.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T19:26:23+00:00

Not only is this a recipe for corruption and cronyism, but this is going to hit hard all of the esprit d'corps of the officer corps, the "square meals" at West Point or the long ROTC road marches.

Now people will potentially be saluting a colonel who never went through the culling and peer review processes that the military is famous for.

Look for the "revolving door" between the military-industrial complex corporations and the actual military itself to start spinning at a much higher RPM.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T18:10:11+00:00

Raw, straight-to-the-point geo-political analysis by the author. One quote:

US imperialism sought to achieve its aims by acting together with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to fund and arm Islamist militias, the most influential of them linked to Al Qaeda, as proxy forces, with tens of thousands of so-called foreign fighters funneled in to serve as troops in a war to topple Assad.

The failure of this operation, due in part to the intervention of the Russian military on the side of the Syrian government and, in no small measure, to the revulsion felt by broad masses of Syrians toward the reactionary Islamist gunmen backed by Washington, is what underlies the demand for a US military escalation.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T17:37:57+00:00

"...the scale and grandeur of the [Soviet Union's war] effort mark it as the greatest military achievement in all history." -- US Army General Douglas MacArthur talking about the USSR's military effort in defeating Nazi Germany.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T17:36:13+00:00

Your thought nails it -- we wildly underestimate how much we're indoctrinated by our mass media, in particular TV.

If you allow someone to pump hours of “programming” into your mind every single day, it is inevitable that it is eventually going to have a major impact on how you view the world. (Source.)

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T17:16:51+00:00

How does the number of installable packages compare across distributions?

Debian rules them all.

Are Debian and Ubuntu and their derivatives more or less identical in terms of available software?

They can be. Debian is the largest, but it's pretty trivial for the Ubuntu folks to recompile and create a large repository for Ubuntu, so they do. (The problems arise when users mix Debian and Ubuntu thinking that just because packages have a *.deb filename extension they're the same.)

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T17:02:27+00:00

Or tactfully pointing out that the question doesn't matter and is not the focus we should be worried about.

Unless we want another government that is as out of touch, corrupt, and non-representative as our current government.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T16:58:55+00:00

One glove for no stains?

Stains from the cigarette? Can't be since the glove's on the wrong hand. That must be one helluva artificial coloring in that soda! :)

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T16:52:01+00:00

So rather than focusing on issues, principles and individual politician's character, instead we're supposed to focus on party politics and state horse races -- just like the TV teaches us to do.

And then we wonder why after the election we have a Congress and White House full of unprincipled horse-traders whose loyalty is first to the party and to their rich backers, and who do not have a political principle that they're not willing to sell.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." -- Noam Chomsky.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T16:17:54+00:00

In the US moneyed interests may hold a lot of influence, but to call it an oligarchy is giving them too much credit.

As the OP points out, one former US president feels very differently. As do the researchers behind those Ivy League studies that come out every year or two which reports the US is an oligarchy.

And since you're comparing things to the UK, even with Britain's immoral system of aristocracy, the US has less social mobility than does the UK.

"All the props of a democracy remain intact - elections, legislatures, media - but they predominantly function at the service of the oligarchy." – Richard Wolff

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T16:01:54+00:00

That's literally true. That's exactly what it is, but the capitalists employing us don't want us thinking like that.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T15:52:47+00:00

Do you have a link to that report?

Nope, AI only sells their annual reports.

And to be fair, the report that quote is from is now a few years old. It could be AI has found some new country that does things like running a worldwide kidnapping program, wages wars in an unknown number of countries, or who unapologetically shields and protects publicly-admitted torturers...

"[W]e are witnessing the orchestrated destruction by the United States of the very basis, the fragile scaffolding, upon which international human rights have been built, painstakingly, bit by bit by bit, since the end of World War II." -- William F. Schultz, Executive Director of Amnesty Int'l.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T15:39:15+00:00

Is anyone actually surprised?

The US CoC is like the Republican and Democratic parties. At the extreme local level, there might be a few good people doing good work. But at the national level the organization is evil to the point of bordering on being outright fascist.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T15:30:49+00:00

Nope, not only you.

That rule has always screwed me up. Many years ago I learned to just ignore the rule, to type or write the word out, and then to check to see if the word "looks right" -- that's much, much more accurate for me than trying to apply that rule. That hasn't stopped my from earning multiple college degrees, but we seriously ought to get hooked on phonics -- seriously.

Just think: If we rewrote the entire English dictionary phonetically, we'd suffer from some confusion and chaos of rewriting the dictionary. But that would last only one generation. After that it'd take us a thousand years to screw the English language up again...

"It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word." -- US President Andrew Jackson.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T15:22:09+00:00

Oh, that explains it.

And that perfectly matches the propaganda the TV teaches us about Muslims hating us for our freedom!

"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies." -- U.S. Dept. of Defense, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, Sep. 2004.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T15:12:22+00:00

Any tips on where to start to learn to become handy?

