St. Petersburg showed the highest rate of increase in hate crimes of any city in Florida, according to a report by the Attorney General of Florida, Charlie Christ... (CLICK HERE FOR A COPY. There are approx 1.2 hate crimes every week in Pinellas county.
TAMPA - Do Hillsborough County residents want tougher restrictions on adult entertainment, or are they willing to live and let live?
Commissioner Ronda Storms thinks voters will support a tough antinudity ordinance, and on Wednesday, she renewed her call for a referendum on the issue.
"I may be dead wrong," Storms told her colleagues.
Her proposal caught commissioners off guard. They said it's premature to call for a referendum.
"We want to make sure we do this right," Commissioner Ken Hagan said. "We don't want to mess it up."
Hagan and other commissioners said they support Storms' desire to put the ordinance to a vote and could place it on the ballot in November.
from TBO.com
UNLIMITED: adj 1: having no limits in range or scope; "to start with a theory of unlimited freedom is to end up with unlimited despotism"- Philip Rahv; "the limitless reaches of outer space" [syn: limitless] [ant: limited] 2: without reservation or exception [syn: outright, straight-out] 3: that cannot be entirely consumed or used up; "an inexhaustible supply of coal" [syn: inexhaustible]I read an POST today from some users of Verizon?s Broadband online which uses the words "unlimited" in much of it's advertising. Funny thing is, if you use too much data, they can cut you off. Funny, i thought unlimited meant... well... UNLIMITED... hummm....
RALEIGH, N.C. - One of the nation's leading suppliers of electronic voting machines may decide against selling new equipment in North Carolina after a judge declined Monday to protect it from criminal prosecution should it fail to disclose software code as required by state law.
Diebold Inc., which makes automated teller machines and security and voting equipment, is worried it could be charged with a felony if officials determine the company failed to make all of its code ? some of which is owned by third-party software firms, including Microsoft Corp. ? available for examination by election officials in case of a voting mishap.
The requirement is part of the minimum voting equipment standards approved by state lawmakers earlier this year following the loss of more than 4,400 electronic ballots in Carteret County during the November 2004 election. The lost votes threw at least one close statewide race into uncertainty for more than two months.
About 20 North Carolina counties already use Diebold voting machines, and the State Board of Elections plans to announce Thursday the suppliers that meet the new standards. Local elections boards will be allowed to purchase voting machines from the approved vendors.
"We will obviously have no alternative but withdraw from the process," said Doug Hanna, a Raleigh-based lawyer representing North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold.
David Bear, a Diebold spokesman, said the company was reviewing several options after Monday's ruling. "We're going to do what is necessary to provide what is best for our existing clients" in North Carolina, he said.
The dispute centers on the state's requirement that suppliers place in escrow "all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system," as well as a list of programmers responsible for creating the software.
That's not possible for Diebold's machines, which use Microsoft Windows, Hanna said. The company does not have the right to provide Microsoft's code, he said, adding it would be impossible to provide the names of every programmer who worked on Windows.
The State Board of Elections has told potential suppliers to provide code for all available software and explain why some is unavailable. That's not enough of an assurance for Diebold, which remains concerned about breaking a law that's punishable by a low-grade felony and a civil penalty of up to $100,000 per violation.
from Yahoo News
Civil penalties for NOT open sourcing your voting software. Now THAT is progressive thinking. Also something to note, Raleigh is the home of what open-sourced software pioneer...??? Anyone...??? Anyone...??? Red Hat Raleigh is also at the center of what is called the "Research Triangle"... Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, each of which has a large university at it's center.
For some time I've considered the Open Source movement to be a codification of the Academic "Peer Review" process which all doctoral candidates go through with their dissertation. It seems that "peer review" process has so ingratiated itself into the psyche of the residents that it's become the law of North Carolina. Kudos to tech-saavy politicians who have made their state more resistant to security threats by eschewing privatized and proprietary software.
Diebold, Microsoft, the future is open. Breathe deeply and deal.
Thanksgiving this year was a very nice affair. Edward and I had people over and I made sour cream turkey enchiladas. My brits, Joe and Adrian anncounced they were getting married and asked edward and I to plan the ceremony. We drank wine into the night and they crashed in edward's bed. We all woke up about 10ish on friday and had pancakes and english breakfast tea. I couldn't have asked for a better holiday.
HOUSTON - The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them "zealots" who claim a "monopoly on God" while promoting anti-gay policies akin to Adolf Hitler's.I couldn't have said it better myself. God bless you Rabbi Yoffie.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said "religious right" leaders believe "unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person."
"What could be more bigoted than to claim that you have a monopoly on God?" he said during the movement's national assembly in Houston, which runs through Sunday. FULL STORY
I don't know if you've heard about this story, but there has been a movement in the United Nations to wrest control of the internet root servers away from the US-based ICANN or Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The organization is the genius behind the way the internet is currnetly set up. Certain factions of the United Nations want to put governance of ICANN under the auspices of the United Nations.
"Why?" you ask? well, that's a good question... let's see who is actually voting for this... China, Cuba, Tunesia, an several other Tin Pot dictators. Hmmmmmm... why would authoritarian states want to control the greatest enabler of freedom and information the world has ever known? I don't know... because allows their population to share unfetered, uncensored truth with the rest of the world and allows them to see that their leaders are angry desperate men and footnotes in the history of the world.
The greatest growth accelerant of the internet has been limited government involvement. If that changes, if the forces of fascism and censorship are allowed to gain control, I don't believe it's overstating to say that nothing short of the freedom of the entire world is at stake.
A Story on the Gay News Bog about Georgia's Baptist Convention disbanding a Gay student group at Mercer University caught my eye. Then There was this story about the North Carolina Baptist Convention voting to "oust" any church that affirms a Homosexual member. Can the Christian community really be so short-sighted that they want a Homo-free church? Are the thologues only going to be happy when all Christians are so burned-out on religion that they would never set foot in a church... the state of gays in America is analogus to the samaratins of old to which Jesus said: "Are you tired? burned out on religion? Come to me and I will give you rest. Take my identity upon you and learn from me. I will bring peace to your soul." It greives me when I see the church beat up on its gay members, but i have to remember that it's really nothing new.
Devil, he told me to rollSo in the wake of this sony/BMG thing i keep asking myself "what exactly is 'informed consent' in regards to computer software?" At what point is it OK for a product that you buy for one reason to put software on your computer that furthers their agenda?
The Devil, he told me to roll
How to roll, but not collide
It's nobody's fault but mine, yeah
-Blind Willie Johnson as sung by Led Zeppelin
Given that the public at large is woefully uneducated about computers and software in general, how much education about the effects of a rootkit is needed to pass the legal muster of "consent"? My roomate this week created an intranet for the non-profit for which he works. He gave people slips of paper with their name and password and the address of the intranet. Fewer that 10% of the people in the office were actually able to get to the address, log in and begin reviewing content. Are these the people we're protecting? Should they continue to be protected when it's in their best interest that they experience some bumps on the road in order to sharpen their computer skills?
I think we all can agree that if I put a cd in my computer and a program installs itself without my knowledge, that is (and/or should be) illegal. Period. But what about if I click "agree" on page of very small type... which I do almost daily... What is necessary to prove that that program fraudulantly installed "other" software that harms my computer? And what's worse, what if the installed software doesn't do the damage, merely leaves the computer open to further damage from another exploitive malware? Who's at fault then? And what are damages? Are damages the price of the computer? The price of your internet service for one month or the period the installed software stayed on the computer?
Let's de-computer-ify it... what if there were these new Tires for your car. The tires were all the rage... beautiful whitewalls that come with gold rims. But in order to secure these tires from theft, Bridgestone put a tracking device in the tires. Now let's say this tracking device allowed theives to know when you're on vacation or not at home and break into your house. Who's at fault if/when you're robbed? Or even when you're not robbed, if you're statistically more apt to have a robbery occur... is Bridgestone at fault?
At what point do we say that we are knowledgable, sentinet consumers with the ability to choose a tire that does or does not have the tracking device and if we choose the tracking device then we are responsible for the activities of our own automobile.
I believe the same is true with computers. If my computer gets hacked by something I've installed, ... in the words of the immortal Led Zeppelin's adaptation of Blind Willie Johnson's song.... it's nobody's fault but mine.
