Attacked, Hacked, Ebayed & Cowboyed

Yesterday brought me one of the most troublingly bizarre episodes I've experienced in all the decades, well, years, I've been involved with the Internet. About 10am I clicked on my Eyes on Texas website. And what to my suprised eyes should appear? Not my website. No. An Ebay page came up. No matter which of my dozens and dozens of Eyes on Texas pages I clicked on the same Ebay page came up. The link would show my durangotexas.com domain, but when clicked it would go to Ebay's home page.

I had no idea what to do. So, I called my web host. It is located in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Supposedly the biggest webhost on the planet. With its servers underground in bomb/tornado proof bunkers. However, on Super Tuesday, that being the night of tornadoes in 4 states, including Kentucky, my server was knocked out for an hour and a half due to the storms.

I got through to customer service. The problem was passed off to a tech guy who found that my webspace had been hacked with code added to something called, I think, htc access. After about 20 minutes the problem was fixed.

Why did this problem occur? How can I not help but wonder? The only thing I can figure, being of a conspiratorial, paranoid frame of mind is that in some Nixonesque meeting deep in the bowels of Dallas Cowboy Headquarters, Jerry Jones ordered his minions to do whatever they could to shut me up from telling America and the World what was done here in Texas to get Jerry Jones his new stadium.

Would it not be simpler and more linear to just pay me to shut up? Lord knows I can be bought. I mean, I've sprinkled my website with hundreds of Google ads, for gawdsakes, obviously I can be bought. Really, it's true. For just 10% of Tony Romo's signing bonus I'd pretty much be willing to shut up.

But in the meantime the scandal just keeps growing. It has been a couple years now since Jerry Jones and the City of Arlington perverted a legitimate legal tool in order to abuse the eminent domain laws to steal land, homes and businesses from hundreds upon hundreds of people.

Of those victims not all have settled. There are still, after all this time, 26 parcels of land being litigated with the owners trying to get fair compensation. I do not know where or how those poor souls are living while they await justice.

Regarding the lawsuits, this morning the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had some typically confusing verbiage that I can't quite parse. It said, "The tracts were initially appraised by Tarrant County at $1.6 million. The city offered to pay $1.8 million for the 26 parcels. With the proposed settlement of $868,250, owners could receive a total of $2.6 million for the land."

Does the above mean each person would receive that much, $2.6 million? Or would this be divided among the 26? All I know for certain is this. Slightly more than $70 million was paid for all the land, buildings and businesses that were stolen. Tony Romo's new contract is something like $69 million with a $13 million signing bonus. See anything wrong with this picture? How about giving the victims a cut of the $50,000 seat licenses the Cowboys are selling for a spot to sit above the victim's land?

It continues to impress me that Seattle somehow built 2 new stadiums and an exhibition hall, all adjacent, without displacing a single person from their dwelling. This in an area where land is in short supply due to mountains and a lot of water. While here in Texas land is plentiful, large open spaces in the heart of an urban zone. And yet somehow land could not be found for a new Dallas Cowboy Stadium without causing misery and hardship to who knows how many people.

Well, I'm doing my bit. Day by day hundreds of more Americans are being exposed to what the so-called America's Team has done to some Americans here in Texas.

As God is my witness I will not be hacked quiet. But, to repeat, my silence is negotiable.