Notes From Atlanta
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Consumers screwed in Texas.
From LAT:
On his first day as governor of Texas, George W. Bush declared that limiting lawsuits was an "emergency issue" for his state.
"We must put a stop to the frivolous and junk lawsuits which clog our courts," he said in January 1995, a popular line he has repeated often since then.
Getting rid of "frivolous" suits — or even defining them — proved difficult, but the new governor won limits on how much money could be awarded in the biggest cases. For example, punitive damages were capped at twice the amount of a victim's loss.
But the legal-reform movement Bush launched in Texas has gone far beyond questions of monetary awards. Among other things, it has led to limits on the right to sue in the first place.
"Texas has gone from one of the most friendly states for consumer protection to one of the most anti-consumer states," said University of Houston law professor Richard M. Alderman, an expert on consumer rights. "It all began in 1995. Bush oversaw a significant retreat for consumer protection, and it was all done under the guise of attacking 'frivolous' lawsuits."
The impact has been felt by home buyers such as Mary and Keith Cohn, whose elegant new residence in this well-off Houston suburb came with a leaky roof that led to rotting and moldy wallboard throughout the structure. After their daughters became ill, the Cohns moved out. The repairs ultimately cost more than $300,000.
To their astonishment and dismay, they learned that when the builder refused to repair most of the damage, they could not sue him for redress. Instead, they could pursue private arbitration, a process they considered stacked against them.
"This is the largest purchase of your life," said Mary Cohn, "but you have zero consumer protection."
What I want to know is did Mary and Keith Cohn vote Republican? Did they screw themselves?
Our civil court system is the little people's protection against the large companies. The GOP wants to do away with it because they support the large corporations, and do not care about the little people. And yes, it is little people buying $350,000 houses. Without redress in the courts, they can lose all their money, their good credit, and their house. Think about why the GOP keeps pushing to restrict your right to have wrongs done to you addressed in court. Having your day in court is one of the basic rights citizens of the US have. Don't let the GOP take it away.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
That could have gone better.
Bush speaks at UN.
Bush’s remarks drew applause only once — at the end of his speech.
You know all the UN delegates are sitting there thinking, "You broke it, you fix it."
Hell, he can't even admit he broke it. Bush is an idiot.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Bush cost her a brother.
I found out that my brother, Sgt. Ryan M. Campbell, was dead during a graduate seminar on April 29.
Immediately after a uniformed officer knocked at my mother's door to deliver the message that broke her heart, she called me on my cellphone. She could say nothing but, "He's gone." I could say nothing but, "No." Over and over again we chanted this refrain to each other over the phone as I made my way across the country to hold her as she wept.
I had made the very same trip in February, cutting classes to spend my brother's two weeks' leave from Baghdad with him. Little did I know then that the next time I'd see him would be at Arlington National Cemetery.
During those days in February, my brother shared with me his fear, his disillusionment and his anger. "We had all been led to believe that Iraq posed a serious threat to America as well as its surrounding nations," he said. "We invaded expecting to find weapons of mass destruction and a much more prepared and well-trained Republican Guard waiting for us. It is now a year later, and alas, no weapons of mass destruction or any other real threat, for that matter."
Ryan was scheduled to complete his one-year assignment to Iraq on April 25. But on April 11, he e-mailed me to let me know not to expect him in Atlanta for a May visit, because his tour of duty had been involuntarily extended. "Just do me one big favor, OK?" he wrote. "Don't vote for Bush. No. Just don't do it. I would not be happy with you."
....
No go read the rest. Now please.
Friday, September 17, 2004
The Hand of God?!
Republicans keep telling everybody to forget about the election of 2000. I don't think God has. He has been hammering them with hurricanes since. This year, every time Jeb Bush tries to suppress votes or add people onto the ballot the courts have said could not be listed, another hurricane comes barreling up from Hurricane Alley. It is obvious that the Bush family and the Republicans are responsible for all this destruction. Surely, Jerry Falwell with his gays/AIDS logic would agree.
For the sake of the people of Florida, Jeb, quit tampering with the election!
Photos of damage from AJC.
Photos of damage from Pensacola News Journal.
