09:32 – Barbara is working out in the yard today. James, who mows our lawn, is coming over to help her load his truck up with some junk from down in the corner of the yard and haul it off to the dump.
I finally got KompoZer installed on my Mint 17.3 system. Debian dropped it from their repositories, which meant that Ubuntu no longer offered it, which meant that Linux Mint no longer offered it. I didn’t want to mess around with building it from source, so it was fortunate that I came across this page. FTA and for my own future reference:
How To Install kompozer
Kompozer was dropped from the repos, since it is no longer maintained in Debian. But, you can still install it on newer releases.
Use packages from 12.04 Precise
These packages are installable on at least the 12.10, 13.04, 14.04 and 15.04 releases.
First, install dependencies:
sudo apt-get install libatk1.0-0 libc6 libcairo2 libfontconfig1 libfreetype6 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libglib2.0-0 libgtk2.0-0 libidl0 libnspr4 libnss3 libpango1.0-0 libpng12-0 libstdc++6 libx11-6 libxft2 libxinerama1 libxrender1 libxt6 zlib1g
Then, get the two packages, and install them in the correct order.
For 32bit systems:
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/kompozer-data_0.8%7Eb3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_all.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/kompozer_0.8%7Eb3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i kompozer-data_0.8~b3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i kompozer_0.8~b3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_i386.deb
for 64bit systems:
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/kompozer-data_0.8%7Eb3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_all.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/kompozer_0.8%7Eb3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i kompozer-data_0.8~b3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i kompozer_0.8~b3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_amd64.deb
You can now find kompozer in the menu.
11:54 – James showed up with a pickup load of cut, split, and dried hardwood firewood, mostly oak. We helped him unload it and stack it in the rack. It turned out to be more than a full face cord of 20″ logs. Call it half of a full cord. He charged $65, which seems cheap to me. If we ever had to heat the house exclusively with wood because the power was down, I’m guessing that the load we got today would last us two to three weeks. We also have about a half cord of old but still burnable wood down in the corner of the yard, which means we could stay warm for a month to six weeks even in the depths of winter up here, or longer if we weren’t trying to keep most of the house warm. We still need to pick up a couple of tarps to cover the woodpiles.
Barbara just announced that we should think about replacing the Trooper with a pickup. I think I’ll start keeping my eye out for a used Ford F150 or F250 diesel 4×4, or the Chevy equivalent. We’ll want an automatic transmission and AC, but that’s about it. I don’t care if it has some mileage on it, and a vehicle that’s ten years old or more would be fine.
I’ve never owned a diesel vehicle, although I almost bought a diesel pickup back in 1979 when I bought my Jeep CJ new. I know that small diesel engines used to have a lot of problems, but I assume those have been pretty much fixed over the last 35+ years.
‘How To Install kompozer’
Which is why, as much as I’d like to get away from Windows, I’ll never be going to Linux. It’s just too damn hard for the average person to install programs. You either have to work with the standard packages, or go through convolutions trying to figure out how to install something. What’s worse is every distro seems to do things slightly different so if you find a procedure for installing something on one distro, it may or may not work on another.
Compiling from source is even worse. When I’ve attempted it in the past, I’ve gone down a rabbit hole chasing compiler versions, library incompatibilities and all sorts of other discouraging things.
With Windows you double-click on an .msi file and follow the prompts.
Yes, but then you’re running Windows. (;
Uh-huh. So long as you have the proper version of Windows and the expected levels of updates. Or don’t you recall all the mysterious problems with being unable to install a Windows app, or being unable to run it, or it breaking after you install something else?
I speculate that this is part of why MS is pushing everyone to upgrade to Win10 and get the ustoppable updates. Getting everyone on the exact same same version makes MS’s job easier, and don’t forget the spyware and the ad pushing.
Yeah, Linux is overall a lot easier to install and keep updated than Windows. It’s not even close. The problem I had with KompoZer is mainly because the last time it was updated was something like 2008. Unfortunately, there aren’t any other decent WYSIWYG html editors available, so I really needed to get it running. Either that, or edit HTML code directly, which is time-consuming and error prone.
