the 5th circuit court has just driven another stake into the 4th amendment...by majority decision, they ruled that the police can enter a residence, and perform a cursory search without a warrant...they said that if an officer conducting police business, may enter, and perform a search, if they feel concerned for their safety, and anything found during said search is admissable as evidence...dissenting justices lamented this as a harbinger of the death of the 4th amendment prtoctions against unreasonable search and seizure.
this is as bad as it can get folks...the 4th amendment has been getting methodically destroyed by the courts for years, but this goes much farther than past rulings...effectively, the cops can now enter your home, search it, and if they find anything, arrest you, even if they are just canvasing a neighborhood, responding to your complaint of noise, or hundreds of other reasons not involving valid reasons to enter your home against you will, such as serving an arrest warrant, in hot pursuit, or your home being on fire...nothing good can possibly come of this, as the police have demonstrated their willingness to abuse probable cause in the past, and now they don't even need that excuse...our only hope is that the supreme court will hear the appeal, and overturn the decision...if you are at all concerned ny this, i stronly urge you to vote against Bush, and urge as many people as you know to do the same, because the next president is most likely going to appoint one or more justices...there are two or three that were expected to step down, but probably did nopt out of concern over who might replace them...after all Bush' selections for higher courts have been very suspect, not to mention his attorney general...just imagine getting another couple of Scalias, Thomas', or a Bork...scary thought.
so i've been reading a nausiating amount of stuff in the paper about the case in front of the supreme court involving the guy in California suing the school district to remove the phrase "under god" from the pledge...he feels that it is a violation of separation of church and state...the school board feels it is not, and that saying the words in not mandatory...everyone from the white house down has their opinions as well, including my favorite, as if, supreme court justice, Scalia, who had to recuse himself, having publicly state that he thought the suit was stupid.
so here is my take on all this:
first off, i can't believe that a supreme court justice, even one as incompetent as Scalia, would shhot his mouth off like that...he just keeps demonstrating what a huge mistake his appointment, and confirmation was.
the phrase definately violates the concept of church and state...it refers to a singualr god, which immediately puts any person who is not a monotheist in a position of being ostracised if they refuse to speak words that go against their beliefs, or must speak them to fit in, and be compromising their principals.
the phrase was not even part of the original pledge.
reciting the pledge is a bunch of nonsense anyway...somehow we seem to have timewarped back to the ugly part of the fifties here...you know that good old McCarthy era loyalty oath bullshit...i, and others like me fought to not be forced to recite the damned thing every day...i realized back in 8th grade, that i could not in good faith, speak words i did not believe...that it's absurd to pledge to a piece of cloth...that the whole concept is kind of fascist, and totally violates the core principals this nation was founded on...like faith, should be expressed through actions, not public mouthing of things you profess to believe, but never follow.
the most offensive thing about all this to me is this attitude that not wanting to participate in the pledge is unpatriotic, or unamerican...dissent is very american...it is what this country was founded on...so shut up.
seems that Santa Fe, New Mexico is considering passing an ordinance to ensure that your dog is safe when you take it for a ride...the ordinance would require any dog riding in the bed of a truck to be in a crate or container, and dogs riding in the passenger compartment to wear a seat belt...it's things like this that remind me that Santa Fe truly competes with California for pointless legislation to protect what doesn't need protection...while i'm sure that there are some accidents where the dog died because it was not belted in, or had jumped out of the truck, i can't believe that there are very many...i'm also pretty certain that the well meaning idiots who wrote this pointless law have no real proof that it will in fact prevent dog deaths...while having your dog in a crate would prevent it from jumping out of a moving truck, i'm pretty certain that it won't make a lot of difference in an accident...even if the crate is properly tied down to prevent it from flying around in the bed, the dog would still be violently thrown to the front of the crate, resulting in serious injury, if not death...for the seatbelt idea, it took a lot of crash testing to actually design seat belts, and/or child seats that didn't cause as much harm as they prevented...somehow i doubt that anyone has been crash testing vehicles with dog crash test dummies to see what actually happens...not that i am suggesting they spend tons of money doing so...i'm suggesting that the people who came up with this stupid idea drop it, and perhaps find something more constructive to do with the vast amounts of free time they obviously have.
