Liberty's Blog

Abuse at the Texas City Dike

2009-11-17T17:58:00.002-06:00

The police are having a field day harrassing the good people and citizens looking for a place to go fishing. Texas City Police seem to enjoy their reputation of being the bullies of Galveston County. Seems as though when they aren't bullying people trying to salvage their hurricane damaged properys with their blockades or arresting people for enjoying a tournement of Texas Hold 'em. Texas city police believe that serving and protecting is bullying the citizens into submission. 81 John Ringer rode his bicycle up the 5 mile dike and back.

The 81-year-old Texas City resident said he rode his bicycle to the end of the dike Saturday. By the time he returned to the dike entrance, four police officers were waiting, he said.

Ringer said he knew it was against the rules to be on the dike, but with the pier closed, hundreds of cars of anglers who would normally be on the dike are now packed in along Skyline drive on the hurricane levee.

“I didn’t know I could cause so much trouble,” Ringer said. “But it wasn’t as dangerous riding my bike on the dike as it would have been on the levee.”

Ringer said three men who were crabbing in an area where the levee connects to the base of the dike also were ticketed.

Now why are they giving the tickets? It seemed safe safe enough for an 81 year old man to ride his bicycle. Maybe its the four hundred of tickets at $260 a piece is significant money. This type of money is worthy of trickery. Evangelos Koutougeras, got a ticket but he wasn't even on the dike.
“I took my kayak from the levee and went out to Mosquito Island and this cop he calls me over to the dike with his bullhorn,” Koutougeras said. “I had to walk in the water to meet the cop. He tells me ‘you are trespassing,’ I told him I wasn’t on the dike until he called me over.”

Koutougeras, 54, said he has been fishing in the area since 1992 and that while he doesn’t think the dike should be closed, insisted he never was on the dike when he launched his kayak for a day of fishing on Nov. 4.
“I took my kayak from the levee and went out to Mosquito Island and this cop he calls me over to the dike with his bullhorn,” Koutougeras said. “I had to walk in the water to meet the cop. He tells me ‘you are trespassing,’ I told him I wasn’t on the dike until he called me over.”

Koutougeras, 54, said he has been fishing in the area since 1992 and that while he doesn’t think the dike should be closed, insisted he never was on the dike when he launched his kayak for a day of fishing on Nov. 4.

Stanton said citations are supposed to be issued only to people who are on the dike and not in the water, on the levee or on sandbars such as Mosquito Island.

Koutougeras said he was so angry he threw all the fish he’d caught back in the water. He said would fight the ticket.

Stanton said citations are supposed to be issued only to people who are on the dike and not in the water, on the levee or on sandbars such as Mosquito Island.

Koutougeras said he was so angry he threw all the fish he’d caught back in the water. He said would fight the ticket.

“I took my kayak from the levee and went out to Mosquito Island and this cop he calls me over to the dike with his bullhorn,” Koutougeras said. “I had to walk in the water to meet the cop. He tells me ‘you are trespassing,’ I told him I wasn’t on the dike until he called me over.”

Koutougeras, 54, said he has been fishing in the area since 1992 and that while he doesn’t think the dike should be closed, insisted he never was on the dike when he launched his kayak for a day of fishing on Nov. 4.

Stanton said citations are supposed to be issued only to people who are on the dike and not in the water, on the levee or on sandbars such as Mosquito Island.

Koutougeras said he was so angry he threw all the fish he’d caught back in the water. He said would fight the ticket.

Yeah the cop called him to the dike on a bullhorn. This officer was surely thinking about "protecting and serving" .

Police all over deserve respect, but one really has to wonder about the bullies that call themselves police officers in Texas City. Who are they protecting and who are they realling serving when they harrass citizens? Maybe the people in Texas City would be better protected and enjoy more freedom with fewer police? Tactics lik this suggust the police are just looking ang inventing crime just to justify their existance.

A Heroine in Fort Hood

2009-11-06T12:48:00.002-06:00

While the media hasn't had much to say about the massacre at Fort Hood, except to try to explain why it wasn't a muslim terroristic attack. While it seems pretty clear that the shooter undeniably caused terror, and certainly was a muslim who yelled out Allah Akabar, as he mowed down over 40 people. The media also doesn't seem to pay much notice to the real story of a young lady who stopped the attack even after she had been shot. Sergeant Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer stationed at the base undoubtably saved many lives while put hers in serious jeopardy.

