How The Mighty Are Falling

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Robert Pogson

Good news today on the war in Ukraine. Izyum has fallen. Russian troops are abandoning weapons and stores and fleeing on foot or surrendering. It’s a collapse reminiscent of the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940. A general was even captured alive. Folks in Russia are calling for the removal of Putin. Life is good and getting better. Now, the world needs to deal with Trump… 🙂

Ukrainian forces enter strategic city of Izium after five months of Russian occupation

Izium was the Russian HQ and supply depot for the region. They had held the city for months and lost it in days. Apparently, Russian generals refused to believe it could fall and diverted their best troops further south to protect Kherson. This advance should inspire Ukrainian forces to greater efforts and Russian forces to find the “EXIT”.

Next, USA should give Ukraine those longer range HIMARS missiles so they can take out the bridge supplying the Russians in the Crimean Peninsula. Imagine the panic that would cause Russian troops… 🙂

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Solo EV Update…

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Robert Pogson

Well, they wouldn’t sell me one and now they’ve published a manual. So, I will never buy one. Key takeaways:

  • “The vehicle will not operate at ambient temperatures below -4°F (-20°C).” Give me a break. This is Canada. We go months below -20ºC. How could this be a commuter-car in/near Winnipeg? They say they have a battery management system with both heating and cooling but it can’t handle winter???!
  • “Do not operate the SOLO on snowy or icy roads.”!!!
  • “The combined weight of the driver, cargo, and any non-factory-installed equipment must never exceed 287 lb (130 kg).”!!! I weigh 250 lb these days. This means I should not use this vehicle to buy groceries, tools, fertilizer or fetch deer/firewood/mushrooms/fruit etc. It’s useless to me!
  • “Always perform the pre-drive inspections before each drive.” What? What commuter checks the tires, looks for leaks and loose bolts for every trip? EM’s list has 7 points including crawling along the underside looking for leaks. Is this a car upon which you can depend or an unreliable piece of junk?
  • Maintenance… We all know EVs have less maintenance than those infernal combustion engines, right? EM wants their car serviced every 10000 miles.
  • Is this a car or a motorcycle? “In summary, while the SOLO is generally safer than a typical motorcycle, it presents a greater risk of injury or death compared to a contemporary automobile.” According to EM, it’s an improved motorcycle. Why didn’t they say that from the beginning???
  • Specs: “Up to 100 mi (160 km) range 220V: 2.5 hrs 0-80%, 4 hrs 0-100% est* 120V: 12 hrs 0-80%, 15 hrs 0-100% est* 0-60 mph (0-100 km/h): 12 seconds est* 80 mph (130 km/h)”. Why did they say for years that it could charge in 6h at 120V? Anyone who could do math new that was not possible. The kilowatt-hours just did not compute.

So, while I am glad they’ve finally told the truth. I am so disappointed they did not make the car all it could be when they said that’s what they were doing for all those years and versions….

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How 2022 Is Going, So Far

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Robert Pogson

It’s not going well. On December 25, 2021, we had a small Christmas party. Everyone was free of symptoms, everyone was vaccinated and the number was small. What could possibly go wrong? 🙂 A week later, everyone had symptoms and positive tests. All cases were mild and negative tests began to appear a week later. I took longer to recover but I’m pretty good now. Have to be, with winter blowing drifts all over out huge driveway.

Last winter was very mild. We had light snow three times and our new snowblower seemed adequate. This winter is more normal. We have foot-deep drifts, -30ºC temperatures and howling winds. The new snowblower seems not to be able to run at these temperatures. It is difficult to start, needs quite a bit of choke to keep running and stalls. Also, the right tire shrinks in the cold and slips on the rim, the chute directional crank was stiff and two control linkages are giving trouble. One fell off and another was loose. Today will have warmer temperatures so I will have another go at it. I will bring in the wheel and seal and pump it up at room temperature. I will try to reconnect and adjust the linkages.

