Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Puerto Rico and need travel tips
I am going on Vacation to Puerto Rico in a couple months. I have never been there. I want some tips and advice from anyone who has been there. I Will be there Dec 2 -6. I like doing outdoor stuff and seeing the nature. I also would like to know about any good restaurants, bars, and clubs. Also day trips from San Juan.
In my research so far I want to go to Al-Yunque, Fajarodos, Luquillo, Pinones Reserve, Rio Camuy Cave.
I would also like to go swimming/Kayaking in the bioluminescent lagoon in the Cabezas de San Juan Nature Reserve. I would like to know if you can go swimming there on your own or have to pay for a tour.
I am going on Vacation to Puerto Rico in a couple months. I have never been there. I want some tips and advice from anyone who has been there. I Will be there Dec 2 -6. I like doing outdoor stuff and seeing the nature. I also would like to know about any good restaurants, bars, and clubs. Also day trips from San Juan.
In my research so far I want to go to Al-Yunque, Fajarodos, Luquillo, Pinones Reserve, Rio Camuy Cave.
I would also like to go swimming/Kayaking in the bioluminescent lagoon in the Cabezas de San Juan Nature Reserve. I would like to know if you can go swimming there on your own or have to pay for a tour.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
ALL OUT WAR
My knee-jerk reaction to cowardly dispicable terrorist attacks like the one on the Russian Elementary school is get them and kill them, no negotiotions, no diplomacy, no trying to find a solution the the root problems, little consideration for civilians and the general population the terrorist are living amongst.
This rationale seems to be what the Russians have done since the beginning of the Chechen Seperatist movement. Unfortunatley against a highly determined enemy that is not afraid of death, this strategy is not working. Russia has been fighting an all out war against Chechen Separtist and Terrorist for years and years. Yet, Russias problem with Chechen terrorism is only getting worse and worse.
No matter how much we want revenge and justice, sometimes all out war is not the answer, for it rarely works against a determined enemy.
My knee-jerk reaction to cowardly dispicable terrorist attacks like the one on the Russian Elementary school is get them and kill them, no negotiotions, no diplomacy, no trying to find a solution the the root problems, little consideration for civilians and the general population the terrorist are living amongst.
This rationale seems to be what the Russians have done since the beginning of the Chechen Seperatist movement. Unfortunatley against a highly determined enemy that is not afraid of death, this strategy is not working. Russia has been fighting an all out war against Chechen Separtist and Terrorist for years and years. Yet, Russias problem with Chechen terrorism is only getting worse and worse.
No matter how much we want revenge and justice, sometimes all out war is not the answer, for it rarely works against a determined enemy.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
TV and the Election
This is an interesting article emailed to me by my friend April. It is by William Rivers Pitt. And discusses something I never game much thought too.
...This entire election, thus far, has been about television. All the issues widely discussed stem from television advertisements. For the television news media, this is like free money falling from the sky. They cover to the hilt any story stemming from a television advertisement - which they can show, and then talk about, and then show, and then talk about, lather, rinse, repeat - and so the campaigns make this garbage the focus of their whole act. It's like a Mobius Loop for really dumb computers.
The entire Presidential debate thus far, performed in 30 seconds:
The Swifties! Denounce the ad! I denounce all ads! But denounce that ad! I denounce all ads! He didn't denounce the ad! I like eggs! 527s! Response ads! The ad said you lied in Vietnam! How dare that ad say such things! You must react more strongly to the ads! He's not responding strongly to the ads! Shakeup because of the response to the ads! Guard duty scandal revived to respond to the Vietnam angle in the ads! The documents are forged! No they aren't! Yes they are! Vote Bush or die! We need another ad!
Not to make this too personal, but I blame the Boomers. The fact that the Baby Boomer generation is the most important demographic in the country right now - both economically and politically - is really the only way to explain this. Think about it. The first generation raised by television is slogging, along with the rest of us, through a campaign where the only issues discussed have to do with television advertisements. Let's not forget, as well, the fact that the two main candidates spring from that particular demographic, as well.
