are we sure dusty baker was nowhere near here?

School team hit for 66 runs in two innings

two things come to mind when i saw that headline

1. FAIL
2. PWM3D

sirius/xm radio merger. still waiting...

i have invested in satellite radio right when the department of justice had announced the new company would not constitute a monopoly and approved the merger which had been announced a year ago. the next step in the process would be for the fcc to approve the merger, a process that should have taken no more than a week tops.

this approval was 4 weeks ago.

now, i'm perfectly happy to continue to use sirius should merger fall apart. i mean, even though most of the talk stations are horrible to put it nicely (thank god for sirius 110 indie talk, otherwise i might lose my mind) the university of louisville airs its games on sirius. and uofl trumps any reason proposed. but come on. what's holding up this merger? for any of you out there who own a satellite radio or are looking to get into satellite radio and are just waiting for the fcc to approve the merger, go to siriusmerger.com or xmmerger.com (for each respective company's flavored website on the merger, it's all the same content) and send a letter to your congresspeople and the fcc. i don't know much about your congresspeople, but i can be assured that probably one of mine may take my letter seriously, and i know they won't be republicans.

here's a copy of my letter (with some personal info scrubbed out for obvious reasons)

------- Forwarded message -------
From: "SIRIUSmerger.com" [personal e-mail addy]
To: "SIRIUSmerger.com" [personal e-mail addy]
Cc:
Subject: Please allow this merger
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:00:58 -0400

Thank you for using SIRIUSmerger.com Mail System

Message sent to the following recipients:
FCC
Representative Yarmuth
Senator Bunning
Senator McConnell
Message text follows:

C. Artis
[address]

April 16, 2008

[recipient address was inserted here]

Dear [recipient name was inserted here],

I am a person that has just become involved in this satellite radio
industry because of the allowance of the DoJ for the companies to merge.
I purchased a radio the very next day because finally the companies were
going to jointly offer what I have been missing in my market. There are
no progressive stations in Louisville, KY. International news is only
offered for a few hours at night. Most of the music offered on the radio
here is music I do not listen to. Satellite radio has given me the
options that I wanted and I am willing to pay for it because it is another
option that I have not, nor will not be offered because the major radio
companies that broadcast in Louisville will not run that content or will
run it for a short time and then change it because the content does not
rate well.

There are many more people like me who have only just now invested in some
manner in satellite radio because of this merger that is pending and is
very close to becoming a reality. To deny this merger because of a feared
"monopoly" is ludicrous on its face and is easily debunked. When XM Radio
first launched there was a time period where it was the only satellite
radio option. Did the FCC or the Department of Justice deny XM from
operating because Sirius had not launched its satelites yet? Also, the
reason that satellite radio exists is because the consumer, or radio
listener, was given the choice of station A or station B with no recourse
to go to station C because there was no station in the market offering
that content. Satellite radio gives the consumer a choice of offerings in
the local market or offerings from a satellite provider. Just because
there were two satellite radio companies in existance does not mean that
they were in direct competition with each other. They are also in direct
competition with the local radio markets. Both companies were losing
money competing with each other and with the local radio markets. If this
merger is not approved and one company files for bankruptcy, would the FCC
allow this to happen because there will only be one company offering a
satellite option instead of two? It is for this reason why the logic of a
merger being denied seems flawed. If the satellite companies are
competing against themselves and one fails, isn't this a merger almost by
default because there is now one company where there were two? And what
would happen to those who would have invested into their respective
companies by way of equipment and subscriptions? At least with this
merger proposal there is a guarantee that all equipment will continue to
function as it is now.

A combination of companies will allow satellite radio to better compete
with the local markets. A stronger satellite radio company will force the
local radio markets and the so-called terrestrial radio companies to
improve their products, which would in turn force the combined company to
improve their offerings.

Satellite radio is a great technology that serves a specific market of
those radio listeners who are unsatisfied by what their local markets
offer and now finally have a device that delivers the content that they
want. To take it away by not allowing both companies to survive as one
does not serve the people who actively use it does not serve the common
good, but the interests of special lobbyist interests, such as the NAB who
have an active interest in seeing satellite radio fail because the NAB
serves the interests of the local radio markets and terrestrial radio
companies who wish to maintain the status quo.

Please allow this merger to be completed. We the radio listeners have no
other recourse to express to the radio industry in our local markets what
content we want. By denying the merger you deny the will of the people to
express their opinions.

Sincerely,

C. Artis

those of you interested in this venture, please write your congresspeople and the fcc to get some movement on this issue.

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hey folks, demonoid is back. guess what? it could have been back sooner than you thought.

it seems like (to my eyes anyway) that the main roadblock in the site coming back was the site admin himself. deimos was his handle. if these "real world issues" were so encompassing that running a torrent website was simply out of the question, then why the hell didn't he turn over the site months ago? the moderation team at the subdemon(oid) forums were childish to put it mildly, and the fanbois were that much worse. you know how sad it is to see multiple threads titled "WHEN WILL DEMONOID BE
BACK??????????" or similar in tne subdemon forums over and over ad nauseam ad infinitum? i had posted in the forums there and i'll say it here- ALL of this could have been alleviated if deimos had just made one post in the announcements section at the subdemon forums, the content of said section was really an list of rules. these "real world issues" i guess must have been really important for deimos to never have said anything at all ever in that fourm. wonder how he found time to make posts in other threads of non-importance...

