Please Vote!

As responsible Americans, it is our duty to get out and vote tomorrow. The fascists who are running our government need to be stopped. If we vote for change tomorrow, we cannot do any worse than the current government has done. Here's just one of a few things you need to remember tomorrow:

The response to Hurricane Katrina

If you think this government cares about minorities and poor people, then you are mistaken. The only thing this government cares about are special interest groups and big corporate business. Yes, the economy is doing great, but only for the most wealthy in this country. Although tomorrow is not a presidential election, it will provide us the means to take power away from President Bush. Without a Republican majority in Congress, President Bush will have a tough time getting anything pushed through Congress or the Senate. Some individuals have also suggested that if the Dems can take back the Senate, that their first action should be to impeach President Bush.

The list of lies and deceptions perpetrated by this government are numerous. First, there were no WMD's in Iraq and that was our only justification prior to our current occupation in Iraq. Second, the President secretly developed an operation that spies on American's without going through the court system and third, President Bush has been unable to capture Osama bin Laden. There are many others, but those are just a few. The litany of failures by this administration is almost inconcieveable. Unless we take some power away from President Bush, the next 2 years are surely going to be filled with more scandals, lies and deceptions. There is no reason to expect anything else.

So, please do your part and vote tomorrow. It is important that we as a people, as a democracy, change the way things are going in Washington. Let's send responsible, intelligent, competent people to Washington to represent our interests and our ideals and not those of special interest groups. Let's get out there and change the future!

Katrina Waste

I was watching the local news tonight and there was a story about how much money is being wasted in New Orleans. The funds being squandered are FEMA funds sent to house, repair and in some cases rebuild the homes of the victims of Katrina's devastation. Overpayment for services that could have been secured elsewhere at a lower rate along with non-delivery of items that were earmarked to go to New Orleans to aid in the recovery. We are all aware that due to it's size, complexity and just plain ignorance, our government is very wasteful. We become complacent by the messages that come out of Washington regarding the spending of $400 for a hammer and yet this is indicative of how poorly things are run. I have worked for corporations where every expenditure had to be explained, justified, researched with other competitors and scrutinized by managers before one cent could be spent and yet we don't think these principles apply to how our government should be run.

An example of the waste that is going on in New Orleans was surplus ice that was acquired and organized for transport to New Orleans by FEMA. Only 40% of this ice ever made it to New Orleans. Ice that cost $6,000 was found to be sitting in tractor trailers with the engines running 24/7 at a cost of $24,000 per day. The story did not investigate why the ice never made it to it's destination, only that it was not where it was supposed to be.

Another example of the inefficiency of our government is evident in the cost of putting tarps on the roofs of houses that were damaged in the hurricanes. The tarps are provided free by FEMA but over $2,500 was being charged just to nail down the tarp to the roof. By most estimates, it would have been cheaper to reshingle the whole roof for that kind of money. Our government is failing us because they are wasting taxpayer money and we are failing our government by not holding them accountable for using these funds wisely and prudently.

Immediately after the disaster, FEMA paid $276 million to Carnival Cruise Lines to house victims whose homes were destroyed by the storm while mobile housing that was available to shelter these families went unused. In order to make sure that families had enough money to spend and to pay their bills, FEMA sent each victim a debit card with $2,000 on it. Many more were sent out than were victims of the hurricane, so where did the rest of them go?

First of all, I am appalled that our government gets away with this sort of madness and few people say anything about it. Our government is going to bankrupt this country by funneling tax dollars to special interest groups. These special interest groups are hoarding money and getting rich off of government contracts while much-needed resources to Hurricane victims never arrives. We should be storming out of our homes and driving to Washington and demanding that these problems be addressed and fixed. This is not acceptable. If I worked for a corporation and I was accused of diverting company funds to my buddies in exchange for kickbacks, I would be fired so fast that I would be standing on the street wondering what happened. Why should our government be allowed to get away with this? Why do we stand around and act like it's somebody else's problem? It is your problem and it's my problem and we HAVE to do something about it. It may be in contacting your Congressional representative or some other way, it's your choice.

