Eminent Domain is just plain wrong

I've never been in a situation where I thought something was blatantly unamerican. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever even written or spoken the word unamerican... until I heard the ruling that the Supreme Court handed down regarding eminent domain.

If you're new to this subject, eminent domain is a concept that allows the government to seize privately owned land with fair compensation to the owner, regardless of the willingness of the owner to sell. This means that if a city wants to build a street, a court house, or a school where a private citizen has their home or business, 0they can do this through eminent domain. They would be required to show that the public project would be for the public good, and would be required to compensate the property owner.

The latest news on this subject came this past Friday when the Supreme Court ruled that eminent domain can be used to seize land for private economic development. This means that the government can take your land from you to hand over to Wal-mart or Target without having to prove that your neighborhood is "blighted". Blighted, of course, being a term that used to mean "anything that mars or prevents growth or prosperity" now means "what wal-mart lawyers call your house before they come with city officials to take it from you".

So, now you're up to speed. I'll allow you a minute to let that soak in... Ok, great. Remember, you live in America. This is the country that was imagined early on as a country that protects Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (though those words never showed up in the constitution... unfortunately).

I look at the recent ruling by the Supreme Court and can't help but think that something here has gone wrong. I realize that the Supreme Court looks to the Constitution for interpretation when situations get complicated. They try (their best, I assume) to come to a decision that they believe is in line with the law and what was set up in our constitution. Something still doesn't seem right though.

When did the government stop being a function of the people and turn into a body that rules the people. Maybe I misunderstood this whole government thing from the get go... and that's entirely possible. My assumption was that the government was here to represent the people's interest and ensure our safety and well being.

Increasingly, I see decisions and legislation that don't have the people's interest at heart. It all begins (in my opinion) with corporate interests being able to control/influence legislation. Wal-mart passes a few bucks to Senator X's campaign fund, and he writes a bill that has a few perks for them. The RIAA and MPAA are experiencing a decline in sales... more money is passed around, back-room deals are made and finally the consumer ends up with a bunch of ridiculous anti-piracy, Intellectual property laws.

The latest eminent domain ruling is just another example of this, in my opinion. I'm not trying to say that the money influenced the Supreme Court in any way. What I'm trying to convey here is the trend in recent years of legislation and judicial decisions to favor corporations and other private, wealthy entities.

To close this rant out, I guess I'd suggest writing your congressman or representative. Tell them how disgusted you are about this trend, or more specifically tell them how apalled you are about the recent Eminent Domain ruling. Just do something...

Randy Moss shows his immaturity again

Don't get me wrong, the man has talent. I admire that. However, how can someone so talented think that he's setting a good example by leaving games early, and by pretending to moon the packers fans during the win this past Sunday?

Always the one to set a great example for the kids, Moss had this to say after the game.

"I don't give a damn what they talk about. They better talk about the 'W' we put on Lambeau Field today."

and of course he was...

"just having a little fun with the boys a bit. Hope I don't get in trouble by it, but if I do, I'll take the heat."

It's always nice to see players show maturity and responsibility in their actions. He says he's willing to face the fine (because he's paid millions of dollars to play a game). Is he willing to admit that he's setting a bad example for kids, and take any responsibility for a lack of sportsmanship present in youth today? Or is he not a contributor...? I'm sure if you were to ask him he would say that of course he's not to blame. But that's not the truth.

I don't think Moss thinks he's a bad example, and secondly I don't think he honestly cares. That's the problem with the current crop of professional players. Everything is always about them, and about how much they can make, and how much attention they can get.

Where's Deion Sanders on this issue?

Powweb.com hosting review

Overview of Powweb:

Pros:

• Low Price
• Fairly Easy to Set Up

Cons:

• Slow response times
• Forums just serve to let people blow off steam
• Mods in forums sometimes delete complaint threads
• Outages (when there is a Zero Downtime advertisement)
• Pages are extremely slow when a small group simultaneously accesses them
• Poorly designed control panel interface

Basically, it was a steal of a deal, but as with most things in life. You get what you pay for. It seems that they pack so many different users on a small group of servers that the servers are overloaded (just my guess at the cause of some of the problems).