i did a clever thing today...deciding that it would be a good idea to see if i could figure out what had broken on the riding mower, stopping the blades from turning, i discovered that it was just a broken tesioning spring...this was preventing the drive belt from fully engaging the blades...so i ran out to the local Tractor Supply Company and found a suitable replacement...put it on and voila, it is cutting grass again...wh00p...so nice not to be forced to use the regular mower once more...while i still won't enjoy mowing, it is much less of a chore being able to use the riding mower.
thank you so much to the fucking clueless judge in Arizona, who proved once again that justice for the priviledged is different than for the rest of us...in a truly classless ruling the scumbag killer bishop received 4 years probation for running a man over, killing him, and then leaving the scene....the judges rationale for this was that he would be suffering enough punishment from the embarrassment of the conviction, therefore did not need to spend time in jail...i'm sure the bishop's embarrassment is equal to the loss suffered by his victim's family...you know that if it had been one of us regular people, we would be rotting in jail for the next several years...i guess we wouldn't be embarrassed enough by just being convicted, and serving probation.
wonder if they would say anything if they were forced to stick to actual facts...seems as if the best way to obscure the facts is to drown them out with rhetoric, failing that the next best thing is to say a lot where it doesn't matter.
why is it that Rice has so much to say to the press, but nothing to say under oath.
why is it that Scalia seems to have no real understanding of why so many people are upset over his refusal to recuse himself.
how come approving 173 judges nominations, and blocking 6, means that the democrats are set against the white houses judicial appointments.
how is it that speaking out in any way against this administrations policies means that the person doing so has a political agenda,even when it is a republican doing the speaking, yet nothing said by the administration has a political agenda.
damn....6 months thill the general election...with all the mud slinging already going on, we will have drowned in it long before the election comes...wish that they were limited to a month, no a week, better yet, a day of campaigning...sure would be nice to pick up the paper without having to read this shit.
played lawn boy again today...actually managed to mow the entire lawn, all 1 1/2 acres of it in one day...did it with a regular mower too, none of that riding mower shit...ugh...of course i will just have to do it all again next week...what fun.
yup, you guessed it...i put up some more pictures in the Black & White Photos album...4 brand new treats for your consumption.
just totally fucked up...i was testing out a new application to catalog my mp3s...had scanned my entire collection in, over 30Gb worth...decided the app was cool, but wanted to rescan my collection into two separate databases...so i select all and tell it to delete...it did...deleted the entries, and also deleted my entire collection from my hard drive...luckily i had backed it all up onto cds last month, but i left them with my brother...won't be able to get those back for at least a week or two im sure...i am so pissed...can't fucking believe it did that....went through the settings and found that it deletes the files too by default....fuck, fuck, fuck...what idiot decided that...of course i am also pissed at myself for missing that setting when looking through the settings...this sucks so bad i don't even have words to describe how badly this sucks.
well, i talked another friend into doing some guest entries...he will be writing as the mood strikes him...so look for neonjesus, to be adding more diversity to the angst...i'm glad to finally be getting this forum heading in the direction i had always intended.
a very good friend of mine will be guest authoring here periodically starting around April 1st...he had written a couple of guest rants for my old visualangst site rants section, back before i started up this blog...visualangst is down being reworked, to fix an assload in internal link problems caused when i switched web host services, and to modify what was the rants section, into the the rest of the angst-du-jour domain, which is replacing it...yeah, kind of running on here...back when i started this all, i had always intended for some people to be guest contributors, writing occasional rants, now entries, to give them a platform to use, and hopefully make this a better, and more diverse site...it took a while to get that part back on track.
he will be writing under the name "thezproject" ...i hope that you all will enjoy his future contributions...i look forward to them, as he speaks his mind with frankness, and intelligence...i have always enjoyed his writing, and opinions in the past, and don't expect to have that change in the future.
i hope to be adding other guest authors in the future, assuming i can find them...while i have some prospects in mind, friends and such who i hope to talk into doing it, i am open to the idea of letting interested visitors contribute...so stay tuned for thezproject, and f couse the usual wide ranging servings of angst from me, the angstman.
my g/f turned me on to a really sick, twisted, and very amusing web site...go visit Stick Death...in addition to the great animations, i highly recommend checking out his hatemail...i wish i would get some mail like that...definately improve my day.