I don't know how many of you have heard about the flack sony is getting over it's Audio CD's that install spyware on pc's ... called a "rootkit" becuase it takes "root" control of a computer and paves the way for other evil doers to do the same... Suffice to say they're being sued by the states of California and New York and a few countries in the EU. Well, according to this story below, the bad stuff they put on PC's is coming to your mac. Beware any audio CD from Sony/BMG music. Buy the album from iTunes and burn a cd, do not go get one at target or walmart:
An audio CD should never ask you for your name and PW on a mac... Just say "no" to Sony/BMG records....
... from the New York Times...
The truth, as she later explained, was that she was tired of being humiliated, of having to adapt to the byzantine rules, some codified as law and others passed on as tradition, that reinforced the position of blacks as something less than full human beings.Thank you Mrs. Rosa for showing us what it is to be a protester. Your quite calm and determination inspired and continues to inspire us. God bless you and may you rest in peace.
Flash back to May... The BBC began showing their newly revised series "Doctor Who" on BBC 1 TV in the UK. I had heard about it and was slightly interested but had no method of viewing the series. I was browsing through a bit-torrent tracker one sunday morning and saw a listing of the first episode and downloaded it. Five minutes in I was hooked. Technically it was illegal, but the product was literally not available to me for purchase or viewing so my only option to view the content was an illegal download (I have since purchased the DVD's).
Since then almost every studio has acknowledged that their biggest piracy threat now comes from illegal Bit-torrent downloads, but what have they done to stop the downloads? A few arrests in LA and NY, but that's pretty much it.
Why not make all your content available online?
After the music industry's success with iTunes, it seems like a no-brainer. But studios, especially upper-level executives, are notoriously tech-stupid. I daresay most of them have their assistants check their email.
Enter Steve Jobs. This past week he introduced an ipod that does video an announced that the iTunes music store would now begin selling videos and TV programs.
It was a relatively low-key announcement for the amount of change that will ensue. The aftershocks of the announcement are almost daily. The producers, actors, and directors guilds put out a joint press announcement (repeat JOINT... and these are organizations that almost NEVER cooperate) basically saying "if you think you're doing legal downloads without paying us, you're out of your mind"... that was thursday, less than 24 hours after the announcement. Friday brought us news that Apple and NBC Universal were in talks to put TV and other video content online.
If I was Jeff Zucker, i'd use every computer in the building to start encoding video and put everything from "Uncle Milty" to "Surface" on iTunes (iMedia?) as quickly as possible.... but that's just me... not to mention the other studio's back library of Films from the Universal and MGM and Paramount vaults.
But in a larger sense, this represents a major shift in TV (Can we really call it TV anymore?) video content distribution.
The BBC is now free to make a deal with Apple to put their Dr. Who episodes up as soon as they air.
And what about Captain Jack's new series "Torchwood"? YOU MUST put those online or I will download them illegally again. John Barrowman is just too cute... John, I do this for you!!!!
Indeed it makes every country in the world a potential Hollywood and everyone with a video cam potential viewers.
But prolly the thing noone is thinking about is that it moves Quicktime into the forefront of downloaded video. Previous to the announcement, there were literally hundreds of codecs out there in the world of bittorrent... xvid, avi, on2, ogg, divx... the list goes on... and making your video actually play on your machine was an exercise in frustration. Now, as long as iTunes and QT is installed, the video will play... MP4/h264 is the standard and whenever there's a real standard, the market always grows.
So, BBC, where's my Dr. Who? What are you waiting for...? ...you've had a week...
Ok, here's the other thing that really bothers me about the Right's reaction to this nomination. Based on my 30+ years in churches all across the south, I can almost without exception say the focus of most churches are young couples with kids. That's where the money of the church gets spent, that's where the emphasis and most organization occurs. I believe that much of the far right criticism of Harriet Meirs comes from the fact that she didn't settle down with 2.3 kids and have a husband and a traditional family. Not to state the obvious here, but all church have demographics that say that the United States is increasingly single. They (and by they, I mean Doctor Dobson and his Theologue hoard) see her as a threat to families simply because she doesn't have one and that to me is just wrong... even if she is a carpet muncher, which (allegedly) she is.
That's just sad.
is it just me or is Judicial Nominee Harriet Miers a lesbian?
Local news tonight ran a story of some lawyer in Gulfport that worked at her law firm. She said she considered Nominee Miers "a friend"... Yea... a friend because they ate each other out at a palm springs lesbian weekend... Sha!!!... I mean... allegedly ate each other out...
So i've been playing with this itunes phone (The Motorola ROKR) for over a week now and i think i'm finally getting used to the keyboard.
Its an interesting transition from the blackberry, although I did have the nokia in between.
This phone is not a "smart phone" in any sense of the word. The reminders and alarms are not meant in any way to replace a PDA.
I had a Moto Startac, V60, a 505 and a 550. Motorola has improved their software in both network reception and making their predictive text software much more accurate over the 505/551 series. The GSM signal is much more solid and I have more bars in places where my 551 failed.
The reviews I read seem to all be disappointed that the phone itself is "no ipod" but I didn't have any expectation that it would be. Both software and hardware are no where near as graceful.
I may return it before my 30 days is up for a Nokia 6682.
So after last night's episode of "Lost" my new ringtone is Mama Cass. I had forgotten how much I loved her.
I own my disease. I had to be the first one with the new iTunes phone. I need help. More about the phone as I use it. It's loading songs now. Loading songs is actually slower than the shufffle and the shuffle is slow.
Women in poor villages in much of western Nepal are forced to stay in dirty cow-sheds outside the home for four days during their monthly period.See how far we come, In the United States, women on their period force MEN to stay outside in the shed and make them suffer verbal abuse. We're just all upside down over here in the US.
They are often given unhygienic food and suffer verbal abuse. from BBC News
BOSTON - The Massachusetts Legislature on Wednesday rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that sought to ban gay marriage but legalize civil unions, a year after the state performed the nation's first government-sanctioned same-sex weddings.Five Years from now, people will be like... "what was the big deal?"
...
This year, the crowds were tamer and some legislators who had initially supported the proposed change to the state constitution said they no longer felt right about denying the right of marriage to thousands of same-sex couples.
"Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry," said state Sen. Brian Lees, a Republican who had been a co-sponsor of the amendment. "This amendment which was an appropriate measure or compromise a year ago, is no longer, I feel, a compromise today."
so i'm at starbucks this morning waiting in line for my grande latte. While i'm in line, a young girl says "excuse me" and takes an iced cappachino bottle out of the cooler then goes to the other side of the room and opens it and begins drinking without paying.
I look at her while she's drinking it. She's pretty in as much as young wealthy girls who steal can be pretty. She has on some low riding pants with the word "princess" written across her ass. Her grey t-shirt fits snugly on breasts that, if she'd been 10 years old, I'd have sworn they were fake. The shirt rolls up slightly at it's bottom to reveal her midriff which is supposed to be kryptonite to most straight men. To me it just made me angry. She looks around the room attempting to be disaffected but only looking scared and lost in a way that makes me almost take pity on her. But I don't. She's a spoiled rich girl trying to see what she can get a way with.
While I'm waiting for the barista to make my drink, I'm completely distracted by this little thief. What do I do? ... Do I let it go? Do I embarrass her? Do I rat her out?
I order: "Grande Latte for Tom."
The cashier repeats my order to the barista "Grande Latte for Tom."
I pay. She hands me change.... a dollar bill and some coins. When I start to put the money away, I notice I have 3 dollar bills and a few fives.
Driven by a force I cannot control, I walk over to the thief's table and put 3 dollar bills on the table in front of her. I tell her to go pay for the iced drink she just stole.
She makes some lame excuse about she was going to pay for it. I said "bullshit". I tell her she's busted and to go pay. She takes my $3 and pays at the register and then brings me the change. I thank her then leave with my grande latte.
Why did I do that? What inside me couldn't let it go? What was it about this little cunt that aroused my moral outrage? I wish I'd taken more psychology.I think today, I just officially started thinking of myself as a grown up.