I'm kidding. I think.
Marvin Minsky once said, "Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know." Let's spool that thought out a bit. If TV was good, three of the major news networks (NBC, CNBC, MSNBC) wouldn't be owned by a defense contractor that profits from war. If TV was good, another major news network (CNN) wouldn't be wedded to the outsourcing of technological workers to cheap-labor nations because its parent company lives and dies by paying pennies on the dollar for geeks. If TV was good, another major news network (Fox) would require its anchors to say, "We are an auxiliary wing of the Republican Party, deal with it" every fifteen minutes.
In other words, if TV was good, that would mean TV news would actually be informative, and not a commercial platform for the handful of corporations that own and distribute all the information we the people need to intelligently run the show. If such a thing were to exist, it would indeed be the end of everything we know. It would be the end of non-issues. It would certainly be the end of this amazingly stupid election.
Issues we are not hearing about because we have spent so much time talking about television advertisements:
Millions of jobs lost in the last four years;
Unbearably expensive health care;
A total loss of confidence within the international community in our moral leadership;
The underfunded farce that is the Department of Homeland Security;
The underfunded farce that is the No Child Left Behind bill;
The fact that military assault weapons will soon be making a perfectly legal return to a neighborhood near you;
The deeply illegal outing of a deep-cover CIA agent by Bush administration officials, who did it because they wanted to silence a critic;
The rape and torture of men, women and children in the Abu Ghraib prison, horrors that were sanctioned in writing by Bush's own lawyer and the Secretary of Defense;
The allegation by Senator Bob Graham of Florida that Bush torpedoed any aspect of the 9/11 investigation that came within spitting distance of his friends in the Saudi royal family;
The allegations by several generals that Bush's people started stripping necessary troops and resources from Afghanistan to bolster their ill-conceived charge into Iraq;
The myriad accusations by a dozen insiders that Bush and his people ignored the terror threat until the Towers fell, and then used the attacks to scare the American people into an unnecessary war in Iraq and a mammoth payday for their friends in the weapons and oil business;
The fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq;
The fact that no connections between Hussein, bin Laden and 9/11 have been established beyond the bloviating hyperbole of a few senior Bush officials who haven't yet gotten the memo;
Does anyone even remember Enron?...
This is an interesting article emailed to me by my friend April. It is by William Rivers Pitt. And discusses something I never game much thought too.
...This entire election, thus far, has been about television. All the issues widely discussed stem from television advertisements. For the television news media, this is like free money falling from the sky. They cover to the hilt any story stemming from a television advertisement - which they can show, and then talk about, and then show, and then talk about, lather, rinse, repeat - and so the campaigns make this garbage the focus of their whole act. It's like a Mobius Loop for really dumb computers.
The entire Presidential debate thus far, performed in 30 seconds:
The Swifties! Denounce the ad! I denounce all ads! But denounce that ad! I denounce all ads! He didn't denounce the ad! I like eggs! 527s! Response ads! The ad said you lied in Vietnam! How dare that ad say such things! You must react more strongly to the ads! He's not responding strongly to the ads! Shakeup because of the response to the ads! Guard duty scandal revived to respond to the Vietnam angle in the ads! The documents are forged! No they aren't! Yes they are! Vote Bush or die! We need another ad!
Not to make this too personal, but I blame the Boomers. The fact that the Baby Boomer generation is the most important demographic in the country right now - both economically and politically - is really the only way to explain this. Think about it. The first generation raised by television is slogging, along with the rest of us, through a campaign where the only issues discussed have to do with television advertisements. Let's not forget, as well, the fact that the two main candidates spring from that particular demographic, as well.
I'm kidding. I think.
