Dictatorships make peace easy

I listened to a reporter in Venezuela today report on the shutdown of the last non-government controlled television station. He was clearly stunned that not only was the station shut down, but that the other stations weren't covering the huge riot that was ensuing by the few still sane people of that country.

Apparently, people didn't understand that voting to allow Hugo Chavez full control to change any law he wants means he can do anything he wants.

What I don't understand is why people are surprised. Frankly, shutting down the station isn't even newsworthy IMO. Of course he shut it down. Duh. Of course he doesn't want the others to report that people are rioting. Double duh.

What part of dictator did people not understand exactly?

Exactly which part of one man deciding what everyone else is allowed to do is appealing to anyone but that one man? Especially to free people. What say you Danny Glover? Is free speech just another useless trinket to toss away in the name of "peace".

It's easy to keep the peace when you are standing on everyone's throat. At least there is no war. Nobody can say anything but how great Chavez is, but hey, at least there's no war.

Well guess what you peace-mongering morons? There is war. Chavez is oppressing his own people. Those people are not free. They are not at peace. Just because they are so oppressed that they cannot put up a decent resistance does not mean there is peace.

So it was with Iraq. No matter what you think of the situation we are in now, there was no peace there before us.

A dictatorship is not peace. A dictatorship is the appearance of peace by force.

You want peace? Silence anybody saying there is not peace. If you don't hear about how many soldiers died today, then obviously everyone is at peace. Keep thinking that as you sit in your comfortable homes in a free land watching tv and eating junk food.

Obviously what this world needs is more dictators - so they can tell us we are at peace.

"Climate change is a reality"

Well, apparently Nancy Pelosi had to go to Greenland to get caught in the rain for the first time in her life.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070528/ap_on_sc/climate_change_2

She saw "firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality". Amazing. The rest of us have seen the weather change hundreds of times every year. Here in Florida we see it a couple times a day most days.

Ignore the fact that the Vikings called the island "Greenland" because, at the time, it was lush and green and they settled it to FARM on. Ignore the fact that the glaciers there formed in "modern times". Ignore the fact that IT'S SUMMERTIME, of course the ice is melting!!!!!!

Someone please send Ms. Pelosi a dictionary with the word "anectodal" highlighted. Maybe a children's book with the parable of the 6 blind men meeting an elephant would be good also. Feel the trunk, it's a snake. Feel the leg it's a tree.... Look a temporary glacier as summer starts - it's global warming. Wow, that's science. But it's first hand. After all, we weren't there, so we'll have to take her word for it. After all, she has a doctorate in climatology - oh wait, no she doesn't. She doesn't know diddly about the climate.

Somebody looking for grant money and, or publicity showed her a pre-set dog and pony show. "A fool and their money are soon parted." No wait, "A sucker born every minute". Ah, whats the difference? Same end result.

But she is right in one respect. Climate change is a reality. It always has been. Summer comes, it gets warm. Winter comes, it snows. Clouds form, it rains. Wind patterns change, there's a drought, etc, etc, etc. Rarely, if ever, has a human been able to change any of the above in any way beyond putting a roof over their head to stay dry, or lighting a fire to stay warm.

As a society we have spent trillions upon trillions of dollars just to predict what the weather will be like in a few hours. Forget about what it will be like in a few weeks. Years? Nobody would consider you sane if you said you could do it.

We can't predict the weather with any kind of reliability let alone change it. For 100's of thousands of dollars we can "kind of" make it rain by seeding clouds. But if there are no clouds - even that lame attempt fails. We can't make the simplest of weather changes (rain) in a small area with all our efforts concentrated on it, yet we are led to believe that we are irreversibly effecting the weather of the entire planet by driving to work.

The planet is a huge place. Even a few billion humans can scarcely make a dent on it's surface. The tiny fraction of CO2 that we put into the atmosphere doesn't compare to the other sources of greenhouse gases.

I hate to disappoint the politicians, but we just aren't that powerful. Even Ms. Pelosi's huge jet can't destroy the climate. No matter how much she wants it too.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

by John Godfrey Saxe

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,
who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),
that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall,
against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the elephant, is nothing but a wall!"

The second feeling of the tusk, cried: "Ho! what have we here,
so very round and smooth and sharp? To me tis mighty clear,
this wonder of an elephant, is very like a spear!"

