Texas Convention Chaos

Cowboy Barack Obama may have pulled ahead of Hillary in yesterday's District Conventions step in the convoluted Texas method of choosing delegates to the Democrat National Convention.

My 2 long time readers may remember earlier this month when the Texas Two-Step Primary/Caucus election ended in mayhem and chaos. In Texas, in an innovation called the Texas Two-Step, you get to vote twice, once in the Primary and then later that same day you get to go to a Caucus and vote again. Trouble was the Caucus step of the two-step was badly organized and overwhelmed by too many voters. Many, such as me, gave up and went home.

The same thing happened at Saturday's Statewide District Conventions. After hours of frustrations many of the delegates gave up and left the Conventions, which began in the morning, with some lasting well into the night. At District 10, in Fort Worth, thousands were stuck in Will Rogers Coliseum, trying to find food, having music blasted at them, listening to speakers drone on, waiting in lines to sign in and get credentials. More than half of those who showed up in the morning left before voting.

Similar problems occurred all across Texas. By morning it was believed that Barack Obama had won the most delegates with the AP reporting Obama with 59% to Hillary's 41%. Hillary won the Primary vote 51% to Obama's 47%, giving Hillary 65 delegates and Obama 61. There are 67 delegates to be split between Hillary and Obama from yesterday's Conventions. Obama likely will now be able to claim he won Texas.

But who really knows? Texas elections are really confusing.

IX Web Hosting Outrage & Outage

My 2 long time readers may remember me mentioning my Web Host IX Webhosting's Ukrainian Support Center and the absurd responses I get from them when I have a little problem. Like my email not working. Or a couple months ago when tornadoes struck several states, including Kentucky, and my Web Host went down. I submitted a support ticket and was told there had been no downtime. So, I called the toll-free # to Kentucky and talked to a real person, an American, and told him the Ukrainians are claiming there was no downtime and are refusing downtime compensation. He then told the Ukrainians that there had been an outage and to give me downtime compensation.

So, on to today's nightmare. For several months I've been getting emails from the CEO of my web hosting company, Fathi Said, regarding moving their data center from Hopkinsville, Kentucky to Columbus, Ohio. I didn't much care as long as it didn't affect me.

And then a couple days ago in the latest email from Fathi I learned it would affect me. As in, well, I'll just go copy and paste their latest message on their help center webpage....

We are currently relocating all our servers and equipment from our present location in Hopkinsville, KY to our new state-of-the-art facility in Columbus, OH. The server relocation starts at 1am EST Saturday night. If your website or email service is unavailable after this time, please rest assured that our relocation team is working safely and securely to bring your service back up as fast as possible. We are expecting all services, including telephone support, to be back online by or before 8am EST on Sunday morning.

So, now do you see what I'm upset about? My websites all went down at midnight. It is now almost 5pm and they are still down. It was not til I read the above message did I realize they are actually physically moving the servers up to Ohio. I'm picturing a bunch of Kentuckians in pickup trucks heading north with my websites strapped down in back.

IX Webhosting is, supposedly, one of the biggest hosting companies in the world. Supposedly they have over 300,000 websites on their servers. I don't know how many are e-commerce websites that are making zilch today.

You can look at my AdSense stats from today in the above image and see I'm making zilch. Just one big $0.00.

So, I guess if they do ever come back online I'll be submitting a support ticket to the Ukrainians asking for downtime compensation. Again. And they'll tell me there was no downtime, there was no move to a new data center.

Now, usually when I get around to complaining or submitting a support ticket the problem is already fixed. I'll click on my website right now and see if that's the case this time. Nope. Still down. Earlier they at least had the courtesy to put up a page explaining why the websites were down. But, now it's just bringing up the basic "The page cannot be displayed" page.

I'm annoyed.

UPDATE: About an hour later and my websites are back working again, apparently successfully making the trip from Kentucky to Ohio.

Hillary and Harding

I grow tired of the ongoing calls for Hillary to concede to Obama and drop out of the race for the sake of party unity because, apparently, she can not win the nomination unless she wins all remaining primaries by huge margins and gets the votes of a majority of super delegates.

If Hillary stays in it is likely that neither she or Obama will have enough votes to win the nomination.

Now, to me, this would be a good thing, if only for the entertainment value. I'm not at all thinking of it as a good thing in the way Rush Limbaugh and his Operation Chaos does, in that this will tear apart the Democrats and give McCain the presidency.

In my lifetime I've never gotten to watch a brokered/deadlocked convention. There have been a few close ones, like the year of Reagan and Ford, but I've never seen a convention where the nomination did not occur on the first vote count.