Yes, but then you’re running Windows. (;
I have found Windows to be nothing more than a tool to get my job accomplished. I have been running W10 at home on three systems, at work on two systems, and have had no issues of any consequence. An application misbehaving is the fault of the application, not windows.
An OS is a tool to get the job done. I don’t want to have to type 28 lines of cryptic statements where one misplaced character trashes all you have done to get an application installed. IOS is even simpler than Windows, you just download the app. To uninstall you press on one X in the App icon corner.
I know from supporting others that people just want it to work. Having to type any command line (1, or 28) is not what the average users wants. Linux will never be mainstream as long as that is required and will instead be relegated to the propeller heads of the world.
W10 on Surface just works. IOS just works. That is what people want. Linux does not even come close.
Linux is overall a lot easier to install and keep updated than Windows
I would differ on that statement. W10 on my surface has updated many times without any intervention on my part. I can turn off that behavior if I like but I choose not to do so. Updating and stability is much improved in W10.
Speaking of Microsoft, Windows, and updates…
Yeah, or having the correct .net versions installed, or updated java…. or a correct VB runtime….
Getting older hardware or software to run can be difficult no matter what OS you use, and plain impossible on some.
nick <– keeps old PCs running just to access perfectly good hardware
@ Ray
Maybe so, but I’ve routinely had Linux systems that run literally years without a reboot, and keep themselves updated automatically the whole time. And with a Linux distro, it’s not just the OS that’s kept updated automatically, but the installed applications as well.
Windows is a nightmare by comparison, and always has been.
I’ve run MacOS for 15 years with few problems. Not one virus, trojan or malware problem. I do run a “virus checker” on my downloads folder since I try out a lot of torrents. You are constrained by hardware (hackintosh exception), but for most of the family and biz stuff, it keeps it simple for me to maintain. I run W7 in a vm for a couple of Windows solutions. MS Office on MacOS and iOS is getting close to the Windows version. With the “lasso” now on OneNote on iOS, I’m happy using Office again.
I’m in @Ray Thompson’s camp.
The problem with the forced Win10 upgrade nags is that there are some relatively new computers that will not run it (I have 2 Acers where that is the case, long story). Of the many computers of mine and others that I have upgraded to Win10 there have been no problems.
The biggest problem with Win10 is the user that thinks they know it all and attempts to install it “their way”. IF you follow the instructions and use common sense you will be successful (whether an “upgrade” or a clean install). My only hints are to not install using WiFi, the initial WiFi drivers (and most other drivers, especially video) usually do not work well and will not work properly until AFTER you have gone through the 37 routines of Win10 installing, updating, upgrading the Win10 version install to the latest, and more updating. If you do not allow for a no interruptions day you are setting yourself up for trouble.
WRT Win10 forced automatic updates, I support both Win10 Home and Pro versions (Pro allows you to “defer” updates). The only times I have had problems is when a person that I support has not allowed or uninstalled an update.
You also must keep Flash, Java, and your preferred browser absolutely up-to-date.
You also need to be careful how many additional virus scanners and malware catchers you install. There is a point of rapidly diminishing returns and rapidly increasing performance hits.
I have experienced far fewer “I broke my Windows” calls with Win10. People are getting their work and porn surfing 😉 done.
Yes, Microsoft is Big Brother, but so is Apple and if truth be told so are the many Linux Distros (I know I am opening myself up for some flak from you Linux folks, but do you really understand what “open source” is). So chose your master. I chose to submit to one that has the programs that allow me to get the most work done with the least hassle and most cost effectively.
“I speculate that this is part of why MS is pushing everyone to upgrade to Win10 and get the ustoppable updates. Getting everyone on the exact same same version makes MS’s job easier, and don’t forget the spyware and the ad pushing.”
Okay, I’m being nagged to upgrade Win 8.1 to 10. I’m happy as I am. Is there a compelling reason to jump one way or the other.
