On The Meme

I have been passed the circulating meme, 15 questions on blogging. I really hate these things. But since Sam and Jim have both passed it to me, and they are polar opposites, I guess I can answer the questions.

1: Do you like the look and the contents of your blog?
I like the look and the content. I have been debating about switching to another blog software like Wordpress to give me more options like tagging.

2: Does your family know about your blog?
Yes, my wife is always the first to read or hear my articles. She's straight up with me, as cold as it is sometimes.

3: Can you tell your friends about your blog? Do you consider it a private thing?
Yes, I tell everyone I know. Blogs are an important communications tool that I feel everyone should at least try or read. This is far from private. This is the World Wide Web.

4: Do you just read the blogs of those who comment on your blog? Or do you try to discover new blogs?
I read the blogs in my RSS feed, the ones I rely on for local and national news. I am always looking for more blogs to latch on to.

5: Did your blog positively affect your mind? Give an example.
This is where I bitch among other things. It is my creative release since I don't play music anymore. Yes, it effects my mind.

6: What does the number of visitors to your blog mean? Do you use a traffic counter?
I use sitemeter, a free blog counter. The number of visitors doesn't mean much to me. I do like to see who is linking to me and why.

7: Did you imagine how other bloggers look like?
No. It's their minds that matter.

8: Do you think blogging has any real benefit?
It is the real voice of the people. Mass Media is so diluted and careful how they say things, because they have advertisers that pay their salaries. Bloggers have advertisers, but for me I could care less if I have income from my blog. It is an outlet, and it is an unedited world of news and opinion. It has many benefits in politics. It has allowed me to connect with politicos and now serve as President of the Guilford County Young Dems and 3rd Vice Chair of the Democratic Party in Guilford County. My entire small business was festered for my blog. I could write this answer for ever.

9: Do you think that the Blogisphere is a stand alone community separated from the real world?
No. It's funny how all the major media outlets are using phrases like, "Let's go to the blogs", to report on stories. Ask Dan Rather if he feels we are separated.

10: Do some political blogs scare you? Do you avoid them?
Yeah. The ones on the far right, but the far right scares me in all aspects of their being. They're a bunch of wingnuts, who are a straight jacket away from crazy.

11. Do you think that criticizing your blog is useful?
Yes. I am far from perfect or good for that matter. I always like advise from my peers in the blogisphere.

12: Have you ever thought about what would happen to your blog in case you died?

It would let everyone know who I was and what was important to me. It would sort of serve as my memoirs, without all the events of my life, but ones I felt were important enough and not so private to share.

13: Which blogger had the greatest impression on you?
Ed Cone and David Hoggard. Ed is like a mentor, someone I can go to for advise. He cover a lot of stuff I like to read. David is a great guys for local politics and for putting it all into perspective. Mathew Gross, this guy changed the game in politics. I like Sean Coon a bunch as well.

14: Which blogger you think is the most similar to you?
Sean Coon. We are, in ways, cut from the same mold. And, both Yankees fans.

15: Name a song you want to listen to.
Rage Against the Machine- Take the Power Back

I am not going to pass this on. Sorry, but it's meme hunting season.

Vernon Fails To Obey Campaign Laws Again

WRAL scoops me on this one, good work.

For a guy who wants to create laws, maybe he should try following them first. Ya know, to get the feel of how these things work.

The Hardest Thing I Have Ever Had To Write

Thank you Brian Clarey, for letting me share my feelings on the pages of Yes Weekly. I can not express how much this means to me.

This is the hardest thing I have ever had to write. Bo was my boy, and I feel honored to share what he meant to me and what he meant to so many of us.

The piece took 2 hours to get out, and I knew what I wanted to say right from the start. It is hard to type through the tears.

Current mood: Crushed

I've Been Elected...Again

Tonight, I ran for 3rd Vice Chair of the Guilford County Democratic Party. I had one very good opponent.

Amid all the bad news about my friend this weekend, I called party members who were eligible to vote and introduced myself and answered questions, all weekend. It turns out my strategy was effective and needed.

There was a careful recount, it was close. How close? One vote separated myself and my opponent. Talk about breaking a sweat.

I had won by a single vote. I now serve as the President of the Young Democrats of Guilford County and 3rd Vice Chair of the Party.

My opponent was Malcolm Kenton, President of the College Dems at Guilford College. He is a great guy, intelligent, well rounded and a die hard Democrat. I will be working closely with Malcolm in the near future. He is part of our parties future for sure. Good race Malcolm. If I would have lost by one vote, it would have been to a worthy opponent.

I'll Miss You My Friend

Friend, Co-worker, Ex-Bandmate. I'll miss you brother.

That's all I can write for now.

My Own Little 9/11 Hell

Yesterday night, as on many nights, I found myself winding down with a little XBOX 360. I was playing Madden 07 when there was this horrible audio glitch and then the screen froze with vertical lines across the madden game background. I rebooted my system twice and two more times, after a little Madden, vertical lines and a screen freeze. I put in my favorite racing game Project Gotham 3 and played for a bit. All the sudden mid race, vertical lines and a screen freeze.

I called Microsoft's XBOX customer support this morning, and it was the most surreal customer service call ever. We tried different configurations of my hardware and then he had me remove the external 20 gig hard drive. He said, "Would you pop in Madden and play a little while we chat and see if the problem occurs again?" I did. And the problem occurred again as well. I did tell the CSR that this was the coolest and most surreal CS call ever. I also asked if he handled utilities and cell phones. No one has ever asked me to play video games on a CS call ever.