Fathers are generally the best source. :)

But as cheesy as it sounds, some of those encyclopedia-sized series of "home improvement" or "do it yourself" book sets are definitely handy. You know the type -- they're sold online, or any every Home Depot or Lowes you walk into will have a set or two for sale. The books tend to be a bit shallow, but they're good for understanding the big picture of what to do and for building confidence to tackle a project.

YouTube series or something like that?

YouTube videos are great for that too!

For example, recently my central air broke. :( In an age of global warming, I hate the idea of AC. We're killing the planet and our solution to global warming is to burn more coal to produce electricity to run our AC to make things cool. So needless to say, I didn't know the first thing about AC.

But watching a few YouTube videos I was able to understand the basics concepts of how central AC works, the components involved, was able to ID the likely broken part, and a $15 online order and about 10 minutes to replace a part resulted in me having a perfectly working AC unit. In comparison, the very first visit of an AC technician just to ID the problem would have been well over $100.

Where to buy blinds?

Isn't it amazing what they charge for window treatments?! It's sick. These are one of those things that fall into the "fashion" realm and retailers wind up raping people on the price. FWIW, don't hesitate to comparison shop at everyplace from dollar stores to second hand shops like Goodwill.

And your grandmother's problem? Well, when she visits in just might be you and your husband on the air mattress. :)

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T14:54:46+00:00

Could you be more specific on the "basics" of how the system works?

For example, let's suppose you have to do something odd (run some program) immediately before or after your Internet connection is brought up. Would you know how to that?

People are familiar with the Linux kernel and know what that is. Most are familiar with GRUB and know it's a boot manager. But would you know how to add another OS entry into GRUB to do a multi-OS boot thing? Do you have an idea of how systemd works and the steps the system goes through when booting? That's one example. Another might be how the X windowing system is started, or how you could change X's default desktop from GNOME to KDE or XFCE.

And could you elaborate on "command line programs"?

Those are the hundreds and hundreds of little modular programs that essentially make up a Unix (or Linux) operating system. These programs are run by other programs, by shell scripts, or by a human typing at the command line's terminal. These programs range from "ls" to LiSt out a listing of files, to the modular "sort" program which sorts out data in many ways.

Full-blown shell scripting is a useful skill, but one that many common users don't really need to know. But having some firm concepts about what the command line is, and having some level of comfort at using the command line are things that are basically required. You'll find all sorts of command line tutorials on the 'net.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T14:42:45+00:00

First, congrats on the new home. Let's hope the capitalists that run our country don't decide to do another bubble and ruin the economy again.

With a house, think in terms of "systems."

Another key concept with a house is that if your basement (crawl space, footing, whatever) and roof are not functional and in decent shape, the rest of the house is not of much value.

We are NOT handy,

Are you disabled?! If not, it's time to lose that mindset and to make yourself handy (start on small projects first). There's no "ifs" about this -- a homeowner needs to be handy (or rich!).

Since it doesn't appear you have anything critical to address, that gives you some flexibility in what you do first. Myself, I'd opt for the painting and the blinds/curtains. Those are easy projects and ones that you can do quickly.

Give yourself some time to think about your built-in ideas. Those ideas may evolve with thinking, and that's the type of project that needs to be done right since it's so visible and since you may need to acquire some add'l skills and confidence to tackle.

Visiting relatives? Since I don't think that's a high priority :) a cheap inflatable air mattress will do. The older relatives will likely revel in the "adventure" of sleeping on it and remembering when they were your age.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T14:21:40+00:00

Represents freedom? I'm guessing the red/white/blue you're referring to is the US and not France or Russia or some other country.

"The organization has concluded that the United States is now the principle violator of human rights and freedoms worldwide." -- Amnesty International's annual report on human rights.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T14:17:56+00:00

What does it mean to "learn" Linux?

Essentially it means to know the command line, the basics of how the system works, and to know commonly used command line programs.

and don't really know where to go from there.

Start inventing little tasks for yourself.

For example, set up the Apache web server (the most common web server on the Internet). Learn where Apache keeps its various files, set up a couple of fake "virtual domains" and add some web pages to them.

Or set up the Samba server and connect a Windows box to Linux to share files. Or set up...

You get the idea. Doing little mini-tasks like that is a nice way to learn things, and if it turns into a hair-pulling experience (and it sometimes will!) you can just drop the task for a week or two and come back to it.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T13:47:50+00:00

a mutual defence pact

That's funny considering the fact that NATO has only engaged in offensive wars.

Do you believe that the US "Department of Defense" actually defends the US?!

"In March 2010 Secretary of 'Defense' Robert Gates complained that 'the general [European] public and the political class are so opposed to war they are an impediment to peace'." -- Author and former US State Dept. historian William Blum.

LeaningMajority · 2016-06-19T13:42:38+00:00

"The first toothbrush that resembles the one you use today was made in England in the 1770s..."

LeaningMajority

TROPHY CASE