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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

romanians

Today I feel angry and a bit frustrated. The news are aggressive. Earthquakes, nuclear power plant gone all wrong, brand new war. It's quite much to digest if you are a person aware of the surroundings.
I truly believe words are not capable of expressing my admiration for the Japanese people.  Just think which other country would be so disciplined? Who would stand in line quietly, calmly in such earth shattering situation? I analyzed the situation a bit, imagined all this happening somewhere else, in random locations. My conclusion is that Japan is in another league. Their "kung fu" is better then everybody else's.

And then here comes Romania. Adrian Severin was external affairs minister a few years ago. While having  that position, he expressed his concern that the water in Romania has two molecules of hydrogen and only one of oxygen. He suggested that people stop drinking the hydrogenated water. After a silent period, Adrian Severin strikes again. He is convinced by some British reporters disguised as lobbyists  to amend a European law in exchange of a certain amount of money. Another member of the European Parliament who is in the same situation as him resigned his position. But Mr. Adrian Severin did not consider that a good course of action. There are just facts, no comments from my part, everybody is free to draw its own conclusions.
Romania: hospitals are closing down because of the lack of money. Doctors leave the country because it's almost impossible to live with 150 euros a month. Workers leave the country. Everybody leaves the country. The pattern is that they come back after a while. When they have some money. I keep wondering: why is it so difficult to make something here? I sometimes miss to see the logic in what is happening around us. The law is different for different people. The values that are promoted here in Romania seem to be all false and empty. We promote extremists, good looking women that are close to our president (daughter and.. ), priests that used to work for Ceausescu's security (the new Cluj Mitropolit), mayors that have never seen a grammar book. 
It is said that each country deserves it's leaders. I am quite certain that is true. I just wonder: is there anything to be done? Or maybe leave the country? How is it possible to have the mentality that we have and leave in the same era as the Japanese? Why can't we learn just a little bit? I would like to see progress. A little progress would be nice.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

8 March - 100 years anniversary

What does 8th of March mean? Is it Mother's Day? Is it a day celebrating all the women?

I was wondering today (8th of March) what is all this about? Why the flowers? Why the greetings? I searched a bit and I found out that this is the 100 anniversary of the International Women's Days. It started as something political. In 1910 a congress of the European socialists parties decided that there should be such a day. Actually the first IWD (International Women's Day) was celebrated on 19 March 1911.
Interesting enough, the manifestations for this day was considered the start of the russian soviet revolution in 1917, yes, the great Bolshevik revolution.

As an ending: I wonder why women in Romania start senteces with: "I'm not a feminist, but...". Is it that bad to be a feminist? I personally believe it isn't. If there were no feminists at all, women would still not have the right to vote or to work, let alone to wear pants. Maybe there are still some things that are wrong and can be fixed. Maybe there is still use for feminists.

Happy anniversary to all the women! Happy anniversary to all the feminists!

Monday, March 7, 2011

centos upgrade issue

When trying to upgrade from CentOS 4.4 to 4.8 I had this error:

159 Header V3 DSA signature: BAD, key ID

I seems the rpm database was broken. To fix it, do:

mv /var/lib/rpm/Pubkeys /var/lib/rpm/Pubkeys.old
mv /usr/lib/rpmdb/i386-redhat-linux/CentOS/Pubkeys /usr/lib/rpmdb/i386-redhat-linux/CentOS/Pubkeys.old

rpm --rebuilddb -vv

This did it an I was able to make my upgrade.