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take,
the squirming trunk within his hands, "I see," quoth he,
the elephant is very like a snake!"

The fourth reached out his eager hand, and felt about the knee:
"What most this wondrous beast is like, is mighty plain," quoth he;
"Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree."

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said; "E'en the blindest man
can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an elephant, is very like a fan!"

The sixth no sooner had begun, about the beast to grope,
than, seizing on the swinging tail, that fell within his scope,
"I see," quothe he, "the elephant is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,
each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,
tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,
and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!

John Godfrey Saxe (1816 - 1887)

Immigration "reform"

Hang on just one second here. The shady politicians pull a fast one just in the title.

The title would have you to believe that they are going to make changes in our immigration policy. I'm sorry to disappoint, but dealing with the 12 - 15 million illegals in this country isn't changing our immigration policy at all.

They are two separate problems.

When your kid is running around with a crayon marking up the walls, do you start repainting the walls first and then take the crayon from the kid?

Well that's what the idiots we've elected propose. Let's give the current illegals a way to become legal - without doing anything about the fact that 12 million people can enter our country without our knowing about it. The kid is still marking up walls - the border is still being ignored. What is the point?

I just don't understand how people can be laissez faire about 12 million people trespassing on our property.

I heard one of the talking heads on the radio last week say 1 in 12 illegals has a criminal record. That means there are 1 million criminals running around our country without our knowing anything about them. But wait!!!! That's totally wrong. They violated US and international laws by entering our country without our permission. That's 12 million criminals running around our country.

Think about it. Would you sneak into another country? Why not? Because you aren't criminally minded. People with respect for another persons property don't blatantly disregard that sovereignty. These people may be "good" people. But inherently they've proven that they are willing to disregard the law. Where do they draw the line at what is "acceptable" law and what law they will ignore? This isn't a speeding ticket. This is entering a country without permission. This SHOULD be a serious thing.

Unfortunately, we've let them know that we don't value our property, that it's not a big deal to trespass. So inevitably it is our own fault. If we dealt with criminals like criminals instead of giving them a free pass we wouldn't be in this position. Americans know not to break the law in Mexico or they may disappear forever. It's common knowledge that you will be in big trouble if you cross the law in another country. Not so the other way around. Instead, we GIVE them a drivers license and send their kids to school - KNOWING they are criminals who are not here with our permission!!!!!

Next I want to talk about the number 12 million (15 by some accounts). The boneheads in Washington are talking about legalizing this 12 million people. Making them jump through some hoops and then they are citizens. You hear about how they are doing jobs Americans won't. You hear about how companies can't afford to pay Americans to do these jobs and that we shouldn't raid companies that hire large numbers of illegals. What you don't hear about is how the hell our economy is going to handle suddenly paying 12 million people minimum wage and FICA taxes, etc, etc, etc. Do you really think that those 12 million AREN'T going to join unions after they are citizens? They AREN'T going to demand higher pay?

You don't hear anyone talking about what dumping 12 million legal workers into our economy is going to do. Say goodbye to the 4% unemployment rate. Cuz guess what? Instead of having seasonal workers that go back home after the work dries up, they'll be living on our tax dollars collecting unemployment.

Then, if that weren't bad enough, it's still not the whole story. Once those 12 million become citizens they will certainly bring their dependents into the country. Let's say on average one dependent per illegal. A wife for some, a wife and child for others, etc. That's 24 MILLION people added to our citizenry. That's a fairly big deal.

The bottom line is that we need to take away the crayon first. We need to deal with the fact that people are violating our sovereignty. They are entering our country without our knowledge or permission. We must stop that.

At the same time, we need to be making policies that allow workers to EASILY come work in our country temporarily without granting them citizenship and all the rights therein. We also need to truly reform our immigration policies as far as making it easier for LEGAL immigration.

We need to work with the alien workers to come up with a solution. We don't need to throw them all in jail or to grant them all citizenship either. We need them, and they need us. As it stands now they are in more control of the situation than we are, and that's just crazy.

As long as people can enter our country illegally with little to no chance of meaningful reaction, this problem will continue - no matter what insane legislation the power mongers in Washington pass.

Journalists - There's no such thing as a "scoop" anymore

In times long past, King Solomon was brought two women who had a serious dispute. They both claimed to be the mother of the same child, and both wished to take custody of said child.

