In an effort to leave something behind that the world would remember, Carl worked relentlessly until the day that he died, leaving behind no surviving family members.
He was not particularly successful in reaching his goal, but when they occasionally reminisce, a few people will recall a persistent and dedicated man.
Rest in peace, Carl.
/rizzn
The following story was found on Miami’s Politics Craigslist. It was supposed to be a day in the life of a typical conservative. It’s a little bit one sided, but hey, whatever. I’ve inserted the corrected paragaphs as to how this day should have gone for a real conservative independent thinker (the original is the indented paragraph).
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.
Joe gets up at 6 AM and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. Back in the day, before liberal Hollywood made it trendy to drink bottled water, the municipalities made it a priority to have clean water at the tap. These days, however, if you want clean water, you must buy it bottled, and so Joe gets water from his Ozark Springs water dispenser and gets the coffee going. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. Back before the liberals created this culture of dysfunction, he didn’t know he needed three different kinds of psychiatric medicine.
All but $10 of Joe's medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
All but $10 Joe’s medications are paid for by the insurance plan he took out for his own company. He’s self employed, and due to the rising economy from the last six years of conservative fiscal policies, his company is doing well enough to pay for insurance. He prepares his morning’s breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because Ralph Nader advocated for the establishment of OSHA, something everyone can agree is a good thing. These days, most liberals won’t claim Ralph as one of their own, but that’s neither here nor there. In his morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His day isn’t complete without reading the ingredients, and he’s glad some liberal was there for that, too. Joe dresses, walks outside, and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because then President Richard M. Nixon helped establish the EPA so that industries would stop polluting our air.
He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidzed ride to work. Thank goodness for entreprenuers in the business like him, and conservative fiscal policies, otherwise the local government wouldn’t have the budget surplus to afford such a public luxury.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune. Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earne d more money over his lifetime. After work this evening, Joe plans to visit his father at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because he’s an excellent businessmen, and he can plan for his future. He had tried to find a company in today’s world that would offer these things, but not finding them, he decided to strike out on his own and make his own way, instead of waiting to get taken advantage of by a much larger corporation. If Joe is hurt on the job, he has paid his company’s insurance policy so as to ensure he isn’t without options. It’s noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FDIC, an organisation created by the Glass-Seagall Act, signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover in 1932. Joe is a little uneasy about paying his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage given the widespread accounting scandal that’s been under investigation since 2004. He doesn’t want his house to be defaulted on because some greedy Enron-Exec clone wanted a bonus. After work this evening, Joe plans to visit his father at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because, again, of that outcast of the liberal clan, Ralph Nader, and his consumer advocacy.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired and lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmer’s Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural lones. President Woodrow Wilson established that organisation back in 1921 (President Wilson, of course, being one of the most conservative Democratic presidents in history). The house didn’t have electricity until the biggest government liberal in the Executive Branch’s history, President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded rural electrification. Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired and lives on Social Security and a union pension. Joe sort of wishes that the liberals in congress could get with the conservatives and figure out a way for it to continue SS’s existence to when he gets to retirement age, as the liberals who created the program didn’t really think that far ahead. Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. Joe doesn’t pay him that much mind. He doesn’t consider himself a Republican or a Democrat. Both parties have screwed up big, and both parties have done some good. Joe considers himself fortunate to be able to make up his own mind, instead of feeling like he must goose-step behind one single party.
Joe does agree, however, that “We don’t need those big-governmetn liberals ruining our lives! My taxes are higher than they should be, I’m paying into a retirement system the government created that will never benefit me, there’s scandal at every level and in both parties, and no one seems to pay attention to the issues I’m concerned about!”
Joe then turns his radio off, turns on his iPod, and listens to some alternative media — podcasts. He downloaded them after he discovered that there were, in fact people out there who were concerned about what went on in the world, but weren’t mouthpieces of the Democrat or Republican party, but people with actual brains and independent analysis.
By Roy Mark
WASHINGTON -- Sweeping legislation to deregulate the U.S. telecommunications market finally hit Congress today. Long awaited and much anticipated, the bill calls for stripping away many of the current federal and state rules for the delivery of voice, video and data services.
Introduced by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act aims to level the playing field between telephone, cable and satellite companies while opening the door for the delivery of emerging broadband services.
Ensign's bill specifically calls for eliminating state and local franchise requirements for all video providers, including telephone companies moving into the field. Existing cable franchises would cease to exist upon enactment of the bill.
Ensign said state and local authorities would be protected from financial losses under his bill by requiring video providers that use existing rights of way to pay local authorities a fee of up to five percent of gross video revenues.
Broadband services, regardless of technology platform, are largely freed from federal and state regulation at both the wholesale and retail levels. The bill further states that consumers may not be denied access to any legal content provided over the facilities used for broadband communications, including Voice over IP (define) port blocking.
