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Six years ago tonight TS1 and I stood up in front of family and friends to pledge our love and lives together. Simply put, I’ve never made a better decision: no woman is a better match for me and she gives me hope that the future will be ever better.
For all of you still searching for a partner in life I wish only that you find someone as wonderful as Viv!
Today a man in Pittsburgh shot and killed three police officers who had responded to a report of domestic violence. Yesterday another man shot and killed thirteen people in Binghampton, NY. Both gunmen were wearing body armor, apparently prepared to take on any police response.
Online comments, in this case on the Yahoo Buzz discussion of the Pittsburgh story, are certainly not to be taken as more than anecdotal evidence of community sentiment but still I was seriously wound up by the majority of those posted as of now.
Most of the posters seemed more concerned that President Obama and the Democratic congress were trying to override their Second Amendment right to own guns than with the 16 dead people and their grieving families. A couple of particularly sad examples:
“these brainwashed killers are brought out intentionally, so to take away our 2 amendment. bring on the chaos so to create more control. gun control that is. biden is on it!” said dorite.“Will Obama insist on calling the shooter something other than a murderer? Perhaps this event will be called a “Disturbed Citizen Confrontation.” If we can’t call terrorists “Enemy Combatants.” how can we call Americans “murderers?” said (the ironically nicknamed) Patriot.
Seriously, sixteen people who were doing their jobs or else in the same boat as the murderer are being buried and these dunces want to make up absurd claims with no basis in reality?!
Let’s for a moment, though, take them seriously. Another poster makes the valid point that the majority of gun owning Americans do not use them to murder people or commit other crimes.
Is that a good enough reason to continue allowing Americans unfettered access to all types of guns? The NRA and the rest of the gun lobby use their muscle to prevent any limitations on gun ownership.
The primary arguments I have seen are that people need guns to protect themselves and for hunting. If this is so then why are laws that cover guns and ammunition which are not used in either of them a problem?
The Second Amendment is not, after all, as absolute in its language as the First. “Congress shall make no law” is much stronger than “shall not be infringed.”
Some people will argue that what the Founders wrote should be taken literally and not interpreted, either in regards to the times in which they lived and their other writings or in light of changes since then and current thinking.
My answer is simply WTF. You want a rifle for hunting and a pistol for the house? Fine. Armor-piercing bullets and .50 caliber machine guns? Kiss my heiny.
Another argument is that if we outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns. By definition I suppose that would be true as any hunter who kept a rifle in the garage or homeowner with a .22 in the back closet would be an outlaw. But that isn’t what’s on the table, its just a strawman argument to generate emotional appeal where logic fails.
Finally some will argue that an armed populace keeps the government on its toes, from overreaching its place. When the government has Stealth bombers, divisions of M1A tanks and nuclear subs I do not believe any group of civilians will be able to achive that result.
The only answer for this is to hope some substantial portion of the military will side with, well, whichever side is actually right. Even without the military, the lack of change brought about by various anti-government groups over the last 20 years is reasonable proof that armed civilians cannot succeed.
No, the truth now is that gun owners have become religious. They speak and react with the same zealous vigor as religious fanatics–and not surprisingly there’s a serious overlap of the two groups.
In a way this strange. You shall not kill is one of the 10 commandments, stated as an absolute. Not you shall not kill except in self-defense or in order to eat (the commandment isn’t specific to humans. No killing period.
Meanwhile our families, friends and neighbors are dying in front of our eyes. Are these two men murderers? Yes. Are their guns to blame? No. But when gun-owning fanatics will not allow the least restrictions on gun sales so that clearly mentally unbalanced people can buy them, then they share blame for the result.
Last: Our literal-minded compatriots will make exceptions on the one hand, since it suits them, but not on the other even when doing so might be closer in agreement with their self-proclaimed religious beliefs.
Next time you happen to be in a conversation with a religious gun owner, have some fun and ask them how they reconcile the contradictions.
On one of my mailing lists someone asked for guidance on creating software docs. I responded with a few simple principles:
While screencasts are a very new concept I think they are a tool very much suited to our times. Already there are a bunch of free and inexpensive applications available for making them, all seem very easy to use, meaning a low barrier to adoption. If bandwidth costs are a concern for you or your organization, post them to YouTube or similar services–after all, the more widely available these videos are, the better!
Aptana has produced many and put up Aptana TV to host them (not to mention that site is the first production ActiveJS application, good job Ian and Ryan). Many of the videos are done by the developer who worked on the part of the product described, which I think is very powerful when the product itself is used by developers. No marketing fluff, at least.
Liverpool have played a lot of games, six in two and a half weeks, and Steven Gerrard is out for the next three weeks on injury so Rafa Benitez decided to give some younger players a chance to show value today against relegation zone Portsmouth. He also switched formations to three at the back, an interesting choice, though in the end I don’t think it hurt us.
