I’m back…
Just got back from a DC inauguration trip late last night. A cancelled flight followed by a delayed one led to an arrival in Tampa just a few hours later than planned, so things weren’t too bad travel wise despite the snowfall.
My traveling companion and I arrived in Washington early Thursday, and hit the ground marching. With thousands of others, we walked down toward the Capitol from Adams Morgan. The march ended near the parade route, and security was restrictive, which created a bottleneck at the entrances. Fascists Supporters of the president, ticket holders easily identifiable by their expensive furs and “W” paraphernalia, were lined up waiting to get in. This presented an opportunity for heckling that I simply couldn’t resist.
I spent a few minutes inquiring as to why the younger ones weren’t over in Iraq, supporting the troops by taking their places, and informing the older ones that they had blood on their hands. This actually went over pretty well. I pissed off a lot of assholes.
We then meandered over to a public entrance on Pennsylvania where the atmosphere was heating up. As some “anarchists” mounted a traffic control box and tried to ignite an American flag (ironically, the anarchists weren’t quite organized enough to really get it burning), a steady stream of GOP types (remember: furs, American flags, and W W W W W.... fucking everywhere) streamed by toward another ticket holder’s entrance.
Myself and those in the growing crowd near me amused ourselves by making life as miserable as possible for them. A gauntlet of sorts was very informally formed, and, according to the WaPo, some were offput enough to forego the parade and watched on TV instead. Good.
At one point, I was almost on autopilot as I routinely peppered the attendees with rude but entirely justified adjectives like fascist and chickenhawk and war monger. Suddenly, a large GOP goon with a young child in tow turned abruptly and challenged me. He was offended by my remarks, and I guess he wanted to teach his 6 year old son a lesson in how to deal with a God and America hating progressive protestor.
After allowing him to spew some venomous bile at me, and giving him ample time to turn back and head towards the gates, I realized that he was waiting for a response. He was right up in my face at this point, and threatening to hit me, so I taunted him some more.
I clasped my hands behind my back and encouraged him to attack me physically. I told him that since he was about 50 pounds heavier and 4 or 5 inches taller that it would be much like his President invading a much weaker counter simply to prove some meaningless point. I also reminded him that his son was with him and that the kid would probably love to see his asshole daddy arrested and taken to jail right in front of him.
At his point, some progressives in the crowd started yelling at ME to leave this hulking bully alone for the sake of HIS kid. Now, this guy brought his child into this unfriendly crowd, and instead of simply ushering the kid through to the gates, he decided to stop and confront me simply because I was using my American right to freely express myself.
Throughout all of this, anyone could see that the kid was mortified, and I did feel kinda sorry for him, especially since he’ll probably grow up to be just like his dad, if he doesn’t die in a folly of a war first, but I did not pick this big asshole out of the crowd. He stopped himself and his kid to start a shouting match and threaten me physically. I saw no reason to back down for the kid’s sake.
And others running the gauntlet were a little pissed too.
"They need a new law for these protesters: 'You cross the line, you do the time,' " said Kenneth E. Boring, 80, still apparently irritated by the experience as he waited to leave Reagan National Airport.
He and his wife Dottie, 59, of Dalton, Ga., are members of Republican Eagles, the elite GOP fundraising group, but they watched the president's speech from the Willard InterContinental Hotel. The security line was too long, they said, and made longer, in their opinion, by the protesters.
"It's time to put a stop to all this nonsense, protesting and causing confusion," Boring said.
......Justin Moidel, 17, who lives in the Pittsburgh area, attended the swearing-in with friends, but after venturing outside the security gates for food, the group ditched plans to return for the parade because of the angry protesters and daunting lines at the weapons check.
"I liked being part of history, and the passage of power," said Moidel, who said he considers himself a conservative Democrat. "But the long lines and being protested against. . . . There was one lady who yelled at me, 'Are you prepared to die?' I guess she thinks Bush is an aggressive leader who will get us into war."
Uh, Justin, you’re 17. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get drafted into the war which our aggressive leader has already gotten us into, you fucking moron. And Ken: no matter how much you were inconvenienced by me and others like me, you’re going home to a warm safe bed. American soldiers and Iraqi civilians wont be experiencing a feeling of safety for quite some time, and it’s all because your president lied his way into a needless war.
Anyway, the heckling was great fun, because pissing off republicans is something I’ll never tire of.
