The roaring sixties

… when two regular furniture salesmen could just walk into Harrods and buy a lion cub to fool around with.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms-piPxEzbk]

Wikipedia has a page about the story/events here. At £3500 / USD 6000 today not exactly cheap and apparently not that uncommon back then, according to the 45-minute full length documentary (which actually paints a slighty different, more realistic picture – worth watching)

Fix check_hpasm for 3.x kernels

After upgrading one of my HP ProLiant servers to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (better late than never) the check_hpasm Nagios plugin broke, resulting in no regular checks of the internal arrays being performed.

Apparently that’s a known bug with the hpacucli utility doing the actual checks, which can’t uname returning a 3.x kernel version. You can manually fix this by running it like this:

Usage:
 setarch x86_64 --uname-2.6 [[program] [program arguments]]
Example:
 setarch x86_64 --uname-2.6 hpacucli ctrl all show

Therefore a quick and dirty fix for check_hpasm would be to open up /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_hpasm and go to the part that reads:

if [ -x "$hpacucli" ]; then
 for i in config status
 do
$hpacucli ctrl all show $i | while read line
 do
 printf "%s %s\n" $i "$line"
 done
 done
 fi

and replace the line (553 in my case) calling hpacucli with:

/usr/bin/setarch x86_64 --uname-2.6 $hpacucli ctrl all show $i | while read line

Worked just fine for me.

Grant Williams ASFA 2013 presentation

While this isn’t an economics or investment blog by any means, here’s a nice 30 minute presentation by Grant Williams recently given during the 2013 ASFA conference. Humorous as always and IMHO spot-on, outlining the current state of international financial markets, the current government bond bubble and equity rally of 2013… and how it’s all inevitably going to go down in flames. Very well worth watching, even if you aren’t a investor, trader or otherwise closely associated with the financial markets.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3CoFyi2U8]

Awful religious video day: Jesus Christ!

Seriously?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyclBRebNW8
I was hoping this is a really, really bad parody – but I’m afraid it’s not. m(

Lyrics (w/ Pokemon Opening Tune)

I wanna be like Jesus Christ
Like no one ever does.
To live by Him is my real test.
To please Him is my cause.
I will travel across the land.
Preaching far and wide.
To make the people understand.
And let Jesus live inside.

Chorus:
Jesus Christ! (Got to save them all!)
Its you and me…
I know Your my destiny
Jesus Christ!
Ooh! You’re my best friend
You’ll never leave me ’til the end
Jesus Christ! (Got to save them all!)
Our hearts so true
The Holy Spirit will pull me through
You teach me and I serve you
Jesus Christ!
(Got to save them all!)
Got to save them all!

Yeah..

Read the Bible, pray everday
(So) trials, I can face
I will battle everyday
And wait for the glorious days
You’re the way, truth and light
The only way to be redeemed
With Your help, I’ll win the fight
It’s always been my dream

Chorus

Jesus Christ, has been my guide
Ever since I was saved
And in His teachings, I will abide
I’ll be blessed for I obeyed
Now I will be set free
Free from pain and grief
With Jesus in my life
My suff’ring will be brief

Chorus

Holy shit.

Awful religious video day: Christian Ladies (Purity Ring On It)


One of the comments summed it up pretty nicely: Do you girls realize that no where in the Bible does it say sex before marriage is a sin? However, mocking God is a sin (Galatians 6:7). And are your outfits made of polyester? Cause that’s a sin (Leviticus 19:19). And they don’t seem very modest and the main girl had gold rings on, another sin (1 Timothy 2:9). So don’t make up rules and say they’re in the Bible while you ignore the rules that are there.

How to read a State Department briefing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBuMuzhvYeA

Understand what Hillary Clinton really means… :)

Understand what Hillary Clinton really means… :)

How to analysze a State Department briefing

Unfortunately I will need to make some remarks about the peoples movement in Egypt
We continue to use our secret intelligence closely,
We are depply scared about our  empire in the region
And slightly embarrassed that we fund the Egyption security forces to repress their own people,
And we call on the 30 year dictatorship in Egypt to do everything in its power to protect our interests
At the same time we encourage to portrayal of protestors as more violent than the Egyption army
As we repeatedly say, we promote human  rights for the priviled, when it is politically beneficial to us
Including freedom of expression, except in our own country if you engage in any dissident groups
We urge the Egyption mafia to use covert CIA tactics similar to those used in COINTEL program
And promote the similiar steps used during the Honduran 2009 coup to cut off communications
The protests underscore the fact that Egypt is the second largest recipient of US Aid $, after Israel
And the Egyptian regime that we support with $1.3 billion in military aid (tear gar, guns, tanks, training)
That maybe with enough violence we will make these people go away
As Obama has said yesterday, reform, but not an inspiring revolution, is critical in Egypt
Egypt has long been an important puppet of the United States on a range of financial issues
As a partner we won’t know what to do if the political climate in the region changes
The Egyption government needs to push through more neoliberal World Bank and IMF politicies
To implement a whitewashed attempt to appear to be concerned with the problems of the masses
We continue to spy on the Egyptiptian people as we do inside our borders and around the world,
The imperative is to hold onto our stable economic interests to profit at the expense of the people
And encourage the participation of US companies to profit abroad
We want to partner with the Egyptian oligarchy and who ever we name as their future government
To impose on them our need for domination to secure oil interests for our overcomnsumption
That respects our strategy of imperialism to maintain our over 1,180 military bases worldwide
When I was recently in the region staying in 5 star hotels far removed from the poverty of the people
I met with submissive groups and I explained to them as well…
We overthrew Saddam Hussein when it was convenient & simply we’re not ready  to dispose of Mubarak
We want you to believe most of the people in the Middle East are all terrorists, especially so you fear Muslims
[Who] are seeking freedom from the poverty which we push their governments in using foreign “aid”
and to have a little or no role in the decisions that will shape their lives
As I said in Doha, leaders we install need to prevent this type of revolution from happening
And to help ensure the rich can live extravagantly at the expenses of our collective resources
They need to ignore this revolution so people in the USA don’t get the same ideas.

Cheap Domains registration

Namecheap just announced that they’ll offer new .com/.net/.org domains for $5.99 and transfers for $4.99 during the rest of September 2010. Just use the coupon code ‘SAVEBIG’ and save a few extra bucks.

Personally, I can only recommend them – I’ve been a satisfied customer of Namecheap for years, never having any problems (though I’m only using their registrar services and can’t speak for their hosting products)