Liberty's Blog

Beware of What You Ask for

2009-07-03T09:05:00.000-05:00

This video that is being circulated by KickThemAllOut.com

Funny how the one person they highlight speaking out against such excesses. Is one of those darn Congress critters that they want to get rid of. They should realize some are keepers even if most are not.

Google to Assist developing Openoffice.org

2009-06-30T11:17:00.002-05:00

It looks like Openoffice.org is going to get some manpower support from Google

Google plans to hire programmers to improve OpenOffice.org, a demonstration of its affinity for open source initiatives and one the company believes also shows sound practical sense.
OpenOffice has its roots in Sun Microsystems' StarOffice suite of programs. Five years ago, Sun turned its proprietary software into an open-source project. Only recently, however, has the competitor to Microsoft's Office attracted serious attention.
Now Google believes it can help OpenOffice--perhaps working to pare down the software's memory requirements or its mammoth 80MB download size, said Chris DiBona, manager for open-source programs at the search company.
"We want to hire a couple of folks to help make OpenOffice better," DiBona said.

While this is good news, I believe that Open office could use a little more support from the more traditional open source supporters, from the educational and volunteer communitity.

The Obama Man Can

2009-05-31T07:13:00.002-05:00

Well Done!

Going Galt

2009-05-26T18:00:00.002-05:00

Maryland increases income taxes on the rich. The rich leave. Maryland collects fewer taxes on the Rich. Students of Reaganomics an Ayne Rand aren't surprised.

Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O'Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were "willing and able to pay their fair share." The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would "grin and bear it."

One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates.

Could this happen on a national level?

Congress Goes After Hostile Bloggers

2009-05-24T06:45:00.006-05:00

They would like to toss into the clink for a couple of years any of us who “coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.” Isn't that the whole idea of those who political blog, or blog on social commentary. Wired expounds:

Proposed congressional legislation would demand up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to “coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.”

Instead of prison, perhaps we should say gulag.

The proposal by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Los Angeles, would never pass First Amendment muster, unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing. So Sanchez, and the 14 other lawmakers who signed on to the proposal, are grandstanding to show the public they care about children and are opposed to cyberbullying.

The meaasure, H.R. 1966, is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act. It’s designed to target the behavior that led to last year’s suicide of the 13-year-old Meier.

Yeah, it was wrong what they did to Megan Mier, but it is traitorous what Linda Sanchez is attempting to do with the first amendment

RKBA and theTexas Legislative session.

2009-05-17T06:59:00.003-05:00

Its not all that clear to me, but it looks like we have made some progress in forwarding gun rights in Texas.

Parking lot bill, will allow us to keep guns locked up in our cars at our workplaces. Hunters should be able to appreciate this also. Won't be able to keep them in schools or Oil and Chemical plants, though maybe in 2011. We can fix this.

Knife laws got clarified. Some courts had mudied the water calling assisted knives switchblades.

Campus carry git kiled. Was pretty devious wasn't allowed to come to vote cause they knew it would pass.

Nothing is certain yet but at least these seem to be likely.

Open Ofice 3.1 Released

2009-05-17T06:52:00.002-05:00

OpenOffice.org 3.1 is released and seems to be rock solid. I am using the Language Tools extentions with it. Pretty kewl Language Tools adds some grammar checking. Its pretty crude, but it can help find errors. I believe it isn't just as good as MS Office but actually better.

What's Up

2009-05-17T06:39:00.002-05:00

Been pretty busy lately. Went to El Paso last week and I like it there. Interesitng at the dry land border.
Haven't done much shooting recently. Ammo is pretty hard to find. Need more Ammo.

House is comming along nicely. We will be moving in a few weeks.

I have a Facebook account under name Liberty Spirit. I use it to keep track of friends and family. Haven't quite figured out what I will do with it in the long run. I will be posting house pictures there.

Anyone use dropbox ? The neatest cloud appliction I've found. If your looking for a way to share or move data around, this is pretty kewl.

Galveston Pelicans Return in Smaller Numbers

2009-04-07T06:50:00.002-05:00

Ike took its toll on on the bird population, so the Brown Pelicans numbers too a bit of a beating The Galveston Daily News has a story about the return of our favorite bird.

The island’s famous brown pelicans returned to nest after Hurricane Ike wreaked havoc on their habitats, but they are arriving in fewer numbers than last year, bird watchers said.

Pelican habitats took a beating during Hurricane Ike. North Deer Island, once home to 40,000 birds of 17 species, lost one-third of its vegetation in the storm. It is still covered in debris, said Winnie Burkett, Houston Audubon Society’s sanctuary manager.