If your site is for family and friends to have access to photos, or for a group/organization that won't get much constant traffic, it'd be a good choice. If it's constantly updated, like a blog, or a forum that might have about 50 regular users, I'd suggest going elsewhere. Your luck may be better with them, but I decided to take this blog elsewhere.

The best advice I can give is to look at a prospective host's forum before purchasing a plan and see what the complaints are, and what actual customers are saying. If a host doesn't have a forum, then be slightly suspicious, but don't automatically discount them because of it.

Having a forum can show an open, honest view of what the customers actually think, and most companies aren't in favor of that. Some just don't have them because of a lack of resources to manage it, or a liability factor.

Why I switched:

This morning, I woke up to try to make a post about bittorrent. I checked a few other sites, and checked my mail, and tried to get to my site. I kept getting timed out though when I tried to connect.

This wasn't the first time I'd experienced a short outage of a few minutes (a few hours apiece probably), so I decided to just wait it out for a few minutes and then try again later. I got something to eat from Sonic, and watched a little TV. I came back, and the site was still timing out. It turns out the outage wasn't just a short one. First it was a load balanced server problem, and then a "massive" dos attack.

I figured I may as well visit the powweb site and see if there's anything going on that other users are talking about on the user forums. Well, the first thing I see when I go there is their Zero Downtime popup. Irony. I clicked on the forums link and got to the right section and saw that many other users were experiencing the same thing.

The moderators of the forums were saying that the actual admins were trying to identify the problem and fix it (Note the unecessary level of communication... there's no needs for mods to tell us they don't know anything, but someone is probably looking into it). Other customers were saying that their sites experienced the same problems yesterday, but were beginning to work again. There were others who could access their site, but certain parts of their site had stopped working (which is very strange... probably user error).

This was probably only the third time I'd been unable to get to my site in the last 6 months, but the site was generally slow to respond. Also, when I ran a forum on my site (with max 12 members), simultaneous use by a small group of people would bring my whole site to a crawl.

So, after thinking it over, I decided it was time to upgrade to a better host. I've only been with powweb for about 9 months, but all the slow response times and outages have been a little much to bear. If the site had gone down just a few times for a short amount of time, I could handle that. However, when the site goes down it's down for an hour at least. Granted, I was only paying ~$8/month, I knew I had to be able to find a better host for a little more money.

Reaching a new stage in life.

After graduation, I've come to realize a few things. First, that I'm old. My back hurts, I've got grey hair, I'm tired at 10:00, I sometimes have discussion about bowel movements in public, and I think the way kids dress today is retarded. I have become my Grandpa.

Taylor, Katie and I all had the same thought within the same period of the last few weeks. All of the clothing stores we used to love have fewer and fewer clothes we'd buy. This would include American Eagle, Hollisters, and some other franchise clothing stores. Taylor even went so far as to say that he likes clothes from JCPenney and Dillard's more than AE these days. This would've been crazy talk for any of us even 2 years ago. However, with the nasty retro and other crazy styles that are in stores now, we can't help but shop elsewhere and feel sorry for those younger people who do shop at these stores.

The style of clothing kids wear today makes them look retarded, and I plan to give you a few examples. Well, maybe retarded is an offensive word to some, so I guess they really just look like idiots... though there may be idiots who are offended to be in the same category as kids that look like these... but I digress...

Exhibit A: Track Jackets

In the early 80's when people wore these things, cocaine was big. That provides some explanation behind the fashion trend. Now, when people look back at them, they can at least think "Wow, I did a lot of cocaine in the 80's". Kids today don't have the luxury of blaming this fashion trend on cocaine... and ecstasy probably isn't strong enough to make these look cool. They must all be on the smack.

