East of the Sun, West of the Moon

And here’s why I don’t let apt-get dist-upgrade run on auto-pilot but only run it every night to download the packages it thinks it needs:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  mythmusic mythtv mythtv-backend mythtv-frontend mythtv-themes mythweather
The following packages have been kept back:
  libmyth-0.18.1 mythtv-debug
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libnspr4 mozilla-browser mythtv-common mythtv-database mythtv-doc
5 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 6 to remove and 2 not upgraded.

Right.

Update: To clarify, it works fine 90% of the time, but I’d like to have some say in it before it goes and removes the mythtv and mythtv-backend packages and would really prefer to keep the other ones installed as well. Not much point in having mythtv-common, mythtv-database, or mythtv-doc installed without those, after all. So what I do is run it as apt-get update -d dist-upgrade, so it’ll only download the *.deb files (that it thinks it needs) and the next morning or so I’ll eyeball the result (emailed to me) and decide to run apt-get update dist-upgrade or pick-and-choose what I think is actually needed.

I don’t always agree with Bill Maher, or how he phrases things, but this closing was very entertaining and well put:

“Mr. President, this job can’t be fun for you any more. There’s no more money to spend–you used up all of that. You can’t start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard’s bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one’s speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

“Now it’s time to do what you’ve always done best: - lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It’s time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you’re saying: there’s so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don’t. I know, I know. There’s a lot left to do. There’s a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

“But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You’ve performed so poorly I’m surprised that you haven’t given yourself a medal. You’re a catastrophe that walks like a man.

Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

“On your watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you’re just not lucky. I’m not saying you don’t love this country. I’m just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

“So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: ‘Take a hint.’”

Thanks to Printemps (and Dil3mma) for the transcript.