Before I get to the reason I wrote I just wanted to mention that on Yahoo I saw pictures from a Snow Storm in New Orleans and yes there was some on the ground as a trolly was going down the tracks you should check it out pretty interesting pictures.

I will admit that this story doesn't really fit under sex. But if you think of homosexuality or heterosexuality then a guess sex is an ok subject. This article surprised me a little bit because I think of Elmwood as being progressive. But that doesn't mean that everyone is that way who shops there, and it also doesn't mean that people who read artvoice are all progressive either. I'm not saying people should be in fear and I'm not saying people shouldn't shop there, I'm just saying that people should keep their eyes open and be alert and see what is going on around you. Here is the article from the Buffalo News.

Updated: 12/11/08 08:05 AM
Anti-gay hate mail targets Elmwood businesses
Anonymous letters threaten boycott
By Phil Fairbanks
NEWS STAFF REPORTER




An anonymous anti-gay hate mail letter sent to Elmwood Village businesses last month is under investigation by city officials.

No one is sure who sent the letter, which arrived in people's mailboxes two weeks ago, but city human rights officials believe it may be linked to a recent weekly newspaper's guide listing local businesses that support homosexual rights.

Many of those same businesses received the letter criticizing their support of gays and lesbians, and threatening to boycott their business.

"I was hurt. I was angry. I was afraid," said Michael Gillis, co-owner of Elmwood Framing and Interiors on Elmwood Avenue. "This is how I make my living."

Gillis said a number of businesses received the letter, which arrived the day before Thanksgiving, but most business owners are too afraid to speak out.

For that reason and others, city officials are taking the letter's threatening language seriously and have opened an investigation in hopes of finding out who wrote it.

"It seems like someone is targeting the Elmwood Village area and the gay and lesbian community," said Crystal J. Rodriquez, executive director of the Commission on Citizens' Rights and Community Relations.

Rodriquez said the letter is believed to be linked to a holiday shopping guide in Artvoice, a local weekly newspaper. The guide listed businesses that support gay and lesbian rights.

"I want the person who wrote this letter to know that we don't tolerate this type of thing in Buffalo," Rodriquez said Wednesday.

For Gillis, there was one encouraging consequence to the whole affair. A large number of people - judges, lawyers, ministers and more than a few customers - made a point of calling him to offer their sympathy and support.

"One nut case," he said, "made me realize what a great place Buffalo is."

The city's hate mail investigation came up during the first meeting of the Common Council's revamped Police Oversight Committee. The panel was formed to act as a liaison between the community and the Buffalo Police Department.

"This committee was not formed to beat up on the Police Department," said Ellicott Council Member Brian C. Davis, who is heading the new committee.

One of the first issues the committee took up was the case of Cariol Horne, the former Buffalo police officer who lost her job for scuffling with other officers during an arrest in November 2006. Horne claims the officers were improperly subduing a suspect.

While Horne watched from the gallery Wednesday, a number of supporters called on the Council to step up its oversight of police.

They also referred to several new and unrelated allegations against the officer - then-Police Officer Greg Kwiatkowski - who Horne claims punched her in the face.

"They were not accurate," Rodriquez said of the new allegations against Kwiatkowski. "And it's important to set the record straight."

Rodriquez said that Horne's case is still under investigation but that the three new and separate allegations against Kwiatkowski, which were reported in a community newspaper, were proved to be unfounded.

Kwiatkowski, who has been cleared of any wrongdoing by several authorities and has since been promoted to lieutenant, could not be reached to comment.

Horne's supporters, meanwhile, promised to press their case against him.

"We'll continue to fight the insult that followed the injury," Sabirah Muhammad said of Kwiatkowski's promotion. "I'm very disturbed by what I'm hearing today."

Horne and the suspect, David Neal Mack, have filed a joint multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the city over the incident and her firing.

pfairbanks@buffnews.com

I will admit that there is something I don't get. I can understand if you don't like people who are gay. I can understand If you don't want to be near them or shop where they shop. I can understand someone sending a letter saying that they won't shop someplace because they don't want to be around gays. But this sounds like it is the next step and that is what I don't get. Whey would you try to get people not to shop someplace because they let gays shop there or are gay friendly I don't get it. Yes boycotts sometimes do work for somethings and have been used my the socaily consuseus but this is not that. This seems more like a thereat from what I'm reading. I guess if I felt that way then maybe I could understand it.