Not only do you not look cool when you wear one of these, you have to pay $48 for a jacket that you could have bought at goodwill 5 years ago for under a dollar. This makes my hand start flailing about, looking for children to slap when I think about it.


Exhibit B: Abercrombie Jeans

I don't have a problem with jeans that have a stone wash, or a worn look to them. I like that, I always hated wearing new jeans myself, but this has gotten ridiculous. It looks like abercrombie has hired a team of coal miners to wear these jeans for a month before they sell them.

All the jeans pictured here have holes in them. Maybe the low lighting conditions and the half naked models on the walls of the stores distract the hormonally imbalanced, keeping them from noticing. Most likely though, kids today are just plain dumb. They have to be, because they pay $79.50 for these beat up, crusty old jeans.

This trend is almost as annoying as the time about 4 years ago when frat guys and high school kids everywhere thought that only tucking in the front of a shirt was fashionable. Thank god that passed.

Final Exhibit, C: The Popped Collar

I admit, I have done this before. By accident. Unfortunately, kids are doing this on purpose. Leading me to believe that most of them were brain damaged in some type of accident (most likely related to huffing paint).

I don't see much of this anymore, and haven't for a few months, but I couldn't resist mentioning it.

Well, that's the end of my rant. My hope is that some poor misguided child will come across the site and see the error of his/her ways. These young whippersnappers today need some guidance, and this may be just the place to give it to them.

Deion Sanders being rational? Dost mine eyes deceive me?

I actually agree with Deion Sanders' point of view.

The Randy Moss comments:

First on Sanders' list was Minnesota WR Randy Moss, who left a 21-18 loss to Washington on Sunday while the Vikings attempted an onside kick with 2 seconds remaining.

"You want to be compensated as a leader and a winner, and he is a winner, but the leader part, you really don't understand. No matter if it's good or it's bad, you must have consistency in your character. And (leaving the game early) is not the sign of a leader. You just can't do that."

The Shaun Alexander comments:

The other target of Sanders' criticism was Seattle RB Shaun Alexander, who missed the rushing title by a single yard Sunday and strongly criticized coach Mike Holmgren's play calling after the game, going so far as to say that Holmgren betrayed him.

"To sit up there and take a shot at Mike Holmgren when you fumbled the ball two weeks ago on the 1-yard line to cost your team the game. He's called your number I don't know how many times this season."

Copyright in Europe

I came across an interesting article on Wired a few minutes ago. I thought I'd post a link to it in case anyone else is interested in copyright, and what's going on in the rest of the world with regard to it. You can find the article at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/view.html?pg=5.

If you're not much for clicking on strange links, then I'll summarize the situation. According to the article, copyrights on television and music will expire on New Year's Day. This is limited to those copyrights from the year 1953 and before, though. So, any song or TV show that was copywritten in that year will become part of the public domain. *Note: becoming part of the public domain basically just means that you don't have to pay a fee or get permission to use a formerly copyrighted work anymore*

<rant>
If all this sounds kind of unfamiliar, it may be because you live in the U.S., where Congress is continually passing copyright extension acts to extend the copyright protection period.

You may ask yourself, "Why do we want to keep extending copyright terms on old music, TV shows, and movies that have been around for half a century?" Well, the answer is simple. We don't want to. Copyright owners (Generally corporations like MGM, Disney, SONY, etc.) are the only ones who want to keep extending the copyright protection period. While the films, tv shows, and movies are protected under copyright, no one else can use them without permission, or paying a fee of some sort to these corporations and (like paying for a cd/movie ticket/cable subscription). Once that protection period ends, everyone can use their copyrighted materials without worrying about the copyright (i.e. paying to use the materials).