In elections before I was born deadlocked conventions happened frequently. With very dubious results. That may have been part of what brought about the current way of trying to nominate a President, so that it is a done deal before the convention.

I'm pretty sure the last brokered, deadlocked convention was the Republican convention of 1920. General Leonard Wood and Governor Frank Lowden were deadlocked, neither with enough votes to win. Warren Harding had run in the race, but had only won the primary in his home state of Ohio.

The night of the deadlock a long meeting lasted til morning in a Chicago hotel. By the time dawn broke it was decided to swing support to Harding and give him the nomination, knocking off the Hillary and Obama of that era. This did not tear apart the Republican party.

Harding was brought to the hotel room and, before telling him the nomination was his, he was asked if he had any skeletons in his closet which might cause a problem. Harding answered "No". Neglecting to mention that he'd had little education, that he had a longstanding affair with the wife of one of his close friends and that he was a heavy boozer in the time of Prohibition.

Harding got the nomination and won the election and went on to being a very popular president who died in office before it was learned he led one of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history, right up there on the corruption scale with Clinton and Nixon. Had he not died Harding would likely have been removed from office by impeachment or take the Nixon resignation route.

Like Clinton, Harding was also married to a domineering wife who ruled the roost and wore the pants in the family, but turned a blind eye to a lot of his shenanigans, like the drinking, gambling and womanizing.

Harding was the first Senator elected President. This year unless something goes seriously awry we will also be electing a Senator to the Presidency.

So, if Harding could come to the nomination from a deadlocked convention, without tearing apart the party, and then win the Presidency, I don't see why a brokered, deadlocked Democrat convention might not have the same result.

And be a highly entertaining spectacle to watch.

Nipples Airport Security Risk

It might be wise to stay out of the Lubbock, Texas airport if you have any sort of piercings. On February 24 a woman named Mandi Hamlin set off the alarms when she went through the security check on her way to Dallas.

It's my nipples she told the security checker. I have nipple rings.

Mandi was told to remove the nipple rings. She said she wouldn't. She was then told she could not get on the plane. So, Mandi gave in and was taken behind a privacy curtain where she successfully removed the bar parts of the piercings, but she could not get the rings loose.

Mandi began to cry. She told her torturers that she needed pliers to get the rings off. She was given pliers. She was successful. She was scanned again, and again set off the alarms. It was a belly button ring this time. But she was allowed to board without removing the belly button ring.

Apparently belly buttons present much less of a threat than nipples. The Transportation Security Administration is investigating the incident.

Gloria Allred is Mandi's lawyer. I hope she gets a good settlement.

Alma and Obama

This morning I got email from one of the South's Best Songbirds, she being Alma Squillante, currently performing at various venues on the Texas Gulf Coast. Before I make mention of what Alma's email was about I must mention her MySpace page where you can listen to her sing and learn where you can go hear her in person.

My two long term readers may remember me making mention in a couple Bloggings, I think one was called The Soviet State of Texas, of how a person in Texas can get thrown in the Texas Gulag for something as minor as a 6 year old $20 bounced check. Alma would be the person I know who had that happen to her. She writes about it in her MySpace Blog.

Anyway, in this morning's email Alma pointed me to a website where all I had to do was answer 15 questions to learn who I should choose for president. My answers were then analyzed and then the presidential candidates were listed in order of what level of agreement I shared with them regarding the various issues raised in the 15 questions.

Apparently I made a mistake (I sort of already knew that) when I voted for Hillary in the Texas Primary. Apparently I am in more agreement with Barack Obama than I am Hillary. I'm pretty sure I can't change my vote.

Hillary's Brave Combat in Bosnia

Am I the only one shocked to learn that President Bill Clinton sent his wife and daughter and the comedian known as Sinbad into the Bosnian War Zone where Hillary and Company had to duck and dodge bullets from snipers?

What sort of man would send his wife and daughter into such a dangerous situation? Shocking. And where was the Secret Service during this?

Just a couple weeks ago I saw Hillary at the Fort Worth Stockyards with the Secret Service all over the place. She's not even First Lady anymore, but way back in 1996, when she was only half way through her First Lady Days, the Secret Service let the First Lady do a corkscrew defensive landing in a combat zone and then ordered her to duck and run for cover? Were they trying to get her killed? What was Bill thinking? Sending his wife on such a mission. Along with his only child. Shocking. Was this during the time period when Bill was pre-occupied with Monica, one can't help but wonder?

Strangely, in photos taken during this incident, such as the one you see above, Hillary took time from running for cover to greet a little Bosnian girl. Now, one might think that Hillary's maternal instincts might have kicked in, with her picking up the little girl and carrying her to safety from the incoming sniper fire. It must not have occurred to Hillary, at the time, how well such a rescue would have played for us folks back home. But, then again, you do have to sort of wonder what sort of mother would stop to talk to a stranger, even a little girl stranger, when her own daughter is standing right by her, with bullets incoming from who knows how many snipers from who knows how many directions.