my best friend moved back to Dallas...a few years ago he had moved to the bay area to attend school, and then late last year he got what he thought was a kickass job working for a small label down in florida...well it turned out to not be such a good opportunity after all...they basically screwed him over totally, and left him jobless in a town where he diddn't know anyone, etc...he and his wife decided to move back here, and arrived very early wednesday morning ...went over to their new apt yesterday to help unload the truck...helping your friend move is a true test of friendship...moveing furniture, and such is one of the least enjoyable thing i know, but offered myself up because he is my friend...it of course had to be extra hot yesterday, and it turns out their apartment is on the third floor...ugh...way too many trips up and down three flights of stairs forcably reminded me that i am A) way too old for this shit. B) terribly out of shape...somehow we managed to get everything unloaded, and a large portion of their stuff arranged and such...glad that's done...even gladder he is back...be nice to have someone to talk to again.
made more changes and additions to my gallery...i decided to change the order that images asorted within the albums...they were sorted alphabetically by the image title, which made one sort of sense, but not some others...i have decided to resort images by the number of views ascending...this will place the newest images at the front of each album, making them easier to find, and it may also, i hope increase the number of views for images that werepreviously on the last pages of an album, and not being viewed as much as the ones on the first page...we shall see if this helps balance things,and makes the albums a bit more user friendly...your feedback would be greatly appreciated on this.
i have added a whole slew of new photos to most of the the still photography albums in cluding a new sunset photo called Scenic Boom, that i think totally rocks...the colors in this one a really amazing...the following albums have new photos:
Sunsets 3 new photos
Cloudscapes 3 new photos
Color Photos 4 new photos
Black & White Photos 9 new photos
more than half the gallery contents are now art, and photography...the total number of images is up to 427, and 239 of those are abstracts, photomanipulations, or photos...enough images for several long visits to see it all...i am getting close to 1.5 GB of total bandwidth of use on the site as well...as of yesterday i am at 1.351 GB...wooohooo
i just discovered that my cousin has got a kick ass web site...it's a postnuke community focused around autism called RichardAtkins.net...he is extremely knowledgable on this subject and his site contains great info, news, and more...it also has some political/social commentary, and some very useful security information/updates...the site also has a forum, gallery and much more...i highly recommend his site for anyone interested in, or wanting info about autism, or wanting to keep up on the latest security threat, and exploits...go check it out.
got hooked on a new show, as if i really need to be watching more tv...after being intrigued by the ads, i decided to watch Tripping The Rift...i was surprised to find that it exceeded my expectations in every way...totally sick and twisted, with a great animation, and written for adults with a taste for tasteless humor, it was everything i could have asked for and more...so far the first two episodes have left me wanting more, and made me laugh till it hurts...wh00p...thank you scifi channel for this gem.
two of my neighbors now apparantly have bands...i had suspected that there was at least one, but confimed this last week, that there were actually two...i had suspected this due to the occasional bass thump which was happening from time to time over the last couple of months...it was really loud last weekend which caused me to go investigate the source...found out that our nearest neighbor, who is over 1/4 mile away does in fact have a band which is practicing on the weekend in his house....his house, which is basicly a steel shell, makes a pretty good boom box, at least at the lower frequencies...he has agreed to keep his windows closed when they practice, which has helped quite a bit, though it still carries pretty well...i listened in for a while, and they are ok, though the poor accoustics of the building makes it hard to be certain....another neighbor about 1/2 mile away also has a band which i can hear, though not as clearly...i am invited to hear them next time they practice, and am curious to find out if they are any good...i was amazed to discover just how far bass will carry, and am glad we don't live any closer than we do...heh.
i got ants in my computer room...fuck...evidently, they are coming form a tree next to the building, and some steps will have to be taken to remove the little bastiches...i hate ants...why oh why did they have to infest in here....damn damn damn...hopefully i will be able to end this scourge shortly.
well i went out and voted yesterday in the primaries...having done so, i have renewed my right to bitch about politics for the next 8 months until the general election...i hope you all have/or will be voting as well...after all you have no real right to complain about the state of our nation if you don't vote...voting is important, even if you feel your vote is wasted...for it is only wasted if you don't use it.
police cut short Jessica Simpson's autograph session at a Boston area WalMart, claiming the crowd posed a threat to public safety...the store had been expecting 500-100 people, but over 5000 showed up causing massive traffic jams, and causing a nearby highway to be temporarily closed....three fans were found hiding in the crafts department by store employees who had closed the store to prepare for the event...three teens were arrested for disorderly conduct, and one teen girl was arrested for assault & battery after scratching a cop's face.
ahhh, to be young and stupid again...NOT
Neil Bush, the brother of our (cough, cough) intrepid leader, married a woman who was a former volunteer for his mother...he had divorced his wife of 23 years last year in a messy proceding...while the wedding was a small family affair, followed by a reception of about 150 people, there were two notable absences...neither the prez, or Jeb, governor of Florida attended.