Atlanta gets hammered last night.
Wow, what a storm. We got nothing like Pensacola, who got destroyed, but we did feel the effects. I have been wtaching the Chattahoochee behind my apartments. I have never seen it this high. Luckily the banks on the other side are about 3 to 4 feet lower than ours, so they get all the flooding. Some crummy, low light photos are below.
Apex Sand compound is over run by the river. This area will be turned into a Roswell city park shortly.
Georgia Tech dock and boat house. I saw guys from Tech getting the place ready last night, so they were prepared. Those Tech kids are smart.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Reservists trickling towards Kerry.
The serious mood was broken by Sam Poulton, who rose in the second row, wearing a VFW cap, to poke fun at himself. He turned to face the audience and cameras. "I want you to look at this face," he said. "I'm 56 years old, a proud reservist. I was ordered back to Iraq. It's something when my son and I are both deployed. I went to war for George W. Bush; I came home to vote for John Kerry."
From The Washington Post. Go have a read.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Wow! Solo breakaway wins Vuelta stage.
You can check the results at various cycling sites, but American David Zabriskie just did a solo breakaway for 100 miles to win the 11th stage of the Vuelta. That is incredible! 100 miles with no drafting at the professional level. Those breaks rarely succeed. Oportunist Jacky Durand used to try for those all the time, and could rarely pull it off.
The Vuelta is The Tour of Spain, one of the three Grand Tours, including the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France.
Monday, September 13, 2004
Georgia voting machines officially suck.
Graded F-minus.
With Election Day less than two months away, a conservative group rated Georgia's paperless touch-screen voting system the worst in the nation, with Florida and several other states not far ahead.
The Free Congress Foundation, a longtime fixture of the political right, warns in a new report that if the Nov. 2 vote totals are contested, the result could be a "fiasco," since so many states have installed electronic systems that have no paper ballots that can be recounted.
Georgia, the first state to install a paperless system in all counties, was graded "F-minus" based on the reliability of the equipment and its capacity for a "verifiable recount."
...
Georgia officials have long argued that the $54 million touch-screen system is easy to use and popular with voters, despite some glitches when it debuted in November 2002. In Fulton County, for example, some machine totals were counted late because poll workers forgot to remove memory cards. But the election result was not affected.
Sinkule said the state would add printout devices if required but added, "Let's not rush to mandate a paper trail without federal standards in place."
After all the reports of unsecured patches being loaded right before the election in 2000, the "robga" file, and the funny results you would think Cathy Cox would want verifiable recounts. She doesn't? Why would anybody be against being able to verify the vote?
Deion returns.... and who really cares.
The Cleveland fans had some fun, however.
The signs were hung in the end zone: "Past Your Prime Time."
The barbs were flying on the airwaves: "Deion's been retired for three years," said Browns radio analyst and former lineman Doug Dieken, "and he hasn't made a tackle in six."
Imagine all the signs when he plays someplace where people really don't like him.
Dave FM brings back ex 99x jock.
Dave FM bringing Barnes back to Atlanta.
I don't really listen to much regular radio since getting my XM system, however this looks like a little war starting. Dave FM, formerly Z93 Classic Rock, is bringing Steve Barnes back to the Atlanta airwaves. I think 99x has been circling the drain ever since Will left many years ago. I can't believe it has taken this long for somebody to try and steal their listeners. It will be interesting to look at the rating books in the future.
I just recently hooked up XM in my truck that I really only use to take the dogs to the river. I do listen a bit to radio when driving that. 99X just seems lame. 96 Rock has started spinning even more classic rock, I guess in an effort to pick up the few remaining Z93 listeners. Dave FM seems to be playing a decent mix of old and new. However the Zepplin tune had me hitting the button yesterday. Does anybody need to hear Led Zepplin anymore? Yeah they made great music, but haven't we all just heard too much of it?
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Air America Radio coming to Atlanta.
Hell yeah!
It will be on 1690 on the AM dial, former classic Country station WSWK. It will become WWAA. Currently it is playing nothing as they get the technical stuff worked out. It is a weak signal, only 10,000 during the day and 1,000 at night. It will be a bit scratchy OTP.
