A Musical Interlude

Here's a little something to take your minds off of the election day sadness. Music from a time when they actually made really good videos to go along with it.

No More Microsoft

   As we all know, actions have consequences. That's especially true where politics and principles are concerned. If someone espouses a particularly odious political position there are numerous avenues that people may take that will result in consequences for that person. That's the case with me. The Gates family, Bill's Senior and Junior are using their wealth in an attempt to impose taxes on small business people and the other productive individuals in Washington state. They'd like to see special, class specific taxes levied on people whom they consider "wealthy". They're in favour of this, despite the fact that it will be bad for the economy of Washington, (just as taxes have had an impact on states like Indiana and others who were late to the state tax game) and bad for the people in general.
   Well, not being a resident of Washington, there's little I can do to impact the voting that will take place on Initiative 1098. But there is something I can do as a consumer. I can refuse to do business with the proponents of this scheme and withdraw some meagre amount of capital from their pockets. No more Microsoft products for me, not that I use many of them to begin with. This blog is proudly Made on a Mac. If, for some reason, I need a system in the future that requires another OS, it won't be a MS product. I'll stick with my Mac or find a Linux system. The Gates are more than showing their true natures as progressives. I can't be a party to their attempts to impose taxation on the very people who run the machinery that drives our economy. These two men are more than willing to see that machinery falter, I am not.

Five Years On

Today marks the 5th anniversary of hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast. My family and I, as is our wont, took our summer vacation and made a return to the Coast this year. It had been 5 years since our last sojourn there, shortly before Katrina hit. Despite the presence of an oil spill we decided that it was time to make our way back and see what had been happening down there. The answer...not a lot.
The reminders of Katrina were still there, etched on the landscape like a wound that just refuses to heal. Where there were once houses and business there are still empty lots and bare slabs, scoured clean by the fury of the hurricane.
Some businesses have rebuilt, but far too few. There are areas where old and new homes mingle, fronting the beach (primarily between Gulfport and Biloxi), but there are far fewer now than there were prior to the storm. There are far too many empty and overgrown lots. The folks who once lived there have moved on, either farther north and away from the beach or out of the county or state entirely. A new diaspora has occurred and it has left its mark on the area where I once lived. It's painfully obvious that the coast was forgotten in the aftermath of the storm and that what attention was paid to the area was given to New Orleans, which did not suffer as much as points east. We even heard the same from a New Orleanian when we were there.
I must say, tho that I was pleased to see one thing. Where once stately live oaks grew and lined the highway along the coast there now exist wooden statues, carved from the remains of the shattered trees. Instead of digging them up and consigning them to the fire pits they have been lovingly carved into coast centric forms. Reborn as a symbol of hope along a still devastated coast.
I must also say that I was much relieved to see that the Deep Horizon oil spill had not taken a toll on the beaches. The vagaries of wind, tide, current and barrier islands had manage to keep most of the oil away from the beaches of Gulfport. There were some signs of the spill, tho. Cleanup crews festooned the beaches, removing even the smallest of tar balls. We even got to speak with two of them and they were informative, even going so far as to show us what the small tar balls looked like. This is not to say that there was no oil there. There certainly is some buried under the sand of the beaches at the water line. And there's a mix of scum, oil and dispersant that washes up. Rather nasty looking stuff. This latest disaster was something the coast didn't need or deserve.
It's just rather sad that, five years on, the signs of recovery are so few. Coastians are a hardy breed, tho. They have to be in that heat and with the constant threat of destruction via storm looming over them on a yearly basis. There is no doubt in my mind, tho that the people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast have been forgotten. New Orleans is what comes to the minds of most people when you remember Katrina. Not the places that were actually hit with the full force of the storm. New Orleans today looks much like it did prior to Katrina. Oh, there are still signs of destruction there, but they're nothing like the scale of what one sees on the Gulf Coast. New Orleans was a city in decline before the storm and abandoned buildings existed all up and down Canal Street. Those buildings are still there and still abandoned. Signs, not of the storms fury, but of the inevitable decay that's been plaguing New Orleans for decades.
Here's hoping that the Coast is remembered and that the next five years are better than the previous. To see this wounded landscape remaining the same a decade after Katrina would be too much.

DOMA On The Defensive

A US District Judge has ruled against section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, ruling that it violates the Constitution in numerous areas. This is quite a victory for equal rights in this country and is a significant step towards getting Bob Barr's monstrosity repealed. No doubt the Obama regime will appeal the judges decision, but the stage is set for this abomination to finally be struck down.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro, appointed to the federal bench in 1972, ruled this afternoon in Gill v. Office of Personnel Management that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act violates the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A companion decision in Massachusetts v. U.S. Dep't of Health and Human Services also was issued, with Tauro finding that DOMA also violates the Tenth Amendment and the Spending Clause of the Constitution.

The Gill ruling: 2010-07-08-gill-district-court-decision.pdf

The Massachusetts ruling: 2010-07-08-massachusetts-district-court-decision.pdf

More on this story at the source.