After attempting to no avail, to reason with the women, the King posed this solution: Bring the child forward and have it cut in two. Each woman could then take half the child as their own. The thought being that the one that relented was acting out of parental love, not greediness.

Unfortunately, journalists have not only abandoned such logic, but also their love for the truth.

Pick up any paper and you will find some "shocking" story about some horrible travesty that someone is committing. The conditions of military hospitals is a great recent example of this trend.

Wouldn't it be awesome if the reporter that discovered one of these problems, actually worked
with the person / agency / whatever that had the problem BEFORE breaking the story?

Your first reaction to that statement might be disagreement. But think about it.

What if instead of breaking the story, they said to the person responsible "Look, here is what I see that is a huge problem. If you don't resolve it quickly, I'm going to go to press with it to make sure someone else does. And if you do resolve it, I'm going make sure everyone knows about that also."?

Maybe that "resolution" means someone incompetent is fired. Maybe it just means changing a policy or two. But, don't you think changes for the better are more likely to be implemented well, when the person involved isn't being called by every reporter on the planet for an interview every 15 seconds?

As the title of my blog entry states, There is no such thing as a "scoop" anymore. News spreads so quickly nobody knows who "broke" the story, and frankly, nobody even cares. So why rush it?

As a journalist, wouldn't you rather write a story showing a huge success that YOU ALONE forced to happen, or break a story about how person x was unable to resolve the problem that YOU ALONE discovered?

Apparently not, apparently journalists would rather cut the baby in two (thousand). Rather than get a true "scoop", they'd rather share a quick breaking story with everyone else in the world as quickly as they possibly can.

Fools.

Coke and Pepsi

It's been awhile since I've posted an entry. Haven't had much to say. Clearly I'm not a very good blogger.

Anyway, over the months, I've confirmed that my decision to walk away from RC was the right one on a regular basis.

I was recently made aware that http://thereeftank.com is now being censored on RC. It's a damn shame. When I was there I made sure that other sites were not censored unless that site was clearly trying to directly siphon members by using the resources. If posts were made to just share information they were always allowed. I carry that philosophy over to TRT. I will NEVER censor RC just because they are a "competitor". If someone starts a campaign to use TRT as a membership drive, then I would deal with that, but if they post informative links they will never be censored.

However, I consider this to be good news. The upper management at Pepsi threw company wide celebrations the day Coke first mentioned Pepsi in one of their ads. It was at that point they knew they were a viable competitor. I feel the same way about the censorship. I have never nor will never intentionally misuse someone else's resources to advertise TRT.

If they feel the need to censor TRT from their site then they must think we are doing something that will capture peoples attention if they happen upon our site. They must be worried or they wouldn't do it.

On one hand, I am truly saddened that things have come to this, but on the other hand it encourages me that I made the right choice.

It's not about making money, or being the biggest. It's about providing the help and community that people in the hobby need.

Now what?

It's been a little over a month now since I stepped down from my duties at RC. I have to admit it's been easier to do than I thought it would be. It has been very pleasant to only have one full time job. That is not to say that I don't miss some of the friends I made during my time there. That is really the only downside to this situation for me.

Some have asked what my plans are. For now, I'm putting my spare time into improving www.thereeftank.com, and just relaxing and enjoying the lack of extra responsibility. I might even buy a new fish or coral. I've really let the tank get boring over the last year. I never did stock it with fish after building the monstrosity. I still have no interest in even reading on RC, which is more due to burnout than anything else. I think I'll stick with the folks on TRT where it's a little less dramatic and stressful. ;-)

Anyway, be glad to hear from any of you old friends that might read this.

Clearing up some misconceptions

I see by some of the feedback I'm getting that there is still a lot of confusion. I'm going to try to address some of it.

Q: "Why were mods given the ability to delete threads if they are not expected to use that ability? Thats a pretty stupid oversight on RC's part."

A: Trust. I know I personally never dreamed in a million years one of our moderators would do that.