Eric Seidel, a media consultant and former WGST-AM station manager, disagreed: "It will never be a factor in this market. There isn't a large enough audience for this type of talk to make it economically viable."
Of course conservative have been calling it DOA singe it started, and it is now on 30 stations, half the 20 major markets, web streaming, and Sirius and XM radio. It has also been challenging, and in some markets beating, Rush- the drug addict not the Canadian band. Then of course, would you listen to a media consultant around these parts? Radio absolutely sucks in Atlanta. Hey just go ahead and get satellite radio. Worth every penny every month- $10 to $12 a month.
Friday, September 10, 2004
RIP- Long time Atlanta weatherman and local personality, Guy Sharpe, passed away. I can't remember when he was not on the air. I hope he has fair weather all the way to where he is going.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Well heck, maybe it is because of where they live.
Suicides outnumber homicides in Alabama.
Wouldn't you be tempted if you lived in Alabama? Of course, I would probably think about moving first. No need for a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
The Frog and the Scorpion.
People keep asking what is so important about what happened 30 years ago. Why are we worried about what Bush did during the war and what Kerry did? I believe the moral of the story The Frog and the Scorpion is that people will always revert to their true nature.
Kerry, by volunteering for swift boat duty while stationed on a ship away from the battle, showed courage. When attacked from the banks of the Mekong Delta, he showed courage by turning his boat into the fire and attacking. When returning from Vietnam he showed courage, and morality, by trying to expose criminal and immoral behavior. As a prosecutor and in the Senate, he has always shown courage by pursuing people who did wrong. He has always shown the courage of his convictions by constantly maintaining a liberal voting record in the Senate. Kerry has always shown courage.
Bush, by having his family pull strings to get him into the TANG, showed contempt for the military and people who had to actually serve. He showed contempt by not fulfilling his obligations, and skirting them frequently the entire time in the reserves. He showed contempt for others while working on the campaign in Alabama by not pulling his weight, and evidently pissing on their cars. He has shown contempt for people with drug issues by supporting strict punishment for them, while saying that his and his families drug problems were nothing to be concerned about. Bush has shown contempt for the veterans by attacking McCain, Cleland, and Kerry through surrogates for his service and lying about his. He has shown contempt for the American people for sending their children to die in foreign lands while he himself, and the people in his administration, would not do the same. He has shown contempt for the American people by talking one talk, and then walking a different walk.
What happened over 30 years ago does matter. It shows the true nature of the men involved in this election. How they behave as president will be a reflection of their true nature. Do you want courage or do you want contempt?
Seniors pissed.
Medicare premiums jump 17%.
I know my 85 year old grandmother is unhappy. She is a conservative christian and will be voting for Kerry. She was already scared that Bush was going to mess with her Social Security.
Creator of Leslie speaker dies and currently spinning in his grave.
This is an obscure reference but Donald Leslie, creator of the Leslie rotating speaker died at age 93. Most people don't even know what a leslie speaker is. However, I think most people have heard song from the '60's and '70's that featured a Hammond Organ being played through a spinning Leslie speaker. Think Booker T. Jones (Booker T. and the MGs), Felix Cavaliere (The Rascals), Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum), Billy Preston (Everybody including the Beatles, Stones and Aretha), Goldie McJohn (Steppenwolf) and Jimmy Greenspoon (Three Dog Night).
Leslie was captivated with the sound of the Hammond organ when he heard it at a Barker Bros. furniture store in downtown Los Angeles, where he worked repairing radios. In the store's large showroom, the organ introduced in 1935 sounded much like a theater or church pipe organ.
However, Leslie, was unimpressed with the organ's sound quality in the confined spaces of his home.
He began tinkering with devices to make the instrument sound more like labyrinthine pipe organs, using mechanics and electronics experience he gathered from a series of jobs, including one at the Naval Research Laboratories in Washington, D.C., during World War II.
When Leslie presented Hammond with an organ speaker he had built by hand, the company rejected it - and turned him down for a job.
Leslie later founded Electro Music in Pasadena to manufacture his speaker, which he called a Leslie speaker. It popularized electronic music during the 1940s by improving the sound of organs and keyboards, including those made by Hammond, Baldwin, Kimball and Yamaha.