French Military Victories

Along with the "Miserable Failure" episode of google-bombing, you can now go to Google and enter the phrase "French Military Victories" to get a result that is rather comical.

Wal-mart the Movie

Wal-mart the Movie

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have watched many clips from it on the above website. I have long been aware of how Wal-mart devastates small community businesses when they move into town and build a store along with all of the complaints they have against them for how they treat their employees.

Many people argue that Wal-mart is great because they bring low prices to communities and provide products not currently sold in these areas and that they offer jobs to people who are unemployed and so forth. What I think this movie does is illustrate the fallout from these things. Yes, they employ people, but at abysmally low wages and they are treated very poorly and often cheated out of their wages. Yes, they offer low prices, but they drive small family owned businesses into bankruptcy and that affects many lives.

This it a typical example of how corporate greed is ruining this country. Wal-mart is the largest corporation in the world and they regularly abuse that position. Low prices aren't always the answer. Selling low means putting incredible pressure on the organization itself to cut corners, shave payrolls and find the cheapest quality merchandise from the lowest bidder. Personally, I don't mind paying a fair price for a quality product. Of course, I like a deal when I can find one, but if the item is important, I don't mind paying a little more for it as long as it's good quality.

I think it's important for people to see this film so that they can get a better idea of what corporate greed does to this country. At a grass roots level, we should be careful as to where we spend our money because it's a powerful weapon to have the ability to "choose". If we choose to buy our products from somewhere other than Wal-mart, I guarantee that Wal-mart will suffer. Utlimately, we hold the power to determine whether or not Wal-mart survives and I think we have to evaluate our positions on these issues carefully.

An example is what has happened in my hometown. I have a friend who once lived in a quiet subdivision with an empty field behind it. It was on the edge of town but far enough away from the interstate to still be quiet and peaceful. Along came Wal-mart and decided to relocate their existing store from a boxed in strip mall to the area behind his house. I am sure that enormous pressure was placed on the owner of this land to sell it to Walmart so they could build a new Super Wal-mart on the land and bring other businesses to this area. I say this because I am sure he was offered a handsome price for this land and it would be difficult for any of us to turn down the kind of money that Wal-mart can offer for a few acres of land. It is this buying power which has made them into a huge worldwide corporation.

Now, my friend can sit on his deck around back where it never gets dark and listen to the noise coming from this Super Walmart. Foot traffic by immigrants and others through his property was non-existent before this, but now his dogs regularly bark each night at trespassers traversing through his property. In an attempt to mediate the constant flood of light, he planted trees at the edge of his property to block as much of the light pollution as he could. During the building of some of the structures, dynamite was used and there are now cracks in the foundation of his house, even though seismic monitors were placed in his yard to measure the effects of the blasting. He has never received any compensation for damages from anyone.

We should all think about these things and ask ourselves if these kinds of issues are worth the cost of Wal-mart's low prices. I encourage everyone to see this movie and to comment about your reactions here. I think this is a good topic and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions.

Perverted Justice

For those of you who did not see the Dateline story on this all-volunteer group, I'd like to introduce you to what they do. You can find their website here Perverted Justice. I watched the story on Dateline and was surprised at the prevalence of this kind of crime.

Basically, Perverted Justice logs in to chat rooms and instant messaging systems masquerading as underage boys and girls and strike up conversations with sexual predators and engage them in a conversation that leads to some sort of sexual meeting. The Dateline people set up a house where they could instruct these men to come under the impression that they were going to meet a young boy or girl who was home alone and was interested in sex with these men. All transcripts were saved and printed out along with any other evidence like web cam images and photos sent to these Perverted Justice volunteers posing as underage children. Many men actually showed up. They were instructed to enter the house through an unlocked door and go into the kitchen and wait there for the boy or girl to come and meet them. After entering the kitchen area, they were immediately confronted by a reporter from Dateline who asked them to sit down and interrogated them as to why they were there.

