aubreyturner.org

A local woman in Euless has learned that she is not allowed to fly the American flag at her home because of the rules of the homeowners association. 

The American flag cannot fly on Patriot Street, Colonial Lane or anywhere else in the Heritage Place subdivision.

It’s a rule homeowner Linda Martin would like to see waived.

A few weeks after Martin moved into her new villa-style home in June on Republic Drive, she received a letter from the Heritage Place Homeowners Association requesting that she remove her U.S. flag. The letter said the flag violated efforts “to preserve and maintain the property values” in the subdivision.

Martin had been flying a 4-by-6-foot flag on a pole attached to her fence for the Fourth of July and to show respect for the troops and for her son in the Navy.

“I would have never guessed in a million years that a homeowners association would restrict a United States flag on a holiday,” she said.

Martin dusted off the manual of covenants she had set aside after she moved in and discovered that she had, in fact, violated the rules.

At least she admits that she hadn’t fully read the rules and was violating them.  However, I think this sort of thing just further illustrates why I’ll never buy a house where there’s a homeowners association.  These associations always seem to be populated by petty little martinets who get a rush from the power they hold over the homeowners. 

So why don’t they want people to fly flags? 

Flags are restricted for aesthetic reasons because people often neglect them, Weber said. The deed restrictions are standard, and use of flags was not an issue until 9-11, she said.

After Martin received the letter dated July 6, she said, she approached board members at a meeting.

They told her that if she wanted to fly an American flag, they would have to allow her neighbors to fly any flags, even Nazi or Ku Klux Klan ones, she said.

This one pegs my bullshit detector.  First, since they have a plethora of rules about the maintenance and appearance of homes, it would be a simple thing to make a rule that requires the flag to be well tended and in good condition.  Second, the association can create just about any rule it wants (it’s a private organization and isn’t covered by the First Amendment), so the idea that they would have to allow any other kind of flag just doesn’t seem to fly.  Being a private organization, with voluntary membership, they could surely write a rule that only allowed the American (and possibly Texas) flags to be flown.

Martin is not amused that an association created to protect the value of her home would go so far in restricting her freedom.

“People die in wars so that we can own homes and have a homeowners association,” she said.

Martin is working with a lawyer to request permission to fly a flag three days before and after a national holiday. Even though she loves her home, Martin said that if her request is denied, she will probably move out in a few years.

“And I will never live in a community with a homeowners association again,” she said.

It sounds like she’s learned an expensive lesson about avoiding these petty little martinets in the future.

I was Galluped this week.  They called me up and asked a few questions about the state of the country, the economy, and the elections.  What I found is that their questions don’t make any allowances for anything beyond yes/no or Democrat/Republican responses.  I think what this does is cause their numbers to be skewed.  When the mainstream press gets the results of the poll, they report them like they were gospel.  When the actual results don’t match the polls, they are then left casting about for answers as to why (usually they seem to blame it on voters “throwing a tantrum” or something like that when their liberal favorites don’t get elected or get thrown out).

If you were to ask if I approved of the job that Bush is doing on a strictly ‘yes/no’ basis, my answer would be ‘no.’  And in fact, that’s just what Gallup did.  I am also a participant in Zogby’s online poll.  I get a questionaire from them about once a month.  They break things down a little more, but my answers still tend to be negative on a variety of issues.  I don’t like the profligate spending on his watch (billions more for Medicare anyone?).  I don’t like the pandering to illegal aliens.  I don’t like his position on the Assault Weapons Ban (not only was it wrong, it was cowardly, since he thought it was pretty safe that he wouldn’t actually have to worry about it being passed).  I don’t like his support for the FMA.  So when it came to rating my overall opinion of George W. Bush, I rated him as “unfavorable.”  Of course, I gave Kerry, Edwards, and Nader ratings of “highly unfavorable.”

I don’t fit in any political party anymore.  I can’t stand the Democrat party.  The morality police wing of the Republican party pisses me off so much that the tent really isn’t big enough for them and me at the same time.  I fell out with the Libertarian party after 9/11, when they adopted a blame America approach. 

Anyhow, all these negative factors show up in my polling results, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into information that can be relied on for anything.  When it comes time to make a decision for the presidential election, my only choices are Bush or nobody.  There isn’t a snowball’s chance that I would vote for Kerry.  But for now, when they ask me who I’ll vote for, I simply say I’m undecided.