For a little bit of background on the spinning speaker:
First and foremost, the Leslie Rotating Speaker is designed as a sound modification device. It is not a "Hi-fi" speaker, but rather a part of a musical instrument. You buy a Leslie to change the sound of an instrument, not to reproduce it.
The Leslie Speaker System, thoughtfully named after its inventor, Don Leslie, operates on a simple principle: a directional sound source is rotated at constant (or variable) speed around a fixed pivot point.
At a listening point some distance from this whirling affair, three things happen. First, because the source is directional, the intensity of the sound will be at a maximum when it points at the listener (or microphone), The sound intensity will increase as the rotating source approaches dead center, and decrease as it rotates past this point. The resultant effect is called amplitude modulation (AM), which is no big thing, and is a feature on any guitar amp with a "vibrato" or "tremolo" feature. By moving closer to the rotating speaker, the inverse square law will increase the modulation effect.
However, the big deal is the Leslie's ability to create frequency modulation (FM). As the source rotates toward the listener, its relative velocity will increase the pitch of any tone it produces; as it rotates away, the pitch well be lowered. This is exactly the same Doppler effect that causes a train whistle (or any other sound on the train, such as grunting pigs, or shrieking passengers), to rise and then fall in pitch as the train approaches and then passes.
Lastly, if you are listening in a room with any significant reverberation, a complete spatial modulation of the sound will happen, as sound is "shot" all around and goes through multiple reflections.
I am off to listen to "Chest Fever" by Three Dog Night
Vote for us or die.
Bookman gets all of that one.
As somebody said, if you are going to use dead people to get you into office, as Bush is using the 9/11 victims, you need to have them actually vote for you like Democrats used to. None of this just standing on their corpses crap.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Rison working at least.
Former NFL star in CFL.
Andre Rison has had trouble paying child support in the past. His agent was trying to set him up as a "businessman." Well I guess they couldn't get him work as a "businessman," so they got him playing Canadian football instead. Yeah, Rison, a legend in his own mind, is currently lacing them up for the CFL at 37 years of age.
Rison was noticeably stiff after the game and nursed a taped right hamstring.
Ooohhh, I bet. I'm thinking he wishes he hadn't bought that gold trimmed Mercedes with one of his bonus checks, and had instead put it in the bank. Maybe he can get on with the European league next year.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Jimmy Carter to Zell Miller.
Via Talking Points Memo.
You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as lieutenant governor and as governor. It was a loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high positions in the state government when you were out of office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who appointed you as U.S. Senator when you were out of office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty, you have betrayed our trust.
Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past, including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge, and Sam Nunn disagreed strongly with the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and me, but they remained loyal to the party in which they gained their public office. Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at least had the decency to become Republicans.
Everyone knows that you were chosen to speak at the Republican Convention because of your being a “Democrat,” and it’s quite possible that your rabid and mean-spirited speech damaged our party and paid the Republicans some transient dividends.
Perhaps more troublesome of all is seeing you adopt an established and very effective Republican campaign technique of destroying the character of opponents by wild and false allegations. The Bush campaign’s personal attacks on the character of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 was a vivid example. The claim that war hero Max Cleland was a disloyal American and an ally of Osama bin Laden should have given you pause, but you have joined in this ploy by your bizarre claims that another war hero, John Kerry, would not defend the security of our nation except with spitballs. (This is the same man whom you described previously as “one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend.")
I, myself, never claimed to have been a war hero, but I served in the navy from 1942 to 1953, and, as president, greatly strengthened our military forces and protected our nation and its interests in every way. I don’t believe this warrants your referring to me as a pacificist.
Zell, I have known you for forty-two years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited.
Friday, September 03, 2004
Zell get his reward from GOP!
From MSNBC:
After gauging the harsh reaction from Democrats and Republicans alike to Sen. Zell Miller’s keynote address at the Republican National Convention, the Bush campaign — led by the first lady — backed away Thursday from Miller’s savage attack on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, insisting that the estranged Democrat was speaking only for himself.