Q: "Thanks for posting your statement, it combined with Erics and Rons, has provided almost a complete picture for me, the only thing left is Bomber's POV, has he made any statement? "

A: What statement would you like him to make? Besides posting his entire private life and exposing to people who clearly hate him exactly who he is and what he does for a living how can he respond? Only an idiot would give these people more information to go on their witch hunt with. There's blood in the water, why would you jump in? What I think you are missing here is that he has no incentive to prove anything? He doesn't have a financial need to flaunt his credentials. Things can only get worse for him. There is no point. Other than being a big shot on an internet site, what point is there in his sharing?

Q: "I am confused. When I research that site, I see it is owned and paid for by John L. Are you and John L the same person? "

A: No, we aren't. To clarify, I don't know the situation exactly, but I would guess that John registered the domain for Ron as a favor, just like I hosted the site for him as a favor. Ron controls the content of the site. I guess John purchased the domain for him, and I provided the physical equipment and bandwidth. Pretty sweet deal.

Q: "Thanks for the explination greg. I can see where one action called for another. Doesn't matter at this point, sorry it had to go that way. As far as the persons credentials in question, he used them all the time. I know cause he pulled them on me before. I guess you were just stuck between a rock and a hard place in the situation. Wish you well and good luck."

A: I would like to see where that was done. I never read all the posts made on RC by far so I'm curious to see if I'm wrong about that. And thank you for the well wishes, it is greatly appreciated.

The truth about www.rshimek.com

I have hosted www.rshimek.com for several years now at absolutely no cost whatsoever to him. I've never asked for a dime and I've never been paid a dime. I covered all operational costs for that hosting out of my own pocket.

I did it despite being called names and being publicly disrespected by Ron. Despite his attitude towards me, any help he needed with the site was greeted with immediate and professional response. In repayment for that free service I have been lied about so many ways it's no longer humorous.

Here is my current dilemna. I am STILL hosting his site FOR FREE despite his public accusations that I am doing something nefarious with it. This puts me at risk as anything that he may do to the site will be blamed on me. I have two choices. I can either continue to give someone free service while they bash me publicly or I can turn off the service and give him yet one more thing to bash me with. Either way, I'm the one being damaged in this situation.

Some people will just take advantage of anything. To take someones generosity and use it against them is just reprehensible. I am continually amazed at just how low some people are willing to stoop. For now the site will remain up. However, everyone should be aware that I have no contractual reason to do so and I may be forced to change my approach to this problem.

You're welcome Ron. I'm glad I could help you out.

I did not ban any expert ever

I need to throw in a couple other things here as I've seen lies being put out on the net about it. I did not ban any expert ever. I did remove the ability of an expert to delete threads after he deleted a thread in which he made ridiculously slandorous and idiotic comments including how people were going to get sick from boiling (not cooking) rock.

RC has never deleted a thread from the database from day one. We removed them from public view, but NEVER deleted them. Until that day. That was the only time a thread has ever been deleted from the database since the day I started on RC how many ever years ago. It was my responsibility as Sr. technical administrator to protect the data of the site, and removing his privledges to cause additional damage was a no brainer decision. Anybody that doesn't agree with that decision is a fool in my eyes.

I also restored that thread - which was the right thing to do as well. My responsibility was to the owner of the site and it's members and I fulfilled that responsibility with professionalism and honor. I wish I could say that about others involved.

It has been put forth that the thread was deleted because of pictures of illegal corals. Balderdash! First off, RC would have no liability for allowing those pictures to be shown. If they are illegal then the person posting them has the liability. Second, those pictures were in fact used in an RC tank of the month 5 years ago. Why the sudden need to delete them from a thread? The person that deleted the thread did not even consult with the rest of the staff or tell them they did it afterwards. Up until that point, no mod had ever removed a thread without consulting other staff members or at least letting them know about it afterward.

The truth of the situation is that the thread was deleted to cover an idiotic and childish (if not slanderous and libelous) post by the person who deleted it.

