Miscellaneous: April 2007 Archives

I was going to make a post... something to the effect that I’m still alive and well. But, it’s 75 degrees outside and sunny. So, I’m going to go by the deli, buy a sandwich, grab some drink, and head off to Mashapaug Pond (the word “Mashapaug” is the Nipmuck Indian word for “Great Pond”) for a private little picnic. Kent is on an Iceland/Paris trip and is gone for a week. I’ll do this later... 1:25p.m.

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7:25p.m. - Ok... I’m back, and I had a wonderful time at Mashapaug Pond. So much has happened in the last few weeks. I’ve been submerged in a project for work with little time left to post anything. Hopefully, I’m wrapping up that project a bit, and can move on to things that are personally more enjoyable.

We have managed to upgrade the website a bit. We upgraded to the latest version of our blogging software, along with moving to a new server platform (a fancy way of saying that it’s nicer for us). I’ve also managed to finally spend some time studying RSS (stands for “Really Simple Syndication”) feeds. They used to be a way to read the content of a website if you installed an RSS reader. You would have to go to the site and try to figure out if the site even offered RSS (many still do not). But now, you can do much more with RSS than in the past. In fact, if you are really interested in the postings of this site, you can click on the “Email Subscription to our Blog!” button on the left. That will verify your address and send you an email. There will be a link in the email that will confirm that you are who you say you are, and confirm your subscription. Each morning, if I’ve posted, you will get an email composed from my RSS feed of the latest entries. And all of this is possible via RSS.

I’ve taken RSS one step farther and integrated my photos over on Flickr with my RSS feed. Then, when I post photos online, they become part of my RSS feed (and the feed that would be mailed to you, if you subscribed). I may also add to the RSS feed comments that people post, in addition to the entry itself. The options are endless. I also have an RSS feed of just my photos. All of this is located on the top left side of the main page.

What else has happened? Well, I bought yet another camera. I know what you are thinking... it’s an addiction. Perhaps. This is the new camera.



So why do I need this new camera? Well, the Nikon D70 and D200, my current cameras, are about the most awesome cameras I’ve seen around. There is virtually nothing you can not do with them. But, there is one thing that I was wishing for; a camera that I would always have with me. The problem with the Nikon cameras are their size. This new Panasonic is super small and easily fits into a pocket. And it takes decent photos.

So you gain that advantage. There have been so many times that I wanted to take a photo, and just didn’t have the Nikon. It’s not something that you can just take anywhere with you. The drawback is that it takes decent photos, but they aren’t in the same league as the Nikon. Close up is better. Taking distance photos are ok, but you won’t get the absolute sharpness the Nikon will deliver. It’s a trade off. Also, it costs a fraction (around $350) of what the Nikon costs. But for most people and for a quick snap of something you want to capture, it works well.

If you are like me, we seem to live in a somewhat surreal world where quite unbelievable things happen every day. I never in my life thought that anything would overshadow the war in Iraq. And then the shootings at Virginia Tech came along. How horrible. Sadly, I wasn’t that surprised. Not much surprises me anymore it seems.

I have a few theories concerning why this happened, in general terms. Basically, it’s human nature I suppose. When someone is put down and bullied long enough, it’s really only a matter of time before it blows up. I know when we were younger, there were times that we were harassed in public, and we basically took it. We did nothing. We went into a restaurant, sat down, and this stranger off the street came in and started hassling us because he thought we were gay. We sat silently because we didn’t want trouble, and the restaurant establishment just watched and let it happen. Being hassled for being gay was just part of being gay, it seemed.

But today, if that happened to me, the restaurant would probably end up being cleared out and the police being called. I wouldn’t resort to violence, but I wouldn’t sit there and take it either. I’ve had enough of that crap and I won’t take it anymore.

I’m a peaceful, level headed, rational person, so my friends tell me. If I were mentally off, as I believe the shooter in the Virginia Tech shootings to be, you would be hearing about it in the national news. We all have to start caring for each other more and, we have to be more watchful for those who are in trouble. There were many signs with this guy, and all of them were ultimately passed over and ignored. And we all know the result.