USA continues to be in trouble. It looks like various investigations and prosecutions are tightening on the ultimate goal of justice but I think the powers that be should have commenced with the most easily proven in court charges first just to get this cult out of circulation. Waiting for all charges to be investigated before locking people up is delaying justice which denies justice. If a bank-robber robbed 10 banks but you only have solid evidence on the first one, wouldn’t you lock him up to stop the chaos? Seems reasonable to me. Fraud was rampant around Trump. So was obstruction of justice. Mueller said that Trump was guilty of obstruction. Why not lock him up on that charge while investigating everything else? The last hurdle in bringing these creeps to justice is finding juries who can come to a unanimous verdict. Justice may only get as far as a trial. I don’t think DOJ should hang back because of difficult selection of juries.

 Also in USA, the scandal of Manchin and Sinema is appalling. The Ds need to primary both of them or recall them if possible. Why aren’t their “It is not part of the US Constitution, becoming theoretically possible with a change of Senate rules only in 1806 and not used until 1837. Rarely used for much of the Senate’s first two centuries, it was strengthened in the 1970s and in recent years, the majority has preferred to avoid filibusters by moving to other business when a filibuster is threatened and attempts to achieve cloture have failed. As a result, in recent decades this has come to mean that all major legislation (apart from budgets) now requires a 60% majority to pass.”
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster#Senate citizens rising up against these two traitors? The people voted for Biden and his agenda not DINOs (Democrats in Name Only). Manchin is outright lying about the filibuster. He claims the senate has always had it but it was created to appease slave-owners who started an uncivil war even though they could veto legislation. It’s purely undemocratic.

“Why? Not because senators in 1806 sought to protect minority rights and extended debate. They got rid of the rule by mistake: Because Aaron Burr told them to.”
 
https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/the-history-of-the-filibuster/Manchin claims the filibuster promotes bipartisanship but that’s irrelevant when one party wants a dictatorship like the Government of Pigs. It’s long past time to correct mistakes of the past like voting in these two senators.

On a positive note, seeds I harvested from a decade-old Mugo Pine last fall have germinated. They are little miracles. I’ve never had a seedling conifer grow to maturity. Here’s hoping that will change this year. I plan on planting fewer seeds this year. We have hundreds of trees in the yard now. TLW thinks that is more than enough. I who have to weed and prune and water them am almost convinced. 😉 Life will go on and our descendants will know the truth.

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Ukraine and its Bad Neighbour

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Robert Pogson

Well, occasionally Trudeau does something right.“Canada will loan the Ukraine government up to $120 million in the face of Russia’s ongoing attempts to destabilize Ukraine, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday.”
 
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-loaning-120m-to-ukraine-in-face-of-russian-aggression-1.5749341 I’m not thinking loaning money to Ukraine is enough, though. How about an army? Oh, we don’t have one. We have a battalion or so, thousands of “support” troops and dozens of generals but few tools and few soldiers ready to confront the Russians.

Really, NATO should admit Ukraine, tell the Russians to back off and withdraw all troops and weapons from Ukraine. For that matter, the base at Sevastopol should be forfeit. The deal with Ukraine is off so the Russians should be punished in a territorial fashion. Stop the aggression and erosion of democracies in its infancy before it gets worse. Appeasement doesn’t work.

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Bullseye

Posted on November 24, 2021 by Robert Pogson

I just upgraded my Debian GNU/Linux server to Bullseye, 11. Except for a shortage of disc space everything went smoothly. It was my fault. I created a bit too small a / partition when I moved to a newer computer…  I looked around and found gigabytes of cruft I could clear out to make things fit: obsolete compilers, files I was never likely to use and I deleted a few packages I was never likely to use. Did that from my smartphone while watching old news on CNN. Went to the console for the real work which took about ten minutes.