Marvin Minsky once said, "Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know." Let's spool that thought out a bit. If TV was good, three of the major news networks (NBC, CNBC, MSNBC) wouldn't be owned by a defense contractor that profits from war. If TV was good, another major news network (CNN) wouldn't be wedded to the outsourcing of technological workers to cheap-labor nations because its parent company lives and dies by paying pennies on the dollar for geeks. If TV was good, another major news network (Fox) would require its anchors to say, "We are an auxiliary wing of the Republican Party, deal with it" every fifteen minutes.
In other words, if TV was good, that would mean TV news would actually be informative, and not a commercial platform for the handful of corporations that own and distribute all the information we the people need to intelligently run the show. If such a thing were to exist, it would indeed be the end of everything we know. It would be the end of non-issues. It would certainly be the end of this amazingly stupid election.
Issues we are not hearing about because we have spent so much time talking about television advertisements:
Millions of jobs lost in the last four years;
Unbearably expensive health care;
A total loss of confidence within the international community in our moral leadership;
The underfunded farce that is the Department of Homeland Security;
The underfunded farce that is the No Child Left Behind bill;
The fact that military assault weapons will soon be making a perfectly legal return to a neighborhood near you;
The deeply illegal outing of a deep-cover CIA agent by Bush administration officials, who did it because they wanted to silence a critic;
The rape and torture of men, women and children in the Abu Ghraib prison, horrors that were sanctioned in writing by Bush's own lawyer and the Secretary of Defense;
The allegation by Senator Bob Graham of Florida that Bush torpedoed any aspect of the 9/11 investigation that came within spitting distance of his friends in the Saudi royal family;
The allegations by several generals that Bush's people started stripping necessary troops and resources from Afghanistan to bolster their ill-conceived charge into Iraq;
The myriad accusations by a dozen insiders that Bush and his people ignored the terror threat until the Towers fell, and then used the attacks to scare the American people into an unnecessary war in Iraq and a mammoth payday for their friends in the weapons and oil business;
The fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq;
The fact that no connections between Hussein, bin Laden and 9/11 have been established beyond the bloviating hyperbole of a few senior Bush officials who haven't yet gotten the memo;
Does anyone even remember Enron?...
Friday, September 10, 2004
My Encounter with the Fat Man
I spotted a celebrity last night. I finally spotted one all by myself. I am awful at spotting celebritys. The only time I ever see them is in obvious situations (like a movie shoot) unless I am with someone else who points them out to me.
Last night I was on duty in the Upper West Side. I was at the corner of 83rd and Amsterdamn peering through the window of the Racoon Lodge to watch the Patriots/Colts game on TV. That's when I spotted him waddling up the street towards me, the one known by some as the Big Fat Stupid White Man. As he went by I said, "Hey, how's it going?" in a friendly voice. He said, "good, how are you" I said, "good".
He kept walking, didn't pause to talk, didn't offer to shake my hand. I think he is afraid of cops.
I still haven't seen Fahrenheit 911. Is it on video yet?
I spotted a celebrity last night. I finally spotted one all by myself. I am awful at spotting celebritys. The only time I ever see them is in obvious situations (like a movie shoot) unless I am with someone else who points them out to me.
Last night I was on duty in the Upper West Side. I was at the corner of 83rd and Amsterdamn peering through the window of the Racoon Lodge to watch the Patriots/Colts game on TV. That's when I spotted him waddling up the street towards me, the one known by some as the Big Fat Stupid White Man. As he went by I said, "Hey, how's it going?" in a friendly voice. He said, "good, how are you" I said, "good".
He kept walking, didn't pause to talk, didn't offer to shake my hand. I think he is afraid of cops.
I still haven't seen Fahrenheit 911. Is it on video yet?
Saturday, September 04, 2004
The 10 Ways Bush Screwed New York
Read this article from the Village Voice
...With the president scheduled to barely show up here all week, wouldn't it be respectful if the delegates and media actually got around town to see just what he's done to us since the bullhorn bravado of 2001? They could start with
NYPD Blue, that All-American army deployed all over midtown. There are actually
5,879 fewer city cops than in 2000, partly due to the nearly 90 percent Bush
cuts in Bill Clinton's COPS programs. Even with the post-9-11 invention of
homeland security funding, NYC is getting $61 million less in federal
public-safety subsidies than it did before our cops became America's front line.
