Action Item - MoveOn and Estate Taxes

I grew up in a USA in which Aristocracy and Imperialism was considered a bad thing. Whatever divisive issues have arisen in the last 5 years, I like to think that these are still points which most Americans can agree upon.

When the Senate returns from Summer Recess, they will be voting upon the repeal of the Estate Tax. As a tax which only affects those passing on $1.5 Million or more, it is a tax which discourages aristocratic inheritance. (1)

MoveOn has a petition to sign, and I encourage everyone who reads this blog to contact their Senator to express their opposition to the repeal of the estate tax, since, frankly...we've been giving the ultra-wealthy enough tax cuts in the last 5 years.

Senator Contact Info for all (PA) ExitRamp readers:

Santorum, Rick- (R - PA) Class I
511 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6324
Web Form:


Specter, Arlen- (R - PA) Class III
711 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4254
Web Form:

Pearl Jam offers DRM-free Bootlegs for Cheap

This is probably old news to the faithful, but I ain't been part of the faithful for over a decade, so it's news to me...but Pearl Jam announced recently that they will be releasing bootlegs of their shows for download for $9.99 as 192k MP3s from their website.

In the true Pearl Jam spirit, they're releasing the shows in a DRM-free format. As a way-too-far-back Pearl Jam fan, I'm totally enthused about this. And it hopefully makes up for the fact that I didn't join the Ten Club for years...

Official Site link

August 29th Changed Everything

I've been planning on doing a series of posts on alternative energy sources for a while now, and Hurricane Katrina's disruption of the US oil and gas supply seemed like the perfect motivation to get off my butt and do it. However, the more I researched each of my topics, the more clear it was that I was getting into a bigger project than I anticipated, and that anything I'd be able to cobble together would be only slightly more valuable than a high-school term paper.

So, instead, I'm going to take this moment to state my objectives with the hope that it will keep me motivated to stay on top of it, and complete some useful research, or face public scorn for being a loser-ass slacker.

In order to provide something along the lines of meaningful content, however, I will make a few observations. First off, I want to refer to Kevin Drum's post here. In it, he discusses Sen. Schumer's calls to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve due to the supply disruption caused by Katrina. He makes the point that he disagreed with Schumer's similar calls over the past few months, on the basis of high prices at the pump, on the grounds that the SPR is intended for emergencies, and Katrina-induced supply disruption is an emergency, whereas SUV-driven demand growth is not. I agree with that point. However, as was mentioned over on theoildrum, our nation's refining capacity has been maxed out for some time now. It's not clear how much value we're going to get from releasing unrefined crude from the SPR into the current environment without some magical increase in refining capacity to go along with it.

Second, I'm going to throw out some of the topics to be discussed in my future installments: 1. The Canadian Oil Sands 2. Montana's Push for Coal Gasification 3. Some as-yet-undetermined post about biofuels/ethanol/roadmap-to-hydrogen-economy. Keep them in mind, y'all.

Krugman on Greenspan and Bubbles

As anyone who reads Paul Krugman's NYTimes column regularly know, Krugman hasn't been showering much love on Greenspan during the new century. And, frankly, given the fact that Greenspan has been bending over backwards for politics on in ways that range from "just wrong" to "downright bizarre," it's well deserved.

In today's column, he continues...

If Mr. Greenspan had said two years ago what he's saying now, people might have borrowed less and bought more wisely. But he didn't, and now it's too late. There are signs that the housing market either has peaked already or soon will. And it will be up to Mr. Greenspan's successor to manage the bubble's aftermath.

How bad will that aftermath be? The U.S. economy is currently suffering from twin imbalances. On one side, domestic spending is swollen by the housing bubble, which has led both to a huge surge in construction and to high consumer spending, as people extract equity from their homes. On the other side, we have a huge trade deficit, which we cover by selling bonds to foreigners. As I like to say, these days Americans make a living by selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from China.

One way or another, the economy will eventually eliminate both imbalances. But if the process doesn't go smoothly - if, in particular, the housing bubble bursts before the trade deficit shrinks - we're going to have an economic slowdown, and possibly a recession. In fact, a growing number of economists are using the "R" word for 2006.

Between the trade deficits, the contribution of housing-related jobs to total job growth in the last 4 years, the scary-ass oil situation, and the overall debt load of US citizens, I don't have a really good feeling about 2006.

Katrina Update - Mondaynoon

Okay, so early this morning, Katrina's intensity decreased a bit, and shifted eastward, a bit. The end result is that NOLA still got pummelled, but it sounds like the impact wasn't as bad as it could have been.



Some holes got ripped into the roof of the Superdome, some buildings collapsed, and there were boats launched into other buildings. Three senior citizens were reported having died during evacuation, presumably because of dehydration.