Some of you might remember that I wrote about an internet Suicide a little bit back in the past. Well today on Yahoo I read a story about someone who killed them selves on TV in Britain and I guess it caused some controversy here is a link and at that page you can watch the video also. . Unlike in the previous story I wrote about this wasn't live and it was someone who was going to suffer as they died so it is more about the right to die and being helped as opposed to people being responsible for their actions on the internet.

Suicide on TV condemned in Britain



By GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press Writer Gregory Katz, Associated Press Writer - 1 hr 18 mins ago


LONDON - The scene is difficult to watch, even for viewers inured to the subject of dying by a steady diet of violent Hollywood and television fare. Craig Ewert, a former computer scientist from Chicago, is shown lying in bed with his wife at his side while he takes barbiturates. He asks for a glass of apple juice to mask the bad taste and help him swallow. Then he uses his teeth to turn off his ventilator - and dies on camera.

Britain's obsession with reality television reached new heights - or depths - Wednesday night with the broadcast of the assisted suicide of the 59-year-old terminally ill American at a Swiss clinic.

Showing the final moment of death had long been a final taboo, even for no-holds-barred British TV, where sex and violence are common, and the broadcast unleashed debate on an issue that strongly divides public opinion.

Photographs of Ewert's final moments dominated Britain's newspaper front pages Wednesday - "SUICIDE TV" screamed one tabloid - and prompted a debate in Parliament, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quizzed about the propriety of the decision to air the program.

Before he died, Ewert said taking his own life would mean less suffering for himself and his family.

"If I go through with it, I die as I must at some point," he says in the documentary, which chronicles his 2006 decision to take his own life after being diagnosed with degenerative motor neuron disease.

"If I don't go through with it, my choice is essentially to suffer, and to inflict suffering on my family, and then die."

Care Not Killing, an anti-euthanasia group aligned with the Catholic Church and other religious organizations in Britain, denounced the broadcast as "a cynical attempt to boost television ratings" and persuade Parliament to legalize assisted suicide.

"There is a growing appetite from the British public for increasingly bizarre reality shows," said the group's director, Peter Saunders. "We'd see it as a new milestone. It glorifies assisted dying when there is a very active campaign by the pro-suicide lobby to get the issue back into Parliament."

Mary Ewert wrote in the British press Wednesday that her husband had been enthusiastic about having his final moments televised.

"He was keen to have it shown because when death is hidden and private, people don't face their fears about it," she said, adding that he wanted viewers to understand that assisted suicide allowed him to die comfortably rather than enduring a long, drawn out and painful demise.

The documentary by Oscar-winning director John Zaritsky has previously been shown on Canadian and Swiss TV and at numerous film festivals, where it provoked little controversy. But it struck a raw nerve in Britain, where the divisive debate over assisted suicide remains unresolved.

Zaritsky said it would have been "less than honest" to make the film without showing the actual suicide because it would have left viewers wondering if the death was unpleasant, cruel, or carried out against Ewert's will.

"By putting it out there, and putting it out there in its entirety, people can judge for themselves," he said, adding that the documentary gives viewers an insight into how assisted suicide would work if it is legalized in more places.

Originally called "The Suicide Tourist," the film was renamed "Right to Die?" for its British broadcast on Sky TV's Real Lives digital channel, which draws far fewer viewers than the network's myriad news, sports or movie shows. Still, it generated enormous publicity, with clips shown throughout the day on Sky News and rival channels.

The televised suicide in Britain follows a well-publicized case in Florida, where a teenager killed himself on camera last month and broadcast the chilling images live on an Internet site.

Ewert, who was living in Britain when he became ill, went abroad to end his life because assisted suicide is illegal in Britain.

In the film, he says he wanted to take action before the disease, which destroys cells that control essential muscle activity such as speaking, walking, breathing and swallowing, left him completely incapacitated.

"When you are completely paralyzed, can't talk, can't walk, can't move your eyes, how do you let someone know that you are suffering?" he asked.

In an emotional message to his adult son and daughter, who appear in the program, Ewert asked for understanding.

"I would hope that this is not a cause of major distress to those who love me," he said, using a voice-activated computer to speak. "This is a journey I must make."

At the same time, he acknowledged, "My dear sweet wife will have the greatest loss, as we have been together for 37 years in the greatest intimacy."

Ewert died at an apartment in Zurich with the help of Dignitas, a well-known assisted suicide group in Switzerland, where suicide is legal in some circumstances.

Dignitas founder Ludwig A. Minelli said the presence of cameras and filmmakers did not in any way influence Ewert's decision.

"Ewert, because of his illness and his declared intent right from the start to shorten his own suffering, never once considered the possibility of abandoning his assisted suicide," said Minelli.