To my surprise, everything works, even the virtual machine and databases. I guess no incompatibilities in PHP versions arose to mess up a few web-applications. The only flaw I’ve found so far are some icons on my “task bar” are a bit strange… They can be fixed. It turned out I needed to increase the height of the panel by one pixel… 🙂

All in all, I’d say Debian continues to deliver extraordinary service to the world of computing. Thank You, Debian.

PS  That was a rather tame process… To spice things up, I decided to convert in place a rather large JFS file-system to EXT4. JFS isn’t maintained very well and EXT4 seems to work. Debian has the tool, fstransform partition ext4… Amazing stuff, but slow. Will take about 12h by my estimate. OOPS! Drive died in the process. Oh, well, I have backups…

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On Virginia

Posted on November 3, 2021 by Robert Pogson

This isn’t really about Virginia, the debacle last night wherein Virginians chose a Government of Pigs candidate for governor. It’s really about democracy, but I thought the title might be useful and Virginia is a great example of how not to run a democracy.

The GOP ran a great campaign in Virginia:

  • We won’t teach anything about the shameful parts of our history including any works of fiction about such topics. In fact, we will ban stuff that isn’t being taught and even great works of literature.
  • We will consider black/brown/city folk as the enemy. After all, they are not us. They are the other.
  • We won’t tell you anything about how we are going to reverse the progress sparked by the Democratic Party who raised educational standards, boosted the economy so all could prosper, and we are going to make it harder for those black/brown/city folk to vote so we can stay in power.

Instead of a positive campaign of ideas about improving life in Virginia and the world the Government of Pigs gave a disgusting performance encouraging parents to scream threats at members of school boards demanding to micromanage education. McAuliffe told people straight up we don’t want parents micromanaging. How would education work if each parent demanded every student be given the education that parent wanted for one particular student? There would be nothing taught in school. Everyone has pet/peeve subjects. Everyone has a book easy/difficult to read. Schools cannot please everyone. Instead we have professional bodies study curricula around the world, develop a curriculum that’s relevant and effective in a competitive world and promulgate that to educators. School boards have almost nothing to do with curriculum. They keep the lights on, the roof free of leaks and hire/fire teachers. So, the Government of Pigs were willing to wreck the educational system just to rile up racial hatred.

The GOP did promise a better future while promising not a single vote for policies popular in D.C. and Virginia. Don’t accept political parties’ promises on face value. Look at what they do in D.C., Texas, Mississippi, and Florida. Is that what you want in Virginia or your state? Shake your heads. WAKE UP! Don’t let the Government of Pigs do this to you.

Virginians fell for it. Not all Virginians, but many. Some counties were 85% Ds and some 80% Rs based on whiteness, urban/rural and income. The Government of Pigs chose to divide citizens rather than to unite them in worthy acts. What’s their end-goal, another “uncivil” war?

No, Virginia last night was not about Virginia but about whether USAians will remain USAians or citizens of dystopian tribes impaled on AR-15s. A wise woman once told me “You judge a tree by the fruit of it.”. There’s no good fruit on the GOP’s tree. Their fruit are lies, hatred and violence.

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Biden’s Lies

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Robert Pogson

Biden was not my first choice for President. He was weak on the environment, weak on universal health insurance,weak on human rights, and willing to follow the path of Trump on immigration and foreign affairs. Recent events on domestic affairs reaffirms my view. He wants “bipartisan” deals with a party that doesn’t want bipartisan deals, that wants to overthrow democracy: representation by population and majority rule, and keeping Jim Crow-era filibusters.

