Thank you, George W. Bush, for giving the United States no moral leg to stand on while our once and future enemy Russia systematically dismantles Georgia. You’ve plainly made the world a safer place by tying us down in a never-ending war while pumping billions of dollars of oil profits into the hands of Russian-dictator-for-life (and your soulmate) Vladimir Putin.
Yeah, we need four more years of this kind of leadership.
I got back from the Barack Obama town hall meeting about an hour ago. What I thought would be a seat in the bleachers directly behind Obama turned out to be a seat about 30 yards away. Though I wasn’t in fist-bumping range with Barack I did enjoy the experience. It was fun seeing how whipped up the crowd was, too. I also got to hang out with my busy friend Grier Martin, and see familiar faces from the Kerry-Edwards rally from four years ago.
I sat with the vets on the upper bleachers, about four people to the left of the end of the “Change We Can Believe In” sign. I’m not in any of the photographs I’ve seen on the AP or Reuters wire. If anyone can find video of the event, let me know.
And by the way, the disabled veteran who had the last question tonight is Michael Bishop, a Marine Corps veteran. I shook hands with him earlier in the evening – a very friendly fellow – but until he asked his question to Obama I had no idea he was homeless.
It really burns me up that men and women like Bishop wind up on the street after all they have given to our country. In spite of being a veteran himself, McCain has an abysmal record when it comes to supporting veterans. I hope Bishop gets the assistance he needs.
Update: WRAL has the video, and if you squint you can see me on the top left side of the screen from 00:01:00 to 00:01:10.
Update Two: New Raleigh has pictures showing me in the audience. You’ll see me in this photo: above Obama’s left shoulder, back row, and behind the dude in the yellow shirt standing and holding a camera. I’m wearing a green shirt and my dorky Navy ballcap.
At last night’s East Raleigh CAC meeting I was elected by the membership as chair. Also elected were Sue Sturgis as secretary and Andrew LeLiever as vice-chair. Together we hope to grow the East CAC and use it to better our neighborhoods. Wish us luck!
I can’t let the night go by without telling about our beach trip, so here goes.
We arrived Wednesday afternoon, leaving home right after my meeting was done. It rained on us from Raleigh to Carolina Beach, so rather than checking in immediately we drove further south in an effort to visit the aquarium. Big mistake! More than half of the vacationers in the area were at the aquarium. We drove around jam-packed parking lots before throwing in the towel and heading back to our condo.
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It looks like a replay of my Kerry-Edwards encounter four years ago will take place tomorrow. I’ve been given a VIP spot onstage with Barack Obama for his talk in Raleigh tomorrow night, again due to my being a veteran. While I’m still not happy that Obama voted to throw the Fourth Amendment under the bus, he beats the alternative.
Look for me on TV wearing my goofy, oversized Navy ball-cap.
My experimental MythTV server has been deemed a success. In fact, its a necessity! We watch so little live TV anymore that it took until Wednesday to notice the cable connection I put on our main TV a few weeks ago is bad!
Now that my surplus MythTV backend server has proved its mettle, its time to plan the next Myth setup: one for HDTV. So, let me put it out to my readers: how would you build the ultimate MythTV frontend and backend systems?
As for me, the backend’s only requirement is the ability to house multiple tuner cards. It should use PCI-E slots for this. I’m considering AVerMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 HDTV PCI cards for my tuners.
I’m a little pickier about the frontends. I want both analog and HDMI connections so I can drive both analog and HDTV sets. I also want them to be quiet and unobtrusive. What would you use for these?
Western North Carolina is so dry now. During last week’s vacation, we stirred up huge clouds of dust as we drove up gravel-covered mountain roads. We failed to find any critters on Chimney Rock’s Nature Adventure trail. In fact, the only critters we saw during the whole trip was perhaps two deer, one bat, and one hummingbird. Nature up there is hurting right now.
That’s why I’m glad to see Tropical Storm Fay on a course that will take it over our mountains, especially since the winds that accompany it should be weak enough not to cause much damage.
Does anyone else get the idea that Joyce McKinney, the dog-cloning lady, is playing the press? This just has to be some kind of publicity stunt.
McKinney gets worldwide press when she allegedly clones her dog, but provides reporters with a bogus address. Then word gets out that in the 1970s she allegedly kidnapped a Morman man to be her sex slave. Oh, and she’s wanted in Tennessee for allegedly talking a teenager into breaking into homes so she could use the loot to buy a leg for her three-legged horse.
Come on, this lady is a walking punchline! She can’t be for real. Somebody’s being played here, I tell you.
I think Raleigh officials botched the parking layout of Fayetteville Street. The city should’ve made its parking spaces angled. There’s all this wide, unused sidewalk, another four or five feet of which could’ve added a huge number of parking spaces to this area of downtown. The sidewalk wouldn’t have even missed it.
While I’m a pretty big tree-hugger and no fan of the concrete behemoth that used to be the “pedestrian mall,” inadequate street parking limits the growth of downtown business. If one wants a vibrant city core, good parking is a must. There’s enough room on F-street for plenty of parking and sidewalks. What we have now is the result of a botched decision.
The problem with deadline-driven media is that once one’s printed “all the news that fits” there is precious little room for follow-up stories. Media outlets will chase each others’ reporters around town, hoping to scoop each other on the next breaking story, while few newsrooms provide updates on the stories that aren’t breaking. There are exceptions, of course, such as the Duke Lacrosse case or a notorious murder trial. In general, though, once a story gets bumped off the front page (or the metaphorical front page for broadcast news organizations), it tends to be forgotten.
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