I hate ads and being told I have to upgrade RIGHT NOW. I want to do it when I have a free moment, not during a WoW session.
Gee, Mr. DadCooks, that sounds like an awful lotta stuff to have to deal with just installing or upgrading to Winblows 10. No thanks. And I found a nifty little sw app months ago that let me blow away the constant and extremely annoying update nags, whereupon I discovered that M$ had already put nearly 10GB of update files on this 8.1 machine without my knowledge, during previous “updates.” I blew those away, too, and no more nagging. This box will stay at 8.1 until I can persuade Mrs. OFD that we need to go fullbore Linux here, maybe the hard drive will break in the meantime, lol. (I have a full backup on an external drive, plus the incrementals). If need be, I can always run some version of Windows or other in a vm, but I’ll try to avoid even doing that.
It all depends, of course, on what you need an o.s. for, what sorta use you want to make of it. Nothing I do requires Windows, and frankly, nothing Mrs. OFD does, either, but she still needs convincing.
And I’m certainly not gonna mess with Apple’s proprietary garden of hw and sw that costs twice as much as the comparable x-86 PC stuff for half as much hw and sw.
As soon as OpenVMS gets ported to x-86 machines, I’m gonna try that out again and see if I can use that for everything I need. But meanwhile, one or another Linux distro does the job here, with far fewer hassles and glitches and gotchas than Microsoft’s products, and more security. Linus Torvalds doesn’t care what I buy or where I buy it, isn’t interested in my email correspondence, and doesn’t track what websites I visit, nor does he have a spiffy little “back door” to my machine.
“I hate ads and being told I have to upgrade RIGHT NOW. I want to do it when I have a free moment, not during a WoW session.”
I feel yer pain, Mr. Miles_Teg; If you wanna disable that chit, take a look right here:
http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html
I put that on here months ago and bingo, RBT’s yer uncle.
You also must keep Flash, Java
You must not install Flash, Java or Quicktime.
Fixed it for you.
Except you’ll get nag notices from time to time about updating or installing…Flash, Java, Quicktime, etc. Not to mention all the .Net variations that Mr. nick brought up earlier, esp. when installing new apps.
Gotta say, though, I was OK with NT and Server 2012R2.
Yes, anyone running Win7 or Win8 absolutely needs to be running GWX Control Panel.
Yes, upgrading to Win10 is a PITA because it should not take so much time and care. However, patience at the beginning will save your sanity later.
I know of no normal non-tech inclined person who has successfully upgraded to Win10, particularly Ma and Pa Kettle.
Yes it requires too much finesse. The Win10 upgrade process is like no other, contrary to what M$ and the fanboys tell you.
@Ray… – “You must not install Flash, Java or Quicktime. Fixed it for you.”
You have a point, but the majority of home users do not know how to operate without at least Java, and to a lesser extent Flash.
Now you are 100% correct about nobody should be running Quicktime.
I won’t touch QT, but how can you avoid Flash and Java without it being a PITA.
(The former techi known as Miles Teg.)
“…but the majority of home users do not know how to operate…”
Nor do the majority of office prolecube drones; I did that gig a couple of times, help-desk-type support for a bunch of office derps. It was NONSTOP all frigging day, dealing with their CONSTANT o.s. and app problems and issues, not to mention the damn printers. Never again. It’s why there will probably always be relatively full employment for Winblows help desk elves and pixies, but count me out. I assume it’s a combination of deliberate malice aforethought, incompetence, and negligence. They’ve sent their stuff out repeatedly over the decades with the idea, evidently, that users will find the bugs and work-arounds; whole web sites devoted to dealing with M$ issues since, including their own, which suck rocks.
I know of no normal non-tech inclined person who has successfully upgraded to Win10, particularly Ma and Pa Kettle
Give Linux to Ma and Pa Kettle and you now have a computer that is a paper weight. At least with Windows they have a chance.
As for my upgrade to W10, from W7 and W8.1, both updates went without a problem. Everything worked, documents where where they belonged, and the programs worked. Drivers were not an issue. Granted I am a little more technical than Ma and Pa Kettle, but in the upgrades I have done I have not had to anything except let the install run.