You see, we as the American people would love to have free access to classic movies, TV shows, and music that we've all probably already paid to see over and over. However, when there's money to be made, corporations and other copyright holders will leave no stone unturned in trying to make sure they get more money. Companies like Disney would lose the copyright to their century old characters, such as Mickey Mouse and the gang. They would actually have to create new characters and create more good movies for us to buy...*Gasp*!

If you've been following my points here, you may see that the American people would benefit from old movies and songs going in to the public domain. After all, it's kind of a rip off to have to buy the same recordings over and over from 8-track version, to Tape, to CD, to DVD Audio. The corporations who own most of the copyrights in the US could still make money by creating new products and material. They'd be able to have a monopoly on those works for the next 75 years or so, so they could still make money the usual way. So, you may be wondering, if it would be beneficial to us, and the corporations would still survive and do well, why aren't copyrighted materials entering the public domain every year?

This question brings us to the last part of my rant. Congress. Congress has the ability to pass (or not pass) laws to extend the copyright protection term for as long as they please, and they have consistently chosen to extend these copyright terms (11 times in recent history). Why would congress, the people who are in Washington to represent us, go against what's best for us?

It's frustrating, but the answer goes back to the corporations. They donate money to congressmen for their campaigns, and in turn the congressmen who get donations from Disney, Sony, MGM, etc. will vote to extend the copyrights. It's nothing short of bribery, but it's legal. They, of course, don't call it bribery, because that would look bad. It IS bribery though, make no mistake about it.
</rant>

If you'd like to gripe to someone who can actually do something about this, write your congressman. They listen... especially if you give them money.

I'll get to my Christmas later... for now, Wholesale Marketer

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about the evil organization, Wholesale Marketer. They are an online "wholesaler". I put wholesaler in quotes for a reason. I believe that had they explained their services to me in person, they may have been required by law to make the quote symbol with their fingers in the air and wink at me at the same time. You can read my previous post if you'd like to find out more about how they operate.

I'm on hold at the moment with Wholesale Marketer's customer service because I forgot to cancel my membership after I wrote the post. I'd like to say it was because I've had so much stuff going on, but I should've just taken care of it immediately. Now, I've been charged twenty dollars and am being forced to wait for 10 minutes on the phone to make sure they don't do it again.

As I type, I'm being told my estimated wait time is 4 minutes (for the last 5 minutes), and that I can choose to leave a message if I wish. Each time this message interrupts the peaceful muzak being played while I hold, a small part of me dies. The funny thing is that I think that they're increasing the muzak volume after each "your estimated wait time is 4 minutes" message. It's psychological warfare if you ask me.

Ah... finally a real live Wholesale Marketer customer service representative. He's not nearly as cheery as the girl before. I don't like him. He probably brushes his teeth with toilet water. Well, I'm done. That's the last time I'll write about them.

EA Games and NFL players association

Well, I won't be buying any more EA Sports games. Today, EA announced that it has reached an agreement with the NFL Player's association, granting EA the exclusive rights to the players names, team names, and stadiums in their games.

ESPN NFL 2k4, EA's main competitor to the madden series of games, was sold at almost half the price of the madden games. The games were cutting into EA's market share, so they secured and exclusive deal.

I'm not saying that it's wrong for EA to do what they did. They have every right to pay more money for exclusive rights. I'm just saying that I don't like it, so I won't be supporting any more of their games. ESPN and Sega put out a great game that was marketed in a better fashion than EA Sports, so instead of trying to compete through gameplay, they just threw their weight around and got the exclusive rights to the NFL's property.

Why doesn't EA just come out and say... "Our costs are too high. We can't and don't really want to lower our margins to ESPN's level. We don't want to have to actually compete to deliver a better product. That would be what's best for the consumer. So, we just decided to go ahead and create a monopoly on the players people idolize and make it that much harder for the other guys to compete on a level playing field. Consumers, your ability to choose is not our major concern."

Isn't that what capitalism is about? Another person/group comes along and offers a better product at a better price, so you have to either innovate, create a better product, or die? Well, not if you're EA. You're sitting on piles of cash, so just stuff the players association full of cash and make a large part of your problem go away.