"Americans' ingenuity and creativity can provide more choices for consumers if government bureaucrats will get out of the way and allow our companies to compete," Ensign said at a Capitol Hill press conference. "Technology is moving forward but current laws are not."
As for interconnection fees between broadband providers and facilities-based providers, the legislation says the parties are required to establish "commercial arrangements." The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would only intervene if they fail to reach an agreement.
The legislation also targets state and local governments considering establishing their own broadband networks. Under the bill, local municipalities must give the private sector notice before going into business for themselves and allow non-government providers to bid on the project.
"We need to modernize our communications laws. Instead of stifling, government-managed competition, we need to move to market-controlled forces," Ensign said. "We need to get the investment dollars flowing."
Ensign cited the cell phone industry as a model of innovation with minimum government regulation. "This is the type of competition we want between cable and telephone companies," he said.
Incumbent telephone companies will be required to continue to provide unbundled access to their copper lines until 2011 and to make narrowband communications available for resale at rates established by the FCC.
The FCC also retains the authority granted in the 1996 Telecommunications Act to require service providers to comply with wiretapping requests. In addition, Ensign's bill retains prohibitions on obscene Internet materials.
The bill does not, however, deal with reforming the Universal Service Fund (USF), an issue Ensign said he was leaving to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
Ensign's legislation drew a flurry of statements in support of telecom reform.
"Senator Ensign has produced the most deregulatory communications bill ever introduced in Congress, and, commendably so, in light of the vast marketplace changes that have occurred since passage of the 1996 act," said Randy May, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation.
Roger Cochetti, group director for U.S. public policy at the Computing Technology Industry Association, added, "Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the convergence of markets, the rapid advance of information and communications technology, and the ubiquity of the Internet have pushed the 96 Act to its limits.
Cochetti said while the Telecom Act did much to update the nation's regulatory structure, "It is timely and appropriate that we revisit that landmark legislation."
Forgot to post this yesterday: BlipMedia relaunch went off without a hitch. Mostly.
After much pestering, I re-did the site into something that updates itself, as we obviously don’t have the staff to keep up with weekly repostings on the front and back pages. with 1100 users now, it shoudn’t be a big deal.
1100 users, though. Amazing, nein?
There was a small hitch. For about 15 minutes after we uploaded the new version, we realized the way I engineered the page, that the user/pass box didn’t work. At ALL.
I fixed it with some creative layering. Most people won’t even notice the difference. It’s even cross platform-nice, too.
So now I’m focusing entirely on building the VoIP end of the business for the next couple months. That’s the plan, at any rate. I’ve still got a kernel to build that’s due to be out by Friday next. Good luck on that to me, I say.
I’m so sleepy tired.
/rizzn
She was a magical aunt. When I skinned my knee, Father applied a stinging liquid, but Aunt spoke and the pain faded. On Halloween I wanted a real witch's hat; Aunt provided. When she died gently at 140, songbirds flew from her mouth in all directions. Afterwards Father said "never speak of her to anyone."
I was chatting with Joel via email, and he asked me how we met in Middle School. It started me on a long run down about what I knew about who from back then. I figured I’d post it up here to act as a Google trap to any of the old crew I’ve lost contact with, in case they were to ego-search and find the page. It’s worked in the past, so hey, why not. It’s been edited a little bit to protect a few of the guilty (it’s not like you’d know the names anyways, quit yer bellyaching).
Joel: …refresh my memory of that how we met in middle school, Matthew said it involved some ass giving us trouble, I don't remember frankly, but out of all the people I knew in middle school, you and James K. are the only ones I kept up with. I still get bummed once in a while thinking about James. Its funny though that now, 14 years later, we're still good friends.
Me: Last time I heard from C—, it was back in 1999 or so, when I hired him to be on the sales team at Cox Communications. He was going down to Houston for school, and then married some chick down there. I haven’t heard from him in years, and he’s one of the few people I don’t search out from those days to get the skinny on. Color me uninterested.
John Wiseman is, as far as I know, still living in Arizona. He moved down there to be closer to his sister, if memory serves, who then got married and moved out of the state. He stayed behind, got into acting on commercials for a while, and decided that despite the fact that he had a degree in Computer Science (and is QUITE the impressive nerd in that respect), he wanted to do graphic design. He’s going to school for 3d Animation now. His parent’s phone number is STILL XXX-XXX-XXXX, which he is trackable through. As soon as I said that, you most likely remembered it. Ask me an interesting story about that phone number some time. It’s quite mysterious.
Todd Lloyd I spoke to about four years ago. He was doing quite well for himself in a Ren Faire troupe. Haven’t heard from him recently though. He graduated SFA from the Theatre Dept.