Despite the devastated habitat, pelicans have returned to roost there, with some building nests among the debris, she said.

At last count, there were 800 to 1,000 pelicans nesting on the 144-acre North Deer Island, down from 2,400 last year, she said.

Still, the return of brown pelicans is a hopeful sign to Burkett.

“It makes you feel very good,” she said. “We know the system repairs itself. It’s good to see that it’s doing that. Somehow or another, all those pelicans survived that storm, which I think is truly amazing.”

There’s not much humans can do to entice more pelicans to return, Burkett said. The natural vegetation will return, but it will take time — probably longer than expected due to the ongoing drought, she said.

OpenOffice 3.1 RC1 Torrent

2009-04-05T08:56:00.002-05:00

OpenOffice 3.1 RC1 got dcistributed yesterday, but unfortunatly it can be rather difficult to find. I got a copy of it but am not quite sure of the best way to help distribute it. I have the torrent here I am, not sure just how well this will work. I will post a drop box address later today after its had a chance to sync. I will keep this file active at least until a newer version is released.

Atlas Shrugged goes Hollywood.

2009-04-02T12:56:00.002-05:00

here is talk about bringing Ayne Rand's Atlas Shrugged to the big screen.

After decades in development hell, Ayn Rand’s capitalism-minded “Atlas Shrugged” is taking new steps toward the big screen — with one of the film world’s most prominent money men potentially at its center.
Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media is circling the Baldwin Entertainment project and could come aboard to finance with Lionsgate, which got involved several years ago.
Rand’s popular but polarizing book — it’s derided by many literary critics but has a huge public following — tells the story of Dagny Taggart, a railroad executive trying to keep her corporation competitive in the face of what she perceives as a lack of innovation and individual responsibility.
A number of stars have expressed serious interest in playing the lead role of Taggart. Angelina Jolie previously had been reported as a candidate to play the strong female character, but the list is growing and now includes Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts and Anne Hathaway.

I don't know how well the book would translate to the big screen. It is a thousand page novel. But it will be interesting to see the translation.

UpDate on OOo 3.1 Release

2009-04-01T11:44:00.002-05:00

Open Office 3.1 was scheduled to be released, on March 26th. Its obvious to those of us visiting the Openoffice.org and the mirror sites that this isn't the case. The first Release Candidate RC1 will released should be out on April 4th. I consider Release candidates as somewhat more stable than typical Betas. If all goes well we should see the finnal release of 3.1 on April 15th

Did You Know?

2009-03-31T06:14:00.002-05:00

I found this pretty interesting

Language Police Drop Charges.

2009-03-30T05:55:00.002-05:00

A Texas City woman had disorderly conduct charges dropped last week.

Disorderly conduct charge brought by an assistant fire marshal against a woman who dropped the F-bomb at Wal-Mart has been dropped, the city’s interim manager said Wednesday.

When reached by phone, Kathryn Fridge, 29, of Texas City, said she was elated to hear the news and felt vindicated.

Alfred A. Decker IV, La Marque assistant fire marshal, cited Fridge on Aug. 4 when he overheard her utter the granddaddy of all expletives. Fridge, who was shopping for batteries with her mother and 2-year-old daughter ahead of Tropical Storm Edouard’s landfall, said “They don’t have any f------ more.”

Decker took Fridge to his car, handcuffed her and wrote her a citation. City Prosecutor Jay Brown dropped the charge March 19, said interim City Manager Eric Gage.

“After completion of his investigation to the facts of the case and existing case law, the state contends there is insufficient evidence to proceed and moves to dismiss,” said Gage, reading Brown’s comments on the decision.

This was all about batteries while preparing for a hurricane. The lady did say it front of her children. She's got to be a wonderful mom. But this Decker needs to be fired and get a new job. f- U Decker!

EPA Declares Carbon Dioxide a Health Hazzard

2009-03-24T10:08:00.003-05:00

I got a news update from ISA today declaring that CO2 is a danger to public health. Todays Wall Street Journal reports.

According to an internal document presented by the EPA to White House officials earlier this month, the EPA believes the health effects of elevated greenhouse-gas levels could cause "severe heat waves...with likely increases in mortality and morbidity, especially among the elderly, young and frail." The agency also said climate change caused by higher greenhouse-gas levels could result in more severe storms and more suffering related to "floods, storms, droughts and fires."

I suppose this means mortality and morbidity is worse here in Texas than it is in in Nome Alaska this warm weather is must be killing us. Maybe its just me but it seems that most places in the U.S might be a little nicer if it did warm up a bit. Seems like we hear more about killer blizzards and icing plane crashes than we do aboutn killer heat waves. This is all based on a false premise of global warming anyway, Its pretty clear we are currently on the a climactic cooling trend. It does provide the Obamanation an excuse to grab at more Government control and regulation.