I think come November that the news media is going to get thwacked about the head by people like me.  Despite our high disapproval for George W. Bush, or being undecided at the moment, I suspect there will be a lot nose holding at the voter booths.  Until then, the polls will show lots of undecideds and low approval ratings for Bush, which will be pounced on by the media and shouted from the rooftops in the hopes of influencing the vote.

So the New York protesters are demanding water and other amenities from the city now, eh?  It’s too bad I’m not the mayor or police comissioner.  I’d give them water.  Straight from the firehose.  Heck, it might even wash off some of the smell.

I’ve noticed that a lot of publishers like to put photos in the middle of some non-fiction books.  I’m guessing it has to do with the type of paper used, since it’s usually glossy as opposed to the normal paper of the rest of the book, and putting it in the center makes sense.

The problem I’ve found with this, though, is that you have to be very careful not to look at all of the pictures when you get to them, since you’re only halfway through the book.  The captions on the pictures can spoil things for you by giving away events you haven’t gotten to yet. 

However, you’d think that when the book is released as an eBook they could move the photos around so you don’t run into them before you’ve read the relevant part of the book.  I’ve been reading The Shadow Divers, which is about a group of divers who found a German U-Boat in 1991 off the coast of New Jersey that “wasn’t supposed to be there.”  Given the way the pictures are arranged, it’s actually harder to skip the pictures in the eBook format than it is with a physical book.  With a book, you can simply feel your way to the end of the photo section and keep reading.  The eBook requires you to scroll through the photo section.  Given that I’m capable of getting the meat of an entire paragraph at a glance, it was very difficult to get past that section without learning more than I wanted to at the time.

If there’s anything I hate more than being demanded to part with my Social Security Number for numerous things that don’t really need it, it’s the tendency of late for the asker to lazily shorten it to “your social.”  That makes it sound so much more innocuous and “friendly.”  After all, who doesn’t want to be “social”?  It makes you seem unreasonable for getting offended by such a request. 

I just ran into this because Cingular’s obnoxious computer system had mangled my address yet again, substituting “Court” for “Street”.  Luckily, the Court is connected to my Street and serviced by the same postman.  This means that he actually knows my name and delivers it to me.  If it’d been a weekend, the substitute carrier would have likely left my bill at the corresponding address down the way.

After navigating Cingular’s designed-to-make-you-give-up-and-go-away VRU and escaping through hitting zero (even though ‘0’ wasn’t a listed option, it took it), I was eventually transferred to someone who demanded my cell number again and “the last 4 digits of your social.”  It turns out that it’s their policy to either ask for your birthday or the last four digits of your SSN.  I had her put my birthday in the system.  However, it occurred to me that I don’t recall giving them my SSN.  I originally started with them before they changed their name to a silly made-up word, so it’s likely that I didn’t care as much about privacy at the time.

Anyhow, given my previous dealings with Cingular’s online systems, I’m not sanguine that my address will actually get changed.  When I moved I had a hard time getting it to take my address, since it wanted to shoehorn my address into a set of fields, such that I entered the house number in one field, the street name in another, and then selected the type (Street, Drive, etc) from a drop-down.  Given that my correct address requires an additional directional modifier, their system was obviously not designed with me in mind.  As an example, my address would be written as “### Name Street South”, which I had to enter without the “South”.  Fortunately, the north part of my street doesn’t have a house with the same number as mine.  Somewhere along the way, though, the system morphed that into “### Name Court”. 

Given that this type of confusion resulted in having my gas disconnected without warning, you can understand that I’m likely to be a bit peeved with systems that change my address for no apparent reason.

I think part of it is that companies often “normalize” addresses and for some reason their normalization routine changes it if the original isn’t correctly entered.  I know the postal system wants it to be written “### Name St S” or it won’t recognize it.  I always enter it that way on forms, but people have a habit of entering them wrong or changing parts of it.  About a month ago I had the same thing happen with my truck loan. 

A while back I took some time to look at Ohio’s new concealed carry law (along with several other states’ laws) and discovered a provision in the law that pretty much guts the concept of concealed carry and makes vehicles potential attack-prone gun free zones (or invites “panic” on the part of GFWs).  Here’s what I said at the time:

But given what I’ve been reading of the law, the CCW law they just got has a huge stinking problem.  Specifically, you can’t carry on or about your person in a “motor vehicle”, even if you have a permit, unless the handgun is “in plain sight on the person’s person or it is securely encased by being stored in a closed, locked glove compartment or in a case that is in plain sight and that is locked.”  Why does this provision sound like it was added by some GFW police chief somewhere?  What’s the damn point of having a concealed handgun if you have to expose it everytime you get into a car (or worse, lock it up)?