Jamie Crain ended up being a Tylerite, though and through. He went to TJC, and is pretty much bumming around the East Texas area from what I get through the grapevine. He hooked up with a different crowd in college, so I stopped hanging out with him.
Curt Dewitt I haven’t heard from in ages (he became a ‘hick’ the last part of middle school, I think). That Kevin McSomething or other I haven’t heard from since he moved to Nacodoches in 10th grade. Chris Wooddell I haven’t talked to in about six years or so, but right out of high school he married an internet sweetheart of his, and they were quite happily married (which was odd at the time – almost a novelty). She was a hottie, too. They lived in Tyler last I heard, but again, 8 years ago.
As to the other people tertiary to our middle school clan, M——- L—— went to Centenary College, and from what I heard became the town slut. That’s what my ex-girlfriend told me when we were going out (she was a Centenary attendee as well). Steven Shogry I just ran into last Christmas (remember, he played a Goblin (thanks to C——- being an ass) in our last (and his only) D&D ‘campaign’ right before we switched to BattleTech). He’s actually joined the Rangers. He’s a staunch Democrat, and he cried when Bush won the last election.
Most of the other people I periodically monitor are from high school, and are doing about how you would have predicted they might.
As to how we met, interestingly enough, it was Jamie Crain who put the crew together. He knew John Wiseman from Elementary School, and he met me in 6th grade English. He met Chris Wooddell in Math class, and we all started eating lunch together and playing D&D. Wooddell would DM. I stayed more or less under the radar until 7th grade or so, when I started getting beat and harassed fairly often by some jerks from P.E. I’m not sure if you remember, but I was about 5’3” and 70lbs exactly. One of bigger guys who would pick on me often was this behemoth name Bubba. I don’t know if you recall Bubba, but he was the only middle school kid who could legally drive a car – when they were in fifth grade. I think he was in his mid-20s or so.
At any rate, remember that rock/mall area? It was the place that was shaped like a triangle between the buildings and the basketball court near the bandhall and gym, and it had those benches made from some unidentifiable recycled material. I was on that walkway going towards the library, most likely to check out some stupid magic book with Jamie, and Bubba started pushing me around. Matthew, as I recall, put himself between me and Bubba, and used a word with two or more syllables in it and it completely shut the dummy down. It was after that you guys started hanging out at our lunch table.
Ahh, memory lane.
/rizzn
An anonymous coward thought it would be fun to insult me on my own blog. I’ve had it up to here (motions right around his nose) with people insulting me on my own site without being able to identify who they are. It hasn’t been a real problem recently (not since about nine months ago, save this episode), but this jackass has ruined it for everyone, at least for a while.
So the bottom line is you’ll have to register yourself a blogger account to comment on rizzn.com from here on out. If you want to insult me, you’ll have to give yourself a name, so I can do proper research on you and humiliate you in return.
I have a feeling I know who this joker is, but I don’t want to re-awaken old emnity if I’m wrong. We shall see.
/rizzn
I’ve been knee-deep in code this weekend, and I got a great email from a random Blip user. I quote:
Mark,
Didn't know what address to use so I just used this one. I have been using r.Podcaster/BlipMedia for my podcast for several months now, and I really like it. For one; its free and for a cheapskate like me thats the best selling point. I have gone to the extent of promoting BlipMedia on the podcast. This brings me to my first request. It would be really cool if you could do a short promo/commercial in mp3 format downloadable off the website for insertion in a show. The quick audio tag at the end is nice but don't give out enough info, sometimes I would like to promote my hosting agent ya'know?
The second request is a little more technically complicated on your end. Just something to think about for your next build. How about a download counter on the podcast list page. It would be really nice to know if I had five listeners or six. OK I know its really 3 but that doesn't stop me.
Thanks for taking the time, & thanks for the service.
Ragnar Daneskjold
The Pirates Week / Ragnar Radio
Great email! To address the first thing, I’ll post some new clips up this week on the site and in the blog. How would you folks feel about a contest, though? I could run a contest with a prize of some moderate amount of value for the best promo for Blip. Would anyone participate in that one?
The listenercount is the most requested feature to date for r.Podcaster. Rest assured it’s in the works. The release date is scheduled for the next release of the Kernel. Don’t worry.
Lastly, I pimp Ragnar’s podcast for the funny email.
/rizzn
This post is actually a continuation of a conversation sparked by an anonymous comment that impugned my critical thinking ability by calling me names. Sticks and stones, yes I know, but still, it’s the most activity this site has seen in a month or two, so I figure it warrants a bit of discussion.
The topic was supposed to be John Roberts, but then it came down to the “Nuclear Option” after very little discussion. I made a comment to the effect of “I just find that the anti-nukers are an amusing bunch of people, unable to find the word compromise in their vocabulary.”
As an aside, the blog that sparked the original discussion, the Confederate Yankee, had a short post:
With all the focus on four year-old Jack Roberts being a homosexual Nazi Clone, nobody ever thought to ask about dear old dad.
