The Story...

Molly and I had planned to get engaged on our anniversary November 17, but I thought it should be more of a surprise. On Tuesday the 15th while she was at class I made a gourmet dinner, lit all the candles in the house, turned off the lights and waited for her to get home. She just thought I was just being sweet until I pulled the ring from my pocket. She cried, it was great. I couldn't have planned it any better.

I left work at noon to prepare. I made Mushroom Soup (her favorite) with gourmet ingredients from the Lexington Co-op, I also found our absolute favorite Cheese, Epoisses, at Wegmans (a small miracle), and she also loves Avocados so I got one of those from the Co-op too, along with a loaf of fresh bread. And some cheesecake for dissert. Oh yea.. a bouquet of sunflowers too.

After Tuesday, we left on a week long vacation to Molly's Cabin in the Adirondacks to celebrate and spend time together.

Molly also gave me a ring, I'll wear it on my right hand until we get married, then it will become my wedding ring.











More Pictures on Flickr

picture from today.

We went to go see Dar Williams at the Statler Towers tonight.


The Building is an amazing piece of Buffalo's history. we took some time to explore before heading into the Randezvous room to see Girlyman and Dar Williams.


Dar Williams on Stage in the Randezvous Room


it was tough to get a clear picture, she moved around a lot.


after the concert we realy explored...

yep, we found this view while exploring. in the near future this window and it's view of city hall will be part of a condominnium. you will actually be able to own this amazing space in the heart of downtown. I think it's fantastic, wish I could afford it.

Today is the day.

Voting is especially important in local elections. 500 votes can mean life or death in these types of elections.

if you are fed up and you feel disenfranchised by the electoral system Vote for Judy.

if you want to tell the Democratic and Republican machines of Buffalo and Erie County that we are not going to tolorate their corruption any longer, vote for Judy.

Why? because she genuinely cares about this city. she is not in it for the paycheck or the perks or the power, she is running for mayor because she feels an obligation to help.

Good intentions do not mean everything however, and luckily Judy has the skills and the background to make her absolutely qualified. She was director of a project here in Buffalo which helped over 90 low to moderate income people set up and manage their own businesses. Why spend money on Bass Pro whose proffits are mostly going out of state, let's invest in our own people and help them utalize their own creativity and ambition.
in addition she earned her Masters from the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she focused her studies on community problem solving and decision making. maybe it's just me but I think it's a good idea to base Buffalo's decisions on research, rather than who knows who, and who gets money out of the deal.

if you still have doubts go to her website and watch the debate, or the interviews. you can see her honesty and determination for yourself.


See you at the polls
you have until 9:00pm

I stumbled upon an old quote from our great leader, George W, from the day before the war in Iraq began.

Some of you will remember that day, March 17, 2003, Bush got on prime time TV and demanded that Saddam Hussein and his sons leave Iraq within 48 hours. seems like a reasonable request to me! *sarcasm* First we asked him to let the UN weapons inspectors back into his country or we would start a war, so he did, that fool, he must be just trying to trick us, let's try something harder! Leave your Country Bastard!!

Here's the Quote, and a link to the Presidents adress. it is interesting to read these things from today's perspective, knowing all that we do now about the situation. his statment sounds grave, but the monster that he is confronting is in reality a weak paper tiger. no links to Al-Qaeda and no WMD.

anyway the justification, straight forward...

"The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."

[size=l]Cheney wants CIA to be Exempt from ban on Torture[/size]

I saw that headline on the Buffalo News yesterday, and I was simply astounded. I don't know how people can say that kind of stuff with a straight face and think it's OK. Seriously, what have we become.

I posted about this amendment before
[inlink]dcoffee,21[/inlink]Bush loves Torture
[inlink]dcoffee,22[/inlink]PS. on anti-torture amendment

for anyone on the fence about using torture, you don't get credible or useful information from someone by beating them up, you must befriend them and make them trust you. convince them that you are not an enemy and help them open up to you. torture either leads to people saying whatever you want to hear, or it validates the idea that America is the great Satan and if you die by our hands you are surely going to heaven as a martyr.




anyway here's the Full article

Cheney wants CIA to be exempt from ban on torture
By DAVID ESPO and LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press
11/5/2005

WASHINGTON - Vice President Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to Republican senators this week to exempt the CIA from a proposed ban on torturing terror suspects in U.S. custody, according to participants in the closed-door session.

Cheney told his audience the United States doesn't engage in torture, these participants said, even though he said the administration needed an exemption from any legislation banning "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment in case the president decided such treatment was necessary to prevent a terrorist attack.

The vice president made his comments at a regular weekly private meeting of Senate Republicans, according to several lawmakers who attended. Cheney often attends the meetings, a chance for the rank-and-file to discuss legislative strategy, but he rarely speaks.

In this case, the room was cleared of aides before the vice president began his remarks, which one senator said included a reference to classified material.

The officials who disclosed the events spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the confidential nature of the discussion.

"The vice president's office doesn't have any comment on a private meeting with members of the Senate," said Steve Schmidt, a Cheney spokesman.

During the session, Cheney drew support from at least one lawmaker, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona dissented, officials said.

McCain, who was tortured while he was a prisoner during the Vietnam War, is the chief Senate sponsor of an anti-torture provision that has twice cleared the Senate and triggered veto threats from the White House.

Cheney's decision to speak at the meeting underscored both his role as White House point man on the contentious issue and the importance the administration attaches to it.