The biggest issue is the creation of a Microsoft account and the small text to avoid a Microsoft account. MS has made it such that most people would create a Microsoft account. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. But having OneDrive on your system that is tied to your Microsoft account is actually OK. My concern is what are MS’s long term plans with the account.
evidently, that users will find the bugs and work-arounds
And thus the Linux blogs, OS/X blogs, IOS blogs, etc. No OS is perfect especially when you have users involved. Linux tends to be run by propeller heads who think everyone should be as competent as they are, egos run amok. OS/X and IOS tend be handled by people that think Apple is so simple if it doesn’t work it must be the user. With MS products it always assumed to be a problem with the OS, especially when dealing with software vendors.
I found a bug in IOS, one that Apple had not seen, confirmed it was bug after many support calls and dumps of the device. Did Apple send that bug out for people to find? I doubt it, nor do I think that MS does so. After 45+ years of slinging code you would think I would do better, but code that I think is robust, is usually foiled by some user doing something I had not considered.
An OS is now a tool, they all work, work differently, but can get the task accomplished. Use what you like, look down your nose at what you don’t like. I have to use specific a specific OS because software that I need only runs on that OS. Even software that runs on other OSes is still relegated to Windows because I don’t want to pay for licenses for alternate platforms (are you listening Adobe?).
I am also in Ray Thompson’s camp. Have upgraded four systems here to Win10 (from Win7 and Win8), and no problems. A really old Acer system required a new video card, because the old one wasn’t supported. No big deal.
Upgrade process was painless, just a bit of time needed. All programs and data worked just fine afterwards. No complaints here.
Two new laptops have arrived here with Win10 (replacing older ones of 4-5 years old). Setup took about 10 minutes total. Data files copied from backup locations.
On one laptop, I used the LapLink program to move programs and data from the old laptop to the new one. Fairly easy process, just took time.
The wife’s laptop had an apparent power death, so some programs will need to be reinstalled on her new one. Out-of-box experience was quite painless; maybe a 10 minute setup/install process.
So, no problems with Win10 anywhere here, on new systems or the upgrade process.
I have no problem recommending Win10 to anyone. It works fine. Preconceived notions about Windows will still occur from some (including some here). My experience has been positive.
Bah. Give a computer with Linux pre-installed to Granny or a little kid and they’ll do just fine, just the same as giving them a computer with Windows pre-installed. And that includes the granny upgrading the version of the OS (an Ubuntu derivative, IIRC) when prompted. (And after checking with me about whether it would be a good idea.) By the way, the little kid was 4 or 5 when I set her in front of a Linux screen and showed her the browser icon, the games menu, and the word processor icon. I specifically did not show her how to print, but she figured it out for herself — the computer found the wireless inkjet printer on the local network and automatically set it up.
The Health Tell:
Final paragraph: I give Clinton a 50% chance of making it to November with sufficiently good health to be considered a viable president. Judging from her performance on the campaign trail, she is managing her health effectively to get the job done. But I would think most people who run for president end up sacrificing their health in some measure. The big question is how much buffer she has left.
From the comments: Somewhere in an attic an oil painting of Hillary is getting prettier and prettier.
🙂
Just by the cheapest Apple product you can find. It runs on a Linux base system, and for what you’re doing anymore with computers, is all the “power” structure you would ever need. I have tried to use Linus since 1996 and after all the years, have decided it “ain’t worth it. It will work, (Apple) the rest can, but not without extensive updating. You will have to admit, and already have.
“Female student, 19, is brutally attacked by two suspects who ‘pushed, punched and bit her’ in broad daylight on a Chicago train while other passengers did nothing”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3567397/Jessica-Hughes-19-attacked-Chicago-blue-line-train-going-home-Berwyn.html
Victim is WHITE, guess the race of the criminal scum…. that’s right, if you read all the way to the bottom, the last couple of sentences FINALLY describe the assailants.
nick
It’s not racial, it’s classal. Underclass of any race are scum. Granted, UC are heavily skewed toward black and hispanic, but that doesn’t mean black = underclass.