Now, we have the hasty departure from Afghanistan, leaving in the lurch all the women and girls of the country and afghans who worked with USA and other foreign countries to fight terrorism and breed enlightenment. In his speech just now Biden uttered lies worthy of Trump:

  • Afghanistan was never about nation-building… What nonsense. Afghanistan has long been a failed state. In the 1990s it was run by the Taliban, a terrorist organization which supported Al Qaeda which attacked USA multiple times before 9/11. The right and only way to fight that terrorism was to build a new nation which USA and others tried to do. Adopting half-measures, the intervenors failed to promote a free and open democracy founded on a strong constitution and free of tribalism and corruption.
  • We can’t stay forever… USA has no problem staying forever in other defeated enemies’ territories: Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain… Staying has obvious great advantages like building a strong economy and trading partner, preventing more terrorism, liberating women, promoting democracy, damping the tendency to regional conflict… The cost of leaving the job half done is more terrorism and war with more experienced, wealthy and inspired groups of terrorists. The world is full of examples where the more persistent and stronger party eventually won a better situation regardless of the time involved. Certainly the per annum cost in blood and treasure was trending downward as Afghanistan recovered but without support and with corruption Afghanistan could not stand. For months, the armed forces of Afghanistan were not paid, fed or supported regularly. Where was the money going??? Follow the money …
  • We did the best we could… Nope, not even close. Even on the last day, USA responded to encirclement by the Taliban with yet another form to fill out on a website to get a visa. Bureaucracy does no good for refugees living in tents in a park. Visas people needed to get on a commercial flight were delayed months when people saw the writing on the wall years earlier.
  • We didn’t foresee how fast this would happen nor that the Afghans would not fight… More lies. Intelligence agencies, the military, journalists, women, men, even children in Afghanistan saw the writing on the wall. Those who thought there was a shadow of hope knew the jig was up when Trump excluded the Afghan government from talks with the Taliban. Biden did nothing to discourage the conclusion that Afghanistan was circling the drain.
  • There’s no chance Kabul will fall… That’s not what his intelligence agencies, the military and journalists were telling him.

I can’t blame Biden for the mess he inherited but he certainly could have chosen a better path to fix things. I think he owns Afghanistan now. Whatever bad outcome happens will be his fault, forever. The worst outcomes might be a long reign of terror with Taliban seeking revenge or subjecting women to forced marriage and complete body-coverings, but it is almost certain that Al Qaeda and the Taliban will be empowered to bring a reign of terror globally. After all, now they have tens of millions of slaves to fund their efforts. Thank you, Joe Biden.

In the short term, the Ds should primary Biden out of office and put in a strong liberally minded woman in charge. Not the VP. She’s Biden-light. I’m thinking of someone like AOC who actually values women and stands up for what’s right. I don’t think she would want to go back to full-blown war in Afghanistan but at least I trust her to do what’s right for USA, Afghanistan and the world rather than hiding behind slogans.

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Turning and Turning

Posted on August 1, 2021 by Robert Pogson

The world just keeps turning. It’s amazing. The plum trees I planted from seed are bearing fruit this year. Not much but some. The Saskatoon shrubs also bore a good crop even though they are only knee-high. I have many Antonovka apple seedlings that have survived this horribly dry summer and my poor soil. I have a few chokecherries in two generations surviving and putting down deep roots. I have a decent harvest of onions imminent, peas happening and possibly some corn. It’s all good.

Then how do we have millions of people refusing to wear masks or take a vaccine against a lethal virus? It’s madness. How do we have millions supporting a losing con-artist like Trump? How do we have one of the oldest democracies trying to eliminate counting votes to determine elections? More madness. Why has Trump not been taken away in handcuffs yet? What is DOJ awaiting? The Second Coming? More madness. At least the wheels of justice are moving with Trumpists being arrested by the hundreds, Trump’s tax-returns freed from bureaucracy, indictments queueing up for his friends. 2021 could turn out to be a great year. It just needs to pick up more momentum.

