June 2, 2003 at 9:54 pm | blabbing.

Well looks like it was a quick sale to get rid of some of my items, but I think it will take a little longer for others.

It’s June

at 12:10 am | blabbing.

Another nice weekend around SF. A little bit of Bar-B-Quein a little bit of picture taking and signing up for darkroom time at the SF Photo center. That’s right kids, I’m back on the B&W photography kick. Dipped my foot in digital photo stuff for a little bit and didn’t dig the prints. The photos may be a little more free and fun but when it comes time to look at them, you can only look at them on the computer or else they look like arse.

I am also selling some old stuff that I have around the house to pay for other stuff that I would like to get.

Selling:
1970 Marshall Cabinet
1978 Gibson J-40 Acoustic[SOLD]
SansAmp psa-1 rack mount pre-amp[SOLD]

Want to buy:
28-70 zoom for Contax camer
Voigtlander Bessa-R rangefinder camera
Film and paper

Seems like an even list.

Democrats: Profiles in spinelessness

at 12:10 am | blabbing.

This Salon article by Arianna Huffington is what most democrats have been wanting to say to the democratic leadership for years. I have even started crafting an open letter to the democratic leadership but every time I get mired down in expletives and long winded speeches. Please someone step up to the democratic plate and get us our party back from these half-assed losers. IT’S THE FUTURE STUPID!

Here’s an itemized list

May 29, 2003 at 8:44 pm | blabbing.

Here’s an itemized list of things the tax cut might have paid for. They are diverse, pressing, some would say essential — not just to low-income Americans, but to many citizens who, having had a choice, might have directed their billions elsewhere. Taken from Salon Article by Mark Follman

Tax-cut total: $330 billion

Amount needed to provide health insurance for all 9.2 million currently uninsured children for one year: $13 billion

Amount needed to provide health insurance for all 41.2 million uninsured Americans, including children, for one year: $98 billion

Amount needed to close state budget gaps across the country: $78 billion

Amount needed to hire an additional 100,000 teachers to reduce class size, provide grants to repair 6,000 schools and assist with new-school construction, and provide additional math and reading help for over 9 million eligible low-income students: $300 billion

Amount needed to end homelessness for chronically homeless people within 10 years: $1.3 billion per year to create and sustain 150,000 units of permanent supportive housing

Amount needed by the Environmental Protection Agency to complete cleanups at high-priority toxic waste sites through the Superfund program: $92 million

Cost of Head Start for all 1.8 million children, up to 5 years old, who currently need but don’t receive it: $25 billion

Cost of continuing to provide grants to potentially jeopardized regional poison control centers and maintain a toll-free poison information phone number between 2005 and 2009: $142 million

Cost of USDA testing of 12,500 cattle samples for mad cow disease, in addition to homeland security measures such as physical security upgrades at lab facilities and background investigation of workers: $21.7 million

Budgeted cost of continuing to enable states to meet energy emergencies due to extremes in temperature, either during severe cold weather in the winter or sustained heat waves in the summer: $1.7 billion

Cost of measures to improve food safety in 2003, including hiring additional FDA inspectors, and developing new ways for federal inspectors to detect food-borne illnesses in meat and poultry and determine the source of contamination: $101 million

Estimated homeland security costs for full support of state and local emergency personnel in their efforts to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism for three years: $12 billion

Cost of providing housing assistance nationwide for victims of domestic violence from 2004 through 2008: $100 million

Cost of hiring 100 new public-school teachers: $3.125 million

Cost of hiring 100 state child-care workers: $2.08 million

Cost of fully immunizing 100 children against preventable diseases: $64,433

Price of 250,000 new fire trucks: $56.2 billion

Identified funding needs for community-based services in the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS in 2002: $2 billion

Identified funding needs for HIV prevention and surveillance prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: $1 billion

Identified funding needs for HIV/AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health: $2.9 billion

Estimated cost of funding Older Americans Act programs for seniors — such as transportation, delivered meals and elder abuse prevention — for 10 years: $39 billion

Cost of providing needed assistive technology and durable medical equipment for 1 million individuals with disabilities for 10 years: $39 billion

Cost of compensating federal employees called to active duty in the uniformed services or National Guard for the difference between their civilian and military pay: $89 million over the 2004-2008 period

Yearly cost of direct treatment for mental illness in both the private and public sectors in the U.S.: $92 billion

Estimated cost of spending for countermeasures against smallpox, anthrax, botulinum toxin, plague and Ebola under Project BioShield: $5.6 billion between 2004 and 2013