But relative to the warnings of NOLA being turned into a bowl full of toxic chemicals, it sounds like the overall impact, so far, was not nearly that bad. Now let's see what kind of impact the after-effects have on gas prices and the overall economy, in general.

Katrina and Oil - Crisis Ahead?

Building on what I've already said about Katrina and it's potential impact on oil prices, I figured there was some more Cassandra-type stuff to say. Prof. Goose over on theoildrum is predicting that this storm will be a bigger deal than already expected. Ominously, his post is titled:"The Event that Introduces Peak Oil to a Nation." Take a look at the maps showing Katrina's projected path...lots of key offshore fields in the way, not to mention the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port.

This thing WILL be a big deal, not just because New Orleans is a prime target (remember water has to be pumped out of NO because it is under sea level, and right now with Katrina as a category 5, the estimates are 30 feet of water) under the current models for Katrina, but she could also disrupt Gulf supplies of petroleum (the GOM supplies around 1.3mbpd, we use around 20mbpd in the US) from rigs, etc., for a while. Many refineries are also located within this area (see LA refinery link below), as well as pipeline stations and tanker stops.

With supply and demand balanced on a knife's edge as it is, this could lead to huge amounts of volatilty in the oil markets for weeks to come.

In a recent post, Nouriel Roubini wondered whether the recent oil price runup would not lead to a U.S. and Global recession. He weighed the argument that a reason the recent runup in oil prices hasn't led to significant GDP growth slowdown was because it was demand-driven, rather than supply-driven. That is, that the strong economic growth fueling the demand was enough to offset any drag the rising prices would have on GDP growth. (Note that he wasn't terribly convinced by that argument to begin with) But now, if Katrina causes a supply-driven spike in the price of oil, there could be some serious repercussions.

Katrina and Oil

As an added bonus to the potential walloping that Katrina is likely to deliver to the NOLA area, there's also the fun fact that Katrina has cut the Gulf of Mexico oil output by a third over the weekend! According to the article, the Gulf accounts for about 25% of US oil and gas production.

Hooo-boy! It's going be an interesting Fall, people.

Katrina Bears Down on New Orleans

If you've paid any attention to the news this weekend, you're no doubt aware that Hurricane Katrina has turned into a category 5 storm with winds up to 175 m.p.h. is expected to hit New Orleans tomorrow. According to NPR, it will rank as the 3rd category 5 storm to hit the continental US in recorded history, and it is the first direct hit to NOLA in 40 years, just to give some perspective. There is a mandatory evacuation in place, and there is much discussion about how much damage Katrina will inflict on the Big Easy.

The really disturbing part of the story is the fact that there are just some people out there who simply can't (or wont) evacuate. They've set up some "last resort" shelters in 10 locations, including the Superdome. On NPR, they just reported that the Red Cross will not be sending people in there to help prior to the storm because it's just too dangerous. Dude...when the Red Cross wont dispatch people somewhere because it's too dangerous, you know some serious shit is about to come down. My best wishes go out to anyone who's still in there.

A Simple Question

Listen up, My Pretties, because I have a simple question. Now that the poll numbers for the Iraqmire are in the tank and Cindy Sheehan is making Chimpy look bad, every wingnut is coming out of the woodwork, wailing about how the Anti-War kooks are threatening our security.

Let's, for right now, accept that there is value behind this argument. Given that, what I want to hear from someone who is of the Pro-War mindset is this; Explain to me in detail exactly how "staying the course" makes us safer and "bringing the troops home" makes us less safe. You can use diagrams, if necessary, and please cite any sources you reference. And none of this "we have to fight the terrorists abroad so we don't have to fight them at home" crap.

That's all I want to hear...a well-reasoned explanation of exactly why it is you feel we're better off having people over there killing and being killed, and how it benefits anyone at all.

Any takers?

Pro-War Chickenhawks and Firefighters

I was checking out CanadianCynic's blog and he/she had posted on the recent topic that has gained some meme-mentum lately; That in which Pro-Iraq-War chickenhawk bloggers and pundits try to rectify their "the war is critical and necessary" ideals with the simultaneous "but not so critical that I'm willing to put my own ass on the line to do the actual fighting" cop-out.

The strained analogy they use to justify this position is summarized thusly:

I have no intention of joining the fire dept., but when I see a house burning down I expect those that did to handle it. I have no intention of ever becoming a cop, but I think those that did should attempt to stop a bank robbery. In either case, the need for professionals to perform the functions they volunteered for and trained to do is obvious to me, and I don't see why expecting them to perform their function requires me to be willing to perform it as well.