i have no idea what the timeline of events was, but the way the message on the front page reads, it seems like it was a short time ago. like in the past week. the few times i checked the subdemon forums, i did not see any announcement of a site admin change. when you add in the reports that the pirate bay offering up server space for demonoid, plus another tracker relocating to canada after demonoid went down and the turnaround time of it coming back up when it has gone down in the past, i think you in the end have a story of an absent admin who was negligent in their duties. deimos failed as an admin at his site's most crucial time in its existence. if life somehow became overwhelming so that he couldn't have run his site, turn it over to someone who could, a lesson learned months later. if he saw these issues coming up in the horizon, he should have turned the site over to someone who could run it in his absence. i can't speak for anyone else, but if i had a tight team of people i trusted and i had to go away for an undetermined time, i would have turned things over a long time ago.

i have used and will use the site, mainly because it is one of the best audiobook torrent sites on the internet (and someone please develop an audiobook dedicated site in the future please. there is a big audiobook community out there, i have a very large collection of such) so i'm glad the site is back. being grateful its back is one thing. essentially taking a dump on your users by having no announcements and then finding out it could have been back months ago is another. it should be a lesson
to other bittorrent users on the intarwebs- don't rely so heavily on one site to get your pirated goods.
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edit: about that timeline? i may have been a bit off. instead of being something that happened in a week, it looks like it may have happened in a day. demonoid kool-aid drinkers, hear this and know this- YOU WERE PLAYED. the site could have easily come back quickly, but because of the site admin whom you loved, fawned over and protected so diligently decided to take a crap on you and pretty much walk out on you all without turning things over, the interwebs is treating deimos with kid gloves. screw that. be remorseful about his personal life, but his life as an admin deserves and needs intense scrutiny and criticism.

so randi rhodes got suspended

randi rhodes spoke at an air america affiliate function over the weekend and let loose some pretty incindiary stuff about geraldine ferraro and hillary clinton. she was on her show monday, off it on tuesday and today comes a press release from the grand poobahs of air america that she has been suspended. my guess it will be a week or two. and then this too shall pass.

only reason i'm writing about this is because the reactions from the randifans, especially on her website's forum ranges from rediculous to hilarious. their general bane of contention is this: air america has NO RIGHT to suspend randi because she was speaking:
a)the truth
b)her opinion
c)not on company time
d)not as a representative of aar

wrong on all four counts. all four points can be debunked with a few facts:
1)reguardless of whether or not she was representing air america radio at the time, the fact is that she is employed by aar and can be seen as representing aar if she is or is not simply because they employ her.
2)she was speaking at an air america affiliate's function. even if it was on her own time, those who may not have known could still think that she represented the views of air america.
3)one can express their views without using the language that she did. even if she felt that way, its not good for a radio personality to use that language when talking about public figures.

although what she said i believe to be true, she shouldn't have said that in the way she did.

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random thoughts

superdelegates are getting tired of shrill hillary's act. about damn time is all i have to say

speaking of shrill, i jumped in and bought a satellite radio after merger between xm and sirius finally passed the department of justice's smell test. i have been listening to sirius's liberal station sirius left for less than a week and other than thom hartmann and stephanie miller, my gawd these hosts suck. especially this crazy shrill sounding woman lynn samuels who sounds like a combination of gilbert gottfried, randi rhodes (whom i like) and tony kornheiser (who i don't). she has the unfortunate radio slot of running from 1-4 pm, meaning that we get hartmann (who's decent) for an hour live and then this crazy bitch for three. the mornings aren't any better. the morning host bill press hates barack obama essentially for the same reasons joe elliot doesn't like obama- mostly words and no experience.

oh, by the way, samuels hates obama too. wonder what they'll be talking about in august after the democratic convention and obama takes the nomination.

and about the best radio on radio, i'm sure it is, but right now, i can't hear it most of the time. i bought a stiletto 100. it can connect to sirius through the air and by wifi. most of my listening has been at home where i connect through wifi. reception through the air is nearly impossible, even with these uncomfortable antenna headphones that came with it. and there is a ground based repeater tower in town. no reception when there is a reception tower in your city. not good. after seeing the reviews of the next generation stiletto, i may think about going that route as soon as the price comes down a bit more. i paid nearly $180 for it including 1 day shipping, so if i can find a deal online or otherwise that's cheaper than that (including shipping online) i'll go for that and turn around and sell this unit.

the racing season has started. i really don't care. the league fucking sucks, champcar sold out to anton and now is trying this "combined series" shit off as being the end of the war (memo to those who still care, nothing fixed. the product sucks, the management still sucks, the problems are still there, but now magnified), nascar still sucks even with the new "car of tomorrow", i can't catch alms because i work when they are on and f1 runs way too early in the morning.

and by the way, this should never, ever be seen on a college campus or anywhere else for that reason.

anti abortionists are about as unamerican as you can get. forcing your millenialist religiofascist anti woman views down the throats of everyone when you don't also protest the poor healthcare system in this country or the war that is going on in the middle east and the piss poor treatment of our veterans from that war hurts your cause significantly. i may change my views on them. but they have to make some changes too. shocking people to your side hurts your cause greatly. these people need to realize that pro-choice is NOT pro-abortion. pro-choice means exactly that- that a person is for the woman to choose whether or not she should have an abortion without any means of guilting the women into proceeding with the pregnancy. when are these people going to adopt these children that the mothers don't want to take care of? don't see too many of them around do you?

nice to see the media doing due-dilligence in researching obama. due-dilligence meaning none at all.

i woke up today with my radio set to the formerly great WHAS this morning. i may change that now. i have pretty much given up on WHAS after 1)dumping ABC news for fox news as their main news affiliate (cbs as a secondary) 2 years ago, 2)dumping uofl for kentucky as the primary team after louisville had a more successful football AND basketball season, 3)removing nearly all of their news department and going with an exclusive feed at the top of the hour with fox news and doing a badly produced local news segment afterwards and 4)dumping a local show host based on numbers. not the numbers the show was doing, but how much the host was making compared to the size of the market, and replacing the host with a TAPED syndicated program, who also happens to be one of the most inflammatory hosts on the airwaves now. he makes imus's "nappy headed hos" comments look average to the normal person. the host who was replaced was joe elliot. and it's him that i have a major problem with.

normally joe does a good job. he's a republican who tries to be neutral. most of the time he pulls it off. today he failed at that totally and utterly.

i'm not sure if he's wanting john mccain to win or hillary clinton. i do know fordamnsure he's not for barack obama, even though clinton canNOT win the nomination mathematically without using democratic superdelegates to overturn the nearly 150 (by most counts) delegate lead obama has from the primaries and caucases held. is he for clinton's nomination so that it rips the party in half leading for an easy republican victory in the white house and all downticket elections? clearly joe sees in obama nothing but words and no action.

funny, one could say the same thing about dubya (whom joe was pretty high on up until the midterm elections in 2006. its pretty obvious now that gore would have been a much better decision, but i doubt that joe would ever admit that). or about john kennedy. they offered up nothing but words. joe doesn't like the fact that barack talks a good game, but doesn't back it up with much. the difference is that kennedy actually inspired people to do great things. obama IS inspiring people to get involved in the process. words matter. the elusive young vote is turning out in record numbers to support him. he's pulling in independents (which i am proudly) and republicans to support his side. i would rather someone take obama's words and use them to do great things. he doesn't have to do much but change the attitudes of the american people and reinspire them to greatness. dubya, eh not so much. epic failure is how i would describe his words. there is truely someone who is all words and no action. epic failure to the people he is supposed to serve, the people at large and not the rich elites, epic failure to the country leaving it worse off since bush's first term in office; bush 41 his daddy, epic failure to the world community not taking the lead in new alternative energies, or scientific developments, or, hell, humanitarian developments, epic failure at even speaking. the world thinks highly of the american PEOPLE, just not its leaders. i would just like to say to the world at large, have scorn for those americans who enabled corrupt leaders in our government to trash our name. i'll take responsibility for putting mitch mcconnell back in office in 2002 in my first ever national election, but everyone else is not my fault.

so how does that above get around to what joe was talking about this morning? he was talking bad about obama because he (get this) was a member of the trinity united church of christ, pastored by reverend jeremiah wright. and much has been made of what wright has pastored about by the media.

inflammatory things.

controvercial things.

things taken way out of context.

...

wha, what's that? the media not thoroughly researching things before they go on the air with it? surely that _never_ happens.

but as it turns out, it's true. pravda usa fox news bought tapes of pastor wright to try to bring obama back to hillary so she could either beat him up more or take the nomination so that either clinton wins (highly unlikely as she has major negatives that would bring independants and republicans solidly for mccain) or mccain wins (which is good for fox because it _is_ the media wing for conservative idiocracy) but either way NOTHING changes in washington. they picked out some of the most inflammatory items in a selection of those sermons to get obama to trip up. one of the items they picked out was a line wright used, that "america's chickens were coming home to roost" after the september 11 terrorist attacks. as it turns out (and as i e-mailed to joe), wright did NOT say those things. yes he may have said them in his sermon, but HE did not put that thought to paper. it was a part of a line from ambassador edward peck, a REAGAN deputy antiterrorism director. what wright said what director peck said in its unedited context when he spoke to FOX NEWS of all people:

"I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost."

"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

"We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

"We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

"We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

"We bombed Qaddafi's home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children's head against the rock.

"We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they'd never get back home.

"We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

"Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.
(begin media clip)
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.
(end media clip)
"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y'all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don't have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that."

you see that? wright did say those words, but they weren't HIS words. that's one sermon that i have heard. there are several more hack jobs that the media has distorted and is trying to push as wright being a racist and because obama spent 22 years in his church, and that it was wright who brought him into christianity, officiated his wedding, baptised his two daughters, and that obama treats wright as close family, that the two share views. and those same people are trying to say that if obama finds that these words were that highly offensive, he should have either walked out of church or that he should have said something to wright about it afterwards.

i'm not religious. i find the practice without merit and logic and counterproductive. but i have been inside black churches for 18 years and spent a day at utcc, obamas church. in the black church, it is highly disrespectful for anyone to walk out during sermons or to even directly question the sermon. it would be like a basketball player to directly question his coach during a timeout in a close game late. you just don't do it. if i can figure that out, why can't some of these other knuckleheads?

what irks me to the point of dissatisfaction with elliot is that he is/should be/was better than this to go there with his questioning of obama. he may not like barack. that's fine. i don't care about that. but to blatantly try to use the words of someone who is not in this campaign to try to chop the legs from someone who is in the campaign is wrong, petty and something well below the standards of what joe elliot had during his 10 year run on the air at WHAS. he claims that it matters because "he chose him (wright)" and has been associated with him for 22 years, all the while completely ignoring what john hagee who just recently endorced john mccain has had to say for quite a while directly disparaging catholics, jews, and muslims.

he also glosses over the fact that mccain asked hagee for his endorcement. isn't that kinda the same as what obama has done?

