Bailout, HELL NO.

Why would I be for a bailout of businesses that have a bad business plan? Why bail out these businesses when many other businesses have failed without government help.

I worked for Cornice in Colorado they failed and no one offered to bail us out. I simply had to find another job.

I lost a house in Oklahoma when I lost my job due to corporate downsizing. Twelve weeks of unemployment, that is less than one tenth of what I had been making, is certainly not a bailout. In fact the Government fined me for using my 401K to make ends meet. I am still paying that money off 5 years later. Quite the opposite of a bailout.

And now the idiots in charge want to use 700 BILLION to bailout companies I cant give a damn about. They had bad business plans executed poorly. Why would we bail those companies out?

They will print up this money making your money and mine worth less. they will give it to their buddies in those failing companies who will in turn layoff many of the workers as their plan to fix the broken plan they will give themselves raises from the money they saved by laying off the lower levels. then in no time they will retire letting the succeeding failure be blamed on their successors.

If they were left to die now the people who loose their jobs would find others perhaps the upper management would not but then they are the reason the companies are failing anyway maybe they need to take "menial" jobs like the rest of do. Maybe actually working for a living would give them a more rounded perspective.

Let them fail. Others will rush in to fill the void. Smaller companies which are run by people who work harder and are not simply asking for legislation to prop up their poor business plans will prosper. This is business Darwinism. Pull the plug they need to die.


Perhaps it is time to throw the tea into the harbor again.

VB.NET SMTP Send Mail

Occasionally I seem to find it hard to find how to do things which seem that they should be easy to find. So to make it easy for me to find in the future I will stick them in this blog.

Add a reference to MAPI.
This function sends a mail item with the sMsgBody string as the text of the message.
This is a fairly simple function it has lots of room for improvement but gives the basics of sending mail in .NET 7.1

Public Function SendMail(ByVal sMsgBody As String) As Boolean
Dim MyMail As Web.Mail.MailMessage = New System.Web.Mail.MailMessage
MyMail.From = sEmailFrom
MyMail.To = sEmailTo
MyMail.Subject = sEmailSubject
MyMail.Body = sMsgBody
MyMail.Cc = sEmailCc
MyMail.Bcc = sEmailBcc
MyMail.UrlContentBase = sUrlContentBase
MyMail.UrlContentLocation = sUrlContentLocation

MyMail.BodyEncoding = BodyEncoding
MyMail.BodyFormat = BodyFormat
MyMail.Priority = Priority

' Build an IList of mail attachments.
If sEmailAttachments <> "" Then
Dim delim As Char = ","
Dim sSubstr As String
For Each sSubstr In sEmailAttachments.Split(delim)
Dim myAttachment As MailAttachment = New MailAttachment(sSubstr)
MyMail.Attachments.Add(myAttachment)
Next
End If

Try
SmtpMail.SmtpServer = sEmailServer
SmtpMail.Send(MyMail)
Catch ex As Exception
sLastError = "Exception while sending mail: " & ex.Message
Return False
End Try

'lblMsg1.Text = "VB Message sent to " & MyMail.To ' or make this a MsgBox()
Return True
End Function

Can't find SKU011.cab, FIX.

Using regedit browse to the key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Delivery

find the GUID: {90170409-6000-11D3-8CFE-0150048383C9}

change the value for “CDCache”=”2″ to 0

If you have multiple keys, delete all the duplicates.

The Microsoft article is at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896866/en-us

NOTE: As always editing the registry is the fastest way to brick your computer if you are not carefull. So this is on you, not me I do not recommend that you try this.

Government vs Mob

Generally people think of the government as benevolent but I have been wondering just how the Government is different from the Mob. The Mob being the Mafia of the movies or organized "crime". Both offer protection for a piece of your income. And that protection is the main thrust of this rambling. Mainly since I can't think of anything the Government offers which could compare to going to a casino getting high while I play then getting laid by that cute little hooker who works for the mob.


The Mob sells you protection from themselves, and from other mobs. They will also keep the small time rif-raf away since it would be bad for their business if you didn't have the money to pay them because some kid held you up. If you don't pay they bust up your business then you. Should you try to protect yourself from them then they bust up your family too.

The Government On the other hand, wants you to pay them licenses fees and taxes. This pays for a police force. If you don't pay your license fees or taxes they send the cops to close your business then put you in jail. If you try to protect yourself from them then they will bring more cops take your family hostage. You may say the police protect you, but: If you call the police because someone stole from you they take a report. If you tell the police that someone threatened you (like the Mob) they tell you that no crime has been committed so don't bother them, until a crime has been committed. In fact most people only interact with the police when they are being given a citation which is another way the government takes money from them. So from looking at what the police actually do their job is to write citations and lock up people who don't pay their protection, oops taxes.

The Mob is pretty much a neighborhood or city organization with a fair amount of muscle to insure compliance with their rules, who all live within the community. Most of the money the mob collects is spent within the community except when the Godfather makes a visit to the homeland. But he can't do that too often since the underlings may start to get ideas or feelings of grandeur. The Mob will not allow foreign bullies or those who are not members, that would be bad for business. If a Member of the Mob bullies you you can go to the Godfather and seek his intervention. If he agrees that the bully was wrong, end of problem.