The sheer weight of this fallacious analogy has annoyed me, but until just now, I hadn't bothered to really take a crack at it. However, I am admittedly rather pleased with my own take on how we could truly make this analogy work, (copied directly from my comments on cc's blog):

Okay, if they want to use that analogy, let's draw this baby out all the way to make it truly accurate.

If we're going to take the Iraq war and stuff it into an analogy with cops and firefighters, then we'd have to have Conservative Pundits and Bloggers who were vehemently Pro-Crime and Pro-Fire. And really, in the case of the Iraqmire, it would be Pro-Arson. And when we questioned the Arson, we'd hear that:"Questioning the fires undermines our firefighters!"

The ChimpAdmin would create a Coalition of Firefighters, and send them into Iraq, and they'd set fire to people's homes and businesses, then fight the resulting blazes. When people questioned the logic and wisdom of the operation, we'd hear that we need to fight fires abroad so that we don't have to fight them at home. We'd have op-eds worrying that our strapped volunteer fire companies didn't have the manpower to handle domestic fires and rescue tree-stranded kitties.

The Administration would talk about supporting our firefighters, but would send them over there without sufficient oxygen tanks and under-powered pumper trucks. Rumsfeld would proclaim:"You have to fight fires with the Hose Company you have, not the one you wish you had."

And inevitably, this would result in pissed-off radical muslim arsonists flocking into Iraq to set more fires which the Coalition Firefighters would have to put out. And we'd hear that our firefighters would come home as soon as the Iraqi fire departments were capable of putting out the inferno by themselves.

And then, when we questioned the Pro-Arson Conservative bloggers, and asked why, if they were so strongly in favor of our Iraqi Firefighting Operations, they didn't sign up themselves, we'd have to muddle through some kind of tortured analogy about garbage men.

Of course, sarcasm and cynicism aside, let's not forget that in real life, bullshit analogies aside, we've got people killing and dying over there for whatever the current justification is. And frankly, if someone is going to shriek about how this war is important and we need to keep fighting it, they damned well better be willing to enlist and either put up or STFU.

Weirdness on the Propaganda Front

Apparently the General is being solicited to spread the word about the CENTCOM propaganda page. I urge you to click through and take a look at the actual site, because it really underscores how tough a job it must be to have to run PR for the military given the current Iraqmire.

Interesting tidbits from the site include the "What extremists are saying" segment, and the "Successes this week in Iraq" bulletin that's lumped into the same content box as "casualty reports". The headlines on the Latest Stories section talking about the military airlifting injured children to hospitals and new water projects in Najaf do indeed make me feel for the people who are tasked with covering the news for the military. I mean, hell...I'm pleased as pie to see that there are some happy stories going on over there, and that the military does have some achievements to be proud of. But that still doesn't change the fact that a whole lot of badness is going down for Chimpy's vanity war.

Bonus fun: Click on the "Learn More about the Largest Coalition Ever Built", and note how they lump the countries participating in the operations in Afghanistan together with the Iraqi operations to get one big, honkin' coalition!

It actually kind of pains me to see the sheer level of desperation being put into this site.

*** UPDATE:*** I think this whole thing dovetails nicely with MoDo's observation that, having exhausted all the previous rationales for war, the current administration line is that we have to keep fighting to honor the memory of those who have already died in the fight. To question the war is to undermine the troops. The propaganda machine has truly outdone itself.

More asshattery from Robertson

So Pat Roberston takes a page from the BushCo rulebook and is saying he didn't really mean that the US should assassinate Chavez.

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping; there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all the time," Robertson said on "The 700 Club" program.

Here's his exact quote from Monday..

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it," said Robertson on Monday's program. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war."

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," he said. "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

I would read that 1st sentence again.. I don't know how much clearer he could have been in saying that we should try to assassinate him.

Pat Robertson - Asshattery at it's Finest

I think it's safe to say that I'm not a person who gets his panties into a bunch over moronic things people say in public. Hell, I'm a staunch supporter of free speech to the point where I firmly respect the rights of an American to say whatever stupid-ass thing they want. It only gives me more stuff to talk about, really.

But, seriously now, WTF is up with Pat Robertson these days? Today we learned that he advocated assassinating Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, for reasons that amount to: "Because he's a pain in our butt, and it would be cheaper than Iraq War 2.0."

I think at this point, he's really managed to lower the bar for justifying assassination to a record-breaking level. And really, taken in and of itself, it's just another outrageous, tough-talking winger screeching point. Even the Administration stepped back and basically said: "Whoa, everybody...I never saw that dude before, he ain't with us!" This is the same dude, who one month ago was leading his viewers on The 700 Club in a prayer to "remove three justices from the Supreme Court so they could be replaced by conservatives." Now, of course, that prayer doesn't exactly require that three people die, or become seriously ill, but I'm going out on a limb and calling that the Cliff's Notes version of his prayer.