The vice president made his appeal as Congress is struggling with the torture issue in light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq and allegations of mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States houses about 500 detainees at a naval base, many of them captured in Afghanistan.

In addition, human rights organizations contend the United States turns detainees over to other countries that it knows will use torture to extract intelligence information.

Cheney's appeal came on Tuesday, two days before a former senior State Department official claimed in an interview with National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" that he had traced memos back to Cheney's office that he believes led to U.S. troops abusing prisoners in Iraq.

Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff in the first Bush administration, said Thursday that Cheney's views were put in "carefully couched" terms in memos but that to a soldier in the field it meant sometimes using interrogation techniques that "were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war" to extract better intelligence.

The Senate recently approved a provision banning the "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The vote was 90-9, and an identical provision was added to a second measure on a voice vote Friday.

Comparable House legislation does not include the provision, and it is not clear whether anti-torture language will be included in either of two large defense measures Congress hopes to send to Bush's desk later this year.

The White House initially tried to kill the anti-torture provision while it was pending in the Senate, then switched course to lobby for an exemption in cases of "clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States."

I'm glad I live in the City. I was in South Buffalo until last May, which is still pretty, Caz Park is especially beautiful right now. but there's just something great about being in a friendly urban village this time of year. Buffalo is a remarkable city. I tried to capture the feel of the neighborhood and with these pictures. I would have taken more except the camera battery died. but these are pretty nice. there's more at Flickr














More pictures

I hope you guys are reading WNY Media, it is emerging as the best web based local News source. I understand that for programers and web designers like myself it can be painful because of the many flaws in the code. it's not nearly as slick as Buffalo Rising but the content is good. Also WNY Media is very open for people to join and add their own articles. I started working with them in May and have seen it transition into a dedicated news cooperative. some of the stories have quite a bit of investigative reporting behind them, many of the writers are intimately involved in the issues they cover.

They definitely need a programmer to poke around in their code for a while and fix the little flaws though. any volunteers?

Anyway I posted an article there recently about Judy Einach's press conferance, which talked about the casino and her letter to Gale Norton which was signed by a bunch of community and government leaders. the story was all but ignored by the mainstream media so I tried to do a decent job covering it on WNY Media. Usually when I write an article I post it here, but for this one I have to post a link, there's a bunch of formatting and stuff that goes with it, along with a terrible video I took at the event and a good picture. the full text of her letter and the speaches given at the press conference are there as well. take a look, I think it turned out very professional, except the video.

WNY Media article

I just updated my Flickr Blog, here are the highlights. Go to the Blog for more




We went for a walk this morning to savor the Fall





I was a Newspaper Reporter from the 70's and Molly was a Tree. we went to nietzsche's for the first time, then we went to Scotts House and spent the night.


New Kitty pictures, Revolution is getting really big.

I attended the Mayoral debate tonight, it was very interesting. From my perspective Judy did a realy fantastic job, and presented herself and her ideas very well. Brown and Helfer just made asses out of themselves by shamelessly attacking each other instead of fully answering the questions that were asked of them. they don't want to actually have a discussion with the citizens about that is wrong and how they are going to fix it because that's not their focus, their focus is on getting elected, not on helping the city overcome obstacles. so they will spend more time tearing down their 'opponent' than talking about issues.

Case in point, Helfers opening remarks were a rambling attack against Brown. you can watch the whole video on Channel 7 it's actually a really good debate. Brown made an ass out of himself by ignoring the casino question.. twice. the question was something like this "We know that you support the casino, but just so the public can be assured that you have thoroughly considered the matter, please tell us some of the major downfalls of a casino and how you plan to deal with it." I was absolutely enraged by his response and I literally almost shouted "answer the question!!!" before walking out or being escorted out. but I didn't, I listened as he listed off the reasons why he is FOR a casino, the same reasons he mentioned last week, didn't even come anywhere near a downside. but a panelist called him out and asked him again to answer the question, he said "there is a downside but..." that's it. What a fucking arrogant asshole.

Judy on the other hand did incredibly well, she was honest and blunt. she used strong language and you could tell that she meant what she said. she didn't waste time attacking the other candidates she simply spoke what she thought and her ideas were well thought out and very plausible. she lost her words a couple times but so did everyone else, so that doesn't stand out as much in the end as what she said.

Charlie Flyn was a joke, you can't take him seriously, and in fact people commonly chuckled after his responses as if he was some merry prankster. he raised some decent points and I was very happy to have him participate to get more perspectives on the table. I couldn't imagine if the debate was just between 'thing 1'and 'thing 2', it would be a hollow rhetorical sabotage fest devoid of issues.

Another thing that got on my nerves, Brown and helfer kept saying "my opponent" I wanted to scream "you have THREE opponents Asshole!!!!!" really, it's no wonder people feel like the political system is useless when nobody even acknowledges the third party candidates like Judy who actually have something interesting to say. I'm going to do some research on the Buffalo Snooze and see how much they have actually covered the third party candidates vs the coverage they give the two major parties. and I also want to see if the articles they do write about the mayoral election have anything to do with the issues. because every time I pick up that piece of crap it just talks about how much money they have raised or if race will be a factor, or some other frivolous bullshit. I did see one article on development that was terribly written and impossible to follow that compared Brown and Helfer on that issue.

Anyway, watch the debate, overall I thought it was really good. and if you live in Buffalo vote for Judy, tell our corrupt system to go fuck itself and vote for someone who is determined to change it. Judy's website is really good too, check it out