The case came up during the prime minister's question time Wednesday when legislator Phil Willis, who represents Ewert's district, complained that the film promoted a crime.

He asked Brown if the prime minister believed the show was "in the public interest" or simply a case of "distasteful voyeurism."

Brown did not venture an opinion, saying only that the government's "television watchdogs" will scrutinize the show after it is broadcast.

Public opinion polls suggest that 80 percent of Britons believe the law should be changed to allow a doctor to end a patient's life in a case like Ewert's, but opposition from influential religious groups remains strong and the anti-suicide law remains in place.

___

Associated Press Writers Frank Jordans in Geneva and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

I will admit that when I first read it I was a little bit confused and thought that they only showed him dying but as I read more it was part of a documentary and that is a different case all together. In terms of the right to die I myself am kinda mixed on it. I do think that people if they don't want to live anymore do have the right to die. But at the same time changing (like in this story) and suffering is part of life. The other question is what if the reason you want to die is you being a fool is it still your right. What I mean is "I don't want people to see me like this", aka your pride. What if what will kill you can be fought off and keep you alive longer. Why not be a guinea pig for some new medicine they need to test on people that could work. Sometimes people lose there minds if they are out of it do they really have the mental capacity to have a doctor help them die. That is why I sort of feel that it is a case by case basis and sometimes it is ok and sometimes it isn't. I think because of that taking you own life should not be legal. But the other question is lets say Suicide where to be made legal then wouldn't that open up a new way to kill some one and get away with it. Yes make it look like suicide or even as if you helped them, and since it isn't a crime no looking into what really happened no cops, just a van to pick up that dead body. Maybe what should happen is all deaths should be looked into and if in the end it is found out that the person really wanted to die then no one is punished or brought up on charges, but I'm really not sure.

I don't see the restore button so here are the pictures from the journal I just lost.








































































I had a good time on Sunday but on the way home I saw this and thought it is a symbol for something not sure what but it at least seems strange.

So it is hard to really describe a Trans Siberian Orchestra concert if you you don't know their music. Think of classical music and Christmas music played as rock and roll with all most Broadway Musical type signing and that might be what it is like. Then of course there is how the concert has its first part where there is a a person who tells the story as the play music. Then after that part is over they play more music. Here is their myspace page . Yes I love their music but it is so much more then the music they also have a pretty cool light and pyro show. The thing about the lights isn't just they they do a lot of lighting and laser things but that the metal stuff the lights are in move as part of the show and are lite up to so it isn't only the stag, then sometimes the lights on on the fans as well. Next show starts at 8pm so doubt you can make it if you aren't going all ready but I'm sure it would be worth it to travel. You have to give props to the road crew I guess they where someplace in Canada yesterday and broke everything down and got it all here in time. After the night show they have a lot of work to do, not to mention the HSBC arena crew has to get things set up because at 11am there is a Bandits Open Practice (I plan to be there). As much as I like watching things at the arena if it wasn't for the stage crews and who ever sets up and changes the arena over we wouldn't see much and they get none of the glory.

Even though you aren't supposed to take pictures here are a few from the show. I have way to many to post them all so I'll guess at what ones look the best from the small size.





















































































In terms of my favorite song that is a tough question that song that is in Italian I think that is real dramatic you here a lot of places is up there then there is that killer version of Flight of the bubble bee. I would suggest going it is worth the money if that is your kind of music. Well Sunday I assuming I wake up on time it is off to the Bandits open practice.

I will admit that I don't know how to write a movie review with out giving away any of the plot to a movie or any details. When I walked in I thought that this was the 3rd Punisher movie made that retells the same story. That isn't completely true it is the 3rd movie and has nothing to do with the previous ones. The 1st movie was good. I say that because at the time it was before the comic movie boom and was pretty violent. I know some people think the 2nd one kinda sucked. I liked that i forget what wrestler was in it, might Have Been Kevin Nash, I think it was cause I called him "Big Daddy Dead". I thought that one was a cool story and had great action and was twisted and had great music and was pretty good, I think that one was a little bit better then this new one. Part of that is because I didn't know enough about this new one and the way it started out they didn't give any back story really. I still think it was a pretty bad ass movie with Mob Guys and gangs and lots of carnage and violence and it had a good story to it also. Did I mention some great music, I can't believe people would walk out with Rob Zombie playing on the credits what is wrong with people. If this is your kind of movie you will like it, if you like the Punisher you will like it I guess I would give it 3 stars.