But back to my observation as to the lack of compromise, it’s true. The “Nuke Option” wouldn’t be on the table of the Dems in Congress weren’t being asses about losing the election last time around, and there’s no denying that. There’s a reason you don’t see Dems talking about judicial filibusters anymore – it’s not playing well with their constituents. People have the unfathomable feeling that we elected and hired these jokers to do something in Washington, and it wasn’t to prattle on about the instructions on the back of a shampoo bottle.
The facts, however, are clear. Judicial filibusters in the Senate are a rare thing, and they have never been used with such repetition and consistency as by the Democrats in this term of the Senate. Never. They just haven’t! You can spin it every which way, but you’re twisting the facts. The bottom line is that the filibuster wasn’t intended to be a tool to shut down the government. The problem in politics today is that every loophole is eventually found and then exploited to the point it becomes a drag on the government. It’s the nature of buracracy to be long and arduous, and when loopholes are found to make it more so, I think they should be closed.
I’m not the idiot on the right saying that judicial filibusters in the Senate should be eliminated in totality. There should be a limit on them, though. A number like three or five or two or some other single digit number under five. If anyone can do one at any time, we run the risk of a tyranny of the minority against the majority. Judicial filibusters are essentially mini-nukes in their own right. The real name of the Republican response to the filibuster problem should be called the “Anti-Nuclear Option” (or maybe Star Wars?).
As to John McCain, he’s quickly losing credibility in my eyes. Granted he’s a war hero, a many term Senator, and he’s probably Uma Thurman’s cousin to boot*, but he’s a camera whore, and he’ll say anything for or against the party if it gets him in front of more press. I can respect that if he’d come out and say that “Hey, America, I just love being on TV.” But he never proposes any conciliatory solutions, he just speaks out against EVERYTHING.
For that matter, I’ve not heard a viable solution from EITHER side regarding the so-called “Nuclear Option.” No one saying “we’ll change the rules to something that makes both sides happy.” No one saying “I’ll drop the issue if you will.” No one! Everyone speaks in polemic terms as if there were no option but to remove the opposite party from the face of the earth through genocidal means. Frankly, I’m sick of it.
Just like the Terry Shiavo thing. Just like the John Bolton thing. In fact, like every major issue that has come up in politics since the election – it’s all a matter of do or die, sometimes quite literally. Poltics is not a damn reality TV show. There are real do or die issues out there, but one person in South Florida’s slowly ending life isn’t one (until they push and prod it into a constitutional crisis – and then when it becomes a REAL issue of constitutionality, they leave it alone, unsolved). Whether one of our presidentially appointed diplomat’s idiocy is showing isn’t a do or die issue (they were just upset because someone who didn’t bother to hide his inbred opinions was getting a position when they had spent all that time learning how to hide their similarly idiotic opinions in diplomacy).
Seriously. Think about it. I hate to quote a stupid TV show for wisdom, but President Jed Bartlet on the West Wing said in one of his speeches that “..Most issues don’t have black and white answers, and the issues that do usually have bodycounts.” It’s true though, and with our oversimplified culture of the last 35 years or so, it’s either filibuster or nuke, it’s either put an outspoken moron in place or no one at all, it’s congressional hearings for one invalid or kill them without proper medical investigation. Does anyone remember what compromise was like?
/rizzn
* h/t to Chris Rock.
I’ve had a very odd week, it would seem. Odd for me, I guess. I was speaking to my good buddy Darrell this week about the copious amount of information I’m having to keep track of recently. I told him it’s almost to the point that I need my own support staff. He then interrupted me to say that he had no problem with me carrying around a walking stick. It worked for Gandalf.
Badum. Ching!
In all seriousness, things have really progressed around here at Blip. We’ve got a number of impressive irons in the fire, and if anyone of them comes out how we envision, we’ll be set for years. Keep us in your prayers and all that.
Read the article and then tell me you don’t want to live there. It sounds like the image of every SciFi city I’ve created in my head since I was a kid. I really want to see something like that happen. It’s unfortunate that we can’t turn an American city into something like that, but then I guess America can kind-of claim it since it was likely American gas dollars that created the capital for such a wonder.
Earlier this week, I was investigating a new revenue stream for Blip’s parent company, AACS, and Leo and I essentially discovered a serious Homeland Security threat. Without going into too much detail, AACS is a mortgage assistance firm, and we work on a regular basis with every credit reporting agency out there. A number of credit reporting agencies, we weren’t surprised to discover, have call centers overseas in places like the Philipines, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the like. These call center employees have access to not only names and Social Security Numbers, but bank account numbers, birthdates, copies of driver licenses and every manner of personally identifying information.