A friend of mine who is as liberal as they come has emailed me challenging the assertion on the timing of Governor Blanco's State of Emergency. According to the Governor's Website, she declared the SOE on FRIDAY EVENING. If this were the case, her SOE was declared while the hurricane was still in Florida and nobody had any idea that it was even going to hit Lousiana, but OK, assuming we give her that, where was her National Guard? She has 6000+ Lousiana National Guard troops under her command. If in her prescient declaration she knew that the hurricane was going to hit, why did she not order the troos into the states largest city to begin evacuation preparations?
In a related story:
I think Zaa Zaa Gabor said it best... "I'd rather die than fly coach."Ray Nagin: School Buses Not Good Enough
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin garnered a ton of publicity with a profanity-laced interview he gave to WWL radio last Thursday, where he blasted President Bush and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco for not coming to rescue his city in time.
However, Nagin's most newsworthy comments - where he explained why he didn't use hundreds of city school buses to evacuate his city's flood victims - went almost unnoticed.
Turns out, Nagin turned his nose up at the yellow buses, demanding more comfortable Greyhound coaches instead.
"I need 500 buses, man," he told WWL. "One of the briefings we had they were talking about getting, you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here."
Nagin described his response:
"I'm like - you've got to be kidding me. This is a natural disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."
While Nagin was waiting for his Greyhound fleet, Katrina's floodwaters swamped his school buses, rendering them unusable.
from NewsMax.com
And I'm not alone:
Respondents also disagreed widely on who is to blame for the problems in the city following the hurricane -- 13 percent said Bush, 18 percent said federal agencies, 25 percent blamed state or local officials and 38 percent said no one is to blame. And 63 percent said they do not believe anyone at federal agencies responsible for handling emergencies should be fired as a result.Source: CNN/GALLUP Poll
The more I think about the mess in New Orleans, the more I compare it to disasters that we've had here. When I think about the way Governor Bush has managed hurricanes over the past 5 years and compare it to Governor Blanco, She seems very inept. And the mayor of New Orleans seems even more inept.
New Orleans created a city evacuation guide and the mayor just completely didn't follow it. Nursing homes were scheduled to be evacuated first using city and school busses... that didn't happen.... those people died. There's one instance where fifty plus people died at one home. They were supposed to evac the elderly and disabled... that didn't happen. Many of those people died in their homes. The mayor told everyone to come to the superdome and they would be taken care of. All the while, he knew the superdome had no long term food supply and no long-term water supply leaving the people that followed the mayor's advice helpless. And here's the kicker... nowhere in the hurricane preparedness literature above does the word "SuperDome" appear. You can't find it... do a search... it ain't there. Did the mayor pull this plan out of his ass?
Sunday night, 12 hours before the storm was scheduled to hit, Governor Blanco STILL hadn't declared a state of emergency... the president had to do it. That would have never happened in Florida. Jeb declares a State of Emergency 24-48 hours before the storm hits so price-gouging laws go into effect. And as for the looting, Jeb wouldn't have put with half the crap that went on in that city. The National Guard would have been there before the storm ended.
Anne Rice, an author I dearly love, wrote an op/ed piece in the New York Times sunday... Do you know what it means to loose New Orleans in which she talks about Gover Blanco's pleading for help on Television. What she doesn't mention is Goerge W. Bush's offer to send in troops tuesday morning and her asking president Bush "...For 24 hours to think it over." WTF???
The President cannot unilaterally send troops into a state. The troops have to be INVITED in by the Governor of the state. Do you think for a second that THIS president would have hesitated sending in troops if asked? But the media is accusing him of just that. And because he didn't federalize the city, he's accused of "Not caring about black people." As if he looked at the situation and said "oh, they're black... let them rot." Come on!
I remember during our hurricanes last year in the hours leading up to the storm's approach, you saw camouflage humvees full of Florida National Guard troops on the streets ready for action. Does anyone remember ANY show of force of the national guard in New Orleans? The Louisiana National guard is completely at the command of the governor. She alone has the power to send it anywhere she chooses. Where were they?
Here's another interesting factoid... The press has made a big deal of the fact that the EVIL Bush Administration (cue the darth vader theme) cut the funds to shore up the levee system in 2004. Here's what they don't tell you... The money to make the levees "cat 5-proof" was allocated DURING THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION... that's right kids, 1992... during the Clinton Administration... and get this... It wasn't used!!. The budget monies lapsed.
"Why?" you ask. Good question.
Well, currently each parish manages it's own levee. In addition, each levee has it's own board of governance. The federal funding called for all the levee governance boards to be united into the Army Corps of Engineers, thus irrelevating the individual boards. The individual boards didn't want to cede control to a third party ...and incidentally, loose their jobs which are appointed salaried positions (appointed by... anyone? anyone? ...THE GOVERNOR OF LOUSIANA ).... so the money wasn't used and ended up being cut out of the army corps of engineer's budget in 2004. And the Levee Boards were part of the Mayor's intial frustration... the Levee boards were tasked intially with repairing the breaks on Tuesday and the board assured the mayor that the levees would be shorn up. That didn't happen. Wednesday and Thursday when the boards finally admitted their inability to do their job, the project was assumed by the Army Corps of Engineers, which, again, could have happend in 1992 possibly avoiding the flooding entirely but certainly managing it better... but for the gordian knot of graft that is Lousiana state politics.
This whole situation was mismanaged by incompetent government officials at the state and local level.
Thank God for Jeb and the guys at the Pinellas County EOC. And thank God for the Creole John Wayne, who, 48 hours after he got there had everone evac-d and order restored.
... and may God bless Texas :-)... have you heard about Operation Compassion... you need to. It's a plan to move displaced evacuees trapped in institutional poverty to self-sustainability... Apparently The Astrodome will soon be empty
...Looking back on it from the future, this could be Texas' finest hour. Big-upps to all you lone-stars "deep in the heart."Harris County Judge Robert Eckles, coordinating the relief effort at the Astrodome, said Wednesday morning he expects the facility to be emptied in a couple of weeks.
"This is a shelter, not a home," he said. He said officials have been moving about 1,500 a day to permanent housing.
Eckles and other Houston officials said the city can handle the estimated 150,000 to 200,000 residents from Louisiana who evacuated from Katrina.
"We're a big city - about 5 million - and that's about the size of the entire state of Louisiana," he said. "We'll deal with it if they stay."
Eckles said officials continue the work of finding family members who have been separated from their loved ones, saying hundreds have already been reunited so far.
He also said the business community in Houston and throughout Texas has embraced the effort to help out in the aftermath of Katrina, working to provide job placement opportunities.
"They come here broken," he said of the flow of displaced residents, which includes 15,000 at the Astrodome. "Our community has embraced these folks."
This genius idea was posted on the Skype Journal website. Does anyone know the email address of BellSouth's CEO???
I can't believe Kanye West just said on national television "George Bush doesn't care about Black People." Kanye, what George Bush doesn't care about are self-involved Rap Stars to whom it's more important to make a political statement that to help raise money to actually change the conditions in New Orleans. Why don't you sell an Escalade or two and send it down there to start rebuilding houses you ignorant motherfucker.
Folks out there, FEMA always responds to hurricane disasters in about 4-5 days. The only reason they didn't last year is because after the first one, they already had offices open so they just moved them to the new affected areas. FEMA ≠ DOMINOES... they don't respond in 30 minutes or less. They are there to asses and respond to disaster conditions and it took two days to actually ASSESS what was going on and another day to formulate a response. Breethe deeply. Help is on it's way. Kayne, shut the fuck up.
Also, another important componant of hurricane relief in Florida is the fact that there wasn't a complete breakdown of law and order. The mayor and governor of Lousiana bear at least some of the responsibility for being unprepared for this disaster. Florida state and local infrastructure is much more prepared with a chain of command and a police and fire rescue that regularly train for these eventualities. It seemed like the whole thing caught New Orleans by surprised and, as a city, they looked woefully unprepared.
But then again, we haven't had a cat 5 since Andrew. I and Pray to God we don't.
Watching the concert for hurricane relief, i'm struck by how overtly religious the concert is. Faith & Tim both sang straight-up gospel songs. They are people who are proud of their faith. I love those two.