We left the heckling area just as a phalanx of riot-geared strorm troopers was preparing to close in on the protestors. GOP convention experiences taught us to move quickly and get the hell out if we didn’t want to spend the rest of the weekend in jail. Fortunately, few were arrested, but pepper spray was liberally used, and I think we left at just about the right time.
Friday, we joined a few dozen other activists and helped deliver a
70 foot long spine to the DNC. We think it’s time the DNC got a backbone and started acting like an opposition party instead of simply rolling over and acquiescing to every GOP atrocity. Personally, I woulda rather delivered a big pair of balls, but the spine, provided by some activists from Seattle, was quite impressive and made for a great visual.
I really didn’t feel like bothering
But I must respond to this excited nutcase with a blog and way too much time who is picking a fight over my post on the Tampa Fox News reporters who were fired several years ago over a dispute about a story they were doing.
Following is the entire accusatory post, with my answers to the rather overwrought charges and assertions as called for.
2005-01-08 Posts like this are why I sometimes hate blogging. Norwood has written a blog post full of several factual errors. Either Norwood has no idea who Steve Wilson and Jane Akre are - or he pulled a Glenn Reynolds and wrote a post that simply served his political bias. In this case, Norwood's hatred of Fox News. I'm no fan of Fox News, but Wilson and Akre are two of the strangest and most crooked media people I have read about.
”Posts like this?” Uh, posts like yours, the type of which you would ordinarily write only under threat of death or serious dismemberment, or posts like mine, which you will endeavor to attack in a rather erratic and ineffective but quite vicious fashion, much like a kitten going after a dangling piece of string? Just asking...
Anyway, your thesis seems to be twofold: Norwood sucks, and so do Steve and Jane. Let’s proceed...
Wilson and Akre were a (maybe still) married investigative news team working for WTVT in Tampa - before Fox News owned the station. The couple contended that the station censored their story on Monsanto. Wilson admited [sic] in court there was very little difference between what the station wanted and their version.
OH. MY. GOD! Steve and Jane MIGHT be living in SIN?!?
I don’t have the time to research the ownership issue, but WTVT was certainly a Fox affiliate at the time of Wilson and Akre’s firing, else Fox News would not be part of the lawsuit. I fail to understand what possible difference it could make as to who the actual owner of the Fox News station was at the time of the incident.
I’m not gonna make any cheap quips about spell checkers. Oh, wait... Norwood linked Wilson and Akre's webpage asking for financial donations for them to repay millions in Fox legal fees since they lost two case against the media giant. John Sugg Reports, "After Akre's verdict was overturned, the couple turbocharged their fundraising by claiming they may have to pay Fox's legal costs, which, they say, 'could amount to maybe $3-million.' That's a gross exaggeration. Fox won fees only for the relatively minor portion spent during the appeal. Wilson acknowledged he has no basis for the $3-million figure, but justified it by saying that Fox might -- just might -- someday be awarded other fees."
Now this is a huge distortion. At the time Sugg wrote this piece, he well knew that Fox was suing Wilson and Akre for $1.7 million. So, yeah, Fox might someday be awarded those “other fees,” like if they win the suit which Wilson is soliciting funds to fight. The notion that the couple were only ordered to pay appeal related fees is also directly contradicted by Project Censored. (same link as previous) Wilson and Akre are so broke that they bought a $1.4 million home in Jacksonville, Florida. Jeremy Voas of the Metro Times asked Wilson how he got the money to pay for the home. Wilson refused to give him a direct answer. He would not even say if he's still married to Akre. Voas also reports on how Wilson ambushed Dr. Kenneth Burnley and kept intentionally bumping into the man while interviewing him on camera. This turned into a shoving match. Wilson said in his on-air report, "If there’s any accountability, Dr. Burnley apparently figures it’s not to us."
I guess this paragraph is in support of the “Jane and Steve suck” part of the thesis? It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Monsanto story or with any “factual distortions” on my part. Wilson is also a raving egomaniac. The man represented himself in court and lost! He tells progressives that he's fighting for the little guy while he's stuffing $5 thousand of their money he got from them off the internet under a mattress. Me thinks Wilson is hiding money from the IRS.
Let’s see... he testified about the $5,000 in court... he was hiding it from the IRS! He stated that he stashed it, in the form of a cashier’s check, possibly under his mattress, in order to prevent the funds from possible being seized by the IRS. That does seem a little fishy, and may be worth looking into, but it happened way back in 1999, and the matter seems to have been resolved in Wilson’s favor, since he was able to later return the money to the charitable account without repercussion.
Again, I never alluded to this incident nor did I make any “factual errors” regarding this incident.