Bush's 2005 budget proposes even more cuts. Though most conventioneers would
prefer to forget it, George W. Bush has slashed the troop strength that host
committee hero Rudy Giuliani put on duty.
With the Bush administration also opposing legislation backed by Mayor Bloomberg that would've compensated the city for revenue lost due to 9-11, six firehouses were closed as well. That includes one on 125th Street in East Harlem, an engine company that might well have been summoned to Madison Square Garden in a multi-alarm fire. Of course, should anything catastrophic happen there during convention week, the firefighters whose brothers died on 9-11 will still be communicating on the
same, reprogrammed, radios that cost lives three years ago, thanks to a
president who refused to pony up the $120 million needed for new ones. Bush has
also de-funded the SAFER program even after Congress passed it—blocking NYC from hiring more firefighters—and limited equipment purchases under the FIRE program to a puny cap of $750,000, putting NY's allocation on a par with Poland, Ohio's, with Montana getting $9 per capita for federal firefighter aid and NYC nine
cents. Delegates still mesmerized by that NY's Bravest luster might want stop at
another East Harlem landmark—Mount Sinai Hospital—where thousands of Ground Zero rescue workers are still being screened for the lingering effects of their
misplaced faith in post–9-11 health advisories emanating from Bush's White
House–scripted EPA. Though the first Bush-Cheney commercial featured a
flag-draped coffin carried through Ground Zero by firefighters, the
administration actually fought the paltry $90 million allocation for Mount Sinai
and firefighter screening programs, as if it still believed its own altered
press releases about that historic toxic cloud.
Indeed, conventioneers taking a swing by GZ should be sure to visit Battery Park City or Independence Plaza and hear what the 20,000 residents of Lower Manhattan have to say about a White House that thought they or their buildings' owners should clean up the asbestos aftermath on their own. They could even drop in at EPA's NY office just a few blocks away at 290 Broadway—which got a partial super-vacuuming from emergency government crews while the agency decided that virtually no one else who worked or lived downtown was entitled to one.
GOPers who arrive by train, of course, will be taking precisely the same risks passengers did before 9-11: no bag searches, no bridge, tunnel, or even significant station security boosts, with the proposed Bush budget blasting Amtrak and other mass-transit funding like a time bomb. If Tom DeLay had achieved his cruise ship dream-hotel for delegates, they might actually have seen cargo ships pulling into port virtually as insecure as pre–9-11, with a lesser percent of containers inspected
than speeders stopped on the Jersey Turnpike. In fact, delegates from Cheney's
Wyoming, for example, will have reason to be jittery, leaving a state that gets
$40 per capita in homeland security funding to visit a state that gets $10,
especially since they will have entered a twilight zone on orange alert for the
last 1,080 days or so.
When this attacked city was selected to host the convention way back in January 2003, Bush might have believed he'd come here as a hero, with bin Laden's head in tow, a new tower rising, $20 billion in thank-you's awaiting, and a landslide on the way, beginning in NY. Instead, along the same westside route where Bush was cheered lustily on September 14, 2001, protesters may gather by the hundreds of thousands, a revolution in receptions marking the ugly shift in national spirit that's infected Bush's years. A president who came then to our battlefield as a unifier is returning as a user—turning our city into a carnival rationale for his war and re-election.
All this is before the top ten list begins. Read the rest.
Here is the beginning of #1.
1. Will any convention speaker dare mention the name of Osama bin Laden? What ever happened to Bush's cowboy threat to "smoke 'em" out?
Nope, don't think Bush mentioned him once during his speech.
