Posts In Time

A Day at the Bicycle Race – 30 seconds

I made my way downtown this afternoon so I could stake out my claim on some turf to photograph the 2nd stage of the Amgen Tour of California Bicycle Race. It is the longest bicycle race in America. I am lucky enough to have friends in the parking business so the closed lot full signs did not stop me. After parking I made my way out front and found a decent space where I could see the riders as the first crossed the tower bridge.

Now here is where my experiences at the Sacramento Train Museum Photowalk came into play. One thing I learned on the photowalk was not to give in to supposed “professionals”. I overheard many of the amateur photographers discussing this attidude in relation to their right to be somewhere just as much as the next guy or gal. So, I found my space, checked with the event authorities to make sure it was ok – and I refused to budge. I did not move when the guys with the super dupper long and expensive lenses showed up. I did not move when an hour later the other amateurs showed up and I really really refused to move when the point and shoot crowd in business suits came running from office buildings and tried to shove in front of me. Nope you all would be proud. I stayed my ground.

I was fortunate enough to meet some very nice semi and professional photographers along the roadway while I waited. One nice man took the time to share his experiences and gave me a few tips about my camera. Together we held our ground!

It amazed me how many stupid ( that is being kind ) people after the police had cleared the streets actually ran out into them and then had attitudes when the police would holler out at them. Then there were the drivers who just could not grasp the fact that the roadway was closed. The big orange barriers surrounded by police on motorcycles, bicycles, horseback, and bicycles, had still left them clueless as they would try to drive around the barriers to make their turn onto the closed road. It was amusing if nothing else. Two and a half hours after arrival the cyclists crested the horizon of the tower bridge road.

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We all started snapping off shots.

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And about 30 seconds later – we were done. The bicycles were out of sight again!

All Gone

The End of my first attempt at shooting moving objects LOL

Flickr Photo Sharing

Sacramento Train Museum Photo Walk

We all had a great time on the photowalk with Thomas Hawk and Robert Scoble. I am just sorry that Drumsnwhistles could not attend :(. I am sure she would have kept up with them all and had a great time! Somehow some of us lost track of the main group when we stopped to take some pics. We formed our own little group and had a blast! Here some of us are having fun with Tony Pinto.
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My favorite shot from the day would be this one – kmilyun likes reflections LOL!

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Photo Sharing “>Flickr

The Federal Government, Katrina, and Citizens

I blog hopped today reading blogs that mentioned Katrina. Here is my take:

  • The United States Government – Zero help just follow the money stuff. No help really just excuses and bull.
  • Organized Religious Groups – Numerous groups helping where help is needed. Yah!
  • Other Organized Groups – Lot’s of folks out there still donating money and supplies, clearing up rubbish, and most important letting folks know that they are not forgotten or in it alone.

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Many of the sites and blogs refer to the New Orleans area. A few mention Mississippi. Still trying

to figure out why that is. I did notice while there that many of the groups were concentrating their efforts in New Orleans areas. The hardest hit area we hear. Well, could have fooled me, I saw lots of damage in Mississippi. Neighboors were out helping each other but there did not (at least that I might notice) seem to be near as much help from outside.thumb

I have an idea why this is but until I have statistical proof or proof otherwise I will keep my opinions to myself.

I would like to hear from those of you who read this blog on your politcal take on this. Why is the area still a mess and why are many of the working people still going it alone while trying to gather their homes back from piles of rubbish?

Unprecedented Suppression of Civil Rights and Liberties

The Bush administration responded to the Sept. 11th, 2001 attacks by pushing the Patriot Act and other legislation through congress to fight terrorism. His agenda was backed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373. and the economic and military power of our country. (Res. 1373 pdf file) Other countries joined our country and soon the combined efforts of the “Coalition” brought about an unprecedented suppression of civil rights and liberties.

We are sacrificing our privacy and freedoms for the cause of National Security while our President demands extraordinary powers (see post here) The legal protections that are essential to our democratic society; due process, presumption of innocence and rights against unreasonable search and seizure, arbitrary detention and punishment, interception of personal communications without warrant are being ignored. (example link to for each) Infrastructures for strategic mass surveillance and dissemination of propaganda are in place to support governmental agendas. (See Govt. pdf docs: Information Operations Roadmap, Information Operations: Doctrine, Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures)

InfraGuard is Federal Bureau of Investigation program “that began in the Cleveland Field Office in 1996. It was a local effort to gain support from the information technology industry and academia for the FBI’s investigative efforts in the cyber arena. The program expanded to other FBI Field Offices, and in 1998 the FBI assigned national program responsibility for InfraGuard to the former National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) and to the Cyber Division in 2003. InfraGard and the FBI have developed a relationship of trust and credibility in the exchange of information concerning various terrorism, intelligence, criminal, and security matters.” Info Businesses are surrendering their databases to government agencies. Among them are commercial airlines, Universities, driving schools, Double Click, and Choice Point. Major Internet companies have started to deal with this problem also.

CALEA gives law enforcement officials a back door that can be used to wiretap systems. Read my previous post on this subject here.

In Orwell’s 1984 Four, the hero says:

“It was inconceivable that they watched
everybody all the time. But at any rate,
they could plug in your wire whenever
they wanted to. You had to live – did
live from the habit that became instinct
– in the assumption that every sound
you made was overheard.”
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949 (London,
Penguin Classics: 2000), p. 5.

In its May 2004 report on federal data mining efforts, Federal Efforts Cover a Wide Range of Uses, GAO-04-548,May 2004. . The U.S. General Accounting Office(now called the Government Accountability Office) revealed projects that use personal information from the private sector. The Defense Intelligence Agency, mines data “to identify foreign terrorists or U.S. citizens connected to foreign terrorism activities”. The National Security Agency program called Novel Intelligence from Massive Data, extracts information from databases including text, audio, video, graphs, images, maps, equations, and chemical formulas. The C.I.A. reportedly has a data-mining program called “Quantum Leap” which “enables an analyst to get quick access to all the information available – classified and unclassified – about virtually anyone”.

“Are we beginning, as a society to accept inhumane and extraordinary practices of social control? The majority of American’s have become apathetic and sheepishly have accepted the infringements of their rights and the rights of others. If you are not with us your against us. If you have nothing to hide, why worry. A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”

–Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish historian