In the most recent issue of Gun Week I came across an article about someone who is suing the state over this provision.

Parts of Ohio’s new concealed carry law are unconstitutional and were written by “idiots,” contends a gun-rights advocate who sued the state on June 30, according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Stephen Miller, a lawyer and handgun instructor from Independence, sued in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, asking a judge to strike down the law’s language governing how guns may be carried in vehicles.

The law requires that when people licensed to carry concealed firearms get into a vehicle, they lock their guns in the glove compartment or a box, or wear them holstered “in plain sight.” But the law doesn’t define “plain sight.”

…

Hanson, who lobbied for the law, said the State Highway Patrol wrote the language in question. Miller wants the “plain view” language stricken so people in vehicles “would be able to carry in their cars the way the license indicates: concealed.”

It would appear that I was close when I wrote about the “GFW police chief.”  It seems odd that they went to such lengths concerning carry in a vehicle.  All they had to do was ask one of the many states that have concealed carry about how to handle this. 

It occurred to me after reading the article that the Ohio State Highway Patrol may have actually made their jobs harder by insisting on this provision.  Let’s ignore the implicit (and wrong) assumption that concealed permit holders are lawless criminals for a bit and just consider the tactical situation.  If the permit holder has chosen to use the “plain sight” option, you now have a firearm that is in the open and quickly accessible.  If permit holders are the lawless trigger-happy criminals that the Highway Patrol assumes them to be, this just means that they can more quickly get the drop on the trooper when he approaches the vehicle.  One of the tactical problems with concealed carry is that it can hinder ready accessibility to the weapon.  A concealed weapon would likely take longer to deploy and would afford the trooper more time to react. 

Of course all of this is based on the GFW assumption that everyone who gets a concealed carry permit is a trigger-happy bloodthirsty criminal just waiting for a chance to “waste somebody” (blood in the streets at every fender bender, etc).  Real world experience has shown that people who jump through all the hoops to get a carry permit are far more law-abiding that the population in general.  Perhaps the Ohio State Highway Patrol should talk to some Texas State Troopers (and not the political hacks who run the DPS, but real patrolmen), who deal with concealed handguns on a daily basis and manage to do so in a professional and respectful way (or at least that’s been my experience and that of a lot of other Texas CHL holders).

I’d been looking forward to the rollout of FTTP (fiber to the premises) from Verizon here in Keller.  They were promising truly high-speed internet access.  Well, they’ve announced the pricing scheme, and it’s the same old tired crap with upload caps (and I’ll bet a bunch of restrictive terms about what you can run).  Further, they’re bundling all the same useless content that they do with their DSL service (MSN Premium content; Verizon’s new Broadband Beat entertainment portal).

Here are the announced prices:

• 5 Mbps/2 Mbps for $34.95 a month as part of a calling package, or $39.95 a month stand-alone
• 15 Mbps/2 Mbps for $44.95 a month as part of a calling package, or $49.95 a month stand-alone
• 30 Mbps/5 Mbps at pricing to be announced later

I guess I must not be the core market, but all I want is the damn pipe, and I want one without a stupid upload cap.  I don’t need (nor do I want) their content.  I don’t need their email or web hosting or any other stuff.  I work from home and I frequently need to upload large files.  Upload caps get in the way of that.  Given that this is for work, I’d be willing to pay a little more per month for a service without an upload cap. 

15M/2M or 30M/5M is still a lot better than what I get now (3M/128Kbps), but it’s kind of disappointing to find these stingy upload caps after all the hype about what they were touting as “true high speed” access.  Don’t get me wrong—I’ll probably still sign up, but I’m not as enthusiastic as I was about this when they first announced it.  Yes, I know the equipment itself isn’t symmetrical, but the technical capabilities of the equipment should at least allow something like 15M/15M through bandwidth shaping techniques (the tech specs are 155M down and 100M up and they’re likely using bandwidth shaping/throttling software in the routers or the modems to limit the bandwidth to the contractual amounts). 

I almost forgot to mention that they’ve named the service “Verizon Fios”.  I think I’ll stick to calling it FTTP.  I absolutely despise the current corporate trend of making up nonsense words as names for their products. 