Houston school, covering itself in glory:
“Eighth grader sparks counterfeit investigation after she tried to pay for her lunch with a REAL $2 bill from her grandmother
Danesiah Neal only wanted to buy some chicken nuggets with a $2 bill at Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Houston last year
Neal, who has never had any problems with the school before, said that police told her she was in big trouble
The bill was given to her by her grandmother and after taking trips to the convenience store she got it from and the bank, it was determined real ”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3567458/Eighth-grader-sparks-counterfeit-investigation-tried-pay-lunch-REAL-2-bill-grandmother.html
fucking people are too stupid to live. Called the COPS. Had to go to the bank. That means the COPS don’t know there are $2 bills. Used a counterfeit pen on a $2 bill! So what do you think this cost the school district in time, and the cops? Oh never mind, the taxpayers will get that. Taxpayers who are overwhelmingly white as only property owners pay for schools….
“According to ABC, between the 2013-2014 school year there were 40 Houston students investigated for using allegedly counterfeit money at lunch and that those investigated are disproportionately black and Hispanic.
Many of those students qualify for free school lunch and some of them could spend two to ten years behind bars.”
Fails to mention that HISD as a whole is 92% non-white which makes it disproportionate vs Houston proper. 80% qualify for the free lunch program. It would only take one or two white kids difference to make it “disproportionate” as the sample size is too small. This particular kid is in Fort Bend ISD, which is 82% non-white. Also disproportionate.
So much fail
nick
” black = underclass” perhaps not everywhere, maybe there are areas in Atlanta, or some other city with a historically strong black middle class, but in all the northern shitholes, they match pretty well. It is certainly the case in Chicago, where there may be pockets of successful blacks in isolated communities, that as % of black increases, so does crime, violence, and poverty. The racial map, and the crime map overlap.
This may not be true for any specific person, but for groups…
Mainly I pointed it out as another example of how the press minimizes black on white violence. Frankly I’m a bit surprised they even did mention it. Given the inverted pyramid style of news writing, those 3 sentences at the bottom would be first to be cut.
nick
added- you’d think in a news story about a violent crime, unsolved with assailants on the loose, the description of the attackers would be the MOST important aspect of the story, and not the least. That’s if your agenda included catching violent criminals, and warning the public.
“That’s if your agenda included catching violent criminals, and warning the public.”
Which it does not, and which has been made abundantly clear to us by now. You must be new here; black on white violence does not exist.
I guess I’m in the SteveF and RBT camp with the rest of the Linux propeller-heads. If any. Oh well. Like I said, I was fine with NT and 2012R but that’s about it. And LibreOffice does anything I need without paying exorbitant license fees or winging it through the Cloud. I can live without Adobe products, too, and those buggers now want a monthly or yearly subscription fee for their “cloud” products.
The more I see stuff like Windows 10 and Adobe and Oracle and FaceCrack and Skype, the more determined I am to run secure, free and open-sauce machines here. To that extent, two of them will be variations of BSD, and the rest either Ubuntu, Fedora or CentOS. When the blessed day comes, OpenVMS on x-86!
Apple’s OS X is based on FreeBSD not Linux. There’s no way in hell that Apple would allow the GPL with in sight of their gated community.
I think it is dangerous to assume that all members of underclass are black although that assumption will be correct at least 75% of the time. Things are somewhat different up here, at least as the makeup of our underclass. It seems to be somewhat more heterogeneous. Looking at criminal activity around the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), blacks still are leading but there are also significant contributions from the south and east Asian communities. Almost all are immigrants. Gun (handgun) crime has increased dramatically over the last thirty years and is almost always in the immigrant community which is a significant change. It started with the arrival of refugees from Vietnam and has gotten worse. And of course, almost by definition, all handguns here are illegal, a situation I’m not sure I would want to change. I’m not convinced that having everybody armed would make this me safer. This applies only to handguns. I would have no problem with a shotgun in every home.
