My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on October 19, 2010

I’ve often wondered what is and isn’t permitted at local polling locations since many are private properties except for opening their doors on election day. In our suburban township we use schools, churches and building such as union halls, the later generating a lawsuit from a local community group of the Cincinnati Tea Party. Some locations have interests or views which take a political tack and often differ from those voting in the facility. For example, while voting in local Baptist church building, I’ve wondered if being in a church influences ones thoughts on social issues … or if in a local school building, does the condition or local cause a voter to be more or less sympathetic toward requests for more funding? One thing I’ve have noticed is that that there are plenty of campaign signs as one drives in and parks, and there are often people who have set up tables. For the most park, they are accepted as free speech and as a welcomed part of our democracy … BUT what if only certain points of view are accepted on the property near a polling place?

One local polling location saw a lawsuit filed last week by the Liberty Township Tea Party. The suit was against Butler County Board of Elections and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW Local 648) because the property owners (union) restricted access to the area 100 feet from polling location “because it was private property.” 

According to the Pulse-Journal, Katherine Dirr set up her table back in May 2010, a she has done in previous elections, and was the correct 100 feet from the voting location in order to hand out pamphlets and seek petition signatures. She was asked to leave, presumably due to political positions that differed from those represented by the property owners, and shown an email from the Butler Board of Elections director Betty McGary that the property representative had permission to ask Katherine Dirr to leave or to call the Sheriff’s Office if she didn’t comply. She left at that time and now has the Tea Party backing in filing a lawsuit in order to be able to set up her tables in November.

What is interesting, is that not all campaigning on the property is denied, just that which differs from poll locations property owners (IBEW Local 648)… photo of ‘acceptable’ signage below (Strickland/Brown are Democrats for those not in Ohio). To be fair to the Board of Elections, their attorney states that “the board had nothing to do with the decision to expel Dirr from the property. The board controls only the polling place and the area 100 feet around it. Our position is it’s their property. They can do what they want.”  Maybe the Board of Education should look for a polling location a bit more open to all points of view?

This is one of a number of photos being used as evidence in a lawsuit filed by the Liberty Twp. Tea Party against the Butler County Board of Elections and Local 648 of the International Electrical Workers. – Pulse-Journal

Category: Local, Politics | 1 Comment »
Tags: butler county, elections, liberty township, pulse journal, tea party

Posted By RichC on October 18, 2010

My friend Jeff is a very fortunate amateur photographer since he is one of the few who own a fantastic Canon 5d Mark II. Although I only had a few minutes to play with it over lunch the other day, I enjoyed tinkering with the buttons and menus (there’s a big learning curve). He has already shot the candid photos for a friends wedding, some night shots of Minneapolis MN  and was out to a local lake this weekend looking for autumn color. Although ‘stills’ are the primary goal for most photographers opting for a high end DSLR, this camera does an outstanding job with video too. It is one of the few digital single lens reflex cameras that can take video (more coming) and has even been used in Hollywood to film a TV series – the final 2009 season episode of “House” was filmed with the Canon d50 Mark II. So … I was curious just how well I could take a 1920 x 1080 video clip and encode it as a flash video so it will stream on my blog. He obliged and sent me a 30 second clip from this weekend at Cowan Lake. Thanks Jeff.
 

Category: Photography, Photos, Video | No Comments »
Tags: Canon, jeffp, photography

Posted By RichC on October 17, 2010

Farm “art” in Trenton Ohio

Brenda and I spent the weekend around home doing fall chores, watching a little football and driving over to Oxford, Ohio to visit Taylor at Miami. Our “to-do” list included shuffling a few of our pieces of art in order to make room for a couple new prints that have finally been delivered from our  Bermuda trip this past summer.  I cut and trimmed up the lawn (with leaves) on Saturday and spent Sunday afternoon painting the cupola on top of the garage (I didn’t fall). Besides tuning into a few NFL games (Bengals had a ‘bye’ week) and currently watching the NLCS Phillies and Giants game, we drove over to see our son for lunch. (Steak and Shake manager teased Taylor and brought him a “Coke” in a tiny cup – photo below. It gave us all a good laugh and smile) 

Category: Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: chores, miami, taylor

Posted By RichC on October 16, 2010

Not that I’ve been all that regular at posting a “tech tip” on Fridays, but I did try out a new video recording program this week. It is called At-Large Recorder 2 (Windows only) by Applian Technologies and is a DVR of sorts for the Slingbox … which is a piece of hardware that broadcast a TV signal from a home/office to connected devices either on the local area network or via the Internet while away.