the backwards thinking defeatists known as kentucky democrats who ruined a genuine shot of ousting obstructionist mitch mcconnell by rejecting a grassroots iraq war veteran retired marine colonel in favor of a multimillionaire "democrat" who has contributed to democrats and republicans (including mcconnell) and has won as many statewide elections as me just because he's rich and can self finance leaving more money for the democratic senate campaign committee to spend elsewhere. they're going to vote for clinton because she's white and he's black (unfortunately racisim still runs deep in the state and our three main urban areas aren't going to be enough to turn aside clinton) instead of using real reasons to decide. sadly people are going to use wright as a reason to not vote for obama. people should decide how to vote on their own, and the media pushing out false information does a disservice to not only themselves, but to the electorate. not listening to WHAS used to be unthinkable. however with their recent heavy conservative skew, that is a decision that is becoming easier with each passing day.

in the end, it is a self defeating cycle- the media does a lazy job reporting the news to a lazy populace that elects their leaders not on issues but trivial matters such as skin color, religious beliefs, gender, etc. and those bad leaders do not do the work of the people which does not get reported by the lazy media to a lazy populace who elects their leaders not on issues but trivial matters...

obama is truely the candidate who can change the toxic atmosphere of washington. why nobody in the media except for randi rhodes (explictly) and keith olbermann (implicitly) will get behind him is a very sad thing indeed.

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Florida and Michigan won't have revotes? GOOD. FUCK 'EM. There shouldn't BE a revote.

Anyone who thinks that Florida and Michigan should get a revote is either stupid or intellectually dishonest. There are two big reasons why this vote should not happen:

1. They broke the rules. Period. The DNC set down rules that other than Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina (which had been granted exemptions from the party), no other state was to move their primaries ahead of Feburary 5, Super Tuesday. If the DNC cannot enforce its own rules to show that actions have consequences, then the primaries for the 2012 campaign will officially kick off on January 21, 2009. This rediculousness of moving primary dates has to stop NOW and this is the best way to do it. Ironically enough, if neither state moved ahead their primaries, they would have been plenty relevant and had a say in this primary season. And speaking of having a say in the primary season...

2. People in each of those states who want a say in the primaries should suck it up and pay for the revotes themselves. This is the dirty little secret that some in the Clinton campaign don't want out there since she wants those primaries to count (surprisingly enough because she won them by big margins and she is woefully behind in states won, delegates won and popular vote). I'm not a Democrat. I did not send the DNC any of my money. But if I did, I don't want to pay for something that could have been preventable. Also one of those dirty little secrets that people don't want to release is that both states had 60 days to change their primaries after the DNC warned both states what their actions would cause. Both states proceeded without changing their dates. The individual states could have changed the dates that the Democrats elected their convention delegates back to where they were. I'm sure that the DNC would have chipped in to help pay for them. But don't try to get the money donated from millions of people to help run the DNC to fix both of those self-induced screwups caused by Florida and Michigan themselves.

Clinton is also calling on Barack Obama to push for re-votes in both states, when the only thing he can do is to suggest it. NEITHER of them have the power to call for a revote, the STATE LEGISLATURES do and BOTH legislatures have decided to pass on the option. I also don't buy the arguement that Florida should be seated as is because all names were on the ballot. Bullshit. Florida law states that names cannot be removed from the ballot unless the candidate drops out. Had that law not been in place, Obama and Edwards and Dodd and Biden definitely would not have been on that ballot and possibly Kucinich and Gravel as well. All of the Democrats agreed to not campaign in Florida and Michigan and as a part of solidarity voluntarily pull their names from the ballots in Michigan. Strangely enough, Clinton refused to do so in Michigan. She also held a fundraiser in Florida and the night of the unsanctioned Florida primary, had a non-victory victory celebration.

Oh yeah, by the way, Clinton said herself in an interview on New Hampshire Public Radio on October 11, 2007 (that is when she was running as the inevitable Democratic candidate) that the votes would not count and also the only states that had a higher Republican turnout than Democratic turnout were Florida and Michigan. By a lot. Seems like to me that the ones who disenfranchised the voters of Michigan and Florida are the state legislatures of Michigan and Florida and the governors who signed that legislation into law. Both states have a Republican majority in one state house, draw your own conclusions.

But looking at exit polling data, many people up until that point did not decide who to vote for until the last days before the primary. Obama may have had a few ads run as part of a regional ad buy in a package (which was inevitable that would run in Florida in the border markets and on national television, I can recall seeing some Obama ads on MSNBC) but he did not campaign there. Clinton actually was there pressing the flesh. Clinton only won big there based on name recognition and nothing more. And any Democrat who is still undecided or favors Clinton as the Democratic nominee, consider this- Clinton has and will do anything to win the nomination. This includes endorsing her Republican opponent over her Democratic one, calling her Democratic opponent inexperienced, but wanting him as her running mate who would have to assume the presidency should something happen to her. This includes trying to sanction and legitimize elections that the Democratic National Convention ruled as illegitimate and unsanctioned and that SHE, HERSELF AGREED TO ABIDE BY THAT DECISION.