Also, it has been opined that I started the thread in question. This is either a lie or complete ignorance, it's really difficult to tell which as both ignorance and lying seem to both be rampant in this situation. I had written some customized code on RC so that when threads exceed 1000 posts it automatically creates a new thread (with the side effect of my name appearing on the thread). You can look and find dozens of such split threads like this on RC, such as this one for example: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=718744&highlight=split

Why I'm no longer on the staff at RC

This is very difficult for me. It is difficult for me because I have had a great love for RC and much respect for the staff there and it's owner. I don't think anyone will argue with the fact that I have devoted more blood, sweat, tears, and time to RC than any other person involved. My passion for the site was unequaled. I took over RC when it was running on a windows server in a closet at John's office and it couldn't handle when 300 people came online. From there I built it into a well operating site running on 4 unix servers and multiple redundancy that can handle in excess of 2,000 simultaneous users. I did this during my weekends and spare time. I don't say this to inflate my ego or importance, but to try to help give perspective to the reader of this essay. I am writing this more to clear my own mind and help myself move on than for anything else, but I'm also publishing it to try to answer the great many questions that I'm being asked. As I mentioned, I have had a strong passion for RC. The sudden absence of focus for all that passion has been a traumatic event in my life and I am trying desperately to get over it. I will try here to explain the situation from my point of view without going overboard, but please realize that this is my opinion and I may become over zealous at times. Please keep that in mind. I am not trying to change anyones mind about anything or cause anybody any further grief, only to express my own opinions and insight on the events that have transpired. My apologies to JohnL in advance for saying anything at all, I have nothing but respect for you, but I think I deserve the opportunity to tell my side of the story.

Anyway, to try to move forward, I did a lot of work for RC, blah blah blah everybody knows that already and that's not why you are reading this anyway, so let's get down to the nitty-gritty. As is usually the case in situations like these there is no single reason for my departure. Many things building up over time caused it. Some of them are merely harmless disagreements that don't really effect the way RC works in a profound way, they only effected me. I won't bore you with those except to note that they existed and contributed to my final decision. The situation that ultimately led me to my sudden departure was one that I consider an earth-shattering departure from the way we did business. I have always been very proud of the fairness and integrity the staff showed to it's members in case after case. However, in one particular case that integrity and fairness seemed to disappear and was replaced with covering your ass and fulfilling a vendetta, at least in my opinion. The saddest part about that is that apparently I was very alone in that opinion. In an organization of this size, it's no surprise that there were disagreements and it's no surprise that someone occasionally loses sight of what is reasonable, fair, and just. We all go off the deep end occasionally. However, when apparently the entire organization finds a way to justify outrageous behaviour then that is a horse of a different color entirely.

The final straw for me was that a member was singled out because he didn't agree with the methodologies of the "experts" of the site. His credentials were called into question. Credentials that I never personally saw him use in attempt to get someone to agree with him. Maybe he did, but I never saw it. If you are a little confused over why this is important, just think about how you would feel if someone discounted what you had to say because you didn't have their level of education. If you can back it up does it matter - or should you be ignored? Do you want to be singled out for review of your credentials because of what you post? Do you want someone looking to see what your education is, or who your employer is because of what you post? I want to point out at this point that who the member was is irrelevant. It does not matter to me who it was. What matters to me is that personal information about a member including, but not limited too home phone number, home address, full name, birth date, sexual preference, employer, and educational credentials was searched for and in some cases obtained and passed around freely. Even worse than that, the information was used to attempt to force the person to divulge even more personal information about themselves. The fact that I seemed to be alone in speaking up against what I consider a breach of ethics beyond compare simply because some staff didn't agree with what a member had to say made it clear to me that I no longer was a good fit in the organization.

I cannot comment about what the future holds for RC as I really have no idea. I will let you determine for yourself if you feel the site is up to the standards you personally set. In the past I have always had extreme pride in the lack of bias the staff permitted and perhaps because of that I set my own bar for such things higher than could reasonably be expected. I'm not going to lower it however. I will always remember with pride my involvement in the RC that did set the bar that high. I see some minor evidence that perhaps some are now seeing how wrong they were. Someone else must have stood up to the experts to cause them to quit. Who knows? I don't. But it does give me a glimmer of hope that there is some sanity remaining.

For those that may be wondering why the person targeted didn't just provide them with what they wanted let me ask you this. Have you ever been asked "Have you stopped beating your wife?" It's the same sort of situation. There is no way to win when you are placed in that situation. Would you give someone even more personal information after they had already dug into your personal life and passed it around and threatened you with it? I wouldn't. And neither would any other sane person.

Ok, enough of the negative stuff. I really do wish the best for them, but it's up to them from here on out. I doubt I'll be hanging out on RC much. Too many painful memories. But if you want to talk to me, I'll always be around on TRT, so stop by and say hello.

Intro

The internet is a funