The situation on planet Earth, especially Europe.

I have been pondering about Europe, Syria, Scottish independence and I think that there’s a lot of stuff I learn through the media and always think, based on that, what do I think about  all this?

Well, Europe’s at a crossing point, the future is “apparently” bleak and the UK Government has taken “contingency” plans to prevent influx of non longer European migrant from Greece and other possible countries likely to break up from the Eurozone.

That’s all media reporting. Europe is at a critical point but it’s not really sunken in that everyone’s into it: We’re still paying for the mistake of the past, Banks like the England’s one still trying to pump money into the economy to try to keep a system afloat that is controlled by mathematicians tweaking their computer program algorithms to extract every single bit of profit from the “hunt”.

Let me rephrase that:

Once in the hole, stop digging

Yet that’s exactly what’s happening at the moment. Europe as we know it is doomed, there’s a lot to contend about the Greek government, yes I hear that people in Greece try all to avoid paying tax if they can. The Greek people are amongst the people that work the most hours in Europe.

These people make the economy what it is. Their transactional policy is cash, probably more than it is elsewhere in the EU. it’s not hard to confirm that the Greeks are simply using cash more than other, still they work hard for their money and the price of everything is well known to them for sure, more than can be said about people in any other EU countries, it’s not a secret that Tax is not really coming into the equation with cash.

So can they be all lazy? come on! Think about it, they still need to function, they’re people like us, living a life like us, they’ve just been profiting from the boom as well as we all did, however they’ve not been too lucky and, what would it be if it wasn’t the job of the Government to make sure it didn’t happen? When I see the head of Government of Greece he doesn’t look like he’s been depriving himself has he? The guy can barely move in the hot Greek weather so unfit and fat he looks. That one of the problem; European bureaucracy has brought so much red tape, subsidiaries and other help, yes to make it easier to trade on the wider area that is Europe, but at what cost? visibly a ruinous one.

Let’s not kid ourself, it’s a time to start to see that the system is wrong and needs to be corrected. The German people, again show that they’ve got it sorted, it’s a bit like Europe is only Germany at the present time, to be able to bail so much money to other, at VERY high risk is showing real community spirit, almost like communism.

Syria

Syria’s a nightmare, It’s not Libya, there’s a lot of affinity with the West for many aspect not least Israel. A hot pot of pro American policy and yet people are massacred in their very own streets? Where does the blame lies? The Government, the rebels? I am unsure. The neighbouring Liban is starting to become unstable again, it’s worrying.The UK Prime Minister must know something that we don’t when he recently commented about the “dreadful regime” in Syria (Hein? Quoi?).

Also Iran not being far away, can only add more fuel to the fire, Egypt’s also moving toward People elected Government, I say Bravo, a country where people decided to take their destiny in their own hands.

Scottish independence

I am not Scottish, so I can’t decide. I think it’s risky, very risky, it can pay off in a big way with Scotland becoming able to use the Euro currency to trade with the rest of Europe. But hang on, the European system, with its single currency is no longer, well not presently, a viable route, so what are the Scots going to use for currency, the £ Sterling?

If the people of Scotland (that’s interesting to see what the Greek people are going to decide about staying in Europe, apparently most of them are willing to.) decide to indeed go independent, I say go on, however somehow I  think, that it would be wise to look into  past similar experiments for lessons to learn.

There’s a apparently 75 years period before history tends to repeat itself, well at least Adam and Eve are far enough to have been forgotten (Really?!). So where are we at? 2012-75= 1937, two years before the second world War, funny that we’re 4 year in a crisis, does not seem that it has been so long has it? But I digress. Funny too that This time its not land but money that created this mess and Germany rules again (?!) and the worst is yet to materialise. Sounds familiar

Afterthoughts

As a Swiss Citizen, I am however able to say that us Swiss, have been independent for 721 years, we’ve build a nation of high working with high core values. (I have read references as “mildly repressive”, give me a break!) people that take work as a passion with high rewards, Switzerland is one of the wealthiest nation on earth and it’s one of the tiniest as well, (Hey Scotland take note) .

Ok, ok, I hear you say “the second World War, the Nazi Gold, the Bank secrecy…” Are we to blame for doing a good job at everything that we do? Is it our fault if people in other parts of the World (rightfully) see this a a safe place with lots of advantages (the fiscal one being a prime example). Sorry for just being too good at minding our own business(es) when it comes to minding others.

Switzerland’s a unique World experiment where everything is “propre en ordre” (clean and in order) where everything is just the way and what it should be. The people decide for everything if enough of them feel like it is worth deciding in the first place, it is called Direct Democracy, sorry wrong link: here it is Direct Democracy.

So when it comes to all this, I think that Europe, like Communism, Capitalism and whatever else is a very good idea really, but it’s not really working in practice. Man has always been driven by survival, survival of the fittest. Somehow there’s a strange connotation with what we’ve been, we are and will be experiencing in the inexorable advance of that elusive particle, time.

Bootnote

As far as 1996, some Analyst thought that the idea of Europe and the single currency was a good idea in theory, but in practice, as Europe was becoming less industrial, the idea was out of date, that is why Germany is very good for the European system, others like the Greeks aren’t. So let’s rework this coherently.

Besides I am also looking forward to what’s going to happen with that French President? I will not be surprised if he falls flat on his face (désolé Monsieur Hollande, pardon, Mr le Président, rien de personnel).

qq trouble in home directory (#4.3.0) Plesk 10

A recent problem appeared on my system, an emails address was refusing emails sent internally and a message was coming back immediately (if using a mail client like Kmail or deferred if using a webmail service like Gmail):

451 451 qq trouble in home directory (#4.3.0) (state 17)

Searching for this problem on Google does not return much. however I tried to do the steps of switching from Qmail to Postfix based on BStar’s Code Snippets experience.

After changing from Qmail to Postfix, I could not do the reverse immediately (Plesk install returned an error I was using the CP)

This changed the problem to state that the mailbox was full. Yet funnily enough the recipient in question had no Mailbox, only a redirect.

In the end I had to remove the mail account and re-create it as before. since then all is back to normal.

I also managed to switch back to Qmail using the CP afterward.

File access PHP on Plesk

On certain occasions, and if you’re running Plesk on a dedicated server (like I do), there are certain problems with file access and other upload permissions which aren’t allowed unless you turn file permission to 777!

Obviously this isn’t the recommended way to operate a website, turning directories and files all open with rwx is kind of risky.

So I have found a solution that works everytime, simply change the “PHP Support” to run as “FastCGI Application” instead of the default “Apache”. This option is found under the Hosting setting of the domain.

I must point out that this hack only works if you’re running Plesk (10+) on Linux Servers.