Many of these men were prominent citizens including a teacher, a Rabbi and a Sargent in the Army. One man even came into the house and undressed in the garage as instructed by the accomplice at Perverted Justice. Most just lied and said that they did not know the boys and girls were underage, even though the transcripts clearly showed them acknowledging that they understood the age of the accomplice. Several became very upset when they were confronted with the cameras and begged the Dateline reporter to stop what they were doing. All of them swore it was the first time and they all said it would be their last. Many stated they knew they had a problem and were under the care of a psychiatrist. One man who said he would never do it again was observed later on line using the same screen name again and trying to solicit sex from the accomplice posing as another underage child. He even picked a location and agreed to meet there. Of course, Dateline's camera's were there to capture and confront him again. He seemed visibly shaken and pleaded that he was just there to get something to eat (McDonald's).

I was disturbed by the fact that so many men were willing to actually meet up with these underage accomplices but I strongly support what Perverted Justice is doing. I think they are right on track. I am glad they exist and I think they deserve support from of all of us. They are actually doing something to catch sexual predators who target underage kids. The Internet and instant messaging services have long been the hiding places for these very sick men and I am glad that they are being flushed out by Perverted Justice.

It is important to remember, though, that parents must help protect their children from these on line predators. They suggest several guidelines for protecting your children here: What Parents Can Do. I advise all parents to read this and to consider if they are doing all they can to protect their children from these kinds of on line predators.

The Power of MySQL

I have been using MySQL for about 4 years and have been very pleased with the performance and reliability it offers. I needed a relational database that could provide speed and and efficiency while adhering to the open-source standard. I researched the benchmarks of other databases and MySQL blew them all away. It is faster, more efficient and has all of the capabilities of it's competitors, as far as I can tell.
As the popularity of MySQL continues to grow, more and more applications are being developed for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP or Perl (affectionately know as LAMP). I currently have 2 websites that use this blend of open source. One is a photo gallery developed by Coppermine and a genealogy website by PHPGeDView. Both websites are easy to install, configure and administer and utilize the speed and power of MySQL. They are quick, responsive and and perform flawlessly.
Recently, I began exploring the ability of MySQL to replicate among other MySQL servers. Replication allows you to increase your uptime by having a master MySQL database copy it's files to a slave MySQL database. In the event there is a disaster of some sort, you can easily direct your applications to use the slave server or "backup". I currently have one of my website servers backing up information to the other one in order to preserve the data in the event the master server goes down. Many other MySQL servers can be chained together to have many servers backing each other up. However, there is a drawback to this kind of arrangement because when you make changes to the master server, the backup server almost immediately makes the same changes. So, if you make changes in error, they will also propagate to the slave server.
Overall, I believe MySQL is one of the best databases available. It's popularity is only improving it's development. As with all open-source software, the more it's used, the better it gets. More people are available to debug it and to send in bug reports to developers and that makes it even better. Now with replication and clustering technology available for MySQL, it is even suitable for large corporate networks as it can be infinitely scaled to size.

Linux versus Windows

As the debate rages on and both sides continue to assert their reasons why you should choose their operating system, one thing remains evident to me: no spyware, malware or adware with Linux. I have been a member of the open-source community for the past 5 and a half years and have been a longtime supporter of Linux for many years. Having recently spent countless hours cleaning up my father's computer with it's spyware, malware and adware infections, I am once again reminded as to why I only use Linux. Here's my list of top ten reasons why I use Linux:

1. Linux is not currently being exploited by makers of spyware, malware and adware.
2. I need a reliable and secure operating system to host my own web pages and email.
3. I agree that the open-source community develops better software because it is not in the hands of a few programmers tucked away in an isolated environment. More input, better software.
4. I do not trust software that I am not allowed to decompile. I want to know exactly what my software is doing at all times. My computer is not allowed to keep secrets from me.
5. Some of the greatest minds on the planet are developing the Linux kernel and they are doing an excellent job.
6. If I have a problem with the code in my operating system I need to fix it now and not wait months for a service pack to be released and open-source software allows me to fix it myself.
7. Linux is efficient and needs less hardware resources than Windows because the kernel is efficient and well designed.
8. Linux developers do a much better job of debugging their code than Microsoft programmers do before they release it.
9. Diversity of operating systems helps keep the Internet up and running. Vulnerabilities exposed in one operating system generally do not effect a different operating system. (although it can)
10. I cannot afford the prices charged by Microsoft and others to obtain their operating systems and learn how to use them. Did I mention Linux is free?