I suppose in a time such as this where we are all aware of where the terrorists come from, I don’t have to tell you that the Philipines, Pakistan and Indonesia are hotbeds for terrorism and information piracy. How hard do you think it would be for someone in one of those countries to triple a weeks salary for any information belonging to someone with an Arabian sounding name with American citizenship.
Again, without going into details, I can tell you it’s no difficult thing with all this information to falsify American citizenship papers. Then, whiz-bang-boom, the terrorists win.
So Leo wrote a letter to our congressmen, and we arbitrarily picked Orin Hatch as someone who we though would be fairly interested in something like that, and faxed him a copy of the letter as well.
Imagine my surprise this afternoon to be chanell surfing and see Alan Greenspan in some Congressional hearings on the very topic. Government in action!
At least someone’s thinking about it.
/rizzn
The Daily Kos is already talking about whether John Robert’s four year old son is gay, and the rest of the left-wing bloggers seem intent to pin Roe v. Wade controversy on the nominee. In my surfing, I found some really great commentary from Confederate Yankee’s comments section on his article on the Daily Kos:
Imagine, if you will, that a Democrat President nominated a judge whose constitutional and policy views were, by any measure, on the extreme left fringes of American society.
Let’s assume, for example, that this nominee had expressed strong sympathy for the position that there is a constitutional right to prostitution as well as a constitutional right to polygamy.
Let’s say, further, that he had attacked the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts as organizations that perpetuate stereotyped sex roles and that he had proposed abolishing Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and replacing them with a single androgynous Parent’s Day.
And, to get really absurd, let’s add that he had called for an end to single-sex prisons on the theory that if male prisoners are going to return to a community in which men and women function as equal partners, prison is just the place for them to get prepared to deal with women.
Let’s further posit that this nominee had opined that a manifest imbalance in the racial composition of an employer’s work force justified court-ordered quotas even in the absence of any intentional discrimination on the part of the employer. But then, lo and behold, to make this nominee even more of a parody of an out-of-touch leftist, let’s say it was discovered that while operating his own office for over a decade in a city that was majority-black, this nominee had never had a single black person among his more than 50 hires.
Imagine, in sum, a nominee whose record is indisputably extreme and who could be expected to use his judicial role to impose those views on mainstream America. Surely such a person would never be nominated to an appellate court. Surely no Senate Democrat would support someone with such extreme views. And surely Senate Republicans, rather than deferring to the nominating power of the Democrat President, would pull out all stops—filibuster and everything—to stop such a nominee.
Well, not quite. The hypothetical nominee I have just described is, in every particular except his sex, Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the time she was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993.
President Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg on June 22, 1993. A mere six weeks later, on August 3, 1993, the Senate confirmed her nomination by a 96-3 vote.
(The source for the information in the second through fourth paragraphs is “Report of Columbia Law School Equal Rights Advocacy Project: The Legal Status of Women under Federal Law,” co-authored by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Brenda Feigen Fasteau in September 1974. The information in the fifth paragraph can be found in the transcript of Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing.)
Great stuff. Eat your heart out, anti-nukers.
/rizzn
I’ve made a minor modification to the Podcasting Kernel. I’ll be announcing it on my podcast today, as well, but just for a heads up – I found out the reason why the queue was backed up for almost three days.
You cannot, I repeat CANNOT add a podcast via email that exceeds three hours in length.
I’m sorry. It just doesn’t work. My email server was completely choked for three days, and my upload server was stuck in an infinite loop processing the same 30 podcasts over and over again. I’ve put a catch in the kernel that will delete any podcast that exceeds three hours in length in 128kbps format or six hours in 64kbps format.
Apologies for any heartache this causes.
Also, coming soon is the brand spankin’ new BlipMedia web page. This one will update itself based upon user content, so it won’t be as stale as the current incarnation. I’m basically waiting for my BlipBlog scriptlets to get fixed. James is working on that. Write him encouraging emails about how cool he is to make him finish faster.
As soon as we get this incarnation of Blip finished, there’s a good chance a friend of mine will be throwing this in front of some Google people. About three high-profile articles on podcasting in general, and every single one of them has missed us as being the largest podcast host in the biz. Honestly, I realize this is due to the way I have the page laid out, it’s not obvious that we either sell VoIP or host podcasts. But it is this recent rash of media attention that has prompted a couple people to encourage me to get a publicist, like I’m all Hollywood and stuff.
I never, in my life, figured it would actually be advantageous for me to have a publicist. Life is weird.
My buddy Newsguy Jon is taking initative on spreading the Rant virus..
Speaking of the MaDshow – I need some help. I’m putting the finishing touches on the MaDshow Best Of album series, and I need volunteers to help me comb through the archives and find the best of our show. I’ll give you access to the FTP archive and everything.
That’s all for now. Bis spater
/rizzn
Update: Backlog is over. Uploads should have minimal delays right now. I’ll continue to monitor the situation and see what comes of it.