I also think that there is something seriously wrong with the gun laws in this country. The shooter wasn’t even a citizen of the United States. I thought that the Second Amendment applied to U.S. citizens. So why was this guy able to buy a gun from a gun store? He was able to also order a gun on the Internet from a gun shop in Idaho. I’m so surprised! (sarcasm). Actually, I was surprised that you could buy a gun on the Internet. He also bought bullet clips from eBay. And all of this after 9/11. Have we learned nothing?

Another point.... the Second Amendment reads, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Alright, but when those words were written, the “militia” that it talks about really did comprise of just regular people, like you and me. Now, we really do have a militia to ensure the “security of a free State”. Why must we all have weapons? I simply don’t get it. I asked my brother this as well. He supports the right for anyone to have a weapon. His reasoning is that if you take all the guns away from law abiding citizens, the criminals would be left with the weapons. So, I guess my next question is, “Isn’t that what the police are for?” Maybe I’m just being dumb about this, but it really does seem that simple.

Moving on to lighter subjects... I woke up to a phone call from Kent (at 9:00a.m. no less!), who is now in Paris. He went to Iceland for a few days, then off to Paris for a week. After his call, I was lying in bed and I kept hearing this noise outside. I looked out my bedroom window that opens to the back yard. This is what I saw....



A wild turkey... which is probably why I chose a turkey sandwich at the deli for my picnic lunch today. I got up, showered, and went downstairs to feed the cats. Maxwell was already preparing for his morning sun bath, just waiting for the sun to catch up.



I fed them, and was off to Charlie’s, one of our favorite places for breakfast.



It was a nice day.

I read this entry from Will over on DesignerBlog concerning the firing of gay translators.

IBM has announced that it will supply major amounts of Arabic-English translation software to the U.S. armed forces. The gift is to fill the yawning gap left in this vitally needed service caused by the dismissal of hundreds of human translators solely on the grounds of their being gay or lesbian. The government itself has recognized that the current lack of Arabic translators has caused a critical situation in American-Iraqi communications that is highly counterproductive to Bozo’s current reincarnation of “stay the course”.

Yet in the face of all reason, Bozo himself has endorsed the dismissals under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in a recent White House Rose Garden press conference. Asked if he agreed with General Pace’s controversial comments that gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors and marines are “immoral”, Bozo said he would make no moral judgments; asked if he still supported DA,DT he said yes indeed, because it’s a good policy.

In a perverse way (unless it were to further endanger any American serving in Iraq or Afghanistan) I kind of hope IBM supplies the kind of translation quality that you get when you feed text into any of the on-line translation systems.

I have used the online translation programs a bit and I can tell you from personal experience that some of the return results are not exactly what you want to say. So, I couldn’t resist. I just had to leave the following comment...

“In a perverse way (unless it were to further endanger any American serving in Iraq or Afghanistan) I kind of hope IBM supplies the kind of translation quality that you get when you feed text into any of the on-line translation systems.”

TYPED INTO TRANSLATOR: “What do feel the United States can do to alleviate the violence from suicide bombers?”

TRANSLATED TEXT: “I would like to have fun with your donkey, if he is willing to wear red without suicidal alleviation.”

A few days ago I posted an entry entitled, What To Do With Sex Offenders. Well, it appears that Florida has found a solution to the problem. In Miami, they can stay under a rat infested bridge with no running water, power, or utilities.

I received this story from a friend. He sent it to me because of a previous posting about this. It’s quite an unbelievable story.

The sparkling blue waters off Miami’s Julia Tuttle Causeway look as if they were taken from a postcard. But the causeway’s only inhabitants see little paradise in their surroundings.

Five men -- all registered sex offenders convicted of abusing children -- live along the causeway because there is a housing shortage for Miami’s least welcome residents.

“I got nowhere I can go!” says sex offender Rene Matamoros, who lives with his dog on the shore where Biscayne Bay meets the causeway.

The Florida Department of Corrections says there are fewer and fewer places in Miami-Dade County where sex offenders can live because the county has some of the strongest restrictions against this kind of criminal in the country.

Florida’s solution: house the convicted felons under a bridge that forms one part of the causeway. [...]

With nowhere to put these men, the Department of Corrections moved them under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. With the roar of cars passing overhead, convicted sex offender Kevin Morales sleeps in a chair to keep the rats off him.