While this is by no means an authoritative list of reasons why Linux is better than Windows, it does indicate why I choose Linux. Your mileage may vary. In the end, there's no reason why both operating systems can't coexist and work together. As computer users we should demand choices and avoid monopolizing by any software developer. Personally, I do need to use Windows on occasion because I need to use a program that is solely developed for the Windows operating system. However, each day developers are working to create similar programs that provide the same functionality and utility in Linux as these Windows applications. A collaborative approach is often the best solution for everyone. Recently, Microsoft finally admitted it has learned a few things from the open-source community and that is very promising.
Microsoft reached it's command of the market, not because it's well-written and reliable, but because it had a great marketing program and it was easy to use. Suddenly, individuals who never thought they could learn to use a computer were handed an opportunity to join the rest of the culture of geeks and nerds. While this helped to promote computing and computer hardware and software development, it was not always a good thing. Putting computers into the hands of people who don't understand the power of computers and the Internet creates several problems:

1. A large portion of the computer viruses that exist today and cause problems could be significantly reduced in their ability to disable computer systems and networks if end users would keep up with the updates and security fixes that Microsoft issues from their update site.
2. Not knowing what you risk by connecting to the Internet can lead you to problems of identity theft and expensive software repair if your computer is infected with a virus or clogged with spyware, malware or adware.
3. Learning only one operating system creates a paradigm of thinking that will limit your capabilities and the options available to you. People who only learn Windows are less inclined to learn another operating system because of the work involved. This leads to fears that Linux is too difficult to learn and they are stuck with their anti-virus programs and spyware removal applications. Often they become discouraged with using computers because their experience has been so distressing.

For the many Windows users out there who are looking for an alternative to Windows, I strongly encourage you to try other operating systems including Linux and MAC (whose OSX operating system is a form of Unix). The install programs for Linux have come a long way in the past 5 years and it's pretty easy to get up and running. And if you don't want to buy another machine to install Linux on while saving your Windows files, Linux can even partition your hard drive and configure your computer as a dual-boot system which will allow you to have both operating systems installed on your machine and will allow you to start your computer with either Linux or Windows. Although there are many excellent distributions out there, I am personally fond of Fedora Project which I use everyday. It has proved to be reliable and secure for me and I hope you'll give it a try.

Fahrenheit 911

Michael Moore's indicting documentary was on cable last night and I watched it for the second time. Despite what the conservatives say, this film provides evidence of a relationship between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family. Although it is suggested that Usama is estranged from his family, they still should have been the first people interrogated by the Bush administration after 9/11. If they were to have to come after me for my student loans, my family would be the first people they would probably contact. On my student loan applications, I had to list my nearest family member as a contact. I assume this is because if I default, that they believe my family members would be the most likely people to know where I can be found. I agree with this logic and I think it's a good idea. However, this should also apply to well-known terrorist members of al-Qaida like Usama Bin Ladin. It still perplexes me that the government can track down those who default on their student loans but they can't find a well-known terrorist. I agree with Bill Maher that a new rule should be that Jennifer Aniston has to start dating Usama. I doubt it would take a week before the hunt dogs of the paprazzi will have located Usama.

Miserable Failure

Google Explanation

Go to Google and enter the word "failure" and see what the top link is. There's a war being waged on the Internet between conservatives and liberals. So far, the liberals are winning. The conservatives are targeting Michael Moore.

Miserable Failure

Crash

If you haven't seen the movie "Crash", you should. I give this movie a thumbs up! It made me a little misty at times and I laughed hysterically at other times. I also watched "The Forgotten" over the weekend and it, too, was a very good flick. It was very unpredictable but very interesting.