For some reason, the upload server is severly backlogged. You may experience long delays in podcast updates – up to six hours. I will let you all know when the server catches up.
/rizzn
Corporate America’s media, once again overlooks the most popular grass-roots digital podcast host
MSNBC today put out a big article with the Washington Post all about podcasting. Once again, BlipMedia was passed over in it’s mentions. We are the largest host around! We’re the only one providing reliable service for free! Why do we get ignored?
Very annoying.
More on this later. I’m a little busy to be typing a blog entry, but I couldn’t let it pass. In other news, you may have noticed that I’ve changed the links on the top of the page a little bit, and updated the graphics on the side bar. A little on that: the graphics for the buy a shirt gimmick wasn’t properly indicating that you could really in fact buy a shirt, so I ‘spruced’ up the graphic (read: crappily added a buy now tag to the image). You can, in fact, buy rizzn merchandise here on rizzn.com. I’m working on some blipmedia merchandise, too. I’m sure you’re anxious to spend all your spare dollars here, and I’m willing to acquiesce to that need.
As to the links on the top of the page, you need to check out the following places: MC Frontalot, Baddd Spellah, MC Chris, Newsguy Jon’s home page, and Questionable Content. MC Chris, you guys should know. It was high time I put him up on the site. Maybe he’ll start talking to me again. Who knows with him. Ever since he’s gone on tour he’s become something of a primadonna I think. That or all my emails are getting delivered to junk for him. Yahoo does that to my domain for some reason, and he has a yahoo account.
Anyone who knows MC Chris knows Baddd Spellah, who has hands down the BEST nerdcore remixes ever. You need to check out this link right now. The first song was stolen right out of my head (I was going to do a remix of this song, but I couldn’t find the samples, and I didn’t get back to the theatre in time to sample it with my pocket recorder).
MC Frontalot, I found from Baddd Spellah’s website. From MC Frontalot’s site, I found a crapload of good nerdcore and links to other good nerdcore artists.
MADshow fans – remember Newsguy Jon? He’s got his own site now, so go there and subscribe to his RSS feed. My bestest internet friend Kelly turned me on to Questionable Content. If you even have a vague fondness for indie culture, you’ll enjoy the heck out of QC. Faye is the second cartoon character with that name I’ve actually lusted after (the first, of course, being Faye Valentine).
/rizzn
I really don’t have it out for Hodson and Khashoggi, but I found something you ERTH and FLYDLUX people might get a kick out of.
This out of the Urban Dictionary:
1. EarthShellTo spend large amounts of corporate or taxpayer money while leaving no impact on the environment or any lasting evidence of the effort.
After spending hundreds of millions developing a new manufacturing process only to have it fail before production begins, one might say:
"We really earthshelled that one."
Or after a year of effort to meet corporate goals, management decides to enhance the goal definition so that they appear to have been met.
"We're having a meeting this afternoon to earthshell this years goals."Source: buddybradle, Jul 2, 2003
Seems like Earthshell isn’t the only thing that E.K.’s getting out of recently.
A residential property in Hope Ranch has been sold for $50 million, setting a record for a home sale in the Santa Barbara area and topping the $45 million that Oprah Winfrey paid in 2001 for her Montecito estate. The Hope Ranch estate was purchased by Geoff Rusack and Alison Wrigley Rusack. The ocean front home is on 38-acres and once belonged to Peter Cooper Bryce, one of the first estate owners in Hope Ranch. The home was also once owned by businessman Essam Khashoggi, director of Earthshell Corp., who bought the property from the Bryce family, but sold the estate in 2000. The original house Mr. Bryce built was an 18,000-square-foot mansion designed by George Washington Smith.
Hat tip to J.C. Gordon.
/rizzn
The Silencer Handbook I
Published by Palladin(Have Gun, Will Travel)Press and available for a 'rollback' price at Walmart.com(the link is listed below for your perusal or ordering pleasure).
The book details in word and pictures how to cut down the pesky noise when you just need to shoot somebody and not wake the neighbors.
That's right, now Little Billy can get up off the couch from watching Grand Theft Auto and have that hobby you have always wished him to have. And after all, he will be reading a book instead of being tied to the toggle switch.
Your husband will have a reason to stay home and really work in the workshop instead of just drinking beer, watching ESPN classics. Think of it as DIY at the next level.
Hat tip to verbpower.com
For us South Floridians, that picture to the left is a beautiful thing.
It’s a picture of a hurricane that didn’t hit us for once.
/rizzn
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -- Pablo Picasso
I’ve made some minor changes to the r.Podcaster kernel. I need to know if ANYONE experiences any changes in performance. You can email me, or call the tech support line (954–633–5050, option 4).