Cost of 60 million doses of an improved smallpox vaccine: $900 million

Annual cost of providing services to foster children, including educational assistance, job placement, health services and room and board: $200 million

Amount needed to establish a National Housing Trust to provide communities with funds to build, rehabilitate and preserve 1.5 million units of affordable housing over the next 10 years: $5 billion

Cost, per recipient, of Job Corps, an education and training program benefiting disadvantaged youth and young adults: $17,000

Federal funding requested in 2004 to maintain the National Domestic Violence Hotline: $3 million

Federal funding requested in 2004 for the national Abandoned Infants Assistance program: $45 million

Cost of assisting states in covering the excess costs of providing special education services to children with disabilities: $8.9 billion

Annual cost of providing funding to public libraries through state formula grants so that libraries can promote wider access to learning and information: $1.6 billion between 2004 and 2009

Cost of providing grants for treatment, counseling and referral for runaway and homeless youth subjected to sexual abuse in 2003: $15 million

Annual cost of funding the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: $20 million

Disposable Cell Phones

May 20, 2003 at 11:34 pm | blabbing.

I have a cell phone that I pay $40 a month for and I rarely use. I still want to have one for the conveinence and so people can get in touch with me but I don’t want to pay every month just to walk around with it for 30 days.

I think this is a great idea. It will bring us just a little closer the the light years Europe and Japan are in cell phone technologies. Someone should tell these folks that their website is really bad though, what is the idea behind using a kangaroo to sell cell phones? I get the obvious hop-on, as in it’s simple to just get a cell phone and start making calls but I don’t think that is going to help them market them as cool and sexy like the other cell phone makers do.

The view from the left

May 19, 2003 at 8:02 pm | blabbing.

The view from the left – In response to right wing yapping about democrats.
In Order to be a real right wing conservative you have to believe:

1. Aids is spread by gods fury against the wicked and we should let them die. Unless we can make a buck by keeping them alive longer.

2. Promoting religion in schools is good and verbatim regurgitation is the only way to measure learning.

3. There are no global temperature changes. All the scientist are filthy lying liberal, Star Trek, hippies.

4. God says that we should kill, God says that we should not kill, but either way we know exactly what god wants and you don’t.

5. Businesses are benevolent institutions for the betterment of mankind they are not there for the profits.(Like Standard oil and Carnegie steel, Philip Morris and Enron ) and big governments are dishonest mean spirited and create oppressive laws. (Like abolitionism, desegregation, The New Deal and the Clean Air Act)

6. Pot smoking, organic vegetable growing, sweatshop free shoe wearing hippies don’t care about the environment but designer suited Conagra and Tyson foods executives do.

7. We should implement all our foreign policy decisions to appease our military and corporate funders. To protect our bank accounts from their looting.

8. Our education and infrastructure budgets are too high, but our funding for religious programs are too low.

9. Science books that teach evolution should be banned, but saying of the lords prayer in homeroom should not be.

10. Millions of illegal aliens are bad for our economy, but my Guatemalan housekeeper is the best at getting out those nasty stains.

Spent a little time

at 6:35 pm | blabbing.

Spent a little time this afternnon working on the built-in kitchen cabinet that I have been trying to refinish. Now it might seem like kind of a crazy idea to be refinishing a kitchen cabinet for an apartment that you are renting, but I think that if you are living in an apartment for any length of time it is up to you to make the place look how you want it to.

I could have just slopped another coat of paint on it and done just what the last 20 people did (I’m not kidding, there is really 20 coats of paint on this thing) but I chose to go the truely crazy route and take all the paint off it before I start the semi insane task of standing it and putting more paint back on it. I hope to have it done by the end of the summer if I go at the pace I am going now.

A nice day spent

May 10, 2003 at 7:43 pm | blabbing.

A nice day spent at the zoo. Now it’s time for some home time with a little fajita dinner.

Got my Holga pictures back… What a waste of film. I need to figure something out so that the film stays tight and the film doesn’t advance unless you want it to. Out of 16 pictures, I got 5 with huge spaces in between.

I would like to take more digital pictures but the problem that I have is that they are only good for lookin at online. Once you try to print them they look like crap. The colors are all wrong and they are fuzzy. I think I will go back to 35mm.

My yearly Radio subscription

May 7, 2003 at 7:28 pm | blabbing.

My yearly Radio subscription has run out and there seems to be some strange feature and and bugginess going on… Hmmm…….