Another vote for too many lawyers. Caesar had it right!

The Democrats' Smear Race (washingtonpost.com)

The rule is: Forget the crowd, face the camera and denounce the president.

And now, after six weeks of carpet-bombing Bush, the Democrats are shocked -- shocked! -- that the Republicans might answer back with "negativity."

more...

EURSOC: Odd Man Out

France's Jacques Chirac sees the summit as a foreign policy disaster and fired childish insults at Blair during a press conference.

and this

The difference is that many other nations, America included, want to like Germany. The same cannot be said of France under Chirac.

If your feelings about France are the same as mine, you will really enjoy reading this.

The facts about the president's service.

FOUR YEARS OF FLYING
The controversy over Bush's service centers on what his critics call "the period in question," that is, the time from May 1972 until May 1973. What is not mentioned as often is that that period was in fact Bush's fifth year in the Guard, one that followed four years of often intense service.

Bush joined in May 1968. He went through six weeks of basic training — a full-time job — at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tex. Then he underwent 53 weeks of flight training — again, full time — at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga. Then he underwent 21 weeks of fighter interceptor training — full time — at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston. Counting other, shorter, postings in between, by the end of his training period Bush had served two years on active duty.

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Did Peter Harris of Song Mountain Resort hire a lawyer to try to shut down my web site?

Did the lawyer know that what he referred to as Song Mountain is only a pile of dirt and rocks covered by snow and trees?

Did the lawyer know that the real name of the ski resort, as listed in the phone book is: Song Mountain Resort LLC and listed on the resorts own website as: South Slope Development Corporation DBA Song Mountain Resort? I guess I should cut that lawyer some slack because many refer to the resort by it's nick name, but lawyers usually don't use nick names in official documents or threatening letters. But that's just my experience over the years with really high end lawyers.

Did Peter Harris think that after all I've been through fighting Flying J, a multi BILLION dollar company, and WINNING, that he could have thought that I would be the slightest bit intimidated by a pompously written letter from a Syracuse lawyer?

Did Peter Harris think that I would allow him to take away my rights of free speech as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States?

Did Peter Harris ever hear the comment made by a Japanese admiral after the bombing of Pearl Harbor who said: "I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant."?

Did Peter Harris consider the consequences of doing something that would really focus my attention on him, his partners and his resorts?

Stay tuned for the answers to all of these questions and remember that everything put on this site is here for all to see forever. Not just at the end of the skiing season, forever.

Opinion: Irrational

From the dictionary:

Irrational ir·ra·tion·al adj
1. contrary to or lacking in reason or logic
2. unable to think logically
3. lacking the normal ability to think clearly, especially because of shock or injury to the brain

n
1. somebody who is unable to think and reason clearly or logically

From the Thesaurus:

Irrational = Illogical, Unreasonable, Foolish, Crazy, Ridiculous, Absurd, Silly, Unfounded or Groundless

It has been said by many, including me, that some people have an irrational hatred for Bush. Those people don't disagree with this claim. At least not those whom I've heard in person or in the media. To those who ask me why these people think this way, I refer you to the above description of "irrational". It is not possible to understand irrational people or to understand why irrational people think the way they do. It is far more likely that irrational people do not think at all. Sadly, they do vote and that means our next president may be elected by irrational people. In that case, buy a gas mask, avoid tall buildings and stay out of airplanes.

How to never lose Pepsi's iTunes giveaway

Instructions on how to spot the winning iTunes Pepsi bottles before you buy them.

Yahoo! News - FILE UNDER: 'OMISSION ACCOMPLISHED'

It is simply a fact that Max Cleland was not injured by enemy fire in Vietnam. He was not in combat, he was not -- as Al Hunt claimed -- on a reconnaissance mission, and he was not in the battle of Khe Sanh, as many others have implied. He picked up an American grenade on a routine noncombat mission and the grenade exploded.

And the article ends with this.

Cleland's true heroism came after the war, when he went on to build a productive life for himself. That is a story of inspiration and courage. He shouldn't let the Democrats tarnish an admirable life by "sexing up" his record in order to better attack George Bush.

Coulter is always worth reading.

Ex-airmen douse rumors over Bush's Guard service

'Serious' pilot flew in NORAD runs, volunteered for Vietnam combat duty

This should put an end to this - except for the irrational diehard Bush haters.

Important information about URLs (prebleny.com is a URL).

Did you know that you can buy a URL for only $7.95 a YEAR! Most business use the .com variation of the URL but they shouldn't stop at that. For example, if you have a business and you wanted to have a web page for your business you would be a fool not to buy every variation of your web sites name. Those variations of the normal .com include .org, .net, .biz and others. Because they only cosy $7.95 a year you should buy every variation. After all, you wouldn't want your business associates to think you were a fool would you? I hope this small piece of info will help anyone out there who is working on getting a web site. Every good businessman who knows his stuff already knows this. But for the new people and those not technically literate this is important information. I use GoDaddy.com for my URL purchases. It only takes a few minutes to buy a URL and once you buy it it is yours forever and no one can take it away from you. Having a good URL is important. Just recently the URL, "men.com" sold for a sizable amount of money. Who knows, maybe one you buy will be worth a lot of money someday too. Can you believe that some businesses are so short sighted that they do not buy all the variations of their name and then they have to resort to expensive legal battles that costs them thousands of dollars that could have been avoided if only they spent that $7.95 in the first place. Wouldn't you feel really dumb if you were the one who made the decision not to get all of them? If you consider yourself to be a smart businessman then you should go out right now and get those variants that you don't already have before somebody else does. Unless, of course, you like being thought of as a fool.