In other news, we have now retained the law firm Sebben and Sebben to be our legal defense team at BlipMedia. To be connected directly to them, dial our number (954–633–5050) and hit option 6, or dial them directly, 877–826–2473.
And finally, a shuttle is going to launch today. I’m going to try to pick up whatever footage I can from my remote south florida location. Look for video later today.
/rizzn
For some reason, the HTTP Upload function on r.Podcaster was malfunctioning the last couple days. It has since been rectified. My apologies.
/rizzn
For the second night in a row, Muvico 18 couldn’t figure out how there uninteruptable power supplies worked, and the theatre lost power before the movie was over. I have another free pass to go watch the movie tomorrow.
Music on the Turntables Currently: Smiths - How Soon Is Now
On the Boob Toob: Entourage
I’m going to go watch the movie. I’ll let you know how it is when I get back.
In other news, what a boring weekend. Again.
/rizzn
I had some decent conversation with the Finkelstein brothers over the last couple days. Joel and I spoke last night, and Matthew and I spoke this morning. I’m going to give them access to post to this blog until I get their domain done. I’ve been working on their blog for a couple months, but actual work has been pushing it to the backburner for a while now. They’re itching to shout to the world, so I had better let them.
Matthew almost has me sold on dropping the $500 it’s going to take for me to go to Burning Man this year. Who saw that coming? Matthew also sent me a great link this morning – iRP. If you roleplay, and you have Sundays and Thursdays off, this is a good place to go. It’s run by a couple of folks who are famous for their good games in our hometown.
I’m aggressively recruiting salespeople for a variety of products this week. We’re beefing up our sales team for both companies. Both products tend to sell themselves, but we need to take everything to the next level, hence the big sales push. Enquire within (between $50–250 commission on one product per sale, and the other is a lifetime residual product).
In other news, scroll down and see the beauty which is Joel’s kid. Can’t get over that.
Want to waste about twenty minutes or more? Enjoy the erotic mystery of the falling bikini girl. Truely entrancing. Hat tip to Lish on that one.
In other news, I’m generally not in the habit of quoting other people’s works word for word, but I got a LiquidGeneration newsletter in the mail today – it’s this newsletter that I somehow got subscribed to. I’ve never been to their site, but from what I can tell it has something to do with transexuals and flash design. At any rate, they send out funny emails, so I don’t make a big deal of it. All that to say, check out what was in my inbox this morning:
Hiya People! Monkey Here,
So, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are adopting an Ethiopian child! This got me wondering, "Would it be cool to be the love child of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?" One might automatically think "Yes" without a second thought, but let's look at the facts here:
- You will never be as good looking as your parents.
Instead of people coming up to your parents and saying "What a cute child you have," people will be coming up to you saying, "Son of a bitch! Your parents are frickin' retarded hot! I'm not gay but I would have sex with your dad, that's how retarded hot he is! I just glanced at your mom for like two seconds and I crapped my pants...she's so hot I crapped my pants!"
- Your ex-girlfriends are going to suck compared to your dad's.
Brad Pitt was engaged to Gwenyth Paltrow and married to Jennifer Aniston. They're real nice looking. Your ex-girlfriends will probably be ugly and if they're not it's because they just want to meet your parents. Let's be honest, It's not very often that I see a bone-skinny Ethiopian with a distended stomach wearing a diaper walking down the street with a wicked hot girl. You neither? Exactly.
- Your dad was in Fight Club. You will be in the Chess Club.
Again, I don't see many bone-skinny Ethiopian dudes with a distended stomach wearing a diaper being a football star. You will be a nerd. Good luck with chess.
- Your mom won an academy award at age 25. You will never win anything.
Chances are, when you get into your teens you will probably be so jaded by your parent's universal celebrity, you will be a universal loser. Expect years of drug addiction and many failed attempts at rehab. Enjoy!
I wish you luck, young man. Just remember: Angelina is not your real mom...you can make out with her!
Cheers,
Great stuff. Jon and Matthew – your affiliate agreements are on their way.
/rizzn
[Rizzn’s Note: If you remember, Simon Hodson and Essam Khashoggi were big investors in the whole FlyDLUX debacle.]
In news that’s only semi-related to FlyDLUX in that respect, I found this on the wires today:
July 7 -- Essam Khashoggi, the co-founder and chairman of EarthShell Corp., is stepping down from the company´s board of directors.
Khashoggi said June 7 that he would not seek re-election to the board as part of his scheduled plan to retire. He will provide assistance and guidance to the company on an as-needed basis. Khashoggi, EarthShell´s largest shareholder, plans to maintain his holdings in the company, he said.
EarthShell, based in Santa Barbara, Calif., is involved in licensing and commercializing disposable food-service utensils and wraps that are biodegradable and can be composted. The products are made primarily from limestone and starch from potatoes, corn and wheat.