I’ve been thinking about this issue of going about armed. I’ve come to the conclusion that if I were in the States I would, somewhat reluctantly, have to support the Second Amendment for the simple reason that it is not possible to support part of the Constitution. If you don’t support all of it you can’t support any of it. I’m glad that it isn’t my problem.
And while thinking about handguns. A while back, I think it was Nick, commented on book by a Canadian author, that made no reference to handguns as part part of being prepared. That’s hardly surprising since most Canadians have no direct experience with handguns. Their only exposure to them is in movies or on TV. On the other hand, long guns (rifles and shotguns) are everywhere (except in the cities). On a per capita basis, there may be more long guns here than in the States. For most Canadians the closest they will ever come to seeing a handgun is on a cop. I can take a firearm safety course, have a quick background check and then get a firearm acquisition certificate. I can then buy as many hunting rifles and shotguns as I think I need or can afford. (a quick check shows that things have become somewhat more restricted in the last ten years. There are more restrictions on what I can have but I still can possess a shotgun if I wish. As things stand, I don’t.) The point is, that if a Canadian thinks about having a gun to hand, they will almost always think of a long gun.
Does it vary by province? I exchanged several emails with a prepper in Alberta. She said she and her husband had both purchased pistols.
Just to clarify, I understand that not every black is a criminal or underclass, and that the criminal and underclass contain people of every race.
However, two points. In the US blacks, specifically young black men and boys, commit violent crimes wildly out of proportion to their 3% of the overall population. Also statistically black on black crime and black on white crime are far out of proportion and way higher (percentage wise) than white on black crime. This reality is in stark contrast to the reporting in the media. It’s gotten to the point where if a violent crime is committed, especially against a white victim, and NO RACE is given, you can safely assume the perpetrator was black. When violence is done by whites, it is almost always called out.
The law should be colorblind. But law enforcement, particularly when describing suspects, MUST NOT BE. Skin color is the single most observable characteristic and to ignore that when describing suspects, especially given the disparity in who commits violent crimes, is egregiously wrong. From a personal security standpoint, to ignore this reality is dangerous and foolhardy.
Most places in America are very safe. If you are foreign, or even if for some reason you read this but you get your news from mass media, please mentally translate every occurrence of “gun violence” into “gang violence.” In rare cases you will be wrong, but in the vast majority of cases you will now have a better understanding of the events. Some people have looked at the FBI statistics and determined that if you take out the (assumed to be gang violence) crimes by young black males, the US rises to one of the safest countries in the world. That won’t actually make you safer here, unless you avoid those areas. And as the linked story shows, it’s not always possible to avoid them. Sometimes bad shit happens, no matter what.
nick
I’m surprised no one’s commented on the diesel pickup plans. You’ll almost certainly pay a steep premium for the diesel version of the truck which is one reason I don’t own one (yet). My understanding is that they have significantly higher maintenance requirements than gasoline engines. Also, some engines are definitely better than others.
Ford’s 7.3 liter PowerStroke engine has a reputation as being only slightly less reliable than gravity. The successor 6.0 liter PowerStroke on the other hand, was apparently a disaster. I’ve read it’s possible to fix the issues with the 6.0, but I wouldn’t buy one without a great deal of in-depth research on the problems in general and complete documentation from the seller showing that the problems had already been dealt with. I believe GM has had its hits and misses as well, but I don’t follow them closely enough to tell the good from the bad.
While diesel pickups are cool in their own right, I really doubt you’ll drive yours enough to justify the added expense. The benefits as I see them are better fuel mileage than gasoline engines, long engine life in high-mileage usage and having enough torque to tow your house if you feel like it. Plus, it’s assumed that you’re buying a diesel for heavy-duty jobs and the vehicles they come in tend to be built that way. We’re seeing smaller diesels enter the market now and this won’t always be true, but I think it’s a valid assumption for 10+ years ago.