Well, ESPN and Sega, I hope you get your heads together and offer people the ability to customize their rosters. Downloadable rosters will be available in no time. It's what we want. The ability to modify logos and rosters. The ability to choose a different style of gameplay and still play as the players we like, both at a low cost.

Walmart during the holidays

Katie and I took a trip to Wal-mart last night to get groceries for the week. Little did we know that the rest of Ruston had decided to go to wal-mart to shop for Christmas. We spent an hour and a half in Wal-mart getting $40 dollars worth of groceries.

Our trip consisted of three time wasting events. First, we went to the deli to get some lunch meat. There was only one lady back there, and she was in no hurry to meet our needs. We stood there for 15 minutes before we even got waited on, and during the process of her slicing the meats she had to take two phone calls.

We headed to the electronics department after getting the meat and saw that they were stocking the mario 64 DS games. Since we bought 5 more nintendo DS's this past Sunday at Target, we figured we should buy a few since it's the only game that increases the value of the DS on Ebay. We waited for 20 minutes there for the electronics guy to come back... he went into the back to check on stock for some teenager.

Lastly, we had a 60 year old lady working the register at our lane. I kid you not, we were waiting in line for 45 minutes. She had to call the manager three seperate times for the two people in front of us. She had no idea how to use the gift cards, and had no idea how to do much else. Standing there, smacking her gum, she was single handedly about to start a riot. A one man riot.

By the time we got up there to the register, I didn't want to even look at her. The manager, who we now know by name, walked by and she asked "When do I get my break, Chris?". If she was looking for somewhere to go, she could've just asked me. I'm sure I could've recommended a few places. We got our stuff checked and paid, and we got out of there in an hour and a half.

I'm not an angry person. Judging by the way the trip to Walmart had affected both of us, we resolved to stay away from Wal-mart until a week or so after Christmas. For their sake and ours.

Bank One Saboteurs

It is my firm belief that bank tellers at Bank One "misplace" deposits that don't include deposit slips.

You see, it's highly annoying to bank tellers when customers don't fill out deposit slips for ATM deposits. I know this because Katie, who works at another bank here in town, hates it when people are too lazy to fill out deposit slips. I am one of those people, ladies and gentlemen.

I look at the situation a bit differently though. I see a deposit slip on the outside of the envelope. So, why should I take the time to fill out the exact same thing twice? I will be writing what checks are in there, in each amount, and will be spelling everything out as simply as possible for the tellers who deal with my money.

Anywho, my conclusion is that they misplace deposits that don't include deposit slips more frequently than those that do. Additionally, I wouldn't be surprised if it was intentional. This has happened to me twice in the last 6 months. You may think 6 months is a long time, but for a poor college student like me that rarely has money to deposit, that's almost a 100% misplacement rate.

The moral of the story: Keep your ATM deposit receipts if you don't wanna fill out those pesky deposit slips. They're gonna lose your stuff on purpose.

Biggest Scam on Planet Earth

What is the biggest scam on the planet earth? I bet you're thinking of something along the lines of the nigerian spammer scam, or pyramid schemes, or the electoral system. Well, if you thought of any of those, you'd be wrong.

The biggest scam that exists on this earth is the college bookstore and college textbook publishing system.

Scammer #1 - The University Bookstore
Let me give you a short example of what's been happening to me, and millions of other college students around the country for years. Just this quarter I bought a book: Basic Marketing - A global Managerial Approach (15/e). This eloquently bound set of processed trees cost me $123. I'll give you a few seconds to pick yourself up off the floor, dust yourself off and gather the proper expletives.

