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So it seems that the great Janet Jackson anatomy lesson has kicked off a large round of censorship by the FCC. Thank’s Mr. FCC. Thanks, for “protecting” me from that very harmful piece of human anatomy called a boob; thanks for “protecting” me from those awful words on the Don and Mike show; thanks for “protecting” me from that horrible Howard Stern. Hey Mr. FCC - FUCK YOU!

And how long will it be before you try to “protect” me from myself and the nasty words I use in my blog?

First, the Grammies came with a nice 7 second delay, just in case. Then I heard that the Don & Mike show was suspended because the FCC claimed it was indecent. And finally, they came after Howard Stern by fining Clear Channel. And Clear Channel took Howard Stern off their 6 stations.

Does the FCC have the right to do this? They seem to think so, but as far as I know the only law the FCC can enforce is the “seven dirty words.” They have no ability to make laws. There are no clear rules (or laws) that define what is decent and what is not, but the FCC seems to think it has that power. All of this is a blatant misuse of power they think they have.

And who really gets hurt by this? The people of this country. Do the people of this country really need to be protected from what they hear and see? Sounds like censorship to me. How about this instead, each individual can choose what to and what not to listen to. What a concept. If you don’t like a certain show, turn it off.

I love this country and what the American ideals stand for, but those ideals are slowly slipping into oblivion as more and more of our freedoms are stripped. What will it take for the right people to take a stand. The only thing that can stop the FCC is a court battle. If just one company had the balls to take them to court this would find a quick ending.

In the meantime only the Canadians get uncensored radio, and I’ll be polishing my gun(just incase the revolution starts).

Well, I filed my claim for the big music CD settlement some time ago, and low and behold, today I received my portion of the settlement. Now I was expecting this to be some pitiful amount under a dollar because I assumed lots of people filed just so they could stick it to the record labels a bit. But to my amazement I received a check for a whopping $13.86! That’s enough to go by another CD.

Everyone seems to be talking about the new Quiznos subs commercial. For those who have not seen it before, check out the original performance: http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/

In the mean time, I can’t get “They got a pepper bar” out of my head.

Well, over the past weekend Karlyn and I managed to get quite a bit done for the wedding. For anyone who has never planned a wedding, let me tell ya, it’s a crap load of work!

What got accomplished? We bought our wedding rings; we got our gift registries done; Karlyn and my mom got all the artificial flowers purchased for the decorations.

But the big thing was the finalization of our reception hall. Originally we had planned to have the reception at the Knights of Columbus hall near my parents, but I got a big surprise Friday night. When I called to confirm the start time of the reception I found out that there was a communication error and our date was taken by another wedding. Ouch! But a little quick thinking and a few phone calls managed to find another place that, quite frankly, is better than the Knights of Columbus hall, and about the same price. So in the end all worked out well and we will now be having our reception at a nice Irish banquet hall called Eddie Ryans.

All in all it was a good number of things off our plates, but we have plenty more to go. This weekend we will meet with the minister to go over the ceremony.

I haven’t really had time to put any entries in my log for the past week. It has been crazy and stressful. Why? Well that’s a bit of a long story, but I’ll try to do a quick recap here.

My fiance Karlyn’s bridesmaid (we are due to be married in May) started going through some rough times with her marriage and decided she might want to get a divorce. This is kind of what happens when your husband throws you across a room and/or hits you.

Now this situation may sound familiar enough to many people (unfortunately it seems common), but there is a complication. The bridesmaid’s husband’s family is a bunch of religious wack jobs :crazy: (they believe corporal punishment is acceptable for wives and kids, among other wacky beliefs) who started their own church. Now, just to keep the connections clear, Karlyn’s cousin is the husband so the wack jobs are her aunt and uncle. However, Karlyn and her family are helping the bridesmaid, not the wack job relatives.

Last week, Monday night to be specific, I was informed that no one had been able to contact the bridesmaid in the past 36 hours. So Karlyn and I went over to her house to check things out. She wasn’t there, even though it was 9:30 at night and she would normally have her kids in bed already. This created a very cautious and worried feeling in both Karlyn and I.

Tuesday morning (2/10) Karlyn got a call from her bridesmaid. Turns out she borrowed her husbands van and the wack jobs trapped her at their mansion when she went to return it. They locked the door and turned their alarm system on so she could not get out. While she was there they worked on trying to convince (read brainwash) her to let her husband sell the house, give the money to the church, and leave with her husband to go to Oklahoma where the husband would train to become a minister. Personally, I think they are trying to get her out of town so they can make plans on how to deal with her.

This incident continued to escalate all week, with things coming to a head when her husband decided to call 911 and try to turn her in as a looney tune. The resulting trip to ECMC manage to backfire on him completely and had her declared competent and him walking out in handcuffs.

Meanwhile the wack jobs had the kids and the bridesmaid had to go back and get them from their compound. That almost turned into a complete fiasco because she failed to take the police with her!

During the week the rest of Karlyn’s family rallied the troops and managed to figure out some things about the wack jobs. For one, they were involved in tax evasion; two, they had guns in the compound, many apparently; three, they managed to clean out the great grandmother’s accounts; and finally four, the planned kidnap attempt of the bridesmaid.

Which leads us to today: the husband put the house up for sale; the bridesmaid is finally filing the official papers requesting a divorce; and the family is talking with the authorities about what they know.

All of this has lead to a very stressful week, with more to happen. Which is why I didn’t have time to post last week. Well, that and planning a wedding.

To read Karlyn’s take on what went down go here: http://www.karlyn.us/?postid=19

How I love a good fight! This morning the NYS Thruway Authority is meeting at City Hall to discuss the possibility of adding more toll booths around the Buffalo, NY area; and the community has responded.

All around the WNY area people are paying their tolls in pennies. And man are the toll booth operators pissed!

Serves them right though. The original agreements regarding the toll booths on the 90 said that they would be removed when the original fees for construction of the road were paid. That happened years ago. And NYS has, out of greed, kept the toll booths in place to have income for projects other than the Thruway. As one listener on 103.3 The Edge put it, “We get these nice electric signs that say pothole ahead.”

Ok, I just have to post this because it is too funny. Anyone who knows me knows that Rush is my favorite band of all time. Well, here’s a little winter advice from Geddy Lee

Thanks for passing this one on to me Doug!

NASA has just announced their own version of the X-Prize: Centential Challenges. Seems they will earmark $20 million "for revolutionary, breakthrough accomplishments that advance exploration of the solar system and beyond and other NASA goals" in the fiscal 2005 budget.

Seems NASA is finally starting to pay attention to some of Robert Zubrin’s arguments in The Case for Mars

It’s about time too. We need something other than president Bush’s empty promises about a new direction for the space program. Quite frankly, if you plan farther ahead than a decade (which Bush has done) you probably won’t make your goals. This is primarily because of the whims of changing presidential administrations

As an example, President Nixon squashed our interest in going to Mars soon after he got into office. This was coming off the success of the moon landings that Kennedy initiated. New administration, new plans. Nixon felt we were better off in low earth orbit with a space shuttle he could use as a political weapon against the Russians (they actually thought we would use it to bomb them from space).

Had President Kennedy’s original plans been followed we might have been on Mars in 1986.

I came across the interview below while surfing on http://slashdot.org. It’s a very interesting view of computers, operating systems and their use in Iraqi society. Well worth reading as I’m pretty sure most of us here in the states do not truely understand the current state of daily life in Iraq.

Answers On LUGs, Life, and Linux in Iraq

Drinks: pop $1.00, mixed drink: $5.00
Club Admission: $10.00
Capturing the moment with your former CEO and an underage girl: Priceless!