The Environmental Protection Agency's new leadership, in a step toward confronting global warming, submitted a finding that will force the White House to decide whether to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the nearly 40-year-old Clean Air Act.

Under that law, EPA's conclusion -- that such emissions are pollutants that endanger the public's health and welfare -- could trigger a broad regulatory process affecting much of the U.S. economy as well as the nation's future environmental trajectory. The agency's finding, which was sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget without fanfare on Friday, also reversed one of the Bush administration's landmark decisions on climate change, and it indicated anew that President Obama's appointees will push to address the issue of warming despite the potential political costs.

Government Proclaims Ron Paul Supporters Are Terrorist

2009-03-15T11:14:00.002-05:00

Seems as though a state and federal government report claims that anyone riding around with a Ron Paul bumber Sticker is a potential terrorist.

Titled “The Modern Militia Movement,” the report is dated Feb. 20 and designed to help police identify militia members or domestic terrorists. Red flags outlined in the document include political bumper stickers such as those for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, talk of conspiracy theories such as the plan for a mega-highway from Canada to Mexico and possession of subversive literature.

Maybe we need more libertarian type Ron Paul supporters and fewer government studies.

A Drop Box in the Clouds

2009-03-13T20:14:00.003-05:00

Sharing our stuff is sometimes one of he more difficult of the things we do. Email works well for small amounts of stuff, some times the stuff we want to share is simply with ourselves but across several computers. My address book needs to be in common with 2 home computers and 2 work computers. A fileserver, network drive, or even a Plug Computer work well under the same roof. A Drop Box works well whether one wants to publish their files out for public consumption, to share only with computers under ones own control, or to share files only with collaberators. There areother methods for syncing and sharing files but DropBox seems to have got it right. It performs 3 functions of sharing, publishing and syncing files between computers, it does so seamlessly. All that is required is to drop the files in a folder. within the folder There are folders for photos folders, for privacy and folders for sharing. Intuitive and simple. Best of all a 2 gig box is free.

A Thank You to Kemah Volunteer Fire Dapt.

2009-02-28T22:05:00.003-06:00

After Ike I lost track of a few of my SBC/yahoo email accounts I restored one today and found this email sent to me a couple days ago.

just want to say a good word about your Kemah Volunteer Department.

On Tuesday, February 10, 2009, my husband, Jim Holmes, an insulin dependent diabetic for almost 20 years, overdosed on his insulin. I realized the symptoms and called 911. Literally, within 3 minutes, a fire truck, ambulance, EMT vehicle, a police car and a constable car were at our door. We are 64 year old full-time RV'ers at site 182 in Marina Bay RV Resort. There were at least 15 folks here to help us so fast I barely could believe it. Once the situation was assessed...less than 2 more minutes, these wonderful folks began wishing us well and leaving one at a time. The last two remaining were the EMT folks....Steve and Rene (sp?)...two of the most knowledgeable and caring folks I have had the pleasure to meet in my 47 years of medical experience. The started the IV, pushed the glucose, pushed the IV, and the oral glucose as expertly as I have ever seen. They treated us with the utmost respect.

While I hope I never have to see them again on this kind of matter, I sincerely want to thank them for the sacrifices they make to stay at the forefront of technology and timeliness.

Please include a copy of this in their respective personnel files and inform their immediate supervisors.

Thank you.

Jim and Marty

Yeah, those guys do work. If anyone from Kemah would like some more identifying information please drop me a line,

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

2009-02-27T19:50:00.003-06:00

I have nothing more to add.

OOo Gaining Ground

2009-02-19T15:03:00.003-06:00

OpenOffice.org seems to have a new ally in President Obama and his administration. Internationally OpenOffice has found support with many governments. Being multi platformed OpenSource has the capability of out lasting the computers the documents were created on. The company I work for installed 3.0 on the laptops used at every bench. OpenOffice.org is used to fil in test logs, reports and any other administrative tasks. Not just because it was cheaper, but its ease of use, and portability with Sun, Linux and Mac systems.

I wonder though if the US government becoming a major user would be a good thing. It could be as meaningful as the governments adoption of Ada. Would the government contribute to development of OOo or would it just suck all it can out of it. If Obama believes its a good idea then maybe there is something wrong with it. The recession will ultimately be good for the growth of OpenOffice.org, while Microsoft suffers slow growth and decreasing demand.