NEW ORLEANS - Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday. "This is a desperate SOS," the mayor said.I'm crying for New Orleans. I'm crying for Mississippi. I'm crying for Alabama. I'm crying for the innocent people caught in the cross fire. I'm crying for the loss of life. I'm crying for the loss of beauty in the south. I'm crying for the violence and desperation. I'm crying for the inability for anyone in New Orleans to restore order. I'm crying for my nation because what affects us one, affects us all. I can't blame and I can't change anything.
New Orleans is in ruin and her people dying and fleeing to other cities. ...and all I can do is cry.
By the grace of God, we could be the ones who have this extraordinary need. This happened hundreds of miles to our west; these are our neighbors. These are people in need and Texas is going to do everything we can in our power to help."
Governor Rick Perry of Texas.
The near total devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi is horrific and it brings me to tears every time I think of it, so I'm going to ask this question:
At what point do we say "Enough." and call it a total loss?
The idea that a city would be built lower than the body(ies) of water that surround it in a region known for violent, catastrophic storms is ludicrous.
New Orleans culture marks it as a beautiful city.... A city worthy of existence.... A city that deserves to be built ABOVE SEA LEVEL!!!
At what point do we move the whole thing to the other side of Lake Poncetrain and start over?
I don't know.... I'm asking...?
At what point do we as a country, hug New Orleans and say, "Sweetie, it was fun the 300 or so years it lasted, but now, it's 25 feet underneath the Gulf Of Mexico. Cry your eyes out; Pack what's left of your belongings and let it go.
I've been reading this blog for some time now. He's a Saudi ex-patriot living in the UK. It's very interesting that in the Saudi culture they have "religious police" patrolling the streets searching for someone breaking a religious law. How close are the parallels to Reverend Phelps, Doctor Dobson and the Theologues in this country. Why do we, as humans, feel the need to tell other people how to live their lives? I know you think you've found the answer in Jesus, or Allah, or Weight Watchers or Scientology or whatever legalistic power-mad cult is trying to take over the world this week, but please give the rest of us a little credit. Although it's not apparent from network television, the american public can think for themselves.
Well, The our old friend Reverend Phelps hit a new low with his rhetoric of hate. This story talks about the funereal of a soldier desecrated by a protest. God help the mind so blinded by hate that it requires making a statement at the funereal of a hero.
God bless America. And to all active troops all over the world... Thank you for your service. Godspeed. Come home safe.
ok, so I saw this on ebay... The new motorola Q... they've got them... Or at least they're going to get them.... I gotta tell you, I may sell it a few months after I get it, but this phone looks hot has shit. On the right, is the current "RAZR V3" and on the left is the Motorola Q... of the "RAZR-berry" as it's being called.
After careful consideration, Sunday night's finale episode of Six Feet Under could well be the best finale of episodic television ever in the history of television. If you haven't seen it, you really, really need to.
I DON'T, repeat, DON'T believe God wants us to assassinate Hugo Chavez. Folks who are not of the Christian Faith, Pat Robertson is to Christianity as Heraldo Rivera is to Journalism. Please don't just us by our crazies.
There are two new cell phones on the horizon that have caught my eye. both promise to allow me to play some of my iTunes music on my phone. One is the Nokia 6682 ( Review) the other is Motorola's iTunes phone, the E790. They are both approximately the size of my 3120 and promise a camera and better web support, both of which are lacking in my current phone. Of the two, the Nokia looks "more sophisticated" to me. Maybe that's just because of my love for my current phone and it's simplicity. I don't know. Both of them are coming to Cingular and will be available in the next month or so. I think i'm scheduled for an "upgrade" in October or September... hmmm.... decisions, decisions.
I believe that God created the universe as a place of order and not chaos. I believe that even in the universe's so-called "chaos" that God's order exists and can be seen.
For every action in the universe there is an equal and opposite reaction.The order that Sir Isaac Newton described so many years ago applies to universe in science and sociology. Governments and leaders all around the world seem to go about their business without an understanding of this most imprint principal. Karl Rove as voiced by President George W. Bush crafted a strategy where they took what was, in most American's mind, a non-issue.... Gay Marriage, and made it the centerpiece of their campaign for the presidency and now the pew research center is documenting what Sir Isaac Newton could have told them was inevitable. The GLBTQ conscious asked America if we could get married. They said no. We said "Why?" They didn't have a good answer. And now the arena of ideas is making the case for same-sex marriage in America.
-Sir Isaac Newton
In Darfur, Arabs are committing genocide in the name of Allah and the Islamic faith. The ordered universe that an infinitely powerful and knowlegable God has set up will not abide imbalance. There will be a reaction. And it will be equally as devastating as they action they began. I believe this.
I believe in God. I believe in his created order.
I don't however believe that the world is only 4000 years old and God created the world in seven literal days.
Scientists have discovered through investigation that the earth appears to be over 100 million years old and in that time period has gone through many changes. They can not explain why these changes began nor can they explain why out of all the places in the universe, we came to exist here.
I can't help but believe that a God who exists outside of time and space directed our evolution to create the society and civilization in which we live. I can only speculate as to his motives, but I believe, at least partially, it was driven by a simple desire to create. As someone who believes himself to be "creative" and in a "creative profession", I believe the CREATOR desires to create and watch his vision produce new an interesting things.
I believe that this Creation VS Evolution bullshit is just another wedge issue poiticians want to use to divide us from each other because they've done the demographics and more people believe strongly in one way versus the other. Just like gay marriage, it's a fake issue and has not practical relevance to politics and American life. It seems odd that a nation that was so united on September 11th would now be divided by something so stupid as gay marriage and evolution.... again, Newton's Third Law bites us in the ass...
I won't be baited into that debate. And if the Democrats were smart, neither would they. They would create a vision that looks toward the future and the world they hope to create.
Too bad they aren't that smart.
I watched the movie Kinsey today and was struck at how telling it really was. These Republicans really are the same guys who conducted the witch hunts for Communiststs in America. They believed that Kinsey's research into sex was something that funneled money into the communist party and subverted society.
These Republicans are, to use Kinsey's words, "the forces of chastity." How else can you explain a normally sane man like Bill Frist advocating abstinence only education when every piece of scientific data says that teaching abstinance only doesn't work. Look at the teen birth and STD rates in Lubbock alone!
I campaigned for this guy in Tennessee. I respected him and, as a doctor, for him to irresponsibly cast aside pure science in exchange for the politics of chastity... it's equivalent to Al Gore's switch on abortion and Tipper's resignation from the committee on values when Bill Clinton nominated Al. It's a total betrayal of self and political will.
I'm disappointed with my party. I've been disappointed for a long time. And every headline only deepens my malaise. The ".xxx" tld, of which I wrote earlier, all the spending, the increases in government control through the patriot act, President Bush's completely abandonment of his social security privatization plan... Where is the Republican party who made a contract with america to reduce the size and influence of government? Where are the tax cuts and complimentary budget cuts? What ever happened to the party that advocated "states rights"?
And why is the Democratic party not calling them on it? Please guys, nominate someone who is a true viable candidate and i'll vote for you. Give me another indecisive gigolo married to ZaZa Gabor and a trial attorney and I swear I'll hold my nose and vote for the Theologues again. Your candidates make the Bushes look normal.
About four years ago, my boss moved us into a new building and we were checking out internet access pricing. That was the height of the internet bubble and pricing was much, much higher that it is now and many networks weren't nearly as built-out as they are now. Road Runner business class was available but not in the building, as was DSL. Other tenants in the office building where we were had a t-1 from XO communica-tion. As we began investigating options, a technology called "fixed wireless" came to the forefront. Fixed wireless is similar to the wireless hubs all over town in principal. There is a "central location" in a fixed wireless market. The customers put something akin to a "satellite dish" on their roof and aim it at the central location. The roof must be line-of-site of the mother ship and the connection gets funky with the weather. The landlord told us that we "weren't allowed" to put a connection on the roof of the building and that we would HAVE to go with XO if we wanted anything more than dial-up. My boss hit the roof. How dare they dictate to us the vendor from which we choose internet access.... as our business is internet programming and design, that constitutes "Restraint of Trade"... etc, etc..... ok, ok, whatever
When we told the fixed wireless people that we "weren't allowed" to install, they said that was common in their industry. The landlord didn't want to allow them roof access, didn't want the hardware on their and so on. They had a deal that if we could get 2 more people in the building to enlist, our installation and access was free. My boss countered that if he got them into the building, they would float us the access in exchange for the ability to sell other people on access. They bit, my boss fought the landlord and so we have free internet access. That was almost 5 years ago.