Has the Christian conservative movement gotten to the point where this kind of crap is acceptable? I mean, seriously! Modern American Christians: "Do what we want, or we'll call for your death, bitchez!"

More gas

So today I got this email forwarded to me:

I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want
>gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united
>action.
>
>This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day"
>campaign that was going around last April or May!
>
>The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't
>continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an
>inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever
>thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.
>
>Please read it and join with us!
>
>By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super
>cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.75 for regular unleaded in my town.
>
>Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to
>think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50-$1.75, we need
>to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the
>marketplace.... not sellers.
>
>With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to
>take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come
>down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their
>gas!
>
>And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.
>
>How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But
>we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a
>price war.
>
>Here's the idea:
>
>For the rest of this year, DON"T purchase ANY gasoline from the two
>biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not
>selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they
>reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.
>
>But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and
>Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do!! Now, don't whimp (sic) out
>on me at this point.. keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to
>reach millions of people!!
>
>I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it
>to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at
>least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the
>message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached
>over THREE MILLION consumers!
>
>If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends
>each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one
>level further, you guessed it...... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
>Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people and DON"T purchase
>ANY gasoline from EXXON and MOBIL. That's all.
>
>How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten
>more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
>conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't
>think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we
>can make a difference.

See mergenow's clear picture of why this won't work below. Doesn't this person realize that adding demand to other suppliers really won't change a damn thing?

Radiohead Update - In the Studio

I've been remiss in my Radiohead-watching, lately, but with the dribble of news, can I really be blamed?

But Lo! Today, I discover, via ateaseweb.com, that they've been in the studio since last week!! w00t! More precisely, it is apparently a "very old house" whose "rooms move", and Thom says that Morrissey stayed in the room he's in.

They've apparently got two songs in the works, "mornin' m' lud" and "pigsee"(or "pig's ear"). Can I explain that I'm freaking stoked, here, earthlings?

Oil Supply, Demand and Peak Oil

In the comments for my previous post disgustedem, commenting on the current state of Iraq said;

"And yet gas prices are headed over $2.60/gallon. Time to look for a part time bartending job."

Ah yes, thank you, sir, for bringing up the topic I've been dying to discuss, since it doesn't seem to get enough coverage lately....

Ah yes, what exactly contributes to the price of gas? Let's look at the breakdown as supplied by the DOE Energy Information Administration: (source)



So, as of July, Crude accounts for 55% of the price of pump gas. Having said that, what contributes to the price of crude, pray tell?

Getting back to Econ 101, and supply v. demand, let's take a look at the breakdown of global supply and demand as presented earlier this month: (source)



Ah, yes...demand exceeds supply. Further note, that the US is still the big demand hog.

Also note that the EIA has just announced that demand is expected out beat out supply at the end of the year, and early next year.

The moral of the story: Cheap gas ain't coming back anytime too soon, and if it does, it's not sticking around for long, people.

Army Planning for 4 More Years in Iraq

Yes, the ever-changing story on Iraq has sprouted a whole new limb...the Army is still planning on having "well over 100,000" troops in Iraq for at least 4 more years.


This is termed preparing for the "worst case" by General Schoomaker, subject to whatever conditions may arise. But it primarily shows that the hollow rhetoric of the Administration (major troop reduction starting next year) is completely out of touch with what the actual Army is calling for.

Or else it's proof that regardless of what BS the Administration spews, they do not now, nor have they ever had, any intention of getting out quickly or creating a truly sovereign Iraq. Who can tell, anymore? But hey, at least we've made serious strides towards fulfilling the neocon wet dream of establishing a permanent American military base in the heart of the Middle East. Yay for us!

New Keyboard Kommandos!

After reading this, the whole Cindy Sheehan thing suddenly makes sense!

moe. - Less than 48 Hours and Counting

I was pretty pissed last year, as moe. played no shows in the NEPA area. Two shows this year doesn't quite make up for it, but it's a start.

On Friday, 2005's show number two will be taking place on Montage Mountain, and I'm pretty psyched. By quick count, it now looks like moe. has overtaken Radiohead and tied the coveted Phish spot in my "live shows" list. (I mention this as a personal challenge to Thom and company to get some East Coast U.S. dates in sometime in the near future to address this situation.)



Anyhoo...I'm all psyched and stuff.

Oh yeah! Also, it turns out there's a new bunch of FOIA documents that corroborate the Downing Street Memos and pretty much prove that BushAdmin was planning to attack Iraq and pull a regime change way back in 2002.