Sergeant Munley managed to hit Major Hasan four times but was herself hit by a bullet that passed through both her legs, according to witnesses.

Colonel John Rossi, briefing reporters at Fort Hood this morning, said that Major Hasan's victims, who were killed in a part of the base used to process soldiers for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan, had all been unarmed. Sergeant Munley had been the first armed person on the scene and had immediately taken him on.

"Her efforts were superb," he said.

Colonel Steven Braverman, commander of the base hospital and Major Hasan's supervisor, said that Sergeant Munley was in a stable condition in a nearby community hospital.

It's worth noting that the normal media hasn't found the story note worthy, They rather report on the cowardly actions of Hasan, than to report on the lady that stopped him.

Ubuntu and the Karmic Koala

2009-11-01T22:19:00.000-06:00

Ubuntu has a new release out 9.10 or the Karmic Koala. It may very well be worth considering for a lot of folks.

Some of the OS upgrade is about hardware sto askupport. Other enhancements may be about increasing performance. The new Ubuntu 9.10 release provides better better support for hardware, better Intel video graphics support and audio in particular. Some features that are getting lots of attention seem kind of lame to me. Ubuntu One is about off line data syncing. I prefer dropbox because it universally works with most Linux installs as well as Windows and Mac platforms. Ubuntu One does have syncing with their notes program and I think the address book of Evolution the email program.

Most people use their computers for a few Basic Functions.
Web Surfing, Email, Media and Playing silly games. So far I find that Ubunto provides the solutions for these better than or as well as Windows does. All without Purchasing any software. There is no point any more about which is best Windows or Linux. The question to ask today is "Do I need windows/Apple for this computer?"

There are those of us who need to run special software such as Autocad, or specific hardware that just doesn't have Linux support. But many of us also have computers that will run better, faster and for less money than for what Bill Gates or Steve Jobs has to offer.

Catching the Wave

2009-10-12T19:42:00.005-05:00

I got an invite to google wave, was pretty excited about it, You can only tell so much about a program by reading about it. I swallowed my pride and begged an invite. I think I swore off Beta testing years ago, in fact I swore off them several times. The beauty of Wave though is that none of it has to reside on my my computer.

I played with it and discovered the mapping function. It didn't really work to well on my machine Ubunto Jaunty 9.04 . with Firefox 3.0 Oh well Google wave is intended for use in browsers using HTML 5.0 whatever that is. It was pretty clear that I needed to upgrade my Firefox. I have been getting impatient with my current build any way. I like the snapyness of the newer Firefox and really missed the sticky notes feature that OpenOffice 3.1 has. Only problem is that I had never tried t0 upgrade Ubuntu before. Yes, The Karmic Koala is also in Beta. Well the upgrade went flawlessly and I was now able to start playing with Google Wave.

The Wave has come a long way since the unveiling in May. The demo consisted of a few crashes in the sand box. While it sometimes moves a little slow I haven't seen any lockups or crashes. I still haven't run it through all its paces, and I am not sure if the upload/download documents works yet there is a lot of potential here. This might be considered a social site for grownups. We can chat on line, but all the time we are creating a document. It takes the strength of on line chatting, social web sites and email and combines it all into one. It works just as well in real time as email like off line communications and like email every wave is a document.

Wave still needs a little polishing and a lot more users, it doesn't become practical until it gets universal availability. While Google seems to be claiming that Wave is the beginning of the end for email may be overstated it very well could change the way we communicate.
Those with wave access go ahead and look me up. I'm Liberty on google wave also

Shami Farouk Throws his Hat into the Ring

2009-10-08T19:24:00.002-05:00

Farouk Shami is running for Texas Governor joining Democrats Kinky Freidman, Tom Schieffer and Hank Gilbert. Everyone knows Kinky, and and the the other 2 guys seem like the typical everyday Democrat hacks. Farouk ( He is better known by his first name than his last) is unique in Democratic circles in that he is a self made man, and understands what it takes to run a business and meet a payroll. In his business dealings he is supportive of small business and understands their importance. This makes him unique among Democrats, and this may be what will make him a formidible candidate in the primarys, and a serious contender against the Republican Candidate.