Now, if only Canadians could find a political party with the guts to do the right thing with respect to firearms, fossil fuels, electric vehicles and planting millions more trees to make up for ones lost to urbanization etc.We have the Lieberals who want to ban all firearms, the PCs and Lieberals who want to promote Big Oil, forever. We have the NDP which used to have the interests of the working man in mind but now imitate the Lieberals. Then there are the Greens who think all firearms legislation needs to improve is to implement more regulations. They aren’t even aware of the mess in which current regulations and laws are. The Greens think policies are great if they are in writing without real plans to implement. That’s madness. No, Canadians with proper ideas need to take over these parties to get a government that works for all of us. Sigh. I guess the next generation will have to fix this mess. We old folks are tired and running out of ideas and energy to implement them. Politicians over 65 should retire and let good young people take over instead of forcing young people to take what politicians give them. It’s time.

TLW informs me I have enough trees. She might be right. When the ones I’ve planted are mature they will block out the sun and kill the weeds over a third of the yard. Must keep a few more seedlings going though in case of losses. It’s all good. 🙂

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Can’t Anyone Do Math in USA?

Posted on May 4, 2021 by Robert Pogson

Why is the most powerful country on Earth arguing about a few thousand refugees when they allowed COVID-19 to kill 600K people? Why not take in 600K refugees? There are plenty in Yemen, Syria, and Central America willing to supply fresh young people to fuel the future economy of USA. Just saying… 😎

While they are doing math, why not lock up Trump et al for sedition, insurrection, treason, bribery, corruption, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, denial of civil rights and plain old ugliness? Surely that would solve a lot of problems in USA like people denying science, fostering insurrection and epidemic, denying the will of the people and believing in baby-sacrificing cabals in the basement of a pizzeria that has no basement and eroding democracy. They should also do the maths on the cost of second-rate education for the masses and lack of single-payer health insurance. How many of those 600K died because they could not afford to see a doctor or who believed immunization was unpatriotic?

I guess I’ll close here. I doubt many USAians will read this or even take it to heart.

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BOO, MOZILLA!!!

Posted on May 4, 2021 by Robert Pogson

Mozilla has now killed support for FTP in FireFox, my favourite protocol in my favourite browser. I can’t even use the browser to access an FTP server on my own PC… BOO!

“FTP support has been disabled, and its full removal is planned for an upcoming release. Addressing this security risk reduces the likelihood of an attack while also removing support for a non-encrypted protocol.“

On the other hand, I can still tweak network.ftp.enabled to true and enjoy the good old days a bit longer. 😎

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Springing Forth

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Robert Pogson

Spring is in the air. I’ve changed to summer tires. I’ve pruned and propagated many trees and shrubs. I’m booked for immunization against COVID-19. I’ve cancelled my order for my RED Solo EV and bought some peanut butter and other groceries and some bulbs of lilies with the refunded deposit.

I have mixed feelings about the Solo EV. I’m still sure it’s the right vehicle for me. Very practical for my mostly short trips on the highway visiting nearby towns and hunting/gathering places. Very efficient. Very easy to operate and to maintain. Just not being produced in quantity.

I know the Solo EV can be built and sold at a profit but for whatever reasons EMV has fumbled the ball repeatedly. They “released” the car in 2016. I signed on in 2017. They were producing a few in Vancouver for a while. There are a few on the roads in BC. They made an agreement with a manufacturer of motorcycles in China to crank out thousands. Apparently, a redesign was in order, hence Solo 2. Production was announced. Still no Solos. Then there was a change in management, a redesign, imminent production announced again and still no Solos. For an outfit producing thousands of Solos annually, where are the cars?

I lost faith. The move to sell first in USA, a country run by Trump with weird attitudes to international trade/tariffs, a long search for a USA plant, and still no flood of Chinese-Solos. The redesign and the abandonment of Canada as a centre of production/sales killed my enthusiasm. I was happy with Solo 1. I was OK with Solo 2. Things can always be improved. I didn’t see any improvements in Solo 3. I didn’t need a newer/better radio. I didn’t need A/C. I didn’t need wider/heavier/less efficient. Finally, Solo 1 use Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. They are proven, reliable, rugged and safe. The new technology has proven to be less safe. Yes, it can burst into flames. That’s not what I want in my EV. Further, I just hate the communications of the new management. If they can’t ship Solos, I would like to know why while waiting all these years. Not knowing anything about their plans to sell me a Solo just killed my enthusiasm.

So, it’s done. I have a couple of months’ worth of groceries and some new lilies headed for the garden. It’s all good. Life goes on with or without Solo. If Solo ever comes back to Canada, I might buy one as a second car. For now, I’m looking at several models of used EVs which although less efficient are still very practical for my usage. I can even envisage yanking out the back seats and adding a larger battery. The EV is the wave of the future. Every day that EMV does not produce Solo makes other EVs more attractive. At least they are available and have an infrastructure.

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The Decline and Fall of the GOP

Posted on March 2, 2021 by Robert Pogson

It would be hard to write a work of fiction as weird as the decline of the GOP in USA. A political party that has been important since the time of Lincoln now has no platform, no policy, no guiding principle, just an egotistical liar, Trump. Millions of people who voted for Trump and the GOP are asking themselves, “Why?”. Millions who voted for a party that freed the slaves is now home to white supremacists and nut-cases who live in alternate realities. The real world is uncomfortable so they adopt Trumpism. The GOP is now the party of childish thinkers or those who choose not to think at all. Clearly, the vast majority of citizens are thoughtful human beings who care about stuff and will not vote GOP again. A large group of important political donors will not give to GOP causes. Even members of the GOP are fleeing the party to become independents or are willing to join a new conservative party.

Consider CPAC, the conference of conservatives. There was scarcely any talk of policy and conservatism, only obeisance to Trump. They actually worshipped at a golden idol of Trump. What became of “Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God.” What are the so-called “evangelicals” doing worshipping Trump? What happened to those in the GOP with “family values” relishing the idea of separating families at the border and separating children from mothers? What happened to the party of “Law and Order” that now does not respect the rulings of courts, even the Supreme Court stacked full of justices appointed by the GOP? What happened to the GOP that respected the constitution but now wants a king, unelected and unelectable? It’s gone. The GOP has been abducted by space-aliens. The GOP has been taken over by lizard-brained humanoids. The GOP is just another stolen property of Trump.

Fortunately, there is light at the end of this dark tunnel. Trump is such a bad manager he is destroying what he has created. He will be in court forever if not in jail. His followers will be swept up in courts and in jail. Unlike Hitler who survived jail to finish his takeover, Trump can’t even utter complete sentences let alone define an era of USAian politics. All he does is attack those who might otherwise be supporters. He has divided the GOP and irretrievably separated the GOP from society. He has converted a political party attracting those seeking to wield power for good into a suicidal cult going nowhere.

The future is bright. It seems there will be a decade or two where the GOP is ineffectual and likely split into factions or disbanded as a criminal enterprise. The election of 2020 showed millions the way to freedom is to vote and to vote Democratic. They aren’t going away. They will increase in numbers. The present actions of many GOPers in state and local government seeking to disenfranchise the left will be rejected. USA will have a decent minimum wage, universal medical care insurance eventually with a single payer, a real right to vote, representation by population, a real respect for the environment and true equality, not just in the constitution but in effect.

There will continue to be political friction in USA. Biden is not the answer to Trump but a better alternative. Biden still does not see his opportunity but seeks to alloy goodness with the GOP. That can’t work as the GOP is a cancer out of control. Conservatism can be good but the GOP is not conserving anything and seems intent on destroying everything. Conservatism is not lies, riot, and rule of mobs. Goodness comes from an alloy of good people trying to do good. There are very few of the good left in the GOP. Too many of the GOP have done nothing to thwart Trump. Too many of the GOP have burned too many bridges to go back to decency. Darwin’s law applies to politics too. Biden will eventually be replaced by a true Democrat unwilling to compromise for the good instead of the perfect. Trump and his criminals will be rotting in jail if US DOJ can find truly impartial juries. I think they can do that.


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