In those 5 years the service has been relatively slow.... but all of us are comparing it to the Road Runner we have at home. It's faster than dail-up and it's slowly gotten faster over the 5 years... or websites have gotten more optimized and it feels faster than it was when we first got it. Whatever the case... I feel the quality of service has slowly pro-gressed and the service itself is fine for a small office where other options are too costly or not available.
Tampa Bay is the lightning capitol of the world. There are more lightning strikes in this 5 county area than anywhere else in the world... some Fifty-Thousand every year. Tampa Bay's Hockey team is actually called "the Lightning". This past wednesday, during a massive lightning storm the building got hit. The installation on the roof was zapped as were the network cards in several computers.
Our company's internet access has been down since then. Why do we put up with it? Because it's free and my boss is too cheap to actually PAY for internet access because he's getting it for free.
So i've been tearing my hear out all day at work trying to get us back up. It's very odd to work in an office without internet access. Much of the things I take for granted I can no longer do. Last year I threw out all the yellow pages because we were all using Super-Pages or yahoo to look anything up. We've had to dial 411 on everything... which is a major pain.
No email, no IM. My roommate has been texting me about a project... I can't do any-thing about it, I'm not connected.
But mostly just a sense of "disconnected-ness" ... "uninvolved"-ness... irrelevancy... It's odd how just a few days of no internet can make you feel that way. Radio doesn't help and news on the cell phone's wap browser ain't gonna cut it. I gotta get connected again. I feel like a junkie who needs a fix. I won't be satisfied until I can hit news.yahoo.com and get a response.
I don't have a problem; I can quit anytime.
So the guy shows up at 3:30 and spends almost an hour on the roof. He's done around 4:30 and I begin trying to resurrect the server. I soon realize that the zap has taken both server network cards with it. A quick trip to best buy and I get a Linksys wireless router up in place of the server and I'm finally routing traffic. Thank god. I'm finally up and go-ing again.
So my co-worker has 5 kids and they all download stuff to her computer at home. She told me she's very frustrated because everytime she uses the computer she gets a million popups. I told her that her computer was infected with spywear and I really hoped she wasn't checking her bank balance while she was on it or using any credit cards.
She gave me that blank stare as if it just occurred to her that someone could nefariously infect her computer and steal personal information.
I wonder how much of the "identity theft" problem is just knuckle-dragging windows users who go ahead and check their bank balance and buy thing with their MasterCard when their computer is infected.
So in January, Edward, his mom, Me and my mom consolidated our phones onto one Cingular account and we have yet to get a bill that is correct out of the envelope. Edward goes though this monthly ritual where we call, get put into the Bermuda voice-mail triangle that is Cingular customer service and then argue with them about how we really did makes changes to our account last month, of which they now have no record. It always ends up with cingular throwing us some little bone and giving us attitude when they're in the wrong and clearly loosing customer records every month.
My friend Ed went to Hawaii. Before he went we looked up the hotel on the internet and they're hi-speed access was like $9.99 a day... He was going to be there 15 days so that would have way to expensive. So I'm like... Just add unlimited MeDIA to your Cingular account and connect through your phone. At that time he still had an AT&T account and wasn't going to change any time in the near future, so we called AT&T and waited through THEIR Bermuda voice-mail triangle and got the laptop paired with the phone and boom, he's connected.
Then he dropped his phone in the Chicken Salad at his Subway restaurant. He went to get a new phone and came back with a new black Razr and a Cingular account. So we again, went thought the drama and got his phone working and MeDia added to his account. He gets back from Hawaii and gets his Cingular bill. The charged him over $300 in usage charges while he's there in Hawaii.
Fucking bastards.
He's on the phone with them almost an hour. Long story short, they took off half... Which is mighty white of them considering they fucked up.
I'm starting to think of them as the Microsoft of cell phones... no matter what the question with their service or the problem with their product, the answer is just to pay them more money.
Some of you have emailed and asked me about what I think about M$ (microsoft's) stealing the patent for the iPod from Apple, so here's my take.
The iPod has one, maybe two Christmases left in it and it'll be a dead product. Phones and other digital devices are going to supplant it or there may be something completely new. Either way, This is a legal fight that will FAR outlast these devices and I can't see M$ putting that much money into the patent request and the ensuing legal battles for, at the most, 8 quarters worth of revenue. What this is about is slowing down apple innovation.
The computer industry hit a slump when the internet bubble burst. At that point Apple made the decision to "innovate it's way out of the slump." And out came products like GarageBand, iTunes, Pages and, of course the ipod itself. Those products have kept apple profitable and grown their market share when the rest of the industry is in a slump. Microsoft DESPERATELY wants to stop the Apple braintrust, or at least, handicap it. So they do what they've always done.
Lie, Cheat and Steal... or rather "acquire" technology.
People forget that the namesakes which fuel M$ continual earnings year after year are all acquired products... Word, Excel and Powerpoint were all acquired products. Dos was acquired. Windows was stolen... and not very well I might add. In fact, I can't think of one single thing that originated with microsoft... Somebody email me and tell me if i'm wrong...
Well, Good luck to them and I wish them well, but Apple not only has better karma, they have better products because that's where they spend their money and most of their energies.
Given that M$ is a Lie, Cheat, St.... er... Acquire company, if I were Bill Gates, here's what I'd do. I'd port the windows GUI to Linux and produce my own distribution of Linux. It would be 100 times more stable than any other version of windows and it would instantly be the dominant distribution in the linux market. Also with a strong unix-based kernel underneath the os, they wouldn't have near the security breaches they're now experiencing. They could then hire Linux Torvolds and claim that linux was actually a Microsoft technology.
But still wouldn't hold a candle to OS X.
Oh, and Bill, that light at the end of the tunnel... that's actually an oncoming train called "Mac OS X for Intel". Fear it.
I read today that Some lower-level technology guy in the Commerce department has asked ICANN to slow down the execution of a .xxx TLD (top Level Domain) at the request of convervatives writing letters.
And again, I hang my head in shame over stupid people who have currently invaded the republican political party.The department received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails expressing concerns about the impact of pornography on families and children and objecting to setting aside a domain suffix for it, he said.
"The volume of correspondence opposed to creation of a .xxx TLD (domain name) is unprecedented," Gallagher wrote to Vinton Cerf, ICANN's chairman.
Ok, first of all, if you send a "letter" to the commerce department, you have no business advising them on INTERNET policy. Period. Go buy an elvis stamp and maybe one day you'll get lucky enough to get an AOL CD in the mail and get yourself a an email address.
Second, the reason we need a .xxx TLD is BECAUSE OF YOU!!!!... Yea, that's right YOU, Mrs. Potato Salad living in suburban square state... You're the ones constantly prattling on about how much pornography is on the internet and how you get unsolicited emails inviting you to go to porn sites, all the while the porn industry racks up billions in sales from your husbands and teenage boys when you're at Super Wal-Mart buying groceries. You are the ones we're creating the .xxx domain for. You're constant chants of "protect the children, protect the children" are the only reason to have a .xxx TLD ...to allow filtering software to block .xxx content at places where such content will cause harm or is organizationally undesirable... e.g. Schools, Corporations, (and if you get your way) Libraries.
So rather than shoot down the people actually trying to HELP YOU why don't you go boycott disney, attend a pro-life rally or deny a marriage certficate to a lesbian couple somewhere... Do something with your life other than stick your nose into everyone else's computers (and bedrooms).
Oh, and BTW, Mrs. Suburban Square State, Your husband is having an affair with the Asian chick who foams the milk at Starbucks and your son blew me in bathroom at Borders last night. All of us correspond by email and IM and none of it would be considered internet porn under ICANN's current plan.
I will never understand why PC users and mac users alike feel the need to "install." I was recently diagnosing a problem on a friend's computer and his first response was "Well, can we download a utility that will take care of that." It's a hardware problem; No amount of downloading will make up for a hardware resource conflict. And, Again, can I take a moment and bitch about the fact that pc hardware is so fucked up installing even the smallest Mini-PCI card on a laptop can produce a BSOD. When apple starts making intel machines sometime next year, it will be interesting for PC users to begin to understand why we are constantly smug about the fact that OS-X "Just works".