Comming Soon OpenOffice.org 3.1

2009-02-19T05:36:00.003-06:00

It's a semi-annual event. but our favorite software suite will be due March 26. Actually there was a minor release in January that handled some bugs and enabled the grammar detection. While I've dowloaded and installed it on my machines at work I really haven't put the grammar correction through its paces. List of goodies promised for OpenOffice.org 3.1 is listed on OpenOffice.org Ninja.

It looks like Based ,the database program gets some attention. They Macros will be enabled, and Base now can use relational directories. This will improve portability of databases even across different OS platforms. Base has a lot of potential for data base users, and these features will be an important step in achieving more generalized acceptance.
writer.

There are some nice additions to Writer. Notes will become more conversational. This will be helpful in cooperative projects.One will basically be able to reply to another users notes. Notes the way it is implimented is very useful now, but this extends the usefullness even more.

Anti-aliasing is implimented for smoother graphics.

Calc is getting some more charting options and antialiasing improvements.
Unfortuanatly they haven't schedualed engineering notation for this release even though it is schedualed to be implimented sometime in the 3.x lifecycle.
Update: 1 April
Still not out yet maybe on April 15th

Getting Revenge.

2009-02-14T07:54:00.008-06:00

It all started on innocently enough. Galveston's finest attempted to crack down on prostitution in the area on August 22,2006.

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me."

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.

They attempted to arrest a 12 year old black girl based on complaints on 3 white prostitutes. Beat her up pretty good, and claimed that she assaulted three police officers While she was hugging a bush to keep from getting hauled away. Radly Balko ponders.

So you'd think that after the police figured out they had the wrong house, they'd apologize, and possibly even compensate the girl and her family. According to the lawsuit, you'd be wrong:

This is Galveston and they need revenge, and to teach this girl and her family a lesson. She made them look silly, and needs to be shown her place.

After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.

Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond's school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant. Griffin says the allegations stem from when Dymond fought back against the three men who were trying to take her from her home. The case went to trial, but the judge declared it a mistrial on the first day, says Griffin. The new trial is set for February.

One may wonder why it was tossed out as a mistrial in October (the first time)

Roark told the court, "Well, the girl -- after I said, 'That's it, you're going to jail, no problems, no questions asked,' -- she kept striking and flailing about and then she yells out, 'Daddy, help me.' I'm like, Oh, Lord, Daddy? Why is she yelling Daddy? And then I hear footsteps, thump, thump, thump in the house. And I'm like, Oh man, that's Mr. Milburn. I know he doesn't like me because I told him before not to be selling dope out of his house and this must be his daughter."

Suddenly, Griffin cut Roark off in court and asked for the mistrial. The transcript pretty much ends there.

"[Roark] tired to taint the well by making negative reference to the dad," Griffin tells Hair Balls. "The dad did not know him from Adam. He just made it up. He never had any involvement with him."

This Roark guy was so enthusiastic about getting this little girl that he poisoned the whole trial. The trial that shouldn't have happened in the first place. Kurt Sistrunk Galveston's DA decides to go for it again. Apparently Mr. Sustrunk beieves that this 12 year old girl assaulted the police while she was hanging on to a tree for dear life. There were no weapons, so why is Kurt Sustrunk so persistant, and going after this family with assault charges. Could it be the civil rights suit filed by Dymond's family? Hard to say what came first the chicken or the egg. But it looks like the family filed suit to help pay for what has to be huge legal bills. Sustrik looks like he is trying to protect some cops and a department who made some poor decision. Unfortunatly the DAs poor decision doesn't undo the police's poor decision. So the DA office pushes forward, trying to defend a dumb move by the police to seek revenge on a 12 year old. The case last week also ended in a mistrial this time with a split jury.

GALVESTON — A deadlocked jury failed to reach a verdict Monday in the case of a girl accused of assaulting a police officer after officers allegedly mistook her for a prostitute.

After eight hours of deliberation, a jury of three men and three women told Judge Roy Quintanilla they were hopelessly deadlocked in the case charging Dymond L. Milburn, now 15, in the Aug. 22, 2006, assault of Galveston police officer David Roark.

Quintanilla declared a mistrial in the case, and Galveston County Criminal District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk said that, based on discussions with jurors after trial, the state won’t prosecute the case again.

The issue of Milburn’s ordeal the night her mother sent her outside to flip a breaker box switch was as simple as black-and-white, her defense lawyer Anthony Griffin said.

A 6 person jury was deadlocked by 1 person, and the prosecutors have decided not to pursue it any further. All this leaves some questions unanswered. One thing is certain actions have consequences.

Sistrunk will be held accountable to voters for letting it go this far, he may besked if his loyalty lies with the citizens he is expected to serve, or with attempting to protect the police from liabilty by contininuing to press charges with this one.

