It's no iPod... but I didn't expect it to be

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.

Make your own kind of music

So after last night's episode of "Lost" my new ringtone is Mama Cass. I had forgotten how much I loved her.

Shameless Cuteness

for those about to ROKR...

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.
They are often given unhygienic food and suffer verbal abuse. from BBC News

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.

Please don't Eat the Daisies

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.
...
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."

Five Years from now, people will be like... "what was the big deal?"

princess' stolen iced cappachino

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.

disagreements and school busses

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:

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

I think Zaa Zaa Gabor said it best... "I'd rather die than fly coach."

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

"what really went wrong" gumbo

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

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."

...Looking back on it from the future, this could be Texas' finest hour. Big-upps to all you lone-stars "deep in the heart."

Skype Journal: Katrina - the landline - Telecom's Response

This genius idea was posted on the Skype Journal website. Does anyone know the email address of BellSouth's CEO???

God Bless the USA

TX-Houston astrodome AFP
GettyImages DaveEinsel
Originally uploaded by Tirebiter.

I found this on Flickr. Texas has taken in 225,000 refugees from Hurricane Katrina. Gov. Perry, there's a special place in heaven just for you. God bless you, sir.

The Concert, II

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.

The Concert, I

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.

I'm Crying

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.