As for his egomania, well, yeah, the guy is one of those tabloid style TV reporters. If he wasn’t full of himself, he wouldn’t have much of a career potential. I wonder if Norwood will correct his post after he reads the trackback I put on his site. If he doesn't then he's as guilty of the same dishonesty as that he accuses Fox News of.
Uh, my post was rather tame and pretty neutral. I concentrated on Wilson and Akre’s recent filing with the FCC challenging WTVT’s license renewal, and I encouraged readers to contact the FCC themselves if they felt so inclined. I included links to Wilson and Akre’s site and a brief summary of their situation for background.
Readers who bother to click through to the Jane and Steve page can see Jane and Steve’s version of events and decide for themselves. They allude to Sugg’s article and refute many of the charges he makes.
The “factual errors” cited by this strident blogger seem, at best, to be differences in opinion or interpretation. I have no idea why this person has chosen to pick a fight with me about these secondary issues. Update: Norwood has not changed his post on Wilson and Akre. I don't think bloggers should take this man seriously.
I read your post when you first wrote it. Then, jaw dropping ever further in a stunning real-time show of utter disbelief, I read it again. I found it so thoroughly without merit that I deemed it unworthy of a response - I did not take it seriously.
Then you came and left a trollish comment on BlogWood with the laughable assertion that I should change my blog post to reflect your opinion. Uh, that’s why you have your own fucking blog, dumbass - so you can spout misconceiving fact-challenged hastily (if at all) researched non-spell checked crap without bothering those of us who are not brain addled twits.
Bugger off, you blathering bitch.
Catchalling
A lot of catching up to do around here, so I’m just gonna post this super-long link-filled extravaganza, glossing over details, ignoring important points, completely missing many newsworthy events, and adding absolutely nothing of value to the conversation. In other words, pretty much business as usual, but with just one big post. Enjoy.
Despite Secretary of State Colin Powell’s insistence that the U.S. is not a "stingy" nation-a charge leveled Monday by a frustrated U.N. relief coordinator, then taken back Tuesday-American contributions to the tsunami recovery effort seem modest by any standard. Relief workers need to get help to 10 nations, where more than a million people are believed to be homeless, where whole villages were swallowed by the earthquake-induced tidal wave last weekend, and where the death toll has crossed 50,000 and is still climbing.
So far, the U.S. is sending $4 million to the International Red Cross and perhaps $40 million in other aid funds, along with a handful of planes, some bearing supplies and some to be used for patrols. The Japanese are sending $30 million for starters, and the EU $40 million.
Miffed at the U.N. official’s comment, Trent Duffy, White House deputy press secretary, said, the U.S. is “the largest contributor to international relief and aid efforts, not only through the government but through charitable organizations.” He added, “The American people are very giving.”
The money being put up by the U.S. is nothing when compared to what’s going on in the corridors of Wall Street, where year-end bonuses for the securities industry are the big story in New York. Readers of The New York Times were greeted Tuesday morning with above-the-fold images of destruction in Asia and below-the-fold accountings of personal riches.
The money’s also a little less than W will spend on his upcoming coronation, but I digress. Also in the NY Times that day: Family farmers in Central America - just another group of brown people in need of exploitation by wall street types:
Supermarket Giants Crush Central American Farmers
By CELIA W. DUGGERPublished: December 28, 2004
PALENCIA, Guatemala - Mario Chinchilla, his face shaded by a battered straw hat, worriedly surveyed his field of sickly tomatoes. His hands and jeans were caked with dirt, but no amount of labor would ever turn his puny crop into the plump, unblemished produce the country's main supermarket chain displays in its big stores.
But we really do care about brown people. Really.
We were surprised to see on ABC's Good Morning America a segment about the children who have been victims of the tsunami. Total casualties are (currently) estimated to be 60,000. One third are children, or 20,000. The ABC report began with the usual talking head.
It was followed by four stories about affected children. Excepting a quick pan shot of native kids amongst general destruction, they were all white Europeans.
Well, white European tourists can be victims too! And besides, we’re sending lots of money, right?
That brings to a whopping 10 cents per capita, our contribution to alleviating one of the great human tragedies of all time. How inspiring. I just wrote a check to Doctors Without Borders (How to donate) for 1000 times that amount, so I guess that makes me Albert Fucking Schweitzer. Yet I somehow still feel strangely unvirtuous.
Speaking of virtuous, Saint Theresa LaPore’s retirement is about to get a littel more cushy, thanks to a little job swapping in Palm Beach.