Black citizens might find themselves just a little less supportive of their police department. Does any believe that a 12 year old white girl would have been treated this way? All of us Galvestonians might wonder why the police are picking on 12 year olds, when we all know where the prostitutes and drug dealers continue to hang out. Where are their prioritys? The city of Galveston is facing huge challenges in the aftermath of Ike, and decreasing property values, Now they are facing a big liability issue in a Federal Civil rights case. Who is going to pay for it? It could be another year before this goes to court, but it should have never gone this far.

How Does This Happen?

2009-02-09T05:50:00.002-06:00

Texas and other states with relatively low taxes seem to be holding our own during the current resession. Victor Davis Hanson asks why California with the highest taxes in the land is in such trouble.

How does one explain how California is broke, tens of billions of dollars in aggregate debt, despite having among the highest sales and income taxes in the nation?

We are naturally rich beyond belief—timber, oil, agriculture, a long sea-coast, wonderful weather, mountains, sea, and valleys—and inherited lucrative industries in tourism, computers and software, defense and great universities. Our grandparents left us a once wonderful freeway network, a tripartite higher education system, ports, airports, dams and canals.

So what went wrong, and why are tens of thousands of Californians leaving the state with bachelor degrees and above, while tens of thousands enter without high-school diplomas?

Less is More

2009-02-01T18:42:00.005-06:00

There seems to be a trend going on, folks are looking out close at their computing costs. We all understand that high speed and huge screens have their place in modern laptops. But do we all really need it. What are our real computing requirements? For most of us its surfing the web, running an email client and typing a document or maybe running a spreadsheet. We just don't need a $2000.00 machine running a Microsoft's latest excuse for an operating system, at a couple hundred dollars a machine. There is a great convergence, of economic recession, user sophistication on recognizing their needs. Newer cooler processors such as the atom, and the maturity of Linux in such distrobutions such as Ubunto, and the realization that programs such as Thunderbird and Openoffice.org really do work as claimed.

Microsoft presented us with Vista an OS that that was writen to protect content providers rather than give the consumer something that was actually better than what they were used. The icing on the cake was when users discovered that so many of their old programs refused to run any more. Many users decided to continue using the less power hungry XP or bail out of the Microsoft borg and check out Linux systems. Ubunto provided a plethora of commonly needed apps, all in an easy to install CD and its all free.

The demand for large screens and higher speeds in portable laptops has taken away their portablility they have goten heavier and hotter. The traveller started finding them unwieldy and heavy. Today netbooks can provide what most folks really need. Net access and the abilty to run office software. Most net books run either XP or some flavor of Linux. and can be bought for under $400.oo This blog entry is being typed one an Acer Aspire One . It has a 9 inch screen 1 gig of RAM, 120 gig hard drive, and runs at 1.8 GHz . It is no power house, but it is suitable foor the job.

A New York Times article describes the market as such:

Meanwhile, more experimental but lower-cost technologies like netbooks, Internet-based software services (called cloud computing) and virtualization, which lets companies run more software on each physical server, are on the rise.
Penny-pinching shoppers like Mr. Title could have the most immediate effect on the tech industry, particularly if more people consider canceling their cable subscriptions to watch video online, or drop their landline telephones to depend on their cellphones or on Internet calling services like Skype.
Many consumers appear ready to abandon the costly desktop computer altogether. Analysts expect PC sales to fall in 2009 for just the second time in the last two decades, with desktops falling even faster than they did in 2007 or 2008.
The only bright spot in the PC industry is netbooks. Analysts at the Gartner research company said shipments rose to 4.4 million devices in the third quarter of 2008, from 500,000 units in the first quarter of last year. Analysts say sales could double this year despite a deep worldwide recession.

One of the criticisms of the little netbooks is that they don't have a lot of peripherals. My little machine does have a camera, 1 extended SDHC port, one multi card port (Mem stick SD XD, Flash ) but there is no CD DVD reader writer. At first the limitation might sem overwelming, but reality is that all the apps one really needs can be downloaded off the net. Music and movies ripped off the DVDs and store it on either SD drives or flash drives I find coppying to 8 gig SD media or or to flash drives is easier and faster and best of all reusable. They even fit into a pocket or on a keychain. Yeah I still use my desktop, and I will buy them again, I will be looking closely atLinux and will be looking closer at price than performance

Grand Torino

2009-01-25T12:41:00.002-06:00

I got to see it last week, Clint at 78 years young is still the toughest man in Hollywood. Gre movie about being a man raised and lived from a time not so long ago.