Anyway, back to my simplicity rant. This friend (with the current HW issue) is the same one who a few months earlier had me re-format his hard drive because he had installed "SOMETHING-zilla" that alegedly blocked popups and spam, deleted viruses, and made perfect julienne fries, when in fact it was spyware. He was so anxious to download and install something that "solved his problem" that he ended up creating more problems.
Generally speaking, The less things on your computer you have "installed" the better. In the words of Joss Stone
, less is more. Computers are pack animals. The less baggage they have to tote around, the more quickly they move.
Oh, and you knuckle-dragging pc users out there... if you get an email from some address with a @supersoftware.tw or @ezsupermaxi.cz address that makes stupendous claims and allows you to install some utility totally free of charge, please just delete the email. ...Or rather, don't... and remember I charge $90/HOUR with an on-site minimum of 2 hours.
I've been posting updates regularly to my plan to add a subway to the tampa bay area. Here's the latest. 
Waking up to a rainy day is a sacred experience and a rarity in Florida. For those of you that live north of the gnat line (somewhere between Valdosta and Macon, Georgia) you have a lot of days where it's gray and rainy and you wake up to the absence of the sun. In Florida, the sun shines practically every day, with few exceptions. On the exception days, we wake up to rain and for those of us who's brains are used to a morning injection of the immutable Florida sun, it's a revelation.
A few years back I had trouble sleeping. I would toss and turn all night. I started reading material about insomnia. Basically it's the body's confusion as to when it's time to wake and when it's time to rest. So the solution, I reasoned, was to set it straight.
I took melanin when I was ready to go to bed. I kept a strict regimen of ALWAYS going to bed at the same time and always waking up at the same time. I ate more fiber to make sure digestion was not a problem. I replaced my pillows with more back-friendly ones. But most of all, I made sure that first thing in the morning, the Florida sun streamed through my window and hit me square in the face. Over a period of a month, it worked. My sleep cycle returned to normal.
Because I depend so much on the sun to wake me up, Waking up to rain is a surreal experience for me. Like life has somehow been suspended and I'm in this rain world where I can take more time to examine and reflect.
I have an extra cup of coffee or tea. I take more time getting ready for work. I take more care driving to work. I read more.
The neighborhood sounds are different as well. The cars on the street outside are more muffled by the white noise of the water they disperse as they drive by. There are no sounds of construction in the neighborhood and no lawns being cut. The neighborhood is quieter and yet somehow louder.
Also, for those of you who live on the atlantic or pacific ocean, Gulf-coast rain is different. It's sticky.
Gulf Coast rain makes the air more humid and makes the already stifling heat, more saunautic. It's a hot steamy day in St. Petersburg, Florida. Let's go see what the day brings.
So a couple of posts back I sold my blackberry and I was going to get a new cell phone. Because of the money crunch with all of my driving drama, I ended up getting a "goPhone" for $30 - the Nokia 3120. It's very small, gets great reception and I really like it. If you need a cheap phone that just makes calls and does text messages, but onto which you can download a justin timerberlake ring tone, this is your phone.
Don't be so quick to walk away...
Dance with me!
It seems like only yesterday we were introduced to David, Nate, Ruth, Clair, Nathaniel, and the entire Fisher clan. I had just come out and my dealings with the church made me empathize with David's struggle with being gay as well as my desire to have sex with keith. My alienation from my family made me empathize with Nate. Each character had something unique in Television: a soul. Last night the realization that it was ending came to the surface with Nate's Feuneral.
I was a balling mess of tears on the floor.
How can you put into words what it means to you when entertainment so mirrors the thougths of your own soul that you desperately wish you had written it.
I've been with you during the bad episodes: David's abduction and Nate's multiple infidelities, clair's navel-gazing art-school days and ruth's acid-trip episode. I've reveled in the good and sometimes even great episodes... as last night's was.
But I think mostly I'll just miss the company. The company of the fishers... I feel like I was only just getting to know you.
Last night as Ruth patiently waited for david to compose himself and then led him by the hand to bury his brother, I knew it's days were numbered.
Each moment is precious and there are only 2 hours left.
You tell the stories and emotions of my life and will be sorely missed
so my traffic court appearance was 2 weeks ago friday. When I got to the courthouse there was a sign on the door into the courtroom that read "court cancled; see information." At the information booth, a large black woman named Lucricia smiled up from her computer...
"You Musta not got the card... your address is prolly wrong in the compooter. Lemme see your ticket or your license."
"Thanks here..."
"Ok, what's your name Iroll.... how do you pronounce it..???"
"My first name is Irl, I go by Tom."
"What is that foreign or sumptin?"
"No, just some dumb kentucky potato farmer hick that couldn't spell three generations back."
Lucricia is laughing... "oh, you better stop. you gotta court date of next thursday."
So the date she writes down the date and time.
Somehow it gets stuck in my head that the new court date is the same time, 10:00. When I arrive there at court, i notice the time lucricia has written down is actually 8:30. Fuck. As I walk in the courtroom, the baliff waves me into a seat right as i'm noticing the time.
I walk back out of the courtroom and get in line to see lucricia again.
You gotta get it re-scheduled. And you gotta get it done today. They issue a warrent for your arrest if you fail to show up. You don't want that."
I most certainly DON'T want that.
So I take a number from lucricia. It's 59. They're service 22. Welcome to the Pinellas County Court System. I go across the street and get a smoothie. It's not jamba juice. Having to deal with all of this on a stomach full of ghetto smoothie... I don't know if i'm going to make it.
I get back... now service 36. Fuck. I wait my turn, all the while court going on just inside the courtroom. Finally It's my turn.
Oh, if they're still holding court, the judge will fit you in after the 10:30 session. Oh, Great. So I race back into the courtroom. The 10:30 session is still in full force at 11:30. I wait through 60 plus cases being herd praying for some sort of heart episode to take me away from this.
At last they are calling the defendants that waited around from the 8:30 session. I may yet have a chance of solving this today. Most of the cases are routine... non-paid speeding tickets, expired registrations, 15 year olds with unpaid moped registrations. At last it's the last defendant. It's some long child support drama with 3 different counties involved and 2 baby's momma's... dear god, please... some sort of courtroom violence to break the bordom.... please just a little.
As he's finishing up, the baliff asks me if i'm with him. I tell him my story. He speaks to the court recorder and after baby's daddy is disposed of, the court recorder tells the judge the story. She also points to her computer screen showing the judge that the warrant has already been issued for my arrest.
I need a drink.... is it too early to drink?
The judge calmly says... "well, he's here, lets just dismiss the warrent and the criminal charges. Get his case file back up here."
I owe the judge a blow job.
The judge dismisses all criminal charges and knocks them down to civil charges because i've got all my paperwork caught up.
Thought this case load, I've seen many defendants ask the judge for community service instead of fines so I ask the judge since i've already paid close to $1000 to the state of florida if I could do community service instead of paying court costs. He gives me 20 hours. I've got some gratis work coming up for edward's non-profit. That will more than cover it.
The judge adjourns for lunch and I head to Tijuana Flats for a couple of tacos and a pint.
The first Viruses were discovered for the unreleased Windows Vista... God it feels feels good to be a mac user today.... They should actually change the slogan of the OS to "Just like a mac, only with more vulnerabilities and more blindly trusted."
So, Cingular is charging me $45USD a month for unlimited blackberry internet on top of the $99USD they're charging me for 2000 anytime minutes and they've just warned me, the blackberry charge is going up to $50 soon. So with my mom and edward on my cell phone account and my mom buying ringtones and calling information everytime she has a hang nail and the extortionary FCC taxes, my cell phone bill hasn't been under $300 in some time.
Long story short, I'm selling the BB. That's just too expensive. It's on ebay if you want to bid. Maybe i'll get one of the new Motorola Q's...
so I get off work early friday afternoon to go finish taking care of the driver's license mess. The boss promises to pay me via paypal, which means when i'm in funds, i'll get an email on my blackberry stating such.