Outgoing Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore is mulling a $2,500-a-month clerical job in State Attorney Barry Krischer's office so she can qualify for a 30-year pension.
LePore said she's also considering two other government posts at similar pay but wouldn't name them. She said she'll decide on a job next week.
LePore leaves the $121,490 supervisor's position next week after losing an Aug. 31 reelection bid. She needs to work about three or four more months to qualify for optimum pension benefits.
LaPore has been sucking the government teat for almost as long as this innocent man has been on Florida’s death row.
Now DNA evidence offers Zeigler the hope of a very different future Christmas. DNA evidence has played a significant role in 14 of the 117 exonerations from U.S. Death Rows. Such evidence is vital, especially in Florida, which -- according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. -- has had 21 people found innocent on its Death Row, more than any other state.
Prosecutors are refusing to back down, even in the face of irrefutable evidence of Zeigler’s innocence. Who knows, maybe they just want his pension benefits to increase.
Another group looking for increased benefits are the striking Florida Crystal sugar workers, who are fighting newish owners who really really really have to cut costs if they’re gonna be able to afford those new Ferrari’s that are all the rage this year.
Standing among hundreds of picketers outside Florida Crystals Corp.'s Okeelanta plant Tuesday morning, Debra Jones didn't know when she'd go back to her job of 23 years at the sugar mill.
Jones and about 700 of her co-workers walked off their jobs Monday to protest the Palm Beach County sugar grower's plans to outsource jobs and cut benefits.
Striking Okeelanta mill workers argue with a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy Tuesday who had asked them to leave the median of U.S. 27. Protesters ran to the median after a truck driver was pulled over for honking his horn in support of the strikers.
"When we left, we knew we may not go back," said Jones, a 50-year-old single mother from Clewiston. "But we can't live with what they have to offer."
And that’s all I have to offer for now. Oh, except for this. (via Suburban Guerrilla)
Homophobic racist judged by God
I’ve scanned a few of the articles regarding Reggie White’s death. Funny, but most of them seem to leave out a few key details of his life.
Here’s a highlight from one of his speeches that illustrates what I’m getting at.
When you look at the black race, black people are very gifted in what we call worship and celebration. A lot of us like to dance, and if you go to black churches, you see people jumping up and down, because they really get into it.
White people were blessed with the gift of structure and organization. You guys do a good job of building businesses and things of that nature and you know how to tap into money pretty much better than a lot of people do around the world.
Hispanics are gifted in family structure. You can see a Hispanic person and they can put 20 or 30 people in one home. They were gifted in the family structure.
When you look at the Asians, the Asian is very gifted in creation, creativity and inventions. If you go to Japan or any Asian country, they can turn a television into a watch. They're very creative. And you look at the Indians, they have been very gifted in the spirituality.
......But the Bible strictly speaks against it, and because the Bible speaks against it, we allow rampant sin including homosexuality and lying, and to me lying is just as bad as homosexuality, we've allowed this sin to run rampant in our nation, and because it has run rampant in our nation, our nation is in the condition it is today.
Sometimes when people talk about this sin they've been accused of being racist. I'm offended that homosexuals will say that homosexuals deserve rights. Any man in America deserves rights, but homosexuals are trying to compare their plight with the plight of black men or black people.
In the process of history, homosexuals have never been castrated, millions of them never died. Homosexuality is a decision. It's not a race. And when you look at it, people from all different ethnic backgrounds are living this lifestyle, but people from all different ethnic backgrounds are also liars and cheaters and malicious and backstabbers.
We're in sin, and because this nation is in sin, God will judge it if we don't get it right.
Oh, wait... he was a professional athlete. Professional athletes are different from the rest of us and should therefore be held to a much lower standard, even if they are malicious backstabbers, or wife beaters, or rapists, or...
Bear with me
I'm fighting an attack of comment spam today - automated comments posted to the site advertising whatever. I'm trying various methods to block and clean up, but in the meantime, I have no time for posting.
Back soon...
Back in a minute…
Regular posting will resume shortly. In the meantime, check out all these worthy blogs on the left side of the page.
See you soon.
Excuses excuses
Haven’t really had a whole lotta time to blog in the last coupla days, what with organizing and leading a parade , and doing lots of other Heatwave related stuff. Then I had to do some paid work before I could start paying attention to BlogWood again.
I’ve been catching up on news today. The situation in Iraq keeps getting stranger and stranger, and the fatalities on all sides continue to mount. See Juan Cole for continuing coverage.