Clinton needs to do the Democratic party a huge favor- drop out now while her party still has a viable chance at the White House. But if she is not going to do that, then she needs to accept a compromise fair to all parties- cut the delegates down to say a low number, say 10 for both states. Award half to Clinton, award half to Obama. That way, both states are seated, both candidates get their supporters heard, but both states are sufficiently punished and have no factor in the nomination process.

religious groups need to get over themselves

really, they do:

Christian groups slam new Kidman children's movie - Yahoo! News

i can't believe the backwards ass logic these people imply (actually i take that back. i can. these people are leaders of a religion, logic doesn't account for anything with these people). they, the catholic church especially, denounce books for children and teenagers that clearly are fiction because they either portray witches and warlocks and wizards in a good light (harry potter) or are written by an atheist who is on the church like darcy tucker was on samy kapanen (for the record, i am a colorado avalanche fan). never mind the fact that they, you know, encourage young people to actually sit down and read or anything important like that. its all about ideology with these nuts. they don't want young people to read fiction that goes against core church teachings but they do want them to read a book that is fiction, and goes against core teachings of common sense. betcha didn't know that the bible advocates stoning women who are raped. that's worse than what the muslims do with their rape victims, and that isn't saying much. betcha didn't know that the bible advocates stoning children too.

let's teach about hating gays and lesbians but embrace the pedophiles that lead our services and the cardinals and popes who enable them. makes a whole lot of sense, don't it?

the alternative to 8664: 8665!

yes, for all the wingnuts who support getting rid of 64 through downtown, here's an idea that should be right up your alley- lets get rid of interstate 65 downtown. this plan accomplishes eery single goal that 8664 does with the added benefit of spaghetti junction no longer existing.

here's my idea- we build the east end bridge, and then reroute interstate 65 onto 265. and unlike the plan for 8664, there is a full 2 lane interchange that could probably handle the increased traffic load unlike at the 64/265 interchange which is your classic cloverleaf design. 65 then rejoins its old routing in southern indiana. and due to the recent construction, i believe that that interchange has been redesigned for 2 lanes, saving a little more money. 65 in southern indiana becomes 365 that goes all the way to the river where it will terminate. in kentucky, the old section of 65 becomes 565 until it reaches eastern parkway where at arthur street/preston street, its lowest point in downtown louisville, the elevated highway is brought down and an at-grade parkway is put in its place. the kennedy bridge is therefore no longer necessary and broght down. with the removal of the kennedy, spaghetti junction is also no longer needed. put in conjunction with 8664, in its making the elevated riverfront expressway an at-grade parkway not only does the waterfront become less cluttered, more greenspace is created from getting rid of the kennedy bridge and its other auxilliary flyovers and roads.

then the next step is to 8631, as in us 31, known in louisville as the second street bridge and in indiana as the clark memorial bridge. bringing that bridge down opens up so much greenspace and then provides an unobstructed view of the skyline that the whackjobs crave so much.

you see the problem of getting rid of 64? any other plan that facilitates getting rid of another bridge across the riverfront automatically must become one worthy of study. they are all viable alternatives, and the 8664 people don't dare say that getting rid of 65 or the second street bridge is unreasonable lest they seem like hypocrites. plus they can't say a word about the qualifications of anyone who proposes such a plan because the qualifications of the ones who came up with 8664 are graphics design and computer programming.

so anyone out there want to tell me that my plan won't work and why it won't work?

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best ways to ensure your city stays in the 1950s #64

getting rid of a major east-west highway. no, really.

whackjob tyler allen has decreed in his professional opinion (this guy is not a civil engineer by the way, he is a graphics designer by trade) that the best way to make louisville better is to build a bridge in the east end of the county, reroute the traffic of interstate 64 onto the current 265 and have 64 follow 265 in kentucky and indiana over towards its western terminus in new albany where 64 would rejoin its current signage.

a little background information:

this area is in dire need of an east end bridge. it was in fact logically planned for when, after the gene snyder freeway was completed in the late 80s and the lee hamilton expressway was extended years after that. both were given the designation interstate 265. the only thing that was missing was the connection point in the east end. it was going to happen eventually. also there is a need for a downtown bridge to handle the increased traffic loads on i-65's aging and inadequate span the john kennedy bridge. building a new bridge for 65 would also require a redesign of the confluence of spaghetti junction where 65, interstate 64 and interstate 71 converge. this plan has been unveiled since 2001. the final alternative was released in 2003.

tyler allen's organization first made local splashes in 2005, four years after the two bridge plan was unveiled and two years after the designs were released. meanwhile, everyone who has lived here before the plans were released knew that a bridge in the east end was needed. that means that before all of those dollars were spent on environmental impact studies, traffic flow studies, and general research of the area, tyler allen or anyone else of his ilk had ample opportunity to present their plan when a study for a new bridge in the east end was commissioned.

also, another factor in this town is that while it is fairly progressive in its politics, it isn't on anything else that would change it much in any way. a lot of people don't want anything to change at all. museum tower, a new interesting skyscraper that would change the skyline was vehemently opposed to even when it was announced that no one in the city would have to pay for it. a downtown arena that was proposed in two places was vehemently opposed to, saying that 50 year old freedom hall (out at the fairgrounds near nothing) was still an adequate place for basketball (it is) and conventions and concerts (its not). then they continually whine that louisville is falling behind indianapolis and nashville and even memphis.

so how does this talk keep your city mired in the 1950s? easy. by talking about this plan, convincing two bleeding heart liberals on the metro council (one of which is the council president) you are wasting time. time that could be used you know, actually BUILDING bridges. so the concrete isn't actually there yet, nor any other necessary material, but it soon will be. and all of this hassling over the study of this plan can take months. that's months that delay the project from going forward. that's also months delayed from getting funding secured. there is no money set aside for this project. yet. but putting aside time
to study this plan can delay any real opportunity to secure funding easily. also the plan presented as it is for the current plan is unworkable. ten years ago, it would have been something to seriously consider, but not now.

here are its major flaws in my opinion.
1. the time when this alternative plan was presented. lets give the wingnuts the benefit of the doubt and say the proposed routing plans were revealed in 2001. its still four years from that time to when these people came up with their plan- way too late in the funding and planning process for the one that has the redesigned spaghetti junction.