Google Wave

2009-09-30T19:58:00.000-05:00

Anyone seen an invite to Google Wave?

4 Days of Introspect.

2009-09-11T18:39:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was Alexis first birthday.

Today 9/11/2o09 marks 8 years since the jihadist terrorists attacked our nation and killed more people than the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor.

Saturday and Sunday Mark the Anniversary of Ike the Hurricane that struck us at Galveston.

We have only seen Lexi once for a couple of days in January, She is a happy baby and brings joy to all that she comes in touch with. While our world seemed so full of despair, It was Lexi who helped us see through it. Nothing around us seemed all that important when your holding a little baby who is smilling and laughing just because she is with us. She is comming for a visit in a couple weeks and her Uncle Ray can't wait.

For a while after Ike hit It could seem like thee was nothing but despair. We had questions. Was our house gone how about the cat? where will we live? How will we pay for all this? Then there was Lexi. We got pictures, and lots of smiles.

We rebuilt from Ike and moved back in. Our home is nicer than ever. We enjoy it just a little more, maybe because we know what it is to lose it. Galveston itself is a bit more precious to us because we had to stay away.

Our country gathered its forces and we fought back, today we are more riled up about healthcare than we are about Jihadist. We are feeling pretty secure as a nation. Even while in rocky times.

Soon Lexi will come visit and all the world will seem right. All is good.

Netflix Notes

2009-08-23T12:42:00.000-05:00

We lost most of our videos, ans DVDs in Hurricane Ike. Before we moved back home, Michelle was looking for bargains to replace our lost goods, She did find a $25.00 DVD player at Walgreens. The Coby DVD 224, We figured it would do the job. We figure we will be getting a blue ray and a nice TV for the living room at set some point. We moved back home in June, got basic cable and of course Hi speed internet. We are watching our money pretty close these days, rebuilding/ refitting our house and the market crashes have really cut deeply into our disposable income. So we didn't get all the extra movie channels we were used to getting.

Our niece Vanessa and her hubby tobe came to visit last month and she presented me a gift. A quart sized ziplock with cables small wall wart and an electronic box called a Roku. She told me how nice Netflix is and we really need to get it. I was apreciative of the gift, but I didn't really understand what this kewl little box was.

I have heard about Netflix, and everyone who subscribes really seems to like it. The price is reasonable enough, less than $10 a month for movie rentals. Delivery is next day and we don't even have to front a stamp. Cheaper than Showtime or HBO. I started looking at this Roku thing a little closer.

Its a rather unimpressive looking box. it is about the size of 4 of 5 CD cases stacked on top of each other. No buttons or switches. The only indicator is a small LED that flickers when the unit seems to be doing something. The back has assorted connections 5V @ 1.5 amps very lower power. Optical audio out. Component, and Composite video. HDMI and Ethernet I began to wonder what is behind this little box. I've seen garage door openers more complicated looking than this remote.

We signed up for NetFlix it was a fairly easy process and our 1st month is free. I selected some movies to instant view and a list for them to send DVDs as we viewed them. It all went pretty smoothly.

I then went to setup and configure the Ruku. My television has a free HDMI port, so it was just a single connection real easy. Powered it up. We configured it for my wireless WEP connection. My TV resolution and It was ready to go. Wow I already 278 films and series already loaded into the queue.But none of my own. We had Vanessa's old list! It was pretty simple to unsubscribe and resubscribe to our Netfix account. We now can watch watch movies. It all works by picking out what we to watch from the Netflix site from our PC it gets queued to our Netflix box and ready to select from a list. This is supposed to be just the extra service thrown in by Netflix to supplement their DVD service.

We got our DVD the next day, and we set up the player, the very inexpensive Coby DVD-224. By comparison the DVD player was a lot more complex looking. It had 4 buttons and a drawer in the front, but the little remote has 40 buttons, The Roku only has 9. While the DVD doesn't have either an RF output Jack or HDMI The Progressive scan output over the componant outputs provides a beautiful image over out HD TV. The remote is a little confusing, but once the movie is started all is good. and for $25.00 how can we go wrong.

All in all we are thrilled with Netflix, and it is a bargain for what we get. I am enjoying old TV series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Kolchak, The Night Stalker as well as all more movies than we will ever have time to to watch. Every couple of days we get a new new hard copy of a DVD to watch. I think this Netflix thing with Roku is a keeper.

