Month: June 2012

Roku Won’t be Getting Any More of My Money

KevinLeave a comment

I bought my first Roku box on the recommendation of Instapundit back in April of 2011.  Streaming Netflix to my TV!  How cool! 

But in February, 2012, it croaked, and Roku’s warranty is 30 days – period.  Including shipping, $95.26 and ten months of life.

Well, OK, sometimes you get a bad piece, and in the mean time new models with higher performance had come out, and I didn’t see a competing device that was any better so I popped for an upgrade – $98.18 with free shipping.

It’s dead, Jim.  Four months old and it’s a paperweight.

I’m done.  No more Roku anything.  Apparently “Roku” means either “junk” or “sucker!”  Either way, once is happenstance; twice is coincidence.  Three times is enemy action. 

UPDATE: One of these is on order. With my Amazon.com points, it was $87.50. And I can watch YouTube videos on it, which Roku doesn’t allow.

Atheist President?

KevinLeave a comment

Primeval Papa links to a recent survey that says that atheists are no longer the most distrusted people on the planet. For the first time since the question has been asked, a majority of people would be willing to vote for an atheist for president.

As I noted in my comment, being an atheist myself (small “a” version) I don’t have a problem with someone who does not hold a belief in a divine creator still being a moral and trustworthy individual. However, the Big “A” evangelical Atheists who hold the belief that THERE IS NO GOD! rub me the wrong way. With sandpaper. Just like Fred Phelps does. So it depends on what kind of “avowed atheist” is running.

THIS SHALL NOT STAND!

KevinLeave a comment

Today is the seventh anniversary of the resurrection of Maj. Chuck Zeigenfuss, who was blown up by an Iraqi IED in 2005. Chuck is the creator of the Soldiers’ Angels Project Valour-IT program that provides technology to help wounded service personnel adapt to their injuries.  Project Valour has been the designated charity that the Gun Blogger Rendezvous has supported since the second gathering in 2006, and Chuck himself has been guest of honor three times. But in this morning’s post, Chuck asks:

I would appreciate it if you would consider making a donation today to Project Valour-it; the silver lining to this story. We’re currently out of funds to provide wounded troops with the same tech that helped me recover.

This shall not stand. Please, if you can spare it, dig deep and contribute whatever you can.


Click on the picture to go to the donation page. And please spread this around.

Quote of the Day – John Taylor Gatto (Pt. 12)

KevinLeave a comment

One more, and I think I’ll give it a rest for awhile:

Do you think class size, teacher compensation, and school revenue have much to do with education quality? If so, the conclusion is inescapable that we are living in a golden age. From 1955 to 1991 the U.S. pupil/teacher ratio dropped 40 percent, the average salary of teachers rose 50 percent (in real terms) and the annual expense per pupil, inflation adjusted, soared 350 percent. What other hypothesis, then, might fit the strange data I’m about to present?

Forget the 10 percent drop in SAT and Achievement Test scores the press beats to death with regularity; how do you explain the 37 percent decline since 1972 in students who score above 600 on the SAT? This is an absolute decline, not a relative one. It is not affected by an increase in unsuitable minds taking the test or by an increase in the numbers. The absolute body count of smart students is down drastically with a test not more difficult than yesterday’s but considerably less so.

What should be made of a 50 percent decline among the most rarefied group of test-takers, those who score above 750? In 1972, there were 2,817 American students who reached this pinnacle; only 1,438 did in 1994—when kids took a much easier test. Can a 50 percent decline occur in twenty-two years without signaling that some massive leveling in the public school mind is underway?

Every word out of their mouth was, ‘We don’t care.’

KevinLeave a comment

RCoB™ time:

Woman Sues City of Tulsa For Cutting Down Her Edible Garden

A Tulsa woman is suing the city’s code enforcement officers after she said they cut down her garden with no cause.

Denise Morrison said she has more than 100 plant varieties in her front and back yards and all of them are edible and have a purpose.

She knows which ones will treat arthritis, which will make your food spicy, which ones keep mosquitoes away and treat bug bites, but she said none of that matter to city inspectors.

Last August, Morrison’s front and back yards were filled with flowers in bloom, lemon, stevia, garlic chives, grapes, strawberries, apple mint, spearmint, peppermint, an apple tree, walnut tree, pecan trees and much more.

She got a letter from the city saying there had been a complaint about her yard.

She said she took pictures to meet with city inspectors, but they wouldn’t listen, so she invited them to her home so they could point out the problem areas.

“Everything, everything needs to go,” Morrison said they told her.

When she heard they wanted to cut it all down, she called police. The officer issued her a citation so it could be worked out in court.

She said she went to court on August 15, and the judge told them to come back in October. But the very next day, men were cutting down most of her plants.

They even cut down some of her trees -– ones that bore fruit and nuts -– and went up next to her house and basically removed everything in her front flower bed.

“I came back three days later, sat in my driveway, cried and left,” Morrison said.

Morrison said she had a problem at her last property with code enforcement, so this time, she read the ordinance, which says plants can’t be over 12-inches tall unless they’re used for human consumption. She made sure everything she grew could be eaten, which she told the inspectors.

“Every word out of their mouth was, ‘we don’t care,'” Morrison said.

Morrison said she used many of the plants that were destroyed to treat her diabetes, high-blood pressure and arthritis.

“Not only are the plants my livelihood, they’re my food and I was unemployed at the time and had no food left, no medicine left, and I didn’t have insurance,” Morrison said. “They took away my life and livelihood.”

Morrison finally went to court last week for the citation she got last August at another property. The garden portion of the citation was dismissed and she pleaded no contest to having an inoperable truck in her driveway.

She filed a civil rights lawsuit this week, accusing the inspectors of overstepping their authority.

The City of Tulsa said it hasn’t received the lawsuit yet, so it couldn’t comment.

She’s lucky they didn’t send her a bill for the “gardening work.” Luckier still the FDA isn’t coming after her for self-medicating with unapproved medicines.