I’ve finally gotten around to adding some long-overdue space blogs to the blogroll. I’ve also moved some of the dead links to the AWOL list. Finally, I created a new category, called “Futurism/Transhumanism.” The only blogs I have there now are The Speculist and Future Pundit, but if anyone can think about others (or space blogs I’ve missed) let me know.

I’m home today, but leaving for the conference tomorrow morning, and getting ready for it. I’ll be speaking on a panel tomorrow afternoon on commercial markets for reusable vehicles.

We’re going down to Key West for the weekend. I’m leaving the laptop at home.

I can quit any time I want.

And play nice in the comments sections.

“Mac” makes a comment in the previous post about how much of a jerk I am:

…to a great extent, the people who are on the receiving end of Rand’s barbs are those that cast the first stone. Whether or not Rand’s being rude to those people who are rude first is immaterial since this is Rand’s blog. If those that wish to insult Rand cannot bear being insulted back, they shouldn’t post in the first place.

While I’m sure there are exceptions, what with me being human and all, that is in fact my philosophy. I attempt to operate on the Internet (as I attempt to in life) on a tit-for-tat basis. I’ve never been a Christian, and so never feel any moral need to turn the other cheek (though I often do anyway). I just think that it’s the best philosophy of operation. As Axelrod describes it, it has the features of being nice, forgiving, provocable, and clear, which should be the basis for any interaction that provides maximum benefit to all parties.

So, if someone posts nonsense (something that I consider an insult to my blog, and to the intelligence of my other readers), and I call it that, am I being a “jerk”? I report, you decide.

[Update in the afternoon]

Sorry ’bout that. I clumsily worded the opening sentence above. “…about how much of a jerk I am” refers to the post (and is sarcastic), not to Mac’s comment.

A “George” comments:

I’ve been reading your blog for about five years now, and it is clear that mine is not a ‘silly and innumerate comment.’ What is also clear is that that you do not have even the slightest of respect for people who read your blog, which is why I will not be reading this blog any longer.

For the record, disagreeing with the Bush Administration on a few token issues (stem cell research and gay marriage were a couple of yours, I believe) does not obscure the fact that you are an ideological lickspittle. What if, day in and day out, I defended everything the Clinton Administration did, including rudely and intemperately insulting people who dissented in any way, and then said, “Oh, but I’m no shill — look, I disagree with them on some details of tort reform!”

In any case, the bottom line is that you’ve revealed yourself to be quite a jerk, and lost a long time reader. So long.

Sorry to see you go, George. I guess.

So, apparently it’s just fine to come to my web site and call me a “shill” and a “lickspittle,” but when a commenter says that “…4/5ths of your posts are just snarky, content-free bashing of anyone who disagrees with the Bush Administration,” I’m not allowed to call it out as the nonsense that it is?

There are forty recent posts on the right sidebar there. By Bill’s light, over thirty of them should be “just snarky, content-free bashing of anyone who disagrees with the Bush administration.” Anyone can go through those posts individually. I defy them to find one that meets that description. Most of them have nothing to do with the Bush administration, or its bashers.

My disagreements with the Bush administration are many and profound, not just on a “few token issues.” I disagree with them on their previous disinterest in controlling spending, on the prescription drugs benefit, on airport security, on the drug war, on their education policy, on their inability or unwillingness to follow through on Iraq, on their unwillingness to defend the Second Amendment in the courts, on their cronyism as exemplified by the Harriett Miers fiasco, on their schizophrenia about how to deal with groups like CAIR, on their agricultural policies, on ethanol, on their coopting much of the New Deal and the Great Society, instead of repudiating it, on…too many things to list off the top of my head. I dare say that I probably disagree with the administration on more, probably many more issues than I agree with it. I doubt if there are very many administration policies that, were I in charge, I wouldn’t change, some of them drastically.

And guess what? I’ve expressed this disagreement, many times, right here on this “lickspittle” blog. If it seems like I “defend everything they do” (for the record, I don’t), maybe it’s because I see so many nutty attacks on them (including here), which to me simply distract from legitimate criticism, that I feel compelled to defend some of the things they do. Or at least I defend them from the hyperbole.