2. it does nothing to address the issue of the kennedy bridge. and this is my main problem with this plan. according to what the wingnuts want, or assume from their plan, building a new downtown bridge will be unneccesary because of all the rerouted traffic to the east end will relieve the traffic flow that comes downtown. the media assumed that dewey defeated truman. michigan assumed that appalachian state would be a pushover. kentucky assumed that gardiner webb would be just another victim. problem though- each time they were wrong. you cannot assume any of this, especially when the plan doesn't address any of the other issues, like road expansion of the gene snyder to three lanes in a high wealth part of town, one that is begrudgingly allowing for the digging of an exploratory tunnel for the project. you think that these people are going to give up any more of their land, not to mention deal with the increased noise that construction and additional traffic is going to bring?

3. they haven't studied the traffic patterns of downtown to see whether or not the loss of 64 will affect travel. a real life test happened this summer. 64 was closed downtown for two months to repair the downtown stretch as well as replace bridge joints. i never ventured downtown so i have no personal insights into the matter, but traffic, in a word, was horriffic. the 8664 people and supporters will say that things like that won't happen with the east end bridge built, but they completely misunderstand the issue. while through traffic would certainly take the new bypass, it does absolutely nothing to address the locals. the plan is for 64 to become an at-grade parkway past 65. how would turning a high speed 55 mile an hour suggested speed limit downtown into a street level 35 mile an hour speed limit complete with traffic lights going to help alleviate downtown traffic? yeah, i don't know either.

4. the people who brought up this issue are not, i repeat, NOT civil engineers. nor do they have experience in any sort of civil planning. you know how this plan initially came about? tyler allen, the graphics designer, took a picture of a shot of downtown overlooking spaghetti junction and photoshopped the elevated riverfront expressway out. that's right- 8664 is based on nothing more than a horrific fark photoshop. and then the fantasy went from there. build a downtown bridge. convert the old 64 into a parkway. reroute 64 onto a highway that can barely sustain the traffic it has now. brilliant planning.

i think i have evidence that most people who have heard of this plan think its a folly as much as i do. in the story forums of the local fishwrap courier journal, one person who has some close ties to the movement is spamming the forums up and down promoting a local forum they would have to address any issues the people may have. it isn't that the courier journal isn't for the plan (which is true, they aren't for it) and refuses to give any information about any forums (they haven't yet, but this forum is in another week or so, so give it time), but that these people need to constantly harp on when the forum is tells me that they don't think they have enough juice with the common people. also one thing to note on their website (which i will not link to, use google) is that it does not have any iformation on its two main protagonists tyler allen and jc stites. i can't speak for you, but if someone is proposing a major traffic plan that will affect the traffic patterns of not only one metropolitan area but major national east-west traffic as well, i want to know what the credentials of the proposers are. from the little searching i have done, allen's info is posted. stites is not. from what i can tell, he has nothing to do with the transportation industry or civil engineering as well.

we need to get these bridges built, the east end one especially. for the love of the city you live or work in, please dump this stupid idea of pie-in-the-sky plan that won't work. or if you keep on insisting on this silliness, next, i'll propose an idea that is equally valid as well as planned and designed.
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it is readily apparant to me that kalkhoven, forsythe, gentilozzi and petit are clueless

the old, true indycar series is dead, in name and by november all practical purposes. and it is the fault of the first three people that i have mentioned in this post title: kevin kalkhoven doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to racing, gerry forsythe doesn't give a shit anymore- he hasn't been seen at a race since april, paul gentilozzi is a rat scumbag who doesn't pay his drivers and was the single force in destroying trans-am (coincidence he's involved in this?). word is that he also hasn't paid his part of the ownership of champcar in bankruptcy court since january of 2003. dan petit bought in this year and so far his influence has been less than zero.

i have just seen two pieces of information that if it weren't so typical of the owners of the series the last 5 years would be distressing. and that's the sad depressing part of it:

Champ Car Departs Portland

By Jeff Zurschmeide

It's sad news for open wheel racing fans, but it appears that Champ Car will not return to Portland for a 25th race in 2008. With the City and the racing series several hundred thousand dollars apart in talks to bring the event back to Portland, it would take a minor miracle to
bring the event back next year.

This is a setback for big-time pro racing in Portland - there's no denying that, but it's also true that the impact on PIR itself will be minimal. With the new pavement being laid this fall, the track will be more popular than ever with the local organizations and regional events that come to Portland. Events such as the Rose Cup Races, Portland Historic Races, and the Columbia River Classic will get a boost from fresh pavement and some redesigned corners.

As we look back, Champ Car has been instrumental in making PIR what it is today. The money that flowed into our facility during the glory years of CART racing helped build much of the infrastructure we use year 'round, and established PIR as a first class permanent racing facility. We get to keep all that investment - and that is a crucial point in our favor.

There are numerous professional racing organizations in the world, and all of them are looking for good venues. With its excellent infrastructure and capability of seating tens of thousands of fans, PIR remains an attractive venue and it won't be long before the next big events are announced for our favorite city park.

this next bit of news comes from a pretty accurate poster in terms of rumors. this is reguarding champcar's top team of the last 4 years newman/haas/lanigan:

They have two new sponsors for their IRL effort, and are loosing one (Medizone) from CCWS. Mr. Newman, has decided against putting his own money into keeping the team in CCWS, and has relented to Mr. Haas's wish to return to Indy to compete against Team Penske, AGR and Ganassi in the IRL. Despite what their personal preferences are, it comes down to money.

The three Amigos have ***** big time, by not following through on several promises, and have generally ticked off several owners, including Mr. Haas.