Well, obviously Hillary is a very brave girl (Bill has been referring to Hillary as a girl in speeches the past couple days), who has the courage to face any danger, any obstacle. Be it combat fire or climbing mountains. Which is why it is so appropriate that Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who became internationally known years after Hillary was born. But somehow her mom and dad knew a man named Hillary was going to climb Mount Everest in 1953 and so they named their only daughter Hillary when she was born in 1947, 6 years prior to Sir Edmund making the Hillary name famous. Hillary has frequently said how proud she is to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary. Just like she is rightly proud to have dodged all those bullets in Bosnia.

The Clinton Pathology

I just finished Barbara Olson's "The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House." This book covers in great detail the final weeks the Clintons were in the White House.

Like, Details about Hillary's gift registry that went out to who knows how many people, soliciting gifts, like furniture and china, for the Clinton's 2 new homes. Hillary even solicited for, and got, an expensive cashmere sweater. All this begging at the same time Hillary had received a controversial $8 million book advance.

In addition to the loot the Clintons acquired via the begging route they also hauled off, in the words of permanent White House staff, anything that was not nailed down. Much of what was taken was put in warehouses in Little Rock. When the Clintons were told that much of what they took was government property and should have remained in the White House some of the loot was returned. But, there has never been an accounting of what was taken and what was returned. The Clintons also offered cash for some of what they took. But there has never been a record of that money being paid to anyone.

The biggest scandal in the Clintons final days were the dozens upon dozens of dubious pardons. Clinton wasn't pardoning people who'd somehow gotten a raw deal, like a kid thrown in jail for 10 years for being caught with a marijuana cigarette. No, Clinton pardoned serious criminals. He even pardoned a long sought after fugitive, Marc Rich. The Rich pardon caused the most outrage, first off due to the nature of his crimes and second off due to the fact that his ex-wife, Denise, paid the Clinton's well over a million bucks for their Presidental Library, huge donations to Hillary's senate campaign, huge donations to the DNC, and, of course, she bought Hillary some of the items that were on Hillary's gift registry.

Hillary's brother, Hugh, sold several pardons for $400,000. When Hillary found out she was horrified and insisted her brother return the money. It is not known if he did return the money, or if Hillary scolded Bill for facilitating her brother's pardon for hire scheme. Bill's brother, Roger, who got one of the last minute pardons, was so sure he could get his big brother to do some pardoning for him, pre-sold 7 or 8 pardons to fellow drug crime convicts who Roger had met in jail. Unfortunately for Roger, this turned into one of the rare occasions where Bill did the right thing, leaving Roger in hot water with the cons who'd given him money.

Clinton pardoned several drug kingpins who the DEA had worked years to convict and put away. Bill had no explanation as to why he would pardon drug kingpins. The pardons outraged leaders in South America who had cooperated with the U.S. in fighting the Drug Lords with the president of, I think it was Columbia, saying that if it had been he who had issued such a pardon on his last day in office, the United States would have been outraged and extremely critical and accusatory.

In the words of the Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt the Clinton Pardon Scandal "leaves a stain that is bigger than anything during impeachment which, despite the effort of Clinton haters, really was about awful personal behavior. I think the damage (to Clinton's legacy) is severe. I think it's lasting. It's on Bill Clinton's legacy. It's on Hillary Clinton."

Go to Wikipedia for a short article with more detail about the Clinton Pardon Scandal. Go to this Blog for a list of who was pardoned and what their crimes were. You'll see why Jimmy Carter called this scandalous and Al Gore said he was shocked.

United States #1 Status in Danger

Unless Americans start eating more the United States is in danger of losing its status of being the Fattest Nation on the planet. Mexico is rapidly gaining on us and is currently the #2 Fattest Nation. At its current rate of growth Mexico is on track to surpass the U.S. as the World's Fattest Nation within 10 years, according to Mexican Health Officials.

Less than 29 percent of Mexican women are not overweight. Approximately 34 percent of Mexican men are not overweight. In other words more than 71 percent of Mexican women and 66 percent of Mexican men are Fat.

Mexico's weight gain has been quite rapid. As recently as 1989 less than 10 percent of Mexican adults were Fat. Since 1989 Mexico has seen a big increase in the number of American fast food joints like McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, along with modern grocery stores stocked with modern American food.