Traffic is a mess. I'm on the buss on the way to tyrone and as I get closer and closer, still no email. I text the boss. No reply
Finally I get to the DMV and get a number and get in line only to discover he sent the money to my Bank of America which is tied to my visa card. The DMV doesn't take visa. They take Mastercard, but they don't take Visa. I tell the receptionist that I have to go get money because I don't have any in the account tied to my MC. I rush out the door and down to BA. Try to take out money and their ATM is not working correctly. I go inside and the teller is more than happy to give me $250.
So I schlep back 3 blocks in the hot sun back to the DMV, sweating like a whore in church the whole way.
They're closed.The doors are locked.
I begin tapping on the window. This is where my god-given pushy-ness comes in handy. The guy sticks his head outside the door and I explain the situation. He asks the receptionist and the receptionist confirms. There's one guy left in the Driver's License area. Ten minutes later, I have a license again. Praise Jesus.
I call my friend Amy who's having trouble with her 20" imac (and with her 12 year old daughter, which is a problem I CAN'T help her with) and I go over there, fix the printer issue and a couple of other minor things. The daughter now has a pet RAT... I silently, yet again, thank God I'm gay... Amy runs me home. Edward texts that the exchange server at the office is going crazy and he won't be leaving any time soon... that's what you get for trusting your enterprise's communication to exchange server. I do corn dogs at the Dairy Inn for dinner. I'm celebrating. Even though it's only 3 blocks, I drive it with the A/C and my iPod blasting.
I've added a Dale Mabery/Sarasota line going north-south through the entire area and an northeast/southwest Nebraska/Kennedy/Riverview line.
So I'm trying a new bus route. The first stop is in front of the nazarene church around the corner from my house. While I'm waiting for the bus an older man walks up to me and asks me if I'd like 'something to read on the bus.' I politely say 'no thank you.' I was spiritually abused by the nazarene church for twenty years. I think that's more than enough.
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-- Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless --
Today we are adding Clearwater/Largo routes, a North Beach Route and a "b-line" route that goes from brandon directly to Indian Rocks Beach.
At this point, the only way to deal with the hillsborough county commission is simply to replace them.
Andrew Sullivan has mentioned in his blog that these men were hung for being gay. The picture is from an Iranian News Website. I, of course can't read the website's arabic, but if it's true, May God bring their souls to peace.... Them and every other person murdered in the name of religion. God knows who you are and loves you and I know he has carried you in his arms to a place of rest and peace.
I grieve for you and the lives you might have led. I grieve your creative voice, the books you could have written, and the loves you could have shared.
Here's what happens when you don't have guns. It seems to be a strong argument that gun-control is largely ineffective against homicide.
so if you're at a gay cowboy party and they're playing a lot of shaniah and this cute guy is dancing in front of you, is it rude to stuff a dollar bill in his jeans? Just asking.
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-- Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless --
So the eye doctor says my eyes are 20/400 uncorrected. That's like 20 short of getting a dog.
The next Steps would be to add connections to Commuter Centers in Tampa and a North-South for Pinellas as well as tying Downtown St. Pete Directly to the airport Via West Shore Shopping District and the McMullen-Booth Corridor.
The "New Tampa" line would also connect USF and Busch Gardens Theme Parks to the grid as well as Ybor. The Brandon/Valrivo line would add stops for the brandon town center. The McMullen Booth line would connect Ruth Eckerd Hall and the residential oldsmar to the dog track on 4th street and the 4th street business district. The Pinellas Central line would connect the 19 North district to Pinellas Park and St. Pete's Central Avenue.
A East Shore/West Shore line would connect MLK in St. Pete to the west Shore Residential in South Tampa and the West Shore Business District.
Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm
I know it's been coming for some time
After paying $675 to the state of florida for past due parking, toll, and speeding tickets, I was cleared to get my drivers license reinstated. The actual drivers license issuing authority is next door to the county clerk of the court near tyrone mall in west st. Pete. I walk next door to the dmv and they issue me a ticked that reads d551. I then hear a mechanical voice announce "now serving d503 at booth number 4" .... Sigh... Welcome to the DMV.
The guy sitting at the front desk asks me how I'll be paying... Credit card, I answer. "We take mastercard & discover." Wait... No visa? "No visa!" Fucking hell. So I walk a block to BA and get $200... Just in case.
I get back to the waiting room and they're serving d509... Fuck. Let's get food. 2 tacos and a quesidilla later they're still only serving d521. So I sit down and take my medicine like a man. I got myself into this. It's nobody's fault but mine. I 'm playing solitaire on my blackberry and listening to this 50-something lady bitch into a cell phone how she's going to sue the state DOT in Tallahassee because she wasn't in the car when ANY of it happened. I silently promise myself I'll never be that guy.
After what can only be the equivilant time that it took early men to discover fire once he cralled out of the primorial ooze, the Orwellian voice informes me that d551 is now being served at counter 3. I walk up to counter 3 and we begin the ass-rape that typifies any dealing with the government.
" There's a $200 license reinstatement fee when the applicant is uninsured."
Of course there is. "Yes sir."
I am the submissive slave in this S & M dioramma.
"Yes, sir. I like paying $200. Please give me more pain, sir."
This fee; that charge.... A roadsign test.... An eye test. And then we can issue.
"Yes, sir. I love tests, please give me more."
"If you're Paying by credit card, BTW, there's a 2% charge for all credit card transactions. And we don't take visa. "
Of course there is. "Thenk you sir, I would never dream of trying to use visa. Those people suck. Fuck visa."
Road sign test, I only miss one.... PS, why isn't a "school zone" sign a picture of a tried teacher doing violence to children? Oh, well.
"Sir, can u put you head to this rest and push until the light comes on? Read me the 5th line.
"A... Z... P.... Q... Fuck, I can't fucking see."
I was unable to get a driver's license because I failed my eye exam. How big of a double dog looser am i?... wait! don't answer that. And so the shame spiral begins anew. Apple martinis, anyone?
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A few have written to me asking about going underneath the bay and whether or not a tunnel can be constructed underneath the bay.
Tampa Bay is a bit of a misnomer. It's not a bay at all... it's an tidal estuary because it mixes the fresh water from 4 rivers with the salty water from the sea in an area that is actually deeper than the body of water into which it flows. It's similar in many ways to the Hudson River, with the exception that New York already has public transit... and some of the best in the world :-)
Tampa Bay is, at its deepest point, only 45 feet deep. A tunnel dug 80+ feet underground would have more than enough clearance to go under the bay without disturbing the estuary.
If last year taught us anything it was that we are not invulnerable to hurricanes. That reason alone necessitates putting all or most of any mass transit system below ground if onlt to protect the investment from potential damage due to storms. Not to mention the noise factor. Who hasn't seen or experienced the noise of a big city compounded by the screeching of an elevated train? We don't want that here. Although, because of underground conditions in the beach areas it may be necessary to do some sort of elevation in those areas only. But for the vast majority of the subway system in Tampa Bay, it will be necessary to dig tunnels.
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When contemplating installing mass transit in an already existing metro area it is useful to study driving patterns but not always helpful to try to replicate them. What mass transit does better than anything else is offer an alternative to privitized transportation in densly populated and densly commercial areas.
Pinellas county is the most densly populated county in the state (miami/dade is second). So what are the most densly commercial areas in pinellas? The downtowns... Clearwater and St Pete. I believe for any mass transit to work it has to approach the metro area as a single market and so I would also include in that the downtown tampa area and because its "on the way", the tampa airport.
So the first subway that would need to be built would link the three downtowns to the beaches and also include the airport and raymond james stadium and internatioal plaza mall.
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So last year sometime I got a speeding ticket (or three, I can't be certain of the number... who can remember these things). I put it in the area of my car roughly labeled "things I gotta deal with sometime in the near future" and promptly forgot it. Come December of that year on my birthday my 6-year driver's license expired as did my automobile registration. In the process of re-upping my driver's license i discovered that I would now need $700 to renew my license. My insurer required another $250 to re-issue my policy for the new year and the auto registration could not be re-issued until both my license and insurance were renewed. This came near christmas. At that point I made the decision to forgo re-registration and take my chances until after the first of the year. At which time I promptly forgot about it. About every 6 weeks i'd be like... "I really need to get that taken care of" but never made any real effort to get the tasks completed because we're talking about basically shelling out $1000 for the privilege of driving a car I was already driving.