Brought to you as a public service of this site.

InfoWorld: Google archive exceeds 6 billion Internet items

How does this affect Preble?

I was talking to a friend of mine earlier this evening and the discussion turned to newspapers and the Internet. Years ago a politician once said, "Never get in a fight with someone who buys printers ink by the barrel." Back then news was a fleeting thing, Yesterdays news was used to wrap today's fish and quickly became forgotten. With the Internet all that's changed. Yesterdays news is just one click away, for that matter last years or even years before that news are also just one click away. That makes a huge difference because anything a politician says or even something a business does never goes away. Flying J is a good example of that. Even though the Flying J information here on the site is years old, it is still used by people across the country who are fighting a Flying J in their neighborhood. It is also said that negative press is not on a par with positive press. That means that anything negative written about somebody or some business stays around forever and the party is continuously asked to answer for it. That is a good lesson for everyone to learn how important it is to avoid negative press or negative things said about you. Compare this to what is going on in the current national political situation where current candidates are being questioned about events decades old. Yet, with the Internet these old stories become news to people who never heard them before. In addition, it becomes easy to string together a series of stories that show a pattern that could not be shown using the old model of print media or even radio and TV. It is a lesson for any politician or business to learn. Be very careful what they say or do because everything they say or do goes into the hopper and remains there forever.

Google's announcement is impressive, but remember that the Internet is only a decade old. Faster and more efficient search capabilities will allow future generations the ability to find information even faster than they can today. Anyone who has any kind of public persona will have everything about them available for anyone to see forever. This can easily be used by anyone researching an issue for a current problem. I remember how hard it was several years ago when the issue of the well first surfaced. It took us several months to first get, and then decipher old information about previous users of water from Song Lake. We couldn't use the net back then because the information wasn't there. For the Flying J fight the net became vastly more important. We were able to find information about similar fights going on all over the country and this became a key element in our defeat of Flying J. For Preble's future fights this site and other resources will be used to provide historical evidence that will help those trying to defend themselves. In short the Internet has permanently changed the way things are done. No longer will someone in a position of power be able to use it to benefit themselves without the light of day shining brightly. Businesses too, have to be careful of what they do, because their actions are never forgotten and will be used in the future to judge them.

washingtonpost.com: In Iraqi Towns, Electoral Experiment Finds Some Success

Inside was Tobin Bradley, a 29-year-old American trying to pull off the vote and, in the process, possibly reshape Iraq's transition from occupation.

"Ask them if they read and write," Bradley called out in Arabic to volunteers and staff. He positioned police to keep order. "One officer goes here," he said. "One goes there." To a handful of candidates gathered at the door, he lifted up a ballot box, painted in white. "You can see the boxes are empty." He caught his breath, rolled up his sleeves, then called out, "Yalla, let's go."

"We'll see how it works out," Bradley said, as voters surged through the doors. "It's always figure-it-out-as-we-go."

With a knack for improvisation and little help from Baghdad, Bradley, the political adviser for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Nasiriyah, has carried out what may stand as one of the most ambitious democratic experiments in Iraq's history, a project that goes to the heart of the debate about how Iraq's next government should be chosen.

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Media Bias? Here's the proof.

Haven't heard about the Kerry affair claim? Don't think the media is biased? Here's all the proof you need.

Supervisor Pitman admits inappropriate behavior!

Supervisor Pitman admits board members were cracking jokes during citizen's presentation.

-->NOW with a snippet of the recording on this subject.<--

Click to hear the Snippet of Betty and I

NEW! Hear the first short snippet taken from the 2 hour town board recording. It is the snippet between Betty and I at 01:07:35 to 01:08:54 in the recording. Only 336K and 1 minute and 31 seconds long.

February, 9, 2004 Town Board meeting. Town board members cracked jokes and laughed at Dawn Lewis while she made her presentation. The proof and the admittance of their guilt is on the tape at 01:08:20 minutes. This is the quote from that part of the recording that is here on the site.

Supervisor Pitman: "When Dawn made a comment up here and we were saying, what's to burn and what's not to burn and one of them made a comment of what not to burn."

Frank Hogg: "One of them?"

Supervisor Pitman: "One of the town board members, and we each heard it and we just laughed because you wouldn't burn it."

At that point I chastised the board for inappropriate behavior. They did not apologize. Dawn Lewis came to the board with a well prepared presentation. Our illustrious town board, headed by Betty Ann Pitman made fun of her and cracked jokes during her presentation. This is the type of behavior one would expect from grade school children, not government officials. But remember this. You voted for them.

Note: Town Board member Dick Martin was absent.