Offsetting the pluses are the higher purchase price, higher fuel cost per gallon, although at the moment gas and diesel are cheap enough that I doubt it matters, higher maintenance costs, more complicated PM requirements, fewer people who can work on them, and they don’t really like to sit around unused. They don’t like cold weather either, although they’re a lot better than they used to be.
Unless you’ve got some heavy-duty hauling needs I don’t know about, I think a 3/4 ton 4×4 gasoline pickup is likely to do what you need it for.
Strictly speaking, I don’t need a diesel pickup either, but I still want one. You seem a lot more rational about your vehicles though.
“Apple’s OS X is based on FreeBSD not Linux.”
Correct, but Apple rarely mentions it. Not many peeps understand that the BSD variants are not the same as Linux, though. They’re UNIX-like.
“… I’ve come to the conclusion that if I were in the States I would, somewhat reluctantly, have to support the Second Amendment…”
And if I was living in Canada I’d have at least a couple of handguns nearby in addition to the long guns, regardless of whatever the laws and ordinances state. But I’m not, and every time I come back across the Quebec/Vermont line to the U.S., as effed up as it is, I have a strong impulse to jump out and kiss the asphalt.
And what Mr. nick said about gang/underclass/black violence? +1,000, only it’s worse than he’s illustrated. Some of the worst racial hate crimes are black on white and they make your hair stand on end and your skin crawl. But you won’t EVER see them in the MSM nooz. It’s of a piece with some of the worst reported musloid atrocities. But we’re all supposed to STFU about it and make believe it doesn’t exist.
“…Call it half of a full cord. He charged $65, which seems cheap to me.”
It’s cheaper than what we’ve been paying, so if you pay $130 for a cord of seasoned hardwood, we’re paying around $200+, but we’ve been getting by with a max of two cords per cold season. At worst, with no oil heat being used, we could do it with three cords or less. Of course our house is a compact brick one, about 1,400 SF. With half the windows brand-new. The other half to be replaced this coming fall.
And I agree with Mr. Mark on the diesel trucks versus regular ol’ gasoline models. See the ericpetersautos.com site for his take on older vehicles versus newer ones, too.
http://ericpetersautos.com/?s=diesel
Firearm regulations are federal although some aspects of enforcement may be provincial. The late, unlamented long gun registry was federal but the provinces were expected to administer it. Only Quebec actually put any effort into doing that, Ontario mumbled something about doing something and all the western provinces told the feds to fuck off. The registry was brought in by the previous Liberal government and the last Conservative government scrapped it. Quebec said something about introducing their own but I haven’t heard anything about that for a while. I doubt the federal government will try again any time soon. The feds have learned (I hope!) that there is little point in introducing legislation that he hope the provinces will administer if they won’t support it. The long gun registry was a 2 billion dollar fiasco.
You can get a permit for a handgun. That’s not the problem. The problem is that there are so many regulations on what you can do with it. I think Bill (from BC) knows far more about this than I do. As I understand it, the usual permit is for a gun for target shooting and that you have to inform the authorities (police I guess) every time you want to take from one place to another.
When my brother was getting training for his possible trip to the Northwest Territories he had the choice to also get training with a handgun. Geologists have been trying to get permission to carry handguns while in the bush on the premise that they defend themselves faster with a handgun than a rifle. He decided that getting the permit wasn’t worth the hassle.
You can get a simple overview of the Possession and Acquisition Licence here
@OFD
That’s exactly what many people here do. You only need the permit to acquire the gun legally. That doesn’t mean you can’t get or possess one. The only time you hear anything about all these unregistered firearms (and I’m sure that there are a lot) is when one is stolen from a house. And of course this is the reason the anti-gun types keep pushing. No one should have a gun because somebody might steal it! Alas, we have shortage of “useful idiots”. I personally think that you should be able to keep almost anything you want at home. My reservations are about walking around with them. I will admit that I have changed my thinking on that in the last thirty years. Thirty years ago I would have said that I wouldn’t have a gun in the house. Now, if I lived in a rural area I would insist on having a shotgun.