“The rodents come up next to you, you could be sleeping the whole night and they could be nibbling on you,” he said. [...]

The convicted felons may not be locked up anymore, but they say it’s not much of an improvement.

“Jail is anytime much better than this, than the life than I’m living here now,” Morales said. “[In jail] I can sleep better. I get fed three times a day. I can shower anytime that I want to.”

Morales said that harsher laws and living conditions for sex offenders may have unintended consequences.

“The tougher they’re making these laws unfortunately it’s scaring offenders and they’re saying, ‘You know what, the best thing for me to do is run,’” Morales said.

A Miami Herald investigation two years ago found that 1,800 sex offenders in Florida were unaccounted for after violating probation. (source)

I want to make something very very clear before I say anything else about this story. And that is, I support the need for all children to be in a safe environment without fear of having sexual predators around. If you think that I support these predators and what they’ve done, you are misreading what I’m saying.

The people we are talking about have served time for their crime. Some of them have been incarcerated for years. Sexual predators don’t have the same rights that someone who commits a murder has. Murderers go to prison as well. Later, they get out, and are on parole. They have to see a parole officer for as long as the court deems necessary. But, that is never for the rest of their lives.

With sexual predators, this is a life sentence. They will be on a predator watch list, which is usually on the Internet, for all to see, and for all time. I don’t have a problem with most of them being on this list. I do have a problem with the guys that have been out for the last 25 years ago, who the police say pose no further problem, with no legal way at their disposal to have their names removed from the list. That seems wrong to me.

Some may live in a place that is acceptable. Some may have their homes paid for and are minding their own business. Then, the city makes plans to build a school a thousand feet from the home they’ve had for the last 30 years. Now, they have to sell their home and move for something that happened half a lifetime ago. That seems wrong to me.

Having laws on the books that make it virtually impossible for these people to live anywhere than under a bridge seems wrong and inhumane to me. Surely we can do better than this. Honestly, I would rather they be put in jail than be subjected to the elements like this. It’s really a form of prolonged torture.

Many will criticize me for saying these things. That’s fine. I would simply say that if you want these people to pay for the rest of their lives for what they did, we should at least be a little more honest about it, and make it a life sentence. It’s fair that they should be kept some distance from a school, but they should have the right to own a home at least. They could be forced to wear an ankle bracelet to keep tabs on them.

I believe these laws are out of control. No civilized society would do this.

BOSTON -- Another community is considering new restrictions on where sex offenders can live.

The central Massachusetts town of Holden has a public hearing planned for Monday night on Selectman James Jumonville’s proposal.

The selectman’s plan would prohibit Level Two and Level Three sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, park, day care center, elderly housing or anywhere else where children congregate. (source)

Before everyone starts saying that I’m being soft on sex offenders (that sounded bad, didn’t it?), I just want to point out the obvious.

Let’s say that you are one of those “level two” or “level three” sex offenders. I’m not sure what those categories are, but it really doesn’t matter for the sake of this argument. You have done your time in prison for your offense, and you are now out of prison, presumably being carefully watched by law enforcement personnel.

Now, my challenge to you is to pull up the map of a mid-size city or even a good sized town. Try to find a place you can live that is not “within 2,000 feet of any school, park, day care center, elderly housing or anywhere else where children congregate”? I’m not even sure that is possible. So, I suppose the question is, where are these people going to live?

I suppose some will comment or write, “Too damn bad”, “Their problem, not mine”, or, “They should have thought about that before going after an innocent child.” I too have those feelings, but beyond all of that, we are still stuck with the issue of where they will live. Making it impossible for them to legally live most anywhere just seems to be a cop out to me. One thing that comes to mind is electronic monitoring. They may have to stay within the confines of their property for a period of time. But, then you get into the issue of how long that must go on. Is it any different than prison to say that these offenders cannot leave their homes for the rest of their lives?

If that’s the case, perhaps we should be a bit more honest about this and just give them life sentences in prison. Of course, that doesn’t really help those who committed a crime once, twenty-five years ago that even police admit is no longer a threat. But, we live in the days of Guantanamo, where we can send people away for however long we want without a trial.