Just goes to show that politics and family make for shitty bedfellows...while no reason was given for the absences, it is unforgivable in my eyes that Georgie would miss his brother's wedding...family should come before politics, and he should have been there to support his bro, even though that would have meant dealing with the press, and his crititcs...of course he will still probably have those two groups to deal with...i guess given his moral stance, the prez didn't want to be seen as supporting something as wrong as being married twice, where the first ended in divorce...it could have been worse, Neil could have married a man
damn i'm feeling good...i got caught up on all my email backlog, the message backlog at deviantart, and even managed to get three rools of film from my trip scanned/sorted/named/etc...i have posted pics of my new niece in my personal gallery, and if anyone is interested in seeing how cute she is email me for the url...i'm not gonna post it, because the gallery is all photos of family and friends, which i keep limited access to....on the public side of things i have also added three new photos to the Color Photos album, and 15 new photos to my Black & White Photos album...got some nice winter shots while in NY..i hope you like them.
This was written concerning a print i had sent: Burnt Fuse-A Legend In My Own Mind: Fucking Post Office!
I am very sorry for screwing up here and causing undue angst to you, and causing you to unfairly blame the post office for my error...i had foolishly thought that wrapping the print in layered bubble wrap, and cardboard would protect it weel enough for shipping...I was wrong in this assumption...I did some checking up on it, and found that framed prints require either using plexi vs. glass, or they must be crated to arrive with the glass unbroken...it was my bad...i had sent a print sevaeral weeks earlier to my mom, packed the same way, with the same result...i didn't realize this in time , as she had not told me of the broken glass until i saw her, thinking to spare my feelings...ugh...i know better now, and will not make this mistake again.
a bit late, but here is the first of the promised deatils of my trip to NY.
i was able to see my niece quite a lot, spread out over several days during my visit...i made a lot of shorter visits to make it easier on my brother and sister-in-law, as i knew they were worn out from both having a new baby, and endless family visits...i'm glad i did it that way, as it allowed me plenty of time to see them, and was much less stressful on them too...as you can imagine, my niece, Leah, is very very cuter...this is not just my opinion, btw, as total strangers seem to all think so too...i totally lucked out in my timing, as she had just started smiling, and is beginning to focus on things...she seems to like her goofy uncle a bit, as i was rewarded with many smiles, some happy gurgles, and lots of her happily being held...she seemed to really enjoy my singing her silly songs made up on the spot, about her, accompanied with play...she especially liked the feet songs...something my daughter enjoyed too, at that age...bought her a mobile, which she had none of, and she seems to like it...also gave her a print, which she will hopefully enjoy when she is older.
i also spent time visiting with my mom, a lot in fact, as i was staying at her apt...spent a night upstate with my dad and stepmom, and also had dinner with them once in the city...got to see my dad's new office, and he even introduced me to his coworkers, which was both nice and unexpected.
went to connecticut for two days with my mom, one to see one of her oldest friends, and the other with my aunt and uncle, both of which were very nice...her friend has an incredible old house near Lyme, which provided many good photo ops, and it was really cool visiting with her and her husband...they have a great boxer named Luca, who befriended me immediately, and while not a true substitute for our dog, did ease the sting of missing him a bit...had a great time with my aunt and uncle, which is pretty normal...got to see a very old friend of the family while there, who is like a great aunt , which was a very pleasant surprise...she is 92 and fiesty as hell, and still living life fully...hope i age half as well as she has.
all in all, it was a great visit all the way around familywise.
part 2 of the report will be coming soon, covering sights and such.
life is a peach...heh...got sick on saturday, and am still trying to shake it off...seems my g/f had come down with the flu crud while i was away, and gave it to me as a welcome home gift...lol...gave it to the dog too, for that matter....anyway, i have been laid low for the last several days, and figure it will be at least another couple before i am back to normal, or at least as normal as i ever get.