In a different press release, I found the following public statements made by Hodson and Khashoggi:
Mr. Khashoggi stated, "We have strong executive leadership in place that has effectively dealt with many challenges to bring the Company to its current level of accomplishment. EarthShell will be implementing changes that will enable top management to perform to even higher standards and increase shareholder value. I will always feel that I am a part of EarthShell. It is a dynamic and important part of my business life, and I want to stay as close as possible to the Company as product commercialization begins. I believe that EarthShell has a bright future."
"Mr. Khashoggi helped establish EarthShell's environmental vision and mission," commented Simon Hodson, EarthShell co-founder and chief executive officer. "He has seen the Company through many transitions and the achievement of milestones, including development of its comprehensive patent portfolio and the establishment of important business relationships in both the public and private sectors. We all genuinely appreciate Mr. Khashoggi's contributions to the creation and development of EarthShell. EarthShell's success, through its new plans for the future, will always reflect the legacy of his passion and commitment."
If I understand their original stated intent in buying massive quantities of underpriced ticket vouchers through FlyDLUX, it was to force the airlines to go into bankruptcy, and then subsequently purchase the airline itself at a devalued rate. Apparently, many years ago, I’m told, when Delta Airlines was in bankruptcy, they were the second or third highest bidder on it’s purchase, and unfortunately for them, did not end up pocketing the airline.
A lot of our financial problems stemmed from the Hodson deal. If it were not for Hodson/Khashoggi continuously stringing us along for the last few months we attempted to remain operating, we would have closed up shop. It’s hard to do that when you constantly have millions of dollars dangled in front of your face.
The last I heard, Hodson/Khashoggi were buying tickets directly from Wimmer as recently as a year ago. I have no validation on this, only rumor and innuendo (which is what the majority of the post-FlyDLUX crowd lives on, apparently. I mean, you are reading this, right?)
As for my own personal opinions of Hodson/Khashoggi – I don’t like them. I don’t suppose I can say too much bad about Khashoggi as a person, as Hodson et. al. kept us pretty insulated from him. I think we were on one phone call with Essam, and a conference call at that. Hodson, however, is an imbecile of the highest order, or a shark of the most devious variety. I’m not sure which, and given his family member’s opinion of him, I’m more likely to say shark. All of his money was made, so the grapevine tells me, by either defrauding or cheating his sisters out of their inheritance. As for my personal experience with the man, he kept us on and past the edge of bankruptcy for so long that we’d have to offer him majority ownership in the company.
In retrospect, we should have signed that deal instead of folding shop. I’d love to have the legal team Simon’s money could buy pursuing the likes of Tony Wimmer. But then again, I’m just as happy that I have been able to put all of this behind me.
/rizzn
Yesterday's tragic bomb blasts resulted in overloaded cellular and landline voice networks as Londoners used their phones to contact family members, friends and business colleagues. Major carriers reported call rates at more than double the usual volumes, which led to service delays and bandwidth reductions. VoIP systems, on the other hand, weren't affected by the increased network traffic volumes, according to UK carriers.
For more on VoIP's performance during the London emergency:
- read this Toronto Globe and Mail article
- and this Toronto Globe and Mail column
For more details on Vonage's marketing strategy:
- read this KarnellKnowledge blog entry
Well, here’s the post July 4 update.
As it turns out, the Paris Hilton party was postponed and people failed to inform us of the cancellation. I’m still waiting on word back from the Paris Hilton club people as to when it’s actually going to be opened. No biggie, I suppose. I didn’t get the scoop, but no one else did either. Sour grapes supreme.
We’re supposed to close two more big buisness VoIP accounts today, bringing us close to achieving one third of our sales goal for the year. This is a good thing. If we close a couple more sales, I’ll be able to hire a programmer or two to help me out with r.Podcaster.
I’m writing a podcasting book. I’m about forty pages into it right now, and it’s mostly crap, but hey, at least it is something, right? It keeps me off the streets, so it can’t be too bad.
Summer is officially here in sunny South Florida. Temperatures have been unbearably hot recently, and the daily rain has stopped. I’m hesitant to complain about it because I don’t want to encourage the hurricane fates to hit here again. On the other hand, I certainly would enjoy a few degrees cooler around here.
I’ll keep you guys in the loop on everything. I’ve got to get back to work. I’m bugfixing the BlogTracker on blipmedia.org right now, and hopefully by end of day it should be actually displaying everyone’s rss feeds properly, instead of getting all confruzzled like it does now (sometimes it will put someone elses blog posts in your xml feeds).
/rizzn
Not a whole hell of a lot going on this weekend for me. Not right now, at least. Putting together the final CDs for the Paris Hilton party. Still haven’t received my passes and tip sheets yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t.
Got some other stuff to tell you about, but no time right now. Gotta finish this site I’m working on.
/rizzn