@Nick
Virtually all the gun violence here has been gang related. They seem to miss their targets and hit bystanders more often than their targets. The problem is getting worse. On the otherhand, last year there were 56 homicides of which 26 were shootings. This is in a city of two and a half million. On a per capita basis Toronto remains one of the safest cities in Canada. Regina and Saskatoon have some of the highest rates but again this is gang related, in this case native gangs. It seems to be the same everywhere. Only the faces change.
@ofd,
hundreds of times worse, I didn’t want to google the thing down in FLA involving rape, sodomy, torture, poisoning with bleach, and murder, nor the other less horrific but just as little reported like the ‘polar bear hunting’ knockout game.
@rolf,
Funny how the projects in Kitchener look like the projects down here, but the occupants don’t. And the west has those problems with biker gangs, drugs, and people smuggling, and that thing a couple years ago in Guelph with the 20 odd jihadis rounded up at the training camp….oh, and the occasional pig farmer who chops up prostitutes. 🙂 Anyway, we all have our different problems, but we all have problems. It’s just that so many cities down here have concentrated their problems into specific areas and cultures completely at odds with civilized life have been allowed to flourish, and were possibly even created with malice aforethought.
FWIW, there may be an issue with the way murders are recorded up there. If you use the same system as the brits, I believe they are only counted as murder for statistical purposes when someone is convicted of the deed. It’s one of many issues when it comes to comparing murders or gun death rates between countries. There are a great many sites that go into this in great detail. Short story is – it’s very hard to get an apples to apples comparison, and very few other places have concentrations of “ethnic youths” like we do. Some of the folks in europe are about to get a master’s level course in that…
It’s late and I’m not able to judge if I’m even making sense. Off to bed.
nick
BTW, apropos of nothin’ our server at Chuck E Cheese today had the unfortunate given name of “Aquanet” presumably after the hair styling spray…. why in the hell do parents hobble their kids with “unique” names? (not the only US culture that does this, the LDS in Utah has some strange ones that even they will joke are “Mormon” names….)
@Nick
I also visited Chuck E Cheese yesterday. That place is a gold mine. I would buy a franchise but I would have to go there even more. A 100 tokens for $20 coupon brought us in and we paid $26 for drinks. If we had not brought in a kid with a milk allergy, we would have paid more for a pizza like substance.
My observation is that people with an odd name often do very well. A Boy Named Sue.
The good: kid home alone shoots a burglar threatening to kill him.
The bad: it took him twelve shots to hit the guy.
The funny: “He started crying like a little baby.”
I can’t really fault the kid for missing eleven times. He was probably scared half to death and probably some were warning shots. But still…
Note that if this had taken place in NYS, the kid would likely be dead or badly hurt. Fuckface Cuomo’s unconstitutional “SAFE Act” limits magazine size because no one needs to be able to shoot that many times without reloading.
The biggest problem with modern diesel engines is manufacturers trying to meet Uncle’s insane emissions standards. Just ask Volkswagen.
Mercedes execs are on deck next for the figurative public flogging … maybe literal by the time Doh-bama is done. January 20, 2017 can’t come soon enough in my opinion.
Kid was lucky he lives where he does. In many places he would be in trouble for shooting a fleeing perp that was no longer a threat to him. Only real problem I see is he needs more practice time.
Thanks for the clarification on Canadian gun laws, Mr. Rolf. Good job.
Not many peeps understand that the BSD variants are not the same as Linux, though. They’re UNIX-like.
BSD was the “standard” UNIX distro for quite a while. Better shell, for one. Easier to get a license.
Kid was lucky he lives where he does. In many places he would be in trouble for shooting a fleeing perp that was no longer a threat to him. Only real problem I see is he needs more practice time.
Nope, the perp threatened the kid to get him later. Here in Houston, you are just preventing a future trip back by the perp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Horn_shooting_controversy
“BSD was the “standard” UNIX distro for quite a while. Better shell, for one. Easier to get a license.”
I’ve got OpenBSD on one laptop and GhostBSD on another. The various books by Michael Lucas on that and network stuff are a whole education in themselves.