Many of you have probably already seen and taken the “World’s Smallest Political Quiz” over at Advocates for Self Government. If you haven’t, go check it out. After the quiz there are some pretty good descriptions of the differences between a liberal, conservative, libertarian, and statist.
The below graph is my results (scored solidly in the Libertarian quadrant).
Big surprise, I'm a Libertarian
While you are thinking about that, I invite you to learn about a seldom covered Libertarian candidate for Iowa Governor: Eric Cooper. Head over to his site, read his thoughts on education, gay marriage (linked to the pilgrims, no less), and other important issues. http://www.coopersmallergovernment.com/
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Keith Olbermann, on Monday’s episode of his incredibly popular MSNBC show, blasted Republicans for proposing a “Balanced Budget” Constitutional ammendment. Olbermann noted that Gingrich pushed the same idea as part of his Contract with America; the proposal did not gain traction and was obviously not implemented. Olbermann claims “Gingrich failed to pass it, Clinton raised taxes, balanced the budget, created 22 million jobs.”
Each of those statements, taken alone, could be technically true. Together, and specifically in relation to Gingrich, it is blatantly ignorant of history.
Clinton’s tax increases were part of the 1993 Omnibus Reconciliation Act. Newt Gingrich became Speaker in 1995 (and later pushed the Balanced Budget amendment). The tax increase surely did not come after the proposal, as Olbermann would like you to believe.
Second, the majority of the “22 million jobs” were created after Congress (with Gingrich leading) forced President Clinton to sign the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (the legislation cut taxes for Americans). Olbermann conveniently gives all the credit to Clinton while a strong argument could be made that Congress was really responsible for these economic gains.
The balanced budgets of the Clinton era (1998 through 2001) also occurred after Gingrich’s Taxpayer Relief Act.
In truth, Clinton is only responsible for one of the three accomplishments Olbermann stated – raising taxes. Balancing the budget and adding jobs to the economy were effects of the Taxpayer Relief Act passed in 1997.
Well-researched reporting like Olbermann’s really makes you wonder why his show isn’t doing better.
View the transcript from Monday, August 9, 2010.
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I was looking to install Skipfish, Google’s web security testing application, on my development server. My server runs CentOS (basically RedHat). There seem to be a bunch of instructions for Debian-based Linux installs, but not for RedHat versions.
Skipfish will allow me to test my various websites for security issues such as cross-site scripting, SQL injection, server config problems, and more in a development environment. The idea is to test sites (especially anything handling monetary transactions) before any large updates are implemented to a production/live system.
Obviously, the first step is download the latest version of Skipfish to the server you’re working on. As of today, the current version is 1.34b; as updates are made make sure you update the below statement.
tar zxvf skipfish-1.33b.tgz
cd skipfish
Use the Yum automated software installer and ensure you have the appropriate dependencies.
yum install gcc
yum install libidn-devel
Use make to compile the application and copy the default library to be used (per the Skipfish project’s suggestions).
cp dictionaries/default.wl skipfish.wl
Everything should be all set and ready to go. You can access Skipfish by running the skipfish command with various flags. See the Skipfish documentation for details or enter the below for a quick review.
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The bill currently in front of the House of Representatives must be stopped. It is a massive tax increase – the burden of which will be placed on every American.
The goal of this bill isn’t to improve our country’s ecology, but rather to dramatically increase the income of the Federal Government in a sly, back-door way. Even Greenpeace says this bill is no good – what more proof do you need?!
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS NOW!
Call the House’s phone switchboard at (202) 224-3121. If the line is busy, keep trying, but also give your Congressional Representative’s local office a call (find the right number here). Tell them you want them to vote NO against this horrendous piece of legislation. Tell them you will actively campaign against them if they vote yes or present.
Reasons to Deny Cap and Trade
- Increases the cost of products manufactured here, in the United States. Are corporations going to accept less profit? No! They’ll move the jobs outside the country (thanks Democrats for pushing more jobs to India!).
- Any additional expenses brought on by this new tax will be passed directly onto you – the American consumer. We’ll all be paying more to our Government (and what do we get back?).
- This bill gives the already powerful EPA even further reaching authority – who will stop these eager government bureaucrats from sticking their noses into everything?
- This bill disproportionately affects lower class Americans – who really stands for this group (hint: not Liberals)?
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