The government covers the country and has branch offices which all need their own piece of the action, They have quite a bit of muscle (Cops) but they pretty much only are in the business of generating income via fines for minor infractions of the rules. And enforcing the license fees and taxation. After all when was the last time a cop helped you? I'll bet you even said thanks for the ticket you got. Also the government has their outside police (in the US: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) They pretty much bully people of other nations. Of course that means that the money you pay them is being spent over seas. Not helping the local economy much. Of course the Locla bullies, I mean Police, they do spend their money locally.

So, the bottom line appears to be that the Mob actually protects you along with enforcing their charges. The Government only collects their share of your money.

What if the mob grew to be as big as the government? Maybe they would see the wisdom of not providing anything for the money they collect? Maybe there is little news of Mob action because the Mob now is the government?

Government. What a racket, Tell the people how they have a choice, Vote! You can either pay Guido or you can pay Bubba. You can choose Barack as the new godfather or you can choose John. You have the choice to give us half or your money or you may give us 50%. But nothing will really change. No matter who is elected we will continue to pay more for less.

The Mob would have been a better choice to pay for protection but it really appears that the only mob left is the Government.

Even though I write this from the perspective of a US citizen from what I see of other countries there is little or no difference. Some countries are further along the path of collecting more for less. Some aren't as far. But the bottom line is that Government seems to be nothing more than the stronger mob. Offering words for your hard earned money and threatening loss of property, liberty, or even life should you defy them.

And most people seem to be OK with that. Sad.

Fedora 9 ByeBye

Well I upgraded from FC8 to FC9 three days ago and I have had to reboot the server each morning since.

I have not looked at the logs to determine what the cause was but since this began after the update I am rolling back to FC8. Maybe once I can actually access a keyboard and monitor on the server I will give it a try again. But for now it looks like Fedora is gaining on the unreliability of windows with the upgrade to FC9.

Highway On/Off Ramps

And How To Use Them

I have lived in several states west of the Mississippi, and driven in quite a few. Mostly people seem to know how to get on and off of a busy controlled-access-highway. A few usually older, seem to have problems. You will see that "tri-silvertips" vehicle slowing down and then trying valiantly once the slug of traffic has passed to accelerate. Or slowing nearly to a stop on the highway prior to entering the off-ramp. Yet this problem seems to be prominent in Oklahoma, not only in the aged but in all age groups. Granted the Engineers who designed the Oklahoma highways obviously had gas leaks in their offices which affected their abilities but mostly the highways have proper length ramps to allow proper speed matching. Yet it is still common to find some Okie slowing to a crawl or even risking their life and others by coming to a stop on the on-ramp.

Here is a simple hint for how to enter and exit a turnpike/freeway or any controlled access road. That ramp is for adjusting your speed. In the case of an off-ramp, do not slow until you have entered the ramp. That is simply considerate of other drivers behind you. They do not want to slow down because you are trying to avoid using your brakes to come to a stop. In the case of an on-ramp, match your speed to the traffic you are planning to merge with. USE YOUR THROTTLE!

If Traffic is going 70MPH then accelerate to 75 so that you can slow for the space behind that truck, yet you will be going 70 when you move over. If you stop the guy behind you who is looking back will hit you and you deserve it. He does not. If you want to stop pull off of the ramp onto the emergency parking lane or into the ditch. Do not block those who want to go somewhere. Do not enter a highway going slower than the flow of traffic and expect others to move out of your way, that is RUDE.

If someone comes on too slowly in front of you, don't move over and block the fast lane. It is not courteous to move over it is self centered rudeness to the people in the lane you move into. Even if you insist that you are being courteous, why do the people entering too slowly deserve courtesy when those in the fast lane get your rudeness? I do recognize one exception to this rule: vehicles which can not get going any faster, like 18 wheelers. They are doing their best, so yes, move over, BUT, accelerate. Do not be rude to those who were going faster than you wish speed up until you pass then get back over, where you may once again slow down.

Do this for yourself, your family and the family's you would hurt by killing or injuring one of their loved ones. USE THE RAMPS properly. It actually makes your drive much safer and easier to do this properly. It may seem wrong to go faster but you will see that it works.

I hope to be able to give you a thumbs on the highway someday due to your proper entry/exit procedure.

-Mycroftxxx
Visit Chili Today Hot Tamale

Free Luna. Huh?

Free Luna and Mycroftxxx both come from the same place as Adam Selene.

I know that doesn't help either. They are all related to the same old novel written by Robert A. Heinlein. This is also the book that introduced the acronym TANSTAAFL.

I will do you a favor, I will not explain any of these I will simply say buy it, read it. Amazon.com It is still in print yet was written like 50 years ago. Some things are dated but over-all it is still a good read.

What is this?

This is where I put thoughts about things other than weather. for the weather related blog visit Chili Today Hot Tamale.

For everything else This is it.

Enjoy