Introducing; Your New Robot Overlords

Okay, two news items this week highlight the fact that humanity's impending obsolence may be arriving sooner than we realized:

1. Creepy-ass ultra-realistic robot unveiled at the 2005 World Expo in Japan. Covered in "skin-like silicone", and featuring various human-like twitches and fidgets, this would be freaky-cool if the article didn't point out it is powered by a "nearby air compressor."

2. Japanese (hmm...I'm sensing a trend, here.) researchers at the U of Tokyo announce that they have invented a human-like skin that can sense both heat and pressure. The headline reads: Human-like skin gives robots sense of touch

On the plus side, I hear the project managers responsible for developing SkyNet are months behind schedule.

Infrared Survey of Our Galactic Center

Cool! Turns out there's a huge bar at the center of our galaxy.

I hope they don't charge a cover, because I am totally going to have to check it out.

I Know the Future is in Good Hands

While trying to find some quotes for the previous post, I happened across this kid's term paper. It brought a tear of joy to my eye, knowing that our future will be, at least in part, in the hands of people as brilliantly sarcastic as this...

Dear Ms. Lagerquist,

Here is the status of my Social Studies term paper on the Iraq War. I know that we both wish that my term paper was completed. But writing a term paper is hard work. (1) I've worked hard on the paper, I'm working hard on it now, and I will continue to work hard on it. But I'm making progress. (2) And I think about it every day, every single day

Like Father, Like Son

For those who didn't see this yet, MoDo via Atrios:

How could President Bush be cavorting around on a long vacation with American troops struggling with a spiraling crisis in Iraq?

Wasn't he worried that his vacation activities might send a frivolous signal at a time when he had put so many young Americans in harm's way?

"I'm determined that life goes on," Mr. Bush said stubbornly.

That wasn't the son, believe it or not. It was the father - 15 years ago.

Since dubya's current stated status is:"I think it's also important for me to go on with my life,...to keep a balanced life.", I have to wonder if that means he's no longer thinking about Iraq "every day, every single day." We wouldn't want him to develop an unhealthy obsession with that whole Iraq thing, now would we? It's good that he's able to buck up and move on.

AIX - Enabling Password-Free ssh2 Logins

I'm putting this up just for the sake of having the info out there on the web, since I had such a pain trying to find this myself.

This is the process (and associated caveats) I had to go through in order to enable ssh2 login between machines without a password prompt. This document specifically applies to AIX 5.2, but there are some (possibly)OS-related syntactical differences in the "Observations" section below.

1. Overview:
a. Run ssh-keygen2 and create the public/private key pair on the LOCAL machine.
b. Create a machine-independent copy of the public key for distribution to the REMOTE machines on which the commands are to be executed.
c. Create and configure the $USERID_HOME/.ssh2/identification file on the LOCAL machine to enable public/private keypair authentication locally.
d. Create and configure the $USERID_HOME/.ssh2/authentication file on the REMOTE machine to enable public/private keypair authentication remotely.

If everything above is done correctly, one should be able to logon to the REMOTE machine from the LOCAL using:
ssh2 $REMOTE_HOSTNAME

2. Details
From the machine from which the commads will be invoked for remote execution (The LOCAL machine):
a. ssh-keygen2 -P (The "-P" switch forces a password-free keypair. This may take many minutes. )
This will create the following files in the $USERID_HOME/.ssh2 directory:
id_dsa_2048_a.pub (public key, to be copied remotely)
id_dsa_2048_a (private key, do not copy externally)
b. Copy PUBLIC_KEY_FILE, (id_dsa_2048_a.pub) to a remotely unique filename:
Public standards would suggest the following naming convention:
$LOCAL_HOSTNAME.USER_ID.key.pub ( in my case: server1.jadmin.key.pub )
c. Create the identification file on the LOCAL machine and enter the following value to enable private key authentication locally:
IdKey id_dsa_2048_a (Note that this is the private key, not the public key, also note the capital "I" and "K" in "idkey")
d. Use some filetransfer protocol to distribute the PUBLIC_KEY_FILE to the REMOTE machine's $USERID_HOME/.ssh2 directory:
scp server1.wsadmin.key.pub server2:/home/jadmin/.ssh2/ (in my case, or SFTP would work as well)
e. Create the authorization file on the REMOTE machine, and add the following line:
Key $PUBLIC_KEY_FILE ( Key server1.jadmin.key.pub in my case, note the capital "K" in key)

At this point, you should now be able to ssh2 to the REMOTE machine from the LOCAL machine without a password prompt.
Any existing REMOTE scripts should now be executable from the LOCAL machine without a password prompt using the following syntax:
ssh2 REMOTE_HOSTNAME REMOTE_ABSOLUTE_FILE_LOCATION (ssh2 server2 /home/jadmin/SCRIPTS/testscript.sh)

3. Observations and Other Finicky Bits:
1. For the identification and authorization, capitalization appears to be key. Key PUBLIC_KEY_FILE and IdKey PRIVATE_KEY_FILENAME require capital "K" and "I"&"K" respectively. Although some documentation seems to *not* use caps...presumably this is either a typo or an OS-related thing.
2. Some instructions I found call for REMOTE file: ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2, whereas other sources are looking for ~/.ssh2/authorization file, which worked for me.
3. Once you have created the PUBLIC_KEY_FILE, you can rename it without any hash value concerns, since the contents are independent of the filename.