No, what hurt us was the inability of Ryan Babel and David Ngog to combine effectively in the final third. Babel has been looking especially week of late and today was little different as he muffed an absolute sitter that went past David James in the 61st minute.
Benitez was forced to bring on Dirk Kuyt, Xabi Alonso and finally El Nino, Fernando Torres and the trio were able to get the necessary second and third goals for the three points. Torres got the winner in the 91st on a header which was a virtual carbon copy of the winner he scored last Sunday against Chelsea.
The win puts us back at the top of the Premier League, at least until Manchester United play West Ham tomorrow and make up their missed game with Fulham on the 18th. Liverpool are off for two weeks for the international break and the FA Cup fifth round, the latter due to a heartbreaking goal from an Everton debutant near the end of extra time. One less trophy possibility but perhaps not too terrible since that means fewer games for a lean squad.
Chelsea, by the way, are spiraling out of control. They couldn’t manage a goal today against Hull City, though Cech and Terry saved the point for them. With Aston Villa posting a strong win, the Blues dropped to fourth–six points ahead of Arsenal but the Gunners don’t play until tomorrow and could have that against a staggering Tottenham.
If the last two league games are a real trend, the Reds fortunes are looking up. The boys are fighting hard until the very end and always going for all three points. Sweet!
Due to the writer’s strike and ever-increasing intrusion of reality TV this was a less than banner year for American TV viewers. Here are some of my personal highlights:
Honorable mentions to Family Guy, The Simpsons, Fringe, Terminator, Heroes, The Shield, Battlestar Galactica, The L Word and Entourage.
Every Thanksgiving the team at Agile Web Solutions give a present to their customers. This year the present was up to three licenses of 1Password to give away to family or friends. Not cut down, limited or expiring after one update licenses but regular, same as paid licenses. I love this application, it’s a huge time saver, and so I found three Mac users who somehow hadn’t even heard of this great tool and gave them the licenses.
For those of you who don’t know about it, 1P “is a Password Manager that uniquely brings you both Security and Convenience. It is the only program that provides Anti-Phishing protection and goes beyond password management by adding Web Form Filling and Automatic Strong Password Generation. All your confidential information, including passwords, identities, and credit cards, is kept in one secure place provided by Apple’s OS X Keychain.”
Comes with an iPhone app too, which is especially handy for quick logins on the small screen.
How will they top this next year?
VOTE NO ON
CALIFORNIA’S PROP. 8
DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!
(San Diego, CA, 16 June 2009) Six leaders of the self-style Homeless Army of Americans were arrested by a combined FBI, state and local police task force this morning minutes before the HAA organizers were to take the podium at a group rally at which attendance was estimated to be well over 100,000 people.
Those arrested include Sam Stross, 42, Peter Humphries, 43, Gerry Torres, 31, all residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, Gemma Lam, 33, of San Diego, Diego Stevens, 38, of Santa Fe, NM, and Bankos Hamesh of New York City. Their attorney, Jorge Chen, told this reporter that more than four hours after the six were taken into custody he had yet to be allowed any communication with his clients.
“Today’s action by the McCain Administration violates both the First Amendment as well as constitutional protections and other legal protections but are in no way a surprise to any supporter of the Homeless Army,” Chen said during a phone conversation. “In the five months since John McCain took office over nine million Americans have lost their homes and he has done nothing except staff up local and federal police forces and begin construction on what can only be enormous holding camps, with today’s illegal arrests only the first of many.”
Before news of the HAA 6 arrests became public, thousands of police officers from San Diego and surrounding areas, California State troopers and California units of the Army National Guard were deployed to the streets and the rally participants were herded down prepared paths to be dispersed out of the downtown area.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation would not provide a spokesperson to answer media questions but instead released a statement on the FBI press release website, which begins:
“No American’s rights were illegally impeded in San Diego today and any physical force used by law enforcement officers was in response to explicit physical attacks by this unauthorized gathering. The six individuals arrested prior to their participation in this unauthorized gathering were detained on charges of conspiracy to incite terroristic violence, threats of violence against the elected leadership of the United States and conspiracy to commit fraud.
“[The arrested individuals] are charged under the recent revisions to the Patriot Act and as such have been detained without access to counsel until the investigating officers determine that all participants in this complex conspiracy have been identified and, to the extent possible, arrested to stand trial with their comrades. Neither the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice nor local or state police commands will have further comment on these individuals until further notice.”
Stross, Humphries, Torres, Lam, Stevens and Hamesh have been very public faces of a movement that grew out of the debacle which last fall’s $700 billion bailout was supposed to prevent. The bill, according to the Bush Administration, was the only way to avoid a horrific economic crash; since the measure did nothing to assist borrowers, though, the huge number of so-called toxic mortgages remained untenable for homeowners to repay and banks began foreclosing in massive numbers days before the new administration was inaugurated in January.
