Originally posted at Project Pedal dot com...

Not "mad" as in angry, but "mad" as in crazy, loony, edgy, mentally ill, certifiable... I'm going through camera withdrawals, and the worst of it, is I have an old Samsung miniDV paper-weight sitting on my desk in front of me... a constant reminder. In it's defense, it's not a complete paper-weight, although it mysteriously doesn't record anymore - it does still import footage.

What's the delay? Why am I not at the store this very moment getting my fix with a new camera? I'm waiting for my tax return money to come in the mail, while at the same time, trying to sell off my old eMac. When these two things happen... well, maybe just the first one, I'm immediately buying a HDR-HC1.

Aside from that - I wanted to warn readers that the site might go through some growing pains the next few days, our host, Get Me Online, is closing it's doors - and we are preparing to shove everything over onto a .mac account. We'll see how that goes.

If you haven't already, go to Participatory Culture and download their brand-spanking-new Democracy player and then subscribe to the 'Four Eyed Monsters' video podcast. Or, if you're lazy, just visit their website. FEM is my replacement addiction.

Did anyone watch either of these clips?

After watching the finale of Arrested Development - I happen to catch about two minutes of Fox "news" before getting caught up in a game of Monopoly. And in that two minutes, they showed a dramatically cut montage of Michael Brown's testimony, climaxing with the "what more do you want from me" line.

Now, of course, Fox and every other major "news" outlet will play out this Brownie investigation for as long as it will sell commercial airtime, but not in any real "investigative" sense, since the Bush administration won't actually allow anyone to see the documents regarding their lack of response to the hurricane's aftermath, claiming "national security".

But this isn't the point I wanted to make tonight, the real point of this post was to say: I feel bad for Brownie. Now, before you write me a harshly-worded letter, let me stress that I think Michael Brown is a dush-bag. No one is disputing that. But Brownie is the poster boy for what went wrong in New Orleans. And in reality, he is no more than that: a poster boy.

He is the effect - not the cause. When the current administration came in, they did so with the mentality of many republicans: a) government is too big, and b) the private sector is better... at everything.

So, it's no stretch of the imagination that Bush would assign a college buddy to head FEMA, Brown who, when brought on, was probably told he wouldn't have to do much of anything except sit back and enjoy the show as they dismantle the public aspects of FEMA, and instead implement a private, profit-based system. This is what they did with FEMA, it's what they did with MSHA, and it was no surprise when the mine collapsed and killed those men. That mine in particular was sighted that year alone with over 200 safety violations, and yet it's biggest slap on the wrist didn't cost them more than 100 dollars.

When a public service becomes for-profit, the purpose of that service is no longer in the public's interest. It's interests is in the stock holders... the bottom line... the profit margin. It's the very reason those rescue trucks outside of New Orleans sat there for three days, because the longer they sat there, the less they had to pay.


In the beginning, firefighting was a business, not a public service. If your house caught fire and you didn't have that fire station's badge posted - it didn't matter if the burning house was 20 feet from the station - if you didn't pay the monthly fee, then your house was going to burn to the ground for it. It didn't take long for people to figure out that it benefitted everyone to have services like firefighting work on a public, not profit, level.

And if you think these two organizations, FEMA & MSHA, are the only two federal safety branches this administration has completely gutted and privatized, than you are sorely mistaken. But we won't hear about the hundreds of others until disaster strikes - because they, the "news" stations, are too busy playing to people's lowest emotions with Brownie's courtroom drama, instead of asking real questions.

A few weeks ago I received an email from Andrew, the person who runs getmeonline.net, and the person who has done and helped so much with caliblog, project pedal, etc - the email said that at the end of this month he would no longer be providing hosting service due to pressures and commitments outside of getmeonline.

Which is sad, Andrew has been the best hosting-guy someone could ask for. He's always very quick with answering any questions, he's even offered to donate server space to 'Pedal' to help out... how likely do you think the chances of yahoo! doing that are?

On-top of my worries of not being able to find someone to fill the shoes of Andrew - is... I have no idea where to look, besides the obvious big-name hosting services.

I've been looking at getting a .mac account, they are cheap, only 99 bucks a year, now that Amanda has her ibook and I have this mac mini - we would benefit a lot from having one. But the downside is, .mac isn't ftp, which means I can't get it to work hand in hand with blogger. Instead of clicking 'upload picture' while typing a post, I would have to drop the picture in a .mac hard-drive on my desktop and then go into the post I was writing and type out the address of the picture... not that big of a deal I suppose. Especially when you consider the price.

And email addresses, but I think I can simply purchase an email address through my domain provider instead of through my hosting service.


Ah, all that is besides the point - the point of this post is: I'm sad to see Andrew go. Thanks for everything you've done for us, Andrew - we think you rock.


Also - does anyone out there have any suggestions of hosting service (or think that using a .mac is a bad/good idea)?

I don't generally like to copy & paste a post from someone else's blog - but this was so short and straight-to-the-point, I really couldn't think of anything important to add to it, except that, yes... yes we are.

What does it mean when the highest law enforcement official in the country refuses to be sworn in under oath before testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the President's use of the National Security Agency to spy on Americans?

It's a bad thing, right?

And how about this new assertion that the President has the power to have people executed on U.S. soil without first bringing them before a jurry of their peers?

That's bad too, right?

I'm beginning to suspect that we're completely fucked.

These two clips are both from Crooks & Liars... I thought they were very important and needed to be shared. Enjoy. Well, maybe "enjoy" isn't the right word - you tell me what is.