**UPDATE**(2006-04-28) Alternately, this guy has another technique.

JC Christian Letter to Sub-42-Year-Old Congresspeople

Ouch. General J.C. Christian builds on the pending legislation raising the military enlistment age cap to 42, and sends a letter to Congresspeople under that age urging them to enlist.

I'm not sure how warranted it is in all cases, but the shrillness sure does sting:

Your service in the military will not go unnoticed. If anything, it will enhance your image with voters and your colleagues--think about all the kind things you've said about veterans like John Kerry and Max Cleland over the last few years. Certainly, your peers will honor you in a similar way if you return. If you don't make it back, you can at least rest assured that your family will receive the same treatment as Casey Sheehan's mother.

Israel and the Gaza Pullout

Before I even start commenting on this, I really need to admit that I'm not well-versed on the whole Israel / Palestine subject. I know the basics, but attempts to strengthen my understanding of the subject have always been battered down by the need to learn historical political background. And, frankly, in what is probably a too-typical US attitude, I find it a lot easier to file the whole subject under "The Whole Middle East is Messed Up" rather than taking the time to understand what is going on over there.

But, of course, today's biggie headline story is the Israeli pullout from Gaza.

Clearly, the fact that Sharon has reversed his "no backing down" stance on the Gaza settlements is a fairly monumental change in attitude. It goes without saying that it will be interesting to see how this move plays out.

BA and Stranded Heathrow Passengers

According to the Independent, (and NPR's All Things Considered, from what I heard), British Airways is refusing to give priority to passengers who have been stranded by this week's strike.

Now, from a strictly lizard-like perspective, I suppose this makes damage-control sense: These people are already pissed off, and are likely to remain so. No point in pissing off additional passengers who, until now, have not been affected by the strike.

But DAY-um, people. You've got to admit...that's one serious BUGGER-OFF to the poor souls stranded for something in the neighborhood of 50 hours! If I was one of the stranded poor there would be, in the words of one of the characters from Titanic, a "strongly-worded letter" being sent off to the BA people.

NEPAblogging - NEPA #1 in Pizza Joints

Today, the Times-Tribune is reporting that a restaurant industry survey has concluded that the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton metro area is has the highest amount of pizza shops per capita in the nation. In fact, the area has more than double the national average.

There are 5.31 pizza outlets per 10,000 people in the region, while the national average was 2.2 pizzerias per 10,000 people.

We beat out Atlantic City/Cape May, which comes as a bit of a surprise. Let me hear a big ol' shout out for NEPA, for whatever the fact is worth. I suppose this comes as no surprise, really. The Scranton Yellowbook has 7 pages devoted to "Pizza" yellow pages listings. Thinking about it, pizza places are just about as common as bars, churches and funeral homes around here. Old Forge has their self-declared "Pizza Capital of the World" marketing campaign. Hell, even my Uncle's family owns a downtown pizza shop.

Given that "Nation's Restaurant News" was the source of the data, I'd like to recommend they do a similar study focusing on "Bars, Taverns & Pubs" per capita. I'm sure we'd blow our already impressive "more than double the national average" margin on pizza places away. It would be good to finally cement the reputation as the "Best Place to Get Loaded for Cheap" with some solid data. Personally, I'm going to celebrate by grabbing me a Large Pie and a few Twelve Packs! Who's in?

(full top ten list here.)

technorati tag: scranton

Bush Admin Gives Canada and NAFTA the Shaft-a

I've noticed that this story has gotten zero play in the major US news sources, so I'm going to do my public service by pointing this one out:

NAFTA ruled that the US tarrifs on Canadian softwood imports were illegal, but the Bush Admin basically tossed that ruling aside like so much "due process" or "civil liberties." Let's just put that another way: NAFTA ruled against our tariffs, and the BushAdmin just gave NAFTA and Canada the ol' One Finger Salute. I've actually searched on the topic on msnbc, cnn, foxnews and even google news, and unless one is specifically looking for it, I can't see how anyone in the US would even know there was an issue. (Short of those who are in the lumber industry, or who are lobbyists for the same)

Let's keep in mind that we're talking, here, about the BushAdmin, who are the self-proclaimed champions of so-called "Free Trade." And their attitude towards the NAFTA ruling was: "Piss Off, Losers!" One would think this would at least rate a minor headline somewhere in the national media, no?