The Nigerian 419 scammers have moved on to a much more aggressive form of email scam.  Now they claim to be representatives of an organization that’s been hired to put a hit on you unless you send them $40,000 immediately.

I particularly liked this last bit:

CAUTION.

1.you are to attach and send with immediate effect,the payment slip,confirming the payment and to enable us to reconcile with our files and deploy our men already monitoring you.

2.we will as well waste no time to carry our operations,if we discover that this contact is disclosed to any second party including the following:-

police relation and friends

3.we guarantee your saftey locally and internationally,on the completion of this contract and will not hesitate to disclose our men in your country to you and as well render our service if needed or on request.

we seek your urgent co-operation,for it is not our wish to get you eliminated.

Note : – Your death has been paid for by someone you offended sometime ago and it will be adviceable that you co-operate with us a.s.a.p.

Hmm…  that could be a lengthy list, given my rather abrasive personality before I mellowed into my current laid-back style. 

Link via Slashdot.

I had the opportunity on Friday to introduce another new person to the world of shooting.  A friend of mine at work had a programmer working on his project who is here from Brazil.  She had never been shooting before and wanted to see what it was like. 

We met at Bass Pro on Friday evening and after getting setup in the range, I gave her the basic lecture on the three rules and then showed her the basic operation of the S&W 22s.  I set the target pretty close for the initial shots, and she took to it pretty quickly and was soon putting most of her shots in the 10-ring.  After she’d gotten comfortable with the .22 she wanted to try something a little bigger, so I let her try the Taurus 92 (she picked this one because it was made in Brazil ).  While she put the shot in the bottom of the 10-ring, she decided that it had too much recoil for her (I also think she was uncomforable with it because it’s a double-stack and she had very small hands).  But overall, she really enjoyed the experience.

Afterwards we all went to dinner at Big Buck’s.  We got to talking a bit about guns and guns laws in general, since she mentioned that Brazil’s laws were so restrictive.  It turns out that they just made them worse.

Now, under a new law hailed by supporters as the most sweeping gun-control measure in South America, only Brazilians with valid reasons — police and security guards, for example — are allowed to carry firearms in public.

Ordinary citizens who own guns either must register their weapons, turn them in or face jail time.

…

The new law requires background checks for prospective buyers, raises the legal age for gun ownership from 21 to 25, demands that all guns be registered and imposes prison sentences of up to four years for violators.

One of the things that she told us is that almost everyone there has a gun, but they don’t know how to use them, since the restrictions keep them from actually getting out and practicing.  In general, the problems in Brazil seem to be more related to drug gangs and other criminals than to people owning guns.  They have trouble with crime in general there, with criminals kidnapping people to drain their ATM accounts and with carjackings.  She mentioned on seeing my Avalanche that a vehicle like that in Brazil would make me a target for criminals, where it’s a pretty common vehicle here. 

Of course, the fact that gangs will have guns regardless of the law seems to be lost on the gun-grabbers.  Perhaps if a few of the targets were armed (and knew how to use their guns) and killed a few gang members these problems would start to take care of themselves.  Maybe what Brazil really needs is a Louisana carjacker law.

I got a weird comment to the “Fundamentally Unserious” post from last week.  It consisted of simply the phrase, “I’m shocked” and claimed to be from someone named “Diarmuid Moroney” of the “Dublin International Foundation College.”  The website given seemed kind of weird and I found out that it was a ripoff of the real website with some interesting and naughty bits added to the HTML.  The page didn’t render right in Firefox, and I think I’m glad it didn’t, given this bit that was hidden there:


<a href=“cartoon/01.html”><span class=“red”>disney porn</span></a><span class=“red”>   
            <a href=“cartoon/05.html”>simpsons sex</a>   
            <a href=“cartoon/10.html”>kim possible nude</a>   
            <a href=“cartoon/15.html”>futurama xxx</a></span><br>


Disney Porn!  WTF?!  I had to Google to find out who Kim Possible was.  If you’re the kind of squirrel who gets off on a cartoon teenager, I don’t want to know you.  But I suppose there’s no accounting for taste or the weird variety of things that get people’s motors started.

Anyhow, I’ve deleted the comment, but this is an insidious sort of thing that is hard to catch since you have to investigate the linked website (and in this case look at the source).  The only red flag is that the comment itself doesn’t quite make sense.  For example, I could understand being shocked by the bishop’s statement, but people who would be shocked would say more than just “I’m shocked.”