They have purchased four/five Dallara's. They have signed JW in SB's seat. They are NOT signing Marco, as he is staying at AGR. They are looking to sell their DP01’s.

Will there be a CCWS series nest year? Yes.

While the owners have not put money up to promote the series, they are trying to sign additional European races, in hopes of generating enough funding to ensure there are at least 18 cars next year. They are also trying to get more money for promotion and possibly HD, but again, money is not something they have a lot of. But, they will have to endure one more canceled race (Las Vegas, unless they buy the promoters out) and another upcoming lawsuit.

As I've indicated for almost a year, three cars are gone (NHL and RuSport) and there were going to be two new ones, who have vanished. So, you might see Vision II/Three Amigo Racing/Eldon Rassmusson's Wrent a Racer/whatever.

if the collective 5 year plan was to run a once well respected, internationally renowned, profitable series into the ground while simultaneously pissing off the old loyal fanbase to cater to ONE PERSON WHO KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT NOTHING, along with major international sponsors and manufacturers and sell what was bought at pennies on the dollar for hundreths of a penny on the dollar, well i would say mission accomplished, job well done. these people have even devalued the value of the vanderbilt cup just by proxy. there is no doubt in my mind that if given the choice between selling to nascar who knows something about making series successful and selling to anton who is just intelligent enough to not drool on his shirt, they'd sell to anton 5 times out of 4.

so what about those of us who prefer real racing to that contrived shit that the major american-based series are trying to put on the racing public?

shoulda had a get-together in cleveland, chances are it was the last race i will ever go to. not unless some changes are made pretty fucking quick (highly unlikely).

it amazes me, it simply amazes me, how a series could go from reaching a point where it could maybe barely reach relevance at the end of the year to going beyond obscurity with no hope of rediscovery the next.

championship auto racing teams/indycar/champcar 1979-2007

OH MY GOD!!!!

CUBS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this certainly takes the sting out of the cards football season so far. if the fucking st. louise fucking cardinals can win the world series as an 82 game winning wild card, what can the 85 (and counting) game winning DIVISIONAL CHAMPIONS do this year?

irony

A.B.C. Director Charged With DUI

my letter to the editor in the local rag

for context, this letter is a response to one that appeared in the papers on thursday:

I am highly offended by the sexual content in the latest Hardees/Carl's Jr. television commercials known as "Patty Melt" and "Flat Buns." In my opinion, they violate local community standards.

Because you are licensed to "serve the public interest" in our community, I request that you refuse to air these ads. If you are already airing them, I ask you to stop.

As required by law, please place a copy of this e-mail letter in your station's public file, to be readily available to FCC representatives, specifically during the license renewal period for your station.

no, i'm not making that up. someone complained that the newspaper (a print body) had aired an offensive ad and was complaining to the fcc, a body that regulates broadcast media (in other words, not non-print bodies). after i got done laughing at the rediculousness of the letter itself, the object of the letter's venom, and the method of getting the paper in trouble, i sent this off:

Typical social neo-conservative tactics were on display last Thursday. There was a letter to the editor printed, one of about 30, that bemoaned the fact that a racy Hardee's/Carl's Jr. ad was aired and that the newspaper was being reported to the FCC. Re-read that again: a NEWSPAPER was being reported to the Federal Communications Commission, a body that regulates TELEVISION and RADIO.

Don't these people give up or even have one sniff of a clue (apparantly not, but bear with me)? First of all these people have their tactics for getting things removed down to a science using form letters and send the same letter multiple times to the broadcaster and the FCC. Keith Olbermann reported last year that a very high percentage of these FCC complaints, 99.8%, of these came from one group, The Parent's Television Council which doesn't know the meaning of "change the channel", "turn off the tv", or "control your child's viewing habits". Literally one person could send off hundreds or thousands of messages to the FCC to give the impression of mass outrage when it is nothing more than an attempt to get something one person doesn't like off the air.

Second, are these people that stupid to not know that the FCC has no control over what anyone prints? It's why hate speech found in books such as the Turner Diaries are allowed to print. It's why most neo-Nazi material has to be imported to other countries from this one. Those would have been materials long since banned by the FCC because they truely are offensive to any rational human.

Please neo-cons, if you are going to make a complaint, at least get your medium straight. Or better yet, if something offends you, change the channel, turn off the tv, control your child's viewing or stop reading the newspaper. They may all have something offensive you may not like seeing, like the violence in Iraq shown nightly on network news. I think I may send a mass message to the FCC now as well, because I saw something horribly offensive on TV too- Mr. Bush's surge speech.

lessee if it gets printed in the paper or online.

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ho-lee crap

Distant space collision meant doom for dinosaurs - Yahoo! News

talk about making something go boom.

hail to the victors valient...?

michigan- severe PWM3D4G3!!!!!11!!

the difference between louisville and michigan- louisville BEATS their pay-bitches. in fact, louisville tried hard to NOT score in its game against 1-aa murray state. after the 8 minute mark, louisville ran the ball eclusively.

for this season, louisville can say they are better than michigan because while louisville has been beaten by i-aa schools, louisville wasn't the #5 team in the nation when they got pwm3d.

look for michigan to go from 5 to others recieving votes in one single weekend.

the true legacy of the bush 43 presidency

this week there was a mining disaster in the mountains of utah. six miners were trapped in a cave-in that blocked the exit completely. it was an accident so massive that seismologists mistook the accident for a small earthquake. in fact they thought that the earthquake caused the cave-in instead of vice versa.

