Posts made by ehaflett

@remus said:

personally the whole thing seems like a bit of a joke to me (the election that is.)

Care to elaborate on/justify that? Sounds pretty offensive coming from a non-citizen.

Well said Phil. And what does it say about the standards to which we hold our public officials (running for one of the highest offices in the land, no less) when the idea of 'winning by not losing' is even mentioned in this context? No offense Solo, I know you didn't come up with the idea.

So what happens when he uses the wrong hand to swat at a skeeter?

@solo said:

@unknownuser said:

...
Even if you argue the point that Ralph Nader is a choice you know you are only paying lip service, as a vote for Nader would be like a vote against McCain in your case as you have very obvious conservative values which would result in a vote for Obama in essence.

Here's Nader's response to those who say a vote for him is a vote for the republican candidate.

http://www.youtube.com/v/UzxIxXj5K_M&hl=en&fs=1

Matt Gonzalez is Ralph Nader's running mate in the upcoming election. He ran for mayor of San Francisco a while back and was polling around 5 or 6% until he was allowed in a locally televised debate which caused a spike in his popularity, he lost the race by a very small margin. He's worth a look, I'd love to see him debate the other VP candidates!

And thanks for the clarity on the Glass-Steagall Act too, I'm boning up for tonight's big variety show (debate).

And SOLO, you're talking about Ralph Nader.

@kwistenbiebel said:

Photo!

+1. Solid.

Imagine if Ross Perot was 6 feet tall and not quite as quirky! Matt Gonzalez and Jesse Venture are also good examples of independents that forced a 3 way race basically from out of nowhere, Jesse actuall won his. These were local races so the media didn't play quite the same role, that national media is a tough nut to crack.

Ron, I guess that makes us the 'the undecided and independent' voters that Solo mentioned. I'm glad to see that neither of us is voting for a dem or rep. The lesser of 2 evils is still evil, right?

Sorry to stray so far from the topic.

Well put, Solo, and in many ways I agree with you. I would point out that as far as the media is concerned there is no difference between the parties. The media spends basically zero attention to 3rd party candidates because they're just that (not one of THE 2 parties). Take a guy like Ralph Nader who is on 45 of the 50 state ballots and in many ways wants what the people want(http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2836). He has NO ACCESS to big media to tell them this. It would be an entirely different story if he were allowed into ONE debate. The debates are run by a bipartisan 'commission' that knows that there's not much difference between the 2 big parties.

By the way, just to stay on topic, Ralph is against the bailout too.

In politics, absurdity is not a handicap.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

In a similar vein...

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election

By Tim Wise

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges,"
-- even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "f-n' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their f-n' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be)
-- rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement,
-- whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in, in the first place, because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter,
-- while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s
--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because,
ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school
requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast
-- and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family,
-- while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough,
-- but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month
governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism,
-- while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political
machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian,
-- but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question,"
-- while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president,
-- while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

I installed it this morning and it hosed my ArcGIS 9.3 install but no affect on SU.

Spend at least 10 minutes a day reading posts here. There's a LOT to be learned here and no shortage of inspiration!

And what's so scary about the answer being 'no'?

Some pretty cool research...

http://www.hothardware.com/News/Capturing-3D-Surfaces-Simply-With-a-Flash-Camera/

Is God not, then, responsible for our 'craftiness' and 'vanity'? 'He' (his book anyway) discounts any wisdom of anything that does not result in us better knowing him. What would he have us do with the logic and rationality and inquisitiveness and self awarenees and mortality with which he has paradoxically endowed (most of) us? Seems a bit cruel to me.

Great designs, Jason, and I'm glad to see the green roofs showing up in more places. Was that a request or just part of your design?

She said it was MY fault for building the pool that close to the garage

NICE! Thank you.

Since you said you're using ArcGIS it's possible that you have MOD IV (tax and parcel) data for your city. This data will often contain a Building Description (BldgDesc) field that may be helpful in knowing how many stories the buildings are. You could do a spatial query to transfer this attribute, or at least part of it, to your building footprints. This would work in the method you described in your original post where you multiply the # of stories by a number but would not require you to go out and collect this data.

No problemo.

pbacot, here's a quick and dirty example of something I did using this method. (bench and street lights are SU just in case you can't tell )