Closer to home, the Florida Legislature ended the 2004 session on Friday. Surprisingly, the attempt to snatch democracy form the hands of the people by greatly curtailing citizen initiatives mostly failed, though there is a watered down version that still must be fought at teh ballot box. See Florida Politics for details on this and all the other Legislative goings on.
There. Now that I’ve found others that have already done my job, I’ll find something totally Tampa to opine on. Stay tuned.
Tales from The Depot
(ed. note: "The Depot" is a (fictional?) place that is often referred to by Dell computer techs, a group of support folks who seem an awful lot like the guys in the article below. In Dell's world, your computer or your computer part have always "just left the Depot," and will reach you soon!)
As a rule, I don’t link to too much Salon.com stuff. You have to be a member or get a free “day pass” to read their stuff, so it’s a pain, but this article is just so chock full of good little tech support snippets that I couldn’t resist posting it. I’ve been a computer guy for over 10 years now, and, unfortunately, I can confirm the general truth of this tale.
Gratuitous self-serving note: the only way to avoid dealing with support departments like this one is to contract with a local computer company which handles all tech support issues in-house.
We pick up this story of a tech support phone room as the author describes several categories of tech support types:
A punter is someone who gets rid of problems by giving them to someone else. Punters tell customers that their problem is not really with their computer, but with their software, their printer, their phone lines, solar flares, whatever they can make sound believable. Then a punter will look at the piece of paper hanging above their phone and read you those four magic words. We don't support that. If you want your problem fixed, a punter will tell you, you'll have to call someone else.
It's not that Loni isn't smart. In fact, he's wickedly so. He can listen to a person having problems with the mouse and spin a plausible story as to why it is really something the person needs to be discussing with the phone company. He can take a call about a modem and convince the customer that she needs to contact her embassy. He doesn't lack intelligence, just tools. Like the rest of us, all Loni was really taught was The Mantra, and since then he's learned to wield it like a samurai with a sword.
He's not alone. Lots of the techs are punters. And many of those who aren't have adopted some other time-saving strategy to help them dispatch their calls within the allotted time. Karen is part of a growing group called givers. Like punters, they don't really solve any problems, but instead of just asking you to call someone else, givers want you to have a parting gift. They'll listen to your problem and then randomly choose a piece of hardware to send you. Of course it won't solve anything, but givers have discovered that people usually calm down and start agreeing as soon as they think you're sending them something to fix the problem. And by the time they get the new part and discover it has no effect, they'll call back and someone else will have to figure out how to deal with them. Givers are really just punters with style, and they find their tactic very satisfying. Karen and her ilk get to spend all day playing Santa.
Ted is someone I don't speak to. Ted is a formatter. Ted, and those like him, have only one solution to their customers' problems. Erase everything on the computer's hard drive and start over from scratch. While this can be effective for solving all sorts of software troubles, it's like amputating someone's leg to fix an ingrown toenail. The solution is usually worse than the problem. Most times Ted doesn't actually follow through with his plan. The entire strategy is just a bluff. Most people will balk at the proposition of losing everything and decide they can live with whatever problem they've called to complain about. At the very least they'll decide to hang up, back up their data, and call back -- at which point they'll become someone else's problem.
But some formatters are worse than Ted. They'll help customers get started with the process without ever mentioning that all the data will be lost. Then they'll ask the customer to call back when the operating system finishes reinstalling, at which point the customer usually says something to the effect of, "the last guy was helping me reinstall and the computer seems to be running now, but I can't find my letter from my dead grandmother and baby picture of little Johnnie." Punters and givers will waste your time. Formatters can do much worse.
All the news that fits…
Haven’t been posting a whole lot this week, what with fundraising and starting fires, so let’s catch up a litlle:
Welfare daddies cash in: Centro Ybor bailout begins
Wannabe welfare daddies vow to come back: Civitas hoping that Tampa Housing Authority does not get its grant so that Civitas can move forward with Ed Turanchik’s plan to take over the world.
Jeb! hates democracy, appoints new Judge, nullifying scheduled election.
Republican program to privatize schools leads to theft and graft.
Struhs takes job with environmental rapist.
That should keep everyone busy for awhile. More later.
Down for a while, but not out…
My internet connection to my blog site was down for the past 36 hours or so. Anyone who tried to connect from the Time Warner (roadrunner / brighthouse) network in the Tampa area, and perhaps beyond, was affected. Anyway, more posts coming soon, so stay tuned!