Read this article from the Village Voice
...With the president scheduled to barely show up here all week, wouldn't it be respectful if the delegates and media actually got around town to see just what he's done to us since the bullhorn bravado of 2001? They could start with
NYPD Blue, that All-American army deployed all over midtown. There are actually
5,879 fewer city cops than in 2000, partly due to the nearly 90 percent Bush
cuts in Bill Clinton's COPS programs. Even with the post-9-11 invention of
homeland security funding, NYC is getting $61 million less in federal
public-safety subsidies than it did before our cops became America's front line.
Bush's 2005 budget proposes even more cuts. Though most conventioneers would
prefer to forget it, George W. Bush has slashed the troop strength that host
committee hero Rudy Giuliani put on duty.
With the Bush administration also opposing legislation backed by Mayor Bloomberg that would've compensated the city for revenue lost due to 9-11, six firehouses were closed as well. That includes one on 125th Street in East Harlem, an engine company that might well have been summoned to Madison Square Garden in a multi-alarm fire. Of course, should anything catastrophic happen there during convention week, the firefighters whose brothers died on 9-11 will still be communicating on the
same, reprogrammed, radios that cost lives three years ago, thanks to a
president who refused to pony up the $120 million needed for new ones. Bush has
also de-funded the SAFER program even after Congress passed it—blocking NYC from hiring more firefighters—and limited equipment purchases under the FIRE program to a puny cap of $750,000, putting NY's allocation on a par with Poland, Ohio's, with Montana getting $9 per capita for federal firefighter aid and NYC nine
cents. Delegates still mesmerized by that NY's Bravest luster might want stop at
another East Harlem landmark—Mount Sinai Hospital—where thousands of Ground Zero rescue workers are still being screened for the lingering effects of their
misplaced faith in post–9-11 health advisories emanating from Bush's White
House–scripted EPA. Though the first Bush-Cheney commercial featured a
flag-draped coffin carried through Ground Zero by firefighters, the
administration actually fought the paltry $90 million allocation for Mount Sinai
and firefighter screening programs, as if it still believed its own altered
press releases about that historic toxic cloud.
Indeed, conventioneers taking a swing by GZ should be sure to visit Battery Park City or Independence Plaza and hear what the 20,000 residents of Lower Manhattan have to say about a White House that thought they or their buildings' owners should clean up the asbestos aftermath on their own. They could even drop in at EPA's NY office just a few blocks away at 290 Broadway—which got a partial super-vacuuming from emergency government crews while the agency decided that virtually no one else who worked or lived downtown was entitled to one.
GOPers who arrive by train, of course, will be taking precisely the same risks passengers did before 9-11: no bag searches, no bridge, tunnel, or even significant station security boosts, with the proposed Bush budget blasting Amtrak and other mass-transit funding like a time bomb. If Tom DeLay had achieved his cruise ship dream-hotel for delegates, they might actually have seen cargo ships pulling into port virtually as insecure as pre–9-11, with a lesser percent of containers inspected
than speeders stopped on the Jersey Turnpike. In fact, delegates from Cheney's
Wyoming, for example, will have reason to be jittery, leaving a state that gets
$40 per capita in homeland security funding to visit a state that gets $10,
especially since they will have entered a twilight zone on orange alert for the
last 1,080 days or so.
When this attacked city was selected to host the convention way back in January 2003, Bush might have believed he'd come here as a hero, with bin Laden's head in tow, a new tower rising, $20 billion in thank-you's awaiting, and a landslide on the way, beginning in NY. Instead, along the same westside route where Bush was cheered lustily on September 14, 2001, protesters may gather by the hundreds of thousands, a revolution in receptions marking the ugly shift in national spirit that's infected Bush's years. A president who came then to our battlefield as a unifier is returning as a user—turning our city into a carnival rationale for his war and re-election.
All this is before the top ten list begins. Read the rest.
Here is the beginning of #1.
1. Will any convention speaker dare mention the name of Osama bin Laden? What ever happened to Bush's cowboy threat to "smoke 'em" out?
Nope, don't think Bush mentioned him once during his speech.
