4 posts from 2009

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.

• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

• $850 million for Amtrak.

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts

• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

• $252 billion for income-transfer payments. This includes $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax.

Just about 270 billion that won't stimulate a damn thing.

So basically we have democrat politicians' 40 year wet dream for new permanent government spending being rushed through congress to "stimulate" the economy, authored by the same dumbasses responsible for the conditions that allowed the economy to get into the condition it's in, and opposed by the same dumbasses who are complaining about spending but who went through tax money like a drunken Hilton in the mall with daddy's credit card.

All that and it's going to be signed into law by the guy who ran on a platform of "change" but who hired every slick ass, Persian Bazaar snake oil salesman available, including the king of the heap, Tom Daschule, to be in his cabinet. Yeah...that's some change there, boy.

Way to keep up that Chicago tradition Mr President.

peace,
Aielman

Copied from my somewhat nerdly and quite literary neighbor Duck

Well...I downloaded Windows 7 Beta when it became available. Got it with relative ease along with 3 keys for installation.

The install itself went flawlessly. The 64 bit OS looks great and seems to run great on my wife's core 2 duo machine with 4 G of ram.

There's just one small, but fairly significant problem for my install...it cannot seem to hold a valid IP address, which makes it impossible to get on the network.

It's a truly odd problem as well. The system gets a valid DHCP address at logon and connects to the internet fine. But as soon as you try to use it to get a remote resource or go on the web, it is unable to make connection for more than a few seconds, if at all. Running the troubleshooter, it first tells you that it cannot find the gateway, and then after several minutes, that it does not have a valid IP to get on the web (it ends up with an APIPA address).

So of course my first instinct is that there is a driver issue. That in itself is odd because I was initially using a Marvell Yukon Gig NIC that is probably the second most commonly used network card on desktop machines behind the Intel Pro. So it's almost inconceivable that Microsoft would neglect to include a valid driver. But just in case, I downloaded the latest driver on another machine and then installed it...but to no avail.

So then I purchased a new dlink 530T, their most commonly used gigabit NIC, and installed first the 64 bit Vista drivers (Windows 7 is meant to be 100% compatible with all Vista drivers) and then the Windows 2008 driver, but the same problem occurred. It would get an IP...and then it would lose it. Then, from 5 to 20 minutes later, it would again get a valid IP.

Thinking it may be a bum install, I formated the drive and reloaded from scratch but the same thing happened. So...just to be sure, I re-downloaded the image and tried it...but again...same problem.

I also tried 3 different sources of DHCP addresses, just to be sure it wasn't a problem communicating from the server, but nada.

But wait...try hardcoding the IP you might reply. Alas...I did so, but it still didn't work. It again couldn't see the gateway.

It's all very disappointing. Everyone else seems to be having a great experience with the beta...but not I, which is a shame.

Oh well...Back to XP 64 bit if I can't find a fix in the next 24 hours.

peace,
Aielman