Speaking of Kentucky Fried Chicken, relating to the obesity epidemic, KFC announced yesterday that their American restaurants would soon be sporting new neon signs saying "Kentucky Grilled Chicken." I don't know if the KGC will have that special taste that KFC has. It will be lower in fat, salt and calories. KFC/KGC will also be adding some healthy side dishes to go along with the mashed spuds and gravy and macaroni and cheese.

I don't know if this Kentucky Grilled Chicken idea appeals to me. I mean, if I want healthy chicken it is real easy to just roast a chicken myself. Every few years I'm in the mood for Kentucky Fried Chicken, original recipe, and that's what I get. Then after a few bites I remember why I only have it every few years.

Here in the South we have KFC Buffets. You can really overload on Kentucky Fried Chicken at a KFC Buffet. Along with way too many biscuits. There are good reasons why Texas is the Fattest State in the Fattest Country in the world.

Texas Obesity Kills

Being obese can cause all sorts of risks to ones health. Let alone what it does to ones appearance. As everyone in the world knows everything is bigger in Texas. Including the people.

In Texas obesity can be deadly in disturbing ways. Like this week in La Joya, Texas, that is in Hidalgo County, near the Mexican border in the fattest part of Texas, an obese babysitter fell on top of a 2 year old boy and crushed his skull, killing him. A local justice of the peace was quoted as saying "It didn't look like there was any foul play from what I saw."

Men's Fitness magazine does an annual list of the United State's Fattest and Fittest Cities. The list varies wildly from year to year which would seem to render it sort of silly. Like in 2005 Seattle was the Fittest City while Houston was the Fattest. In 2005 Arlington, Texas was the 22nd Fittest City, but somehow, within 3 years, Arlington became the 2nd Fattest City, with Fort Worth being the 4th Fattest. San Antonio, this year, is the 3rd Fattest, El Paso 5th Fattest, Houston has really improved from its #1 Fattest position in 2005 to being only the 10th Fattest in 2008. I guess that Fitness Campaign in Houston has really paid off.

So, Texas has 5 cities in the Top Ten on the Fattest list. That is quite an accomplishment. Now, living here, this does not surprise me. You see a lot of really really BIG people here. I remember in August of 2004 I flew up to Seattle, Seattle being the Fittest City at that point in time. I had not been up there for almost 3 years. So, Lulu picked me up at the airport. She had to deliver some stuff to a gallery in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle. It was February. Unlike here, in Texas, there were a lot of people walking about downtown in Seattle. And what was so striking to me was, after my long exile in Obese Texas, it looked to me like the Seattlites had had the air let out of them. I was so used to seeing so many bloated up Texas Balloon People it'd warped my perceptions of what humans look like.

One thing I have noticed during the course of my exile in Texas is there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people I see exercising in the various parks I go to. Like when I first discovered River Legacy Park in Arlington I was very impressed with what a nice park it is and very surprised at how few people used it. That is no longer the case. You now see a lot of people biking, walking, roller blading and playing, with only, maybe 25% of them appearing to be obese.

So, it sort of surprises me that Arlington is now supposedly the #2 Fattest City in the U.S. That is quite a fall from being on the list of Fittest Cities in 2005. Now, it does not surprise me to see Fort Worth being listed as the 4th Fattest City. I can pedal for miles on Fort Worth's Trinity River trails and see nary a human except for a bum or two sleeping under a bridge.

I live in Fort Worth and I'm doing all I can do to try and get Fort Worth off the Fattest List and onto the Fittest. But I am only 1 of over 660,000 people. I can't do this all by myself. Some other people in Fort Worth are going to need to put down the doughnuts and get off the couch.

Hillary and Whitewater Falls

I'd intended to Blog about Hillary today regarding some surprising details I read in a book I just finished, that being Barbara Olson's "The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House." Barbara Olson died on 9/11 in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

It is very strange reading all these books about the Clintons. Each of them cover the same ground, tell the same story, be it Dick Morris, Gail Sheehy or now, Barbara Olson.

Each seems to focus on some different aspect, with all sorts of detail I'd not learned before. I remember all the Clinton scandals during the White House years, be it Travelgate, Filegate, Vince Foster suicide, Monicagate and Pardongate. But the main media coverage of Clinton's deluge of dubious pardons during his last few days in office, well, I had no idea how scandalous this was, how much of it was tied to Hillary's run for the New York Senate and just how sordid it all was.

And somehow, as is the norm with Hillary and Bill, the Pardon Scandal did them no lasting damage.

Anyway, I'm in too good a mood to have fun detailing the Clinton Pardon Scandal right now. It's a beautiful day. I went on a good hike at Tandy Hills Park. It's starting to get green. Today I took a picture of the Tandy Hills Park Waterfall, which is what you see above.