Majoring on Minors

Since the planet is doomed anyway (according to the Poodle, John Kerry, we have only 9 years left), then why do we give a damn about minimum wages, “whiteness,” “wokeness,” gender identity, critical race theory, political correctness, and all the rest of the stuff that so easily triggers people? Our government is spending money literally like there’s no tomorrow. So obviously they must believe we’re doomed as well. Our kids have no future, right? So why spend money on college or worry about student loan debt at all? It ought to be “eat drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” or at the very least, “live and let live” instead of “why aren’t you wearing a mask?” and “did you just assume my gender?”

The self-contradiction is so obvious it’s blinding. We’ve got all these big global emergencies to address: Pandemics, climate change, food supply. So why should we be so laser-focused on racism and gender identity and all that stuff. Yet those are the issues that raise everyone’s hackles instead of the insane power-grabbing by autocratic governments, the continuing loss of our rights to worship, to express opinions that might be unpopular, to associate with who we wish, and to do business with whom we wish to.

The Republic that used to be the United States of America, was lost after 2019, when even our own Supreme Court “declined” to uphold the Constitution (supposedly the supreme law of the land). What we’re transitioning to is an oligarchy of a big business/government partnership reminiscent of Italian Fascism of the 1920s. All the small, private businesses are eliminated and only the big ones remain because they “cooperate” with government. They even get to call it a form of “capitalism” since “private companies” remain. But it’s not free-market capitalism by any means. It’s still totalitarianism. It’s still tyranny. And, it’s inevitable now.

So. Is that any reason to despair? Not at all, if your citizenship is in the kingdom of God. For those in the majority who are not citizens of God’s kingdom, the only hope is to apply for such citizenship by appealing to the King. Pretty soon His kingdom will forcibly remove and destroy the ungodly rulers of this world, rescuing His citizens from out of this fallen world before it is destroyed and re-made for His people. But only for His people. Those in the vast sea of humanity who have resisted Him will be gone, as will all concerns about skin color, gender identity, disease, climate, and all the rest of it. Liberty will be fully restored. His people will literally inherit the Earth.

PCLinuxOS Forum: Not for Conservatives or Kids

From this post on Diaspora, a rant from a former PCLinuxOS user and fan:

#PCLinuxOS has really pissed me off

I figured the messed-up fonts would get fixed in a future update but after 3 months, same unsolvable issue. So what, I could live with that. But then

In the Forum’s “Sandbox” section, only visible to forum members who are logged in, there was a thread about #Rush #Limbaugh, filled with hateful, nasty crap celebrating his death and berating his life and his followers. I stood up for Rush, said I was a fan, and that they should at least wait until he assumed room temperature before attacking his memory. Two other forum members agreed. But Tex, the lead developer, among others, resorted to an insulting barrage of hate against Rush, and I logged out, never to return.

I don’t care whether your #Linux distro is left or right politically, but when you use the distro’s official forum to launch a tirade of cruel and venomous hostility toward a public figure for his or her #political views, then you’re just an asshole and you’ve made the distro political as well. I would link to the thread, but the “Sandbox” (kind of a chatty, off-topic subforum) is not visible except to forum members who are logged in.

Once you make an #operating-system political, you’ve crossed a line I can’t abide. Time for a new distro, just because I won’t pollute my #computer with crap from a hostile #Leftist asshole who has made his distro political by posting such vitriol in the official forums.

Looking for a new systemd-free Linux distro. And no, not antix either because of this. I’ll revisit #SalixOS I guess.

“His vile ass is dead.” This from the main developer. Y’know, once you post political crap in the official forums of the distro, you have politicized the distro. A few members spoke up in defense of me and of Rush, but there’s two more pages of hostility that I won’t publish here. The thread is not visible to anyone not logged into the forums, which is probably a good thing. But it’s enough for me to know that the guy I sent money to to support his work is a bitter, hostile Leftist. No more donations to a hateful serpent like that, and because he has politicized the distro, I’m looking for another. Gotta be systemd-free, and rock-stable. Revisiting SalixOS today.

Linux Mint learned a lesson after “the Great Linux Mint Political Train Wreck” that Tex should have learned. But perhaps someday he will. In the meantime, I think the Xfce version, although far more bloated than I would prefer, has been fun and easy to use. Next best thing to Xubuntu, but free of systemd which I really want.

Thanks for the backup, Knot2Smart and Old-Polack. Goodbye.

More Mozilla Replacements

Last time I wrote, I was describing replacement software for Mozilla products. Not because I’m one of those rabid FOSS activists who runs only GNU, open-source, non-proprietary software (I really don’t know how anyone actually does anyway), but because of Mozilla’s politics.

I had replaced my once-beloved Seamonkey with Midori (Xfce’s own awesome lightweight web browser) and Geary (A Gnome project, unsupported for awhile and recently resurrected and updated). Both are wonderful!

Just out of curiosity because of some minor limitations with Geary and Midori, I wanted to try the GNU versions of Mozilla’s Firefox and Thunderbird. They are IceCat (GNU’s version of Firefox) and Icedove (GNU – Thunderbird).

I installed them on my custom Xubuntu-core machine by adding the repository from Trisquel Linux (all GNU software) and using Synaptic to load ’em up.

IceCat refused to display anything with Java until I modified the settings, which I expected. Other than that it’s every bit like Firefox or Seamonkey’s browser, but a whole bunch quicker and more nimble. A good Mozilla replacement!

Icedove is awesome, and right out of the chute it has all the features I loved about Seamonkey’s mail reader and composer, including in-line links and images, Address Book, etc., which Geary lacks, as awesome as it is. Another good Mozilla replacement!

So if you think you can’t do without Mozilla’s great products, but don’t want Mozilla’s branding or to use their products showing, even unwittingly, some support for their political corruption, check out these sweet GNU alternatives.

Mozilla’s Replacements

I have enjoyed a three-year love affair with Seamonkey and it was awesome. Mozilla took the old and wonderful Netscape Internet Suite (browser, email client, etc all in one) and resurrected it as Seamonkey. It seemed a low-priority project compared to Firefox and Thunderbird, but it was much lighter and faster for the first two of the three years I enjoyed it. Having far fewer lines of code than it’s siblings, it was small, sleek, and powerful.

logo seamonkey icon updated by victor1410 deviantart net 360x364
logo seamonkey icon updated by victor1410 deviantart net 360×364

Then one day someone at Mozilla dared to express a politically-incorrect personal opinion and Mozilla responded by firing him.

I’ve been loooking for a good FOSS alternative to Seamonkey ever since. Even if I disagreed with the opinion expressed, I would do no less than this, to protest in my little quiet way, the censorship Mozilla imposed on a good man, and the fear they’ve inflicted on others who work there, which stifles their freedom of expression as well.

It took some time to find anything as close to awesome as Seamonkey that wasn’t either buggy or patent-encumbered. The Xfce project’s wonderful little Midori browser finally quit crashing on me at random, and the latest version of Geary seems to finally be behaving itself now. It too crashed at random, especially while composing e-mail. K-Mail is far more limited, and Claws Mail needs an external editor to send anything but plain text.

But it looks like the very latest versions of Geary (rumors of it’s demise are false by the way) and Midori have rid themselves of those annoying crashes.

At last I have my replacement for Mozilla’s Seamonkey. It’s sad to even have to look elsewhere, but just on principle, for whatever it’s worth, my little protest.

iu

Goodbye, Mozilla.