So, let's just summarize the Administration position on "Free Trade", why don't we?

1. When it causes the loss of domestic jobs and/or encourages human rights abuses in developing economies: "free trade=good, great, inevitable and absolutely necessary."
2. When it threatens the steel or lumber industries and their lobbyists: "whatever. Here's a quarter, call someone who cares, asshole!"

The main point, here, is that whatever they actually do, the national media is far more interested in covering missing white women or morbidly discussing the likelihood that the Space Shuttle is gonna blow it's ass up real good.

Bush Indictment Story - Jumping on the Bandwagon

In a touchingly beautiful stroke of genius, today's big item is the attempt to give legs to the story that Bush and other senior Administration officials are being indicted in the Plame Affair by keeping it the number 1 technorati search. I'm a-linking to it to jump on the bandwagon because I didn't think of it first. Huttah!

It’s fascinating to go to Technorati just now and watch the right-wing bloggers try to hijack web coverage of the impending Bush indictment. They’re putting up multiple weblog posts that claim the story is a hoax.

Update: So far, my favorite is Avram Grumer’s:
Gee, good thing it isn’t possible to gin up a big impeachment scandal out of nothing by just endlessly repeating the same empty talking points, or Bush might be in trouble.

*** UPDATE *** Here's the link to the original(?) story on Arctic Beacon. And Kevin Drum's link. And another. And another.

Honored

Thank you ExitRamp for inviting me to be a distinguished blogger on this site.

CBGB's Eviction Overturned

I've only ever actually been inside CBGB's once, on a Saturday afternoon in the summertime, but as a part of rock music's heritage, I'd really hate to see it move/close/whatever.

In trying to figure out the story on the ruling from the scant news article here, I gather that the judge overturned the club's eviction, but there's still no renewal of the lease just yet. If I'm reading this right, it appears that the landlord, the Bowery Resident's Committe, increased the rent 4 years ago, but the club's bookkeepers never noticed and were paying the previous lease amount. And it seems like the landlord either never noticed, or at the very least, never notified CBGBs of the fact, and that's the basis of the eviction proceedings.

Regarding the possibility of renewing the lease, the article has this to say:

As part of its proposal for a new lease, CBGB's has said it would find a third-party guarantor and would raise money for the committee every year with benefit concerts.

Well, if everything works out well in this situation, I'm now going to have to add "go to a show at CBGBs" to my already long Must-Do-Before-I-Die List.

Kansas Builds Tunnel Back to Twelfth Century, Forsooth!

Building on the big ol' smirks that are creeping across the educated Chinese and Indian middle classes, we find that Kansas is doing everything it can to...stupidate the average US citizen. We are now rendering the US worker irrelevant to the Jobs of Tomorrow.

Headline: "Kansas moves to stem role of evolution in teaching." Yes, people, it still has to pass the vote of a "Denver-based education consultant before final vote", but the Kansas Board of "Edumacation" has decided that the theory of Intelligent Design carries the same weight as the theory of evolution. On the positive side, we can now rule out the future population of Kansas as potential rivals for the Jobs of Tomorrow.

Assuming the vote is backed up, we can now look forward to a solid 1% of the US population that dismisses science for the whims of their Invisible Magical Fairy Friend.

Another plus, this opens up the possibility that we can introduce the equally plausible theory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster into serious scholastic ciriculum, where it belongs.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster Creating Us All

Surrender Your Civil Liberties To Save Freedom

In today's USA Today, our recovering alcoholic, salvation-army-mission-resident-looking- homeland security chief lays out his core beliefs: "You must surrender your civil liberties because there's scary-ass Bad People Out There Trying To Do You Harm, (Booga-Boogedy-Boo!)"

(Kate Patterson USA TODAY), The Homeland Security Chief Voted Most Likely to Sucker Punch You in a Bar for No Apparent Reason After Glancing at Him.
The initial paragraph of the story pretty much tells the whole story:

"Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that Americans need to ease their concerns about turning over personal information to the government, especially if they want to fly safe from terrorism."

He's braying about how we should all gladly surrender personal information to airlines and the oh-so-secure(tm) TSA Big Brother database so that everyone can be safe.

The article quotes an ACLU counsel who basically shoots down that claim with the obvious argument that amounts to: This really only protects us against incompetent agressors who don't have the resources to get a fake identity. Or those who could otherwise sneak through our screening systems, but who happen to have the same first-initial-last-name as someone who's already on the TSA "Do Not Fly" watchlist. Which, of course, is most of them.