Those of you who have noticed or suspected the presence of an oncoming train would be absolutely correct. That train came in the person of one Officer Dwayne Wazinsky, one of St. Petersburg's finest who, while I was piloting said car downtown on sunday, pulled me over to inform me my tags were more than six months out of date. And then was also quick to point out the delinquency of my driver's license.
I am very lucky i was not taken to jail and my car impounded.
Why are all the cops that pull me over EXTREMELY hot? or is it that i'm attracted to men who represent authority figures?
Anyway, after the cops drove away, I took my car home, where it continues to sit, gathering dust in it's space behind my house.
So now I've gotta use the better part of 2 paychecks to rectify the transportation situation, not to mention the fact that the car, itself, needs brakes and to have the master cylinder re-worked ($500).
So sunday night, i'm depressed, sitting among empty bottles of Skyy® Vodka and DeKruyper's® Sour Apple Pucker from the numerous apple martini's i've consumed on this my most current downward spiral of shame and self-loathing, and I'm trying to foment a plan to get to work monday morning.... knowing i'd have to take the bus but desperately searching for options and realizing that there are none.
During and after college, I took the bus everywhere around Nashville. When I got to town, my dad gave me two things. $200 and a bus schedule. His suggestion was to find a job on the bus route either downtown or somewhere there on Mufreesboro Road. I took the bus for the next 4 years of my life until I bought a motorcycle and afterwards bought a car.Taking the bus at 35 years old can only feel like a step backwards.
So I checked online for the Bus Schedules for Pinellas County only to discover that it would take me over 2 hours to go 15 miles on the bus from my house to work. This would mean I would need to leave the house at 7 in order to be at work by 9.
I know what you're thinking. IT'S YOUR OWN FUCKING FAULT!!! DUMBASS, Pay your fines and registration fees.. But here's my point with that. There are other people who are NOT in my situation. I've been riding the bus beside them every day. They are low wage earners. Many disabled. Many have recently immigrated (legally or illegally) to the united states and all they want to do is get to work and earn enough money to survive another day. Why should it take THEM 2 hours to get to work?
Pinellas County started out as two cities: St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Then all these smaller towns (22 of them to be exact) began to dot the space between the bigger cities. And now there are very few areas of the county where undeveloped land is currently available. The county is, in point of fact, a single metropolis with close to a million people in it, not 24 separate municipalities with unincorporated space between them.. The PSTA board of directors are appointed by these "tiny towns" to ensure the people of those towns are served by the transit authority's budget so each area makes it's bid to get as many routes as possible in their area of town to take back to the citizens of that town that they are protecting their interests, as does every factor of "tiny town" government. They take the tax base of that "town" and set up a "city government" under the argument that that area needs it's problems and needs addressed. The fact of the matter is, very few people both live and work in the same part of Pinellas. If you live in St. Pete, often you work in Clearwater or Tampa. If you live in Tampa, Often you work in St. Pete or Clearwater. God forbid you live in St. Pete and work in Tarpon Springs or vice versa, because if you do, you MUST have a car and you will still spend 2-3 hours of your day getting to and from work, because, as with everything else in Pinellas, transportation needs are dealt with city-to-city instead of taking the tax base, giving it to the county and allowing them to build an interstate to deal with the county's transportation needs. Pinellas Park, Kenneth City and Indian Rocks beach would have its needs best addressed by a single set of commissioners that govern the entire county who can address the two biggest problems of transportation and crime (in that order) on a county-basis.
Pinellas County, put on the pink halter top, dive into the large martini glass filled with soapy water and sing suggestively along with Britney ... "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman." In each great metropolis there comes a time when the area ceases to think of itself as a "small town" (OR 24 SMALL TOWNS as the case may be) and begins to think in terms of a city. The time has come for Pinellas' cherry to be popped and for her to become a woman. We need to give birth to a single city. I'm not saying we need to marry Kevin Federline, god forbid, but we do need to begin addressing the problems we face as a single city and not as a collection of tiny towns each with their own vested interest in keeping resources away from the other.
Maybe, by then we can develop a public transportation routes that don't take 2 hours to go 15 miles or even... SAY NO, a subway?.
The brits never cease to amaze me. After an attack that would have completely paralyzed an american city the brits are like.."Well, no use carrying on... Let's have a drink." The pubs in london are packed. Americans are such drama queens.
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Today is the day. I feel it. I feel that we can live up to the potential of our greater selves. We can be the people we always wanted to be. We can become something better than we currently are. I truly believe that the best of america's days are yet to come and for that I thank God.
I go into the back yard a few days back and there's an elderly woman who is not the homeowner next door in the back yard. I'm assuming it's the homeowner's mother, but The homeowner walks out of her house and I give a friendly wave... she walks over.
She begins to complain about the dogs in the back yard. She claims that we don't pick up the dog shit often enough and that it keeps her and her mother from sitting in the back yard. She points to the older lady in the chair and says that she doesn't like the smell and she's sorry she has to say anything.
I'm like... this is my back yard... I'm not going to be dictated as to what I can and can't do in my own back yard.... especially by a bed ridden older lady... I appreciate the fact that she comes outside to "warm up" because she has no blood, but it's not my problem she doesn't like it. She doesn't like anything... she's old.
I basically ignored her and walked off. I came out the next day and she had put moth balls all up and down her fence line... I guess the scent of old people is preferable to dog shit... ok, whatever.
So I'm out there this morning and she makes a big production of walking outside, taking her box of moth balls and dumping them on the ground. ... of course you realize... this means war.
if you haven't heard about Rhonda-gate, then you haven't been reading the news in Tampa Bay over the last 2 weeks.
On several occasions she has mentioned "black history month is different" because of slavery.
I believe, however ...and correct me if i'm wrong here... black history month has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with slavery... Black history month is about honoring the contribution of a minority to the continued betterment of the whole and slavery is just the first act in that story..In the same way, Pride, honors the contribution of a minority of citizens to the betterment of the whole. It seems Mrs. Storms doesn't think Earnest Hemingway and Truman Capote have contributed to the american experience.
Slavery is the first act of the black story in america, but she made it sound like it was some sort of payback... white people locked black people up and considered them animals... therefore they get a "history month".... intellectual rubbish and somewhat insulting.
Her action was a knee-jerk reaction to being presented with the idea that gays and lesbians are part of the mainstream of society. She doesn't like that fact and doesn't want hillsborough county to recognize it.... and here's the kicker... I think she really believes what she's doing is right.
It pains my heart when well-meaning people put their efforts into COMPLETELY pointless exercises that they truely believe advance their cause. It cheapens them and to quote a better writer than myself:
Apparently it never quite dawned on anyone at the library that when you have something called Gay and Lesbian Pride Month designed to advance greater understanding and tolerance of homosexuals, it sorta defeats the whole purpose of the exercise by treating a benign library display on the subject as if it represented a recruitment campaign for the Boy George Fan Club.
<sigh>... will christians ever come to the point when they're secure enough in their christianity to allow people to serve God from their own conscience? I guess that's too much to hope for.
In the name of love...
one more in the name of love
Two weeks ago I lost a client. The project had experienced delay after delay and the client and I were unfocused and undisciplined. I knew in my soul the relatioship was coming to a sudden end and felt powerless to stop it. The site just needed more time and attention than I could give it.
Needless to say I felt like a failure... And to a certain extent I was. Not to a certain extent... I did it.
What else is there to say or do other than try to accomplish something to get rid of that feeling.
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I have this fantasy of going to a fabulous city I've never been to like london or something and opening a southern-style barbeque and calling it BIG TEXAS BAR-B-Q... Using the almost universal recognition of texas' association with all things big and the recipes of my youth and that I learned while living in nashville. Selling american culture around the globe has become easier even as selling american politics has become more difficult. I think it could work.
Anyway, it's my fantasy to one day open a restaurant. To create the menu myself and develop the concept start to finish the way my fellow pinellas countians the Hooters 6 did in the eighties and to develop it into a national brand.
Its funny how tampabay has spawned 3 or 4 different restaurant fortunes... Hooters, the Outback, Carrabbas, Bennigans, hops... I think I can do it and I think I can do it from here. The question is, will I?
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I do it too. I hold on to clients I know I need to let go of, I want things to work, when I know they just won't. I constantly have to check myself and re-discover what it means to embrace change.
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