The Homeless Army has drawn support across the country and today’s rally was expected to be the first big showing by the group ahead of a political campaign to pressure Congress and the Administration to find a solution that would return homes to the millions of families forced out by armed squads of temporarily deputized private security company employees.
HAA.org attempted to post prepared remarks by Mr. Humphries, who is the group’s primary public spokesperson, but the site was unreachable due to denial of service attacks. He has previously issued calls for the impeachment of President McCain and Vice President Palin for executive orders that authorized financial instutions and other mortgage owners to obtain foreclosure and eviction orders despite state laws that would otherwise protect homeowners for at least some period of time.
Miss Lam has written articles for the Huffington Post website laying out a case for the prosecution of leaders of the previous Administration for what she termed “the most outrageous fraudulent, illegal transfer of wealth in modern economic history” when almost all of the bailout money went to wealthy individuals and the balance sheets of the handful of large banks that remain in the aftermath of last September and October’s string of failures and near-failures.
Senator Joseph Leiberman, R-CT, spoke to the issue on the floor of the US Senate late in the day: “The so-called HAA6 are not honorable people attempting to redress some great wrong but thugs leading a mob unwilling to accept the consequences of their own greedy decisions and ready to bring the great American nation down around them unless the majority of law-abiding capitulate to threats of violence and disorder. We will not be intimidated and this Administration and our brave president will not allow such threats to stand.”
Senator Joe Biden, D-DE, responded to Leiberman: “Barack Obama and I would have blocked the massive expulsion of many hard-working homeowning citizens had we not been tragically prevented from taking office. Our Administration would never have approved the trampling of the Constitution and the Homess Army of Americans would never been needed. These people should be released immediately and President McCain should see this as a wakeup call from the reality he strives so hard to avoid.”
White House Press Secretary Gail Gitcho told reporters that the President had nothing to add to the FBI statement and would not be answering questions from the media, unsurprising as he has not met directly with reporters since three weeks after taking office and addressing the nation only sporadically and briefly in that time.
Even taking account of the downpour in Havana and very poor officiating–though nowhere as bad as that in the Hungary-Denmark match–USA played down to the level of competition and were lucky to get a 1-0 win over a team that has exactly zero players on club rosters outside their island nation.
Bob Bradley went with a five man midfield but despite the extra man were not able to get Brian Ching a single good opportunity. The one goal we had, from Clint Dempsey in the 40th, was down to a lucky bounce after the Cuban defenders beat Dempsey on the initial cross and Ching was able to touch it back to Clint.
The top goat, besides the coach, was Maurice Edu. Fresh off a decent performance at the Olympics and a $5 million transfer to Rangers, he was horrible all night with his passing. Either short, too soft, to the wrong place, wherever, if the US had given up a goal it would most likely come off a bad Edu pass.
Landon Donovan is next on my list. While I can’t point to the same kind of specific miscues as with his fellow midfielder, Landon was never the attacking engine he should have been. After all, of his American all time team record of 35 goals, six came in two previous matches against Cuba. Tonight the closest he came was a couple of shots well high from distance and, in general, he played too deeply to be the connection between balls out of the back and Ching.
Somehow Heath Pearce started at left back for the seventh consecutive game. I cannot believe that we don’t have a better option. Where are Jonathon Bornstein, Jonathon Spector or even Eddie Lewis? Heck, if Bradley wanted a five man midfield he could have gone with Onyewu, Bocanegra and Frankie Hejduk in a 3-5-2, pushing Dempsey up top with Ching and inserting Sacha Kljestan into the XI. We probably would have won by three or four goals!
Next up for the US is a much tougher match Wednesday against Trinidad & Tobago, who managed a 1-1 draw at Guatemala today. We’ll have Steve Cherundolo back (from a ridiculous two yellows in a game suspension), maybe see Kljestan, Marvell Wynne or Ricardo Clarke in the starting lineup and the game is in Chicago, so for once we may have more supporters than the visiting squad.
Elsewhere French soccer fans must be wondering the hell has happened to a team that won the World Cup/Euro double back in 1998/2000. They lost to an Austrian team 3-1 by giving up essentially two own goals and a penalty kick! How Domenech will keep his job if the lose the game against a very tough Serbian side==remember, he didn’t win a game in the Euros in June and the team went out at the first round–I do not know. Teflon coach or not.
Italy needed a last gasp score to beat Cyprus 2-1, England (missing the injured Steven Gerrard) could only manage two against micro-minnows Andorra and Spain (missing Fernando Torres) snuck past Bosnia-Herzegovina just 1-0.
Israel apparently has a decent shot of making it to the Finals and an injury time goal gave them a precious point against a very difficult Swiss side after going behind 2-0. Liverpool’s Yossi Benayoun got the first and Chelsea’s Ben Sahar the equalizer. The Sabras travel to Moldova midweek, so hopefully the full three points from that.
What’s the timde difference from the West Coast to Johannesburg?
Just a test post now that1Password for iPhone made it easy to get here.