Okay peeps, I grew up in an America in which we valued personal liberty and shuddered at the thought of the "show me your papers" governments of Nazi Germany and the USSR. That USA is the one I love, not the scary-ass one where some 12-stepper-looking, cabinet-level appointee tells me that "Ignorance is Strength" and "Freedom is Slavery".

I swear it wasn't that long ago that republicans railed against intrusive big-government. Can't we please get back to the point where the government just spent my tax dollars irresponsibly, and Presidential lies only really benefited their political cronies? I'm feeling so terribly nostalgic for those days...

In the Event of a Severe Emergency

Rest assured, good citizens, should anything seriously, terribly bad happen, I have now established my own personal ranking in the order of Presidential succession.

Understand that My Own Special Blend of Utopia is possible if less than 3000 particular people pass away in the next 3 years.


Get your position here

Pentagon Completely Loses It

Steve Gillard, via atrios, informs us that the Pentagon is planning to schedule a march and country music concert on Sept 11th, 2005. It will start with the "America Supports You Freedom Walk" which will start at the Pentagon and wind up at the Mall, where the concert will take place.

Uh, yeah...WTF? Nothing says reverent memory like a circus and a concert, now does it? Maybe they could have some clowns and balloons there as well.

Could this possibly be the brainchild of some seriously whacked-out PR guy, or does this sound more like the incompetent bumbling of the administration?

I'm voting administration, personally.

Bush Credits Tax Cuts for Economic Growth

Okay, people...yet another complaint on the "he said, she said" reporting in our current news environment.

Today, MSNBC reports that "Bush credits tax cuts for growing economy", and explains that Bush squawked about the expectation-beating 207,000 jobs created last month. The fact that the job creations numbers have been oscilating fairly regularly, and on average are unremarkable is conveniently ignored. The only opposing viewpoints related to the tax cuts' efficacy state:

Democrats believe the tax cuts have done little more than drain the U.S. budget and even some Republicans doubt the wisdom of extending them.

Apparently nobody can bother to get off their asses and do some fact-checking, so let me save everyone some time.

Last year, jobwatch.org analyzed the job growth promises on which the "Jobs and Growth Plan" were sold. Extrapolating the promised figures, they found:

This means that, in monthly terms, the CEA projected the economy to generate 228,333 jobs each month even without passage of the “Jobs and Growth Plan,” and 306,111 jobs per month with its passage.

The end result of the tax cuts was that by the end of last year non-farm payroll should have numbered around 136M jobs w/out the tax cuts and about 137.5M with the tax cuts. One more time, that's the number they were predicting at the end of 2004.

Hopping over to the BLS website and looking at the numbers for last month, July 2005, we are told:
Total nonfarm employment rose by 207,000 in July to 133.8 million, seasonally adjusted.
Got that? Non-farm payroll is still around 2 million jobs short of where we should have been 6 months ago with nary a tax cut, and over 3.5 million short of what the tax cuts were supposed to produce.

Huh. Sure doesn't sound like we can really credit the tax cuts for a whole lot to me, now does it? But what's that you say? "The Administration doesn't do Crystal Ball Predictions, or worry about statistics"? "At least the tax cuts are stimulating the private sector to create jobs, and that's what really matters", as the right will surely say.

Well, according to the research done by the Economic Policy Institute, dated Aug 3rd: "Without defense-related spending, private sector would still be in a jobs hole" since 2001. Admittedly, the tax cuts came after 2001, so the comparison is not exactly fair in an apples-to-apples kind of way, but the point is: jobs related to increased defense spending increased by 2.1 million since September of 2001, while private non-defense jobs are down by 1.16 million.

So the evidence tells us: 1. the tax cuts have underperformed the promised job creation numbers, and even the numbers that were predicted without the cuts, and 2. increased government defense spending has wildly outpaced the private sector as a driver of job creation since September of 2001.

Okay, having done the heavy lifting on researching the "tax cuts have done little more than drain the U.S. budget" part of the equation, I provide these for any MSNBC writer who cares to use them, and welcome any meaningful refutations. My answer is; "Bring 'em on".

Housing Bubble Cont'd

Okay, I've touched on the Economist discussing the housing bubble previously. Now, in the last 24 hours, we have both the Financial Times and Krugman weighing in on the subject, as well. (Jerome has the best round-up in his Kos diary, so I'll just link there...)

Using San Diego as a barometer for things, according to the LATimes it sounds like a deflation is already underway.

Fasten your seatbelt for the next recession people, it sounds like it's going to be a doozy!