The result of my problem is that my unit is under warranty. They are sending me prepaid shipping boxes and I will send them my unit. They will fix it within 2 days of receiving it and ship it back. Total time about 2 week. My warranty runs out in October. He let me know that I can purchase an extended warranty for $29 for a year or $49 for two years. To have my $400 unit protected I think I will. I would recommend that all who have a unit get the extended warranty. It was explained like this, you protect your $400 investment, but more importantly you have purchased games at $60 a piece, they are worthless without the console. I have purchased a lot of games at $60 a piece and I would hate to see them sit and collect dust.

Not having my console for two weeks puts smile on the wife's face, but to me it's like quitting my two pack a day cigarette smoking cold turkey. So, if I bite your head off, or snap like a rabid dog, I apologize in advance. If you have a console and would like to help me with my jones, feel free to contact me, I'll bring the beers.

Another Violent Day In Iraq

The usual stuff here.

All the violence is not what stood out about this article, it was this third paragraph from the bottom:

Disagreements continued over the handover of Iraq's armed forces command from the U.S.-led coalition to the Iraqi government, and the Defense Ministry said a ceremony to mark the transition had been postponed indefinitely. (From the AP, via Yahoo)

The longer we wait to bring our boys and girls home, more will get added to the 2653 dead count. Once again, were is Osama Bin Laden in Iraq? Oh yeah, he's not.

The above paragraph tells me it's an occupation. Pretty clearly, I might add.

For The Redneck In You, It's a Hemi

240 Hot Dogs in 3 Minutes. This has got Kobayashi written all over it. Full story here.

Crikey!!! Irwin Killed By Stingray

RIP Croc Hunter. Steve Irwin dead at 44, he was killed by a stingray. We all enjoyed your adventures. Story here.

Darth Vernon and a Young Padiwan

I am as bummed as the rest of you about the FEC dismissal of Vernon Robinson's campaign no-good-niks. I do however have hope.

In my first episode, I was a confident young padiwan taking on an evil force in Darth Vernon. I cast my lightsaber upon the FEC regulations and hope was there for the Republic Commandos.

In my latest episode the forces of evil and corruption have made an advance and a young jedi is struggling with understanding why. Why FEC regulations seem to be no more then worthless ink on once tall trees, and nothing more. Why the Republican corruption machine gets a pass, unless it is something the FEC can not crush with their discretion.

Now, the young jedi has laid the ground work for episode three (in the original trilogy) and we all hope that history repeats itself. The only difference is that Darth Vernon is not the young padiwans father, and this is not a sc-fi piece, this is real life and if Vernon was to somehow win the election, which I see as highly unlikely, we would all have to deal with his dark side, vile spew for a couple of years. We can not just eject the DVD and put in something else, unaffected.

At the right, you can give generously any amount, up to $2100, to Brad Miller for Congress. Please give all you can, he needs to defeat Vernon Robinson, or we are all in for a wild and very bad ride.

I also have buttons for John Tester (MT) who needs to win over another dirty Republican in the Montana race for Senate against uber-bigot Conrad Burns. Burns received and accepted $150,000 from Abramoff, more then anyone else in Congress.

Ned Lamont (CT), we all know this one. Lieberman is a republican in disguise. He is being endorse by Republican's over their own candidate in CT. That should speak volumes to how embedded Joe is with the Bush folks.

The Star Wars references were a joke, the race for the 13th House District in NC is not. Pledge your support to the candidate who does know the people of his district, Brad Miller. In turn let's send Vernon to his political grave, where he belongs.

Vernon, The FEC and Me Part 2

As you all know I have filed several FEC complaints against Robinson For Congress for excessive campaign contributions. Well, it seems the FEC doesn't care and has dismissed the case. I will point out in the documents below, that will chronicle the rest of the experience, the fact that the FEC lists that Robinson had 10 contributors that were over the limit, and that the dates involved clearly show that Robinson for Congress did not amend their errors in the allotted time frame as per FEC guidelines(60 days from receipt of contribution), that there was no response from the Robinson folks, and in the General Counsels Disposition that the Enforcement Docket appears to be full(guess it's more then Vernon, more on this later hopefully). So they are going to let him slide, but I am not(more to come on this too).

Just to give you an idea of who contributes to a man like Vernon Robinson, Frank Liddell, JR.($2100 to Vernon) is a Houston law firm partner who has been involved in the Tom Delay scandal, Harriet Miers, and much more that you will recognize from this article. Do we really want the same Republican shenanigans by voting for the very bunch of nuts picked from the corrupt Republican rubber stamp tree?

Here's the documents:

Notice the "No response" on the last document. Funny how you can break campaign finance law, ignore the FEC and get away with it.

As I said, the fight is not over. On Vernon's July report, he has multiple donors to his primary after the primary. This is only illegal if you are in debt due to the primary, but I doubt that Vernon spent $300,000 in the days from the April filing until the May 2nd primary. There are also excessive donations again. I have been issued another MUR# and this is again an open matter under review. See the documents below.

I had the option to take the first two complaints to judicial review. What that would involve is going to US District Court in Washington, DC and suing the FEC for not doing their job. After conferring with numerous experts on the matter, it is almost a sure loss anytime you sue the FEC. The cost of filing in District Court, plus the cost of legal expenses, and the time spent away from my family and my business would be too great for more grim results. We will see what happens with the third complaint. The FEC hasn't left me too confident that they'll do anything about this, but hope is still there that some current government agency can do their jobs. Some regional papers have shown interest in running the story on Vernon's reports and the FEC, the News and Record is not one of these papers. I like JR, but he did introduce Vernon at the Rotary Club, which may have revealed his true conservative colors. We'll see when the N&R does it's endorsements.