Late Thursday, Miller and his wife were removed from the list of dignitaries who would be sitting in the first family’s box during the president’s acceptance speech later in the evening. Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said Miller was not in the box because the campaign had scheduled him to do too many television interviews.
....
I called that one a long time ago. I said when the GOP was done with him, they would toss him aside like used Klennex. He got tossed.
Traitors are never fully accepted onto their new sides- how can they be trusted? They are never allowed back to their old side. Now Zell has nobody to talk to.
Can anybody say early onset?
Thursday, September 02, 2004
The words of George W. Bush.
I'm an optimist.. We're going to get attacked again.
Because He Said So, by The Daily Show.
Zell Miller challenges Chris Matthews to a duel on National TV.
Unbelievable!
Okay, listen closely. Zell Miller is from Georgia. I am from Atlanta. There is a big difference. We no longer duel in Atlanta. They do a lot of things in Georgia that we do not do in Atlanta. Drinking moonshine, marrying 1st cousins, and dueling are tops on the list.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
They are bringing him up?
From Arnold's speech:
I remember watching the Nixon and Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend who spoke German and English, translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which is what I had just left. But then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting government off your back, lowering taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air.
I said to my friend, "What party is he?" My friend said, "He's a Republican." I said, "Then I am a Republican!" And I've been a Republican ever since! And trust me, in my wife's family, that's no small achievement! I'm proud to belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, the party of Ronald Reagan and the party of George W. Bush.
That would be the party of a vice president convicted, that is convicted, of bribery. The party of a president driven from the office in disgrace. The party that all the racist Dixiecrats fled the Democratic party for. The party that fought against civil rights until they knew it was a lost cause. The party that negotiated with Iran during the hostage scandal behind the back of a sitting president. The party of the Iran Contra scandal. The party of Watergate. The party that is currently raping our enviroment. The party that has put the most convicted felons back into the government.
Arnold, you must be so proud!
Update: Arnold Lied!
The campaign designed a strategy in which Nixon appeared only in controlled situations. He limited his public appearances and press conferences, and refused to debate Humphrey. Instead, he appeared in a series of hour-long programs, produced by Roger Ailes, in which he was interviewed live by panels of carefully selected citizens. Nixon occasionally faced tough questions, but the discussions took place in front of partisan audiences from which the press was barred.
Quote from American Museum of the Moving Image.
Update: No Arnold did not use the word debate.... this time.
The Curious Nixon-Humphrey Debate
From Times Staff Reports
August 20, 2003
Fresh from Austria, a socialist country, Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to become a Republican after listening to "the debates of Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon when they were debating for the presidential race," or so he told television talk show host Bill O'Reilly in May 2001.
"Hubert Humphrey spoke about things I heard in Austria under socialism."
But there was no presidential debate in 1968. Although Humphrey challenged Nixon to a debate, Nixon, who won the election, demurred.
Schwarzenegger previously recounted his version of history during an interview at the 2000 Republican National Convention. "When I came to this country, I was sitting in front of the television set, and I watched a debate between Humphrey and Nixon, and I didn't even understand half of it because my English wasn't good enough then. I had a friend of [mine] translating"
Much the same account reappeared in a recent Newsweek magazine article about him. Schwarzenegger "was a Republican before he was a citizen," Newsweek wrote, "having watched a 1968 presidential debate for which a friend provided the translation. "[Hubert] Humphrey stood for the government [that] will solve all your problems," Schwarzenegger recalled. "[Richard] Nixon said no, free to choose, let the people decide. So I said to my friend, which party is Nixon? He said Republican. OK, I said, I'm a Republican."
In other accounts of his political conversion, including a TV interview with "Hardball's" Chris Matthews last year, Schwarzenegger made no reference to presidential debates, instead saying that he made up his mind to be a Republican after listening to news conferences and speeches by Humphrey and Nixon in 1968.
Sean Walsh, a spokesman for the Schwarzenegger campaign, said Tuesday that the candidate never saw any debate. He said Schwarzenegger recalls having heard Humphrey and Nixon talking on TV, and he asked a friend to translate what they were saying for him. "He heard the two of them talking and someone was translating for him what they were saying."