so why bring this tragedy up with the bush debachle? his person in charge of mining safety, richard stickler, is one of those uniquely qualified individuals, no not how brownie was qualified to lead FEMA because he was the (failed) leader of the arabian horse association, but he is qualified because he was a lobbyist for the coal industry. not the miners, the mine owners. so you know what his deal is. similar to how the environmental agencies were stuffed with former lobbyists and presidents of big oil, this guy is there to look out for the interests of mines instead of the people who work them. and he has sure done a heckuvajob in looking out for those interests, as documented in this clip from last thursday's "countdown with keith olbermann" (thanks to olberman.org for the link- http://olbermann.org/ko/video_detail.cfm?id=5503 )

isn't it interesting that in the years since mining deaths have been statistically kept, deaths have gone down from the start of the roosevelt administration (franklin delano) until last year when 48 miners were killed. think about that- in the times when miners used pickaxes and lanterns and canaries to trowl through the earth there have been fewer and fewer deaths until the modern era, with modern equipment and techniques. so one would think that that trend should continue when it would be inconcievable that a person was killed in a mining accident. it hasn't happened.

since the sago mining accident in west virginia, there were studies done of what could make mining safer. congress didn't have the balls to make any of these recomendations federal. and at that time it was quite understandable. the republican christian conservative "permanent majority" didn't have the brain function to question anything that came out of the bush white house. and most of these recomendations co$t $om€ $om€ $eriou$ ca$h. so of course mine operators aren't going to enact them. now look where it got us. those 12 miners at sago have died for nothing because the federal government didn't (or more rather WON'T) learn from the disaster. these six have been added to the list. how many more will it take to get some changes made? 20? 30? 100?

add this to the long list of regrettable legacies this administration has foisted upon the country: an endless quagmire in a foreign country for a resource that it is unable to control because of the unstability the war caused, the scorn of the international community because of human atrocities such as human torture, biological atrocities such as producing about half of the world's greenhouse gases, and this war, the treatment of its own citizens as referenced to the katrina debachle in new orleans and the treatment of its own SOLDIERS wounded and otherwise from extending tours of duty from 6 months to 12 months to 18 months (because since the bush administration has gotten involved in iraq, enlistments have gone down so much to the point where the armed forces have had to raise age limits and change their screening processes to allow more unstable people in), to the conditions of the wounded soldiers' hospital rooms, to the political coverup of nfl player pat tillman's heroic
death/accident/fratricide/deliberate murder, the state of the middle class in this country where universal healthcare is so elusive in this country but not other industialized nations, and on and on.

but after the democrats siezed both houses of congress the rats have been fleeing the sinking ship known as ss. bush 43. not because the dems have gotten things passed (the dems are spineless powerseeking whores just as much as the republicans are); because they don't have a veto proof majority in the house, and they have a 50-49 edge in the senate. no they are fleeing because that bare majority has given the dems subpoena power and the ability to exercize oversight on the executive branch. notable names who have jumped ship: tony snow and the biggest name, bush's political brain karl rove. snow is significant because he is a former talking head of the republican party's cable mouthpiece the fair and balanced fixed noise ERRRRR fox news channel. rove is especially significant because it was his lowdown, unethical, devisive, confrontational, uncompromising, christian sympathetic, hot button strategies that not only got republicans in power, but also got democratic congressmen
fighting for their political lives trying to defend their records but also trying to (unsuccessfully) get campaigns on issues that mattered. he wanted to build a permanent majority in congress to ramrod its policies through the nation.

it may have worked.

for the wrong party.

and lets pray to [insert favorite deity or generic one here] that it isn't too late for the country (and the world) to get over the disastrous legacy of the worst president in the history of the modern free world ever.
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laptop update day 22

which actually should have been day 15. you see, it has actually been in
town since last week. plenty of blame on me for not calling back after i
got a message on the machine. however, compusa still doesn't get a pass
from me- i had ordered a hard drive backup before this mess started, and
when i started the machine back up, it was basically a brand new system
(meaning no backup had been restored). a hd backup costs 99 bucks, i will
getting my money back. although i only had it for a month, a month is
still a good amount of time to install and aquire stuff. i lost a big
chunk of the images that were taken in cleveland and others that i had
saved across teh intarweb.

oh well. alls well that ends well. i guess...

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laptop watch day 21- laptop update

there is none. i have no news, which is good and bad. its good because i don't have any of these pointless worthless calls from compusa saying that my computer is still being worked on. this was after i specifically told them not to call until its here. which is also a downside; its bad because 1) it still isn't here and 2) the way my luck has gone, they misconstrued the message as "don't call". considering that it took a second call to them for them to explain the limbo i'm in, this is not a good sign.

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update- resolution (?)

i just got off the phone with a local compusa rep. apparantly (from what i understand) the delay is not their fault, its the bureaucracy of how to repair which is holding things up. because the laptop is under warranty, the people who provide the warranty service wanted to make the requested repairs themselves, or acer requested it. from what this person said, most likely acer. so in reality, this is outside of compusa's perview. now the problem is that the people who has my laptop has to get the correct cds to actually perform the service. plus, they _still_ have no eta of when the repair is going to happen. someone is going to recieve a lot of hell for this, whether it be acer or the warranty service provider.

am i still mad as hell? yes. am i mad at compusa? other than the fact that until now, they had not explained to me one iota of what the hell is actually happening, not as much. however, it shouldn't have taken this long to explain the process and what was going on. they still aren't ranking highly in my book.

i did however get two things accomplished. i told them that i only want to be called when they have an eta and when it actually is back at the store.

i really think that this whole process could have been avoided by me downloading a vista image and reinstalling vista myself instead of playing it safe.

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