I don’t use my Classic Slingbox all that much, but it has been nice to be able to tune into a breaking new story or event while traveling. The At-Large Recorder adds capture ability to the hardware by saving a stream as a .asf file … not all that useful for most devices without running them through a converter program (it would be night to have that included in version 3). The interface enables one to set the date, time and length of recording along with a few minor quality tweaks. Multiple instances of the application can be opened in order to schedule different programs … one at a time though. Once recorded,  pushing the ‘play’ button bring up the recorded programs and offers a playback utilizing Windows Media Player (or manually you can use VLC or another appropriate media player). Quality seems to be the weakest link in using this for anything where quality is desired, but then again, the old Slingbox may not offer the HD quality of newer versions? I’m not sure I’d recommend spending $69.95 for it …  the trial version will record 5 minutes. I’ll include a short video clip captured below:

Category: Computer, Software, Technology, Video-TV | No Comments »
Tags: dvr, recorder, slingbox, Software, tv

Posted By RichC on October 15, 2010

Last year about this time I reposted a series of photos highlighting what a fantastic engineering project was underway in the United States. A bridge to bypass the Hoover Dam looks to be one of the civil engineering marvels of this decade. The 1900 foot span crosses the Colorado River and connects Arizona and Nevada about 890 feet above the water. The 8 year project estimated at $240 million dollars will cut travel time between the cities of Phoenix and Las Vegas, but more importantly move car and truck traffic from driving across the Hoover Dam (thought to be a potential target of terror). 

According to the Associated Press, “The bridge, which officially opens next week, is named for former Nevada Gov. Mike O’Callaghan and Pat Tillman, the former NFL player who quit the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers and died in Afghanistan under friendly fire. Family members of O’Callaghan and Tillman are expected at the bridge’s dedication.”

Category: Automotive, News, Photos, Travel | No Comments »
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Posted By RichC on October 14, 2010

When it comes to using artistic gifts and talents for others, Kaziah Hancock is, as Bill O’Reilly would say, a patriot. She is an artist from Utah who tireless donates her artistic endeavors to those who have given their life for their country. According to this video, she lives humbly on a goat farm and paints portraits of soldiers … with passion and emotion … and sends them to the parents around the country.

Category: Millitary, Video | No Comments »
Tags: Art

Posted By RichC on October 13, 2010

As a lifelong advocate for a citizen’s right to own firearms, even I, a John Kasich supporter, was taken back by the recent political ads from the Ted Strickland (D) reelection campaign which targeted challenger John Kasich (R) and painted him as anti-gun. I thought, “and I’m supporting Kasich?”

As is the case with many last month negative political ads, they mislead more than they tell the truth. Come to find out, John Kasich is right where I thought he was in support of the Second Amendment and an individuals’ rights when it comes to hunting and a citizen owning firearms. (PDF statement)

As a member of Congress John Kasich
received three “A” level ratings, was
endorsed by the NRA three times,
and received campaign contributions
from the NRA six times.

“I am strongly for the Second Amendment. People have the right to keep and bear arms. I’m a weapons owner myself. I own a hand gun and the bottom line is everyone should be relaxed on the second amendment – I am not interested in eroding it. I think the vote I cast in 1994 did not make things better at all and I don’t want to be passing laws that clutter up the books and get in the way of people’s having their rights.”