Bill wanted to talk about what it “seemed like” to him. Well, what it seems like to me is that if I don’t agree that George Bush and Dick Cheney are corrupt and evil, and make Hitler look like Mother Theresa, then I am called a “lickspittle,” and a “shill.”

As I’ve said in the past, I don’t “love” George Bush. Nor do I or did I “hate” Bill Clinton. I don’t generally find politicians worth expending that much emotion on. I (unlike, apparently, many) try to simply evaluate them rationally.

I think that George Bush is a decent man, trying to do his best, but who is often misguided. I also think that Bill Clinton is a corrupt narcissist, to the point of sociopathy, some of whose policies I agreed with, most of whose I didn’t. I don’t say these things because of any preconceptions I have about either man. They’re simply observations based on my…observations. In Mr. Clinton’s case, it’s in fact a clinical, dispassionate observation. I don’t say it because I “hate” Mr. Clinton (even if I did “hate” him, this would be a confusion of cause and effect).

But when I point these things out, those who truly do hate George Bush seem to think that anyone who doesn’t “feel” (and isn’t that the key word with these people?) as they do must love him, and be a fan or, a “lackey.” And those who do (for who knows what reason? Not me…) love and defend Bill Clinton thinks that anyone who doesn’t must hate him.

I simply call them as I see them, and if some commenters or readers don’t like that, there are in fact a lot of other blogs out there. Here’s your money back…

Go forth and read them instead.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s a piece by Jim Garaghty defending himself from charges by Hugh Hewitt that he’s Romney bashing.

What does it have to do with this post? Not much, really. Except for this one little bit:

Look, it

But not too bad, considering. As Virginia Postrel (who gets a G rating) points out, Hit’n’Run is NC-17. All that drug talk.

The mobo died in my file server, so I decided to upgrade and actually get a modern motherboard for it, with actual hardware RAID, etc. I bought an ASUS M2A-VM HDMI (I didn’t really need the video features, but the price was good).

When I try booting it into Fedora Core 6, the hard drive hangs. Fine, no surprise. It doesn’t recognize the hardware (I was going from a Sempron to an Athlon-64 X-2).

The problem is, I can’t boot from an installation disk or a rescue disk, either. It gets to the point at which it says:

running sbin/loader

…and then, nothing. Just a flashing cursor. I’ve let it go for half an hour, with no joy. Is it possible that the motherboard is of such a recent vintage that Anaconda doesn’t know how to deal with it? I’ve never before had a machine that I couldn’t boot into Linux from a CD.

[Update after doing a search for “Linux M2A-VM boot problems”]

Apparently I had to disable HPET. It seems to be working now.

[Late night update]

Uh, oh.

“Cannot find any Linux partitions on your drive.”

Well, that’s why I’m going to RAID 1…

[Wednesday evening update]

Even though I found the old installation on the IDE drive, because X is broken, I decided to try to do an installation on the new dual 250-meg SATAs. Unfortunately, neither the original installation or the install CDs can find the LAN connector. I look at the BIOS, and it says it’s enabled. Any ideas?

I can install without it, but the machine won’t be of much value if the OS can’t talk to the rest of the local network, let alone the Internet.

I’ve got a long fuse, and a slow one, but it’s not infinite in either regard. If anyone wonders why Brian Swiderski will no longer be posting here (at least under that IP), the reason can be found here:

Do you imagine I’m trying to be persuasive? If I were, you wouldn’t even be talking to me–you’d be brooding over your own confusion, and then later congratulating yourself on having convinced me of your ideas.

If he’s not even trying to change anyone’s mind, I see no reason at all to any further tolerate his ongoing pollution of my web site.

I’ve banned Anonymous Moron (again). In case anyone wonders why, it was a comment here. But I would think that most people who have been reading his vile idiocy don’t need an explanation, and wonder why I didn’t do it sooner.

I’m going out for a beer, then off to the airport, then back to Florida, where we’re getting the first tropical activity of the season and some badly needed rain.

More later.