Class

2009-08-04T05:48:00.002-05:00

There has been a lot said and lessons have been learned about the Harvard professor getting himself arrested. We have learned mostly aboput the man who is our president. He showed himself to be judgemental when he called the actions of Sgt Crowley stupid.

The photograph of him being oblivious to the handicapped man shows a lack of concideration. While Crowley helps Professor Gates, the man that he doesn't see eye to eye with, down the stairs.

A picture is worth a thousand words, I think this image says a lot about character. The American Thinker has more to say.

Marriage

2009-08-02T13:00:00.002-05:00

Megan McArdle asks, and gives some good reasons on why should we bother with this marriage thing. I agree it's all pretty worthwhile.

A New Ubuntu System.

2009-07-25T06:22:00.003-05:00

We lost 4 computers in hurricane Ike. We quickly bought 2 systems while we were still in a hotel. We bought a Sony VAIO VGC LT30. Its an all in one built into i nice glass frame. It served us well at the hotel and since we eventually were able to move home. We later bought a Net book an Acer One. I was impressed just how powerful this inexpensive little thing was.

After we moved in though It became pretty obvious that I needed another good desktop. I picked up a developers kit that had a D945GCLF2 board. This board is powered by a tiny Atom Duo 330 processor. A cheap low power mother board that has the processer built in. The board lists for around $89.00 I put it all together with an inexpecive 22 inch Samsung monitor, 2 gigs of DDR ram A terabyte drive ( $100 bucks at Fry's) and a DVD reader. Put it all together and booteded up Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 install disk.

I initally tried to get it to boot from a thumb drive .. I couldn't get it to work, but other than that hitch it only took 30 minutes from on switch to up and running and on the net. Everything went in with ease. Found my printer with its drivers. Matched up to my monitor at 1920 x 108o. Some more tinkering I got Flash and Acrobat working installed Flash and Acrobat. Configured compiz to get the twirling desktop cube. All without a hitch. I figure I might at some point want run a windows aplication. So I installed VirtualBox and XP pro into it. This isn't Dual boot but it runs within Ubuntu and at the same time. It took about 2 1/2 ours to install XP compared to the 1/2 hour to install Ubunto along with its assiated Apps.. Microsoft gives us notepad in the install while Ubuntu gives us OpenOffice.

This system is fast!! It boots in under 30 seconds, loads and runs applications at lightning speed. This isn't a ghaming system. While it does a great job playing movies, and running most desktop apps. The Dual processers are each dual hyperthreading. Effectively resulting in 4 simultaneus and somewhat isolated processes. Ubunto does seem to take beter advantage of this than XP or even Vista.

There are some issues I have run into. I couldn't get my system to boot onto a thumbdrive that was created by the LIve CD. I don't know whether it was Ubuntu or my hardware. I had a false start with the 64 bit operating system because I couldn't find 64 bit Ubuntu files on Adobe's site for flash and adobe reader. Because I am well under the 4 gig memory limit of 32 bits system, I don't see any advantage to the 64 bit system.

I am using older versions of Openoffice and Firefox. The automatic upgrade process won't support OOo 3.1 or Firefox 3.5 until the next version of ubuntu.

I haven't got XP to coperate real well with my network. It sees the Vaio but not the net computer or the network printer. I believe this will be easy to resolve.

I have 4 USB ports in the rear I could bring 4 more to the front. There are only 2 SATA ports and 1 IDE connection ( 2 units could be hooked up there).

Sound is a little on the weak side.

So far I'm pretty happy with the set up. Its an deal system for Websurfing and running Openoffice and other everyday tasks. It works well for downloading and viewing movies or mp3s . Its an inexpencive system to build.

Hitting Some Folks Pretty Hard

2009-07-12T17:14:00.002-05:00

Some People are taking this Michael Jackson thing pretty hard.

Just a Few Pointers

2009-07-06T06:41:00.002-05:00

Glenn Reynolds and Rick Perry have some some suggestions for states that are going broke like California. They should become more like Texas.

CALIFORNIA ON BRINK OF issuing IOUs. Maybe they should consult a state whose budget isn’t a pathetic travesty and see if they can pick up some pointers.

They would rather blame it on Bush than admit that they simply are spending more than the state can pull in, particularly in bad times.

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