– John Kasich on the Mike Trivisonno Show, WTAM 1100, 9/30/2010

In looking at the ads running on TV, radio, print and the web today, the pro-Strickland campaign, endorsed by Democrats and big government liberals including President Obama, are decidedly anti-gun. They hammered away this week that John Kasich “earned an ‘F’ from the NRA” … yet fail to remark that Kasich generally received much higher NRA “grades” and in fact received a “B” rating this year – they only highlighted the 1994 rating reflecting votes on the AWB. What is even more telling, besides a voter’s judgment as to where left wing leaders stand on gun ownership, is to look at Strickland’s own Lt. Governor Yvette McGee Brown who actually did receive and “F” rating this past year (Notice, John Kasich’s running mate Mary Taylor has an “A” rating).

As a campaign issue only time will tell if Kasich can combat the effective negative ads diverting attention from Ohio’s (and the nation’s) lousy economy … and string of failed policies when it comes to creating jobs and controlling spending – all I see is more debt and more government. To be fair, I don’t dislike Gov. Strickland or see him as an extremist in the sense of some on the far left or right. He has been dealt a tough hand and no matter who is calling the shots in Columbus the challenge is large. At this point I can’t discredit or credit our Governor on his leadership … but then again, there really hasn’t been any.

My conclusion is that voters need to avoid the single issues that ‘yank a chain’ with misleading negative ads … but we need to elect governors (and representatives) who want to apply proven pro-growth and job creation policies …

1. Focus on smaller government,
2. Lower or at least more certain tax rates (previous posts a & b),
3. Work to attract companies to Ohio 
4. Responsibly manage the fiscal policies of our state … and dysfunctional schools, but then that’s a post for another day …

Category: Politics | No Comments »
Tags: elections, governor, kasich, ohio, strickland

Posted By RichC on October 12, 2010

The 33 miners trapped in the San Jose mine in Copiapo, Chile are expected to be pulled the 2000+ feet to the surface tonight. The rescue attempt uses a ‘capsule’ lower through a 24 inch pipe & shaft recently bored into the mine. This amazing story of human ingenuity and spirit reminds me of Apollo 13 returning from the moon when I was a young boy. (attempting to post with a photo from the Palm Pre)

Posted via email from RichC’s posterous

Category: News, Photos | No Comments »
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Posted By RichC on October 12, 2010

While struggling to stay productive during my out of town trip last week, I found it necessary to tether my computer to my Palm Pre a couple of times. On previous trips I bragged about MyTether as a way to do this, but after a summer webOS update it no longer works … so I switched to option 2 a few months ago: Palm Mobile Hotspot used with the Verizon webOS phones. Although I don’t use the tethered connection enough to justify a dedicated 3/4G USB dongle or netbook computer with built-in connectivity, being able to tether when WiFi hotspot aren’t available is pretty convenient.

Unfortunately, I also made the mistake of  updating my phone apps on my Palm Pre while I was killing time (yes, I know better). One of the apps that was updated was Palm Mobile Hotspot and doing it fouled up my connectivity to the Sprint network.

I gave up on connecting for the balance of the weekend, but knew I would eventually need the connection again. So after a quick review of the Palm Pre forums I found the fix to be as simple as deleting are reinstalling the old 1.0.14 patched Mobile Hotspot.

Step by step plus downloads:

1. Delete the new 1.4.1.1 version of Palm Mobile Hotspot
   (hold orange/opt key and touch app, confirm delete)
2. Connect the Palm Pre to the computer via USB wire – charge only.
3. Run the WebOSQuickInstall.jar (used to install apps on the Pre)
4. Download and install the previous downloaded IPK (rt ck/save as):
   com.palm.app.mobilehotspot_1.0.14_all-already_patched.ipk

Category: Cellphone, Computer, Software, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: app, tether, webos

Posted By RichC on October 12, 2010

What automotive enthusiast hasn’t chuckled at a few of Jeremy Clarkson remarks on the UK automotive program Top Gear … I’m guessing most of us?  In a recent movie trailer for The Italian Job, Clarkson offers up a few more humorous moments; check out the YouTube trailer of at least the “spinnaker face” clip below.

Category: Automotive, Video | No Comments »
Tags: jeremy clarkson, top gear