It isn't even the outrageous price that gets my goat though. It's the fact that when I sell the book back to the school bookstore, they only pay students half the selling price of the book. So, this Marketing book that I bought is only going to be bought back for $45. As an obstute observer, you will notice that $45 doubled results in a price of $90. But I thought you bought the book for $123, Mr. Jojometal, so shouldn't they buy it back for half of $123? Well, yes, but you see, when you buy a book and use it for a quarter, it loses some of it's value somewhere along the line. You can actually see dimes falling out of your book if you look closely enough.

So, let's review what's going on here. My book's value depreciated 25% in a three month period (my school is on the quarter system), apparently. The text isn't 75% of it's original size. The information isn't 75% accurate, or 75% up to date. It does smell 75% as good, but that's beside the point. Why on earth is my book suddenly worth 75% of the value it had 3 months ago? I still don't really know. Because for the next two years while the book is being used, it will consistently sell for $90. The university book stores will consistently make a profit on the same book, being bought by consumers, repurchased by the university and again sold to consumers. It suffers an initial, and steep, depreciation, after which it's value doesn't change, until the book store discontinues it because a new version of the book comes out. This brings us to the second party involved in the biggest scam on earth.

Scammer #2 - The University Textbook Publisher
So, where do the publishers fit into this equation of face-reddening madness? Well, you see, they have outrageously priced books. $123 for a marketing book that has the same information as the marketing book 3 years ago? Methinks I smell a bit of greed.

The publishers of these books also realize that they're out of the purchasing process that's taking place at universities. There's money to be made, and they're not part of it... something's wrong there. The books they sold two years ago are being bought and sold each semester, or each quarter, and they see none of that money. So, they devised an evil plan - to come out with "updated" editions of books. People will buy the new books, and they'd be back in the cycle, rolling in the cash of the hard working college students they so eagerly overcharge.

You may think to yourself, "It stands to reason that if they're updating the information in these books, that you should buy the new edition." You may also believe that elvis is alive, and that the Atkins diet will help you lose weight. You'd be wrong about all three. They don't update much information, elvis is dead, and you won't lose weight unless you actually exercise. Thems the breaks.

The book publishers change a few questions in the book, change some of the presentation of the material in the book (in most cases) and will reissue the book to universities. In turn, the university book stores then make the new and "improved" books part of your required book purchases, and thus validate the ridiculous practices of the book publishers.

One last note about the Universities' (apart from the bookstore) role in this situation... They also play a part in ensuring that students buy their books from the college bookstore instead of buying them from another store, or online. When you pay your tuition and fees, most people use loans or scholarships. For those students who get more scholarship money than they can use for tuition or those students who have loans that pay more than tuition each quarter, they get a refund about three weeks after school starts. So, if a student gets a $2000 dollar scholarship or loan each quarter, and his/her tuition and fees are only $1400, then that student will get a $600 refund check three or four weeks after school starts. This means that if that refund money is the only money the students expect to get, they'll have to wait three weeks into the quarter to get their books at another store. The other option the students have is to buy a "university debit card" with tuition and fees. You can put $2-300 dollars on your "university debit card" and use that money anywhere on campus, and buy your books at the university book store. That's the problem though, the students have two choices, either wait 3-4 weeks to buy books for reasonable prices (usually at the very least $15 below what the bookstore sells them for), or buy them from the bookstore before classes start. Obviously students are going to need their books for class immediately, so most students are forced to buy from the bookstore.

So, what is the solution to this problem? Pressure universities to stop buying new editions to books unless there are significant changes made to an old edition of a book. Encourage college bookstores to lower their prices. In addition, encourage universities to issue a temporary loan/scholarship refund, to students who wish to buy books off-campus at lower prices. This would allow students whose only extra money is from scholarships and loans to get cash to spend for immediate purchase of books for the first weeks of school. Promote a small loan from your school's SGA (Student Government Association) to students who would like to buy books elsewhere, but have to wait for loan/scholarship refunds. We're lucky enough to have one of these here at Tech, but noone knows about it.

Contact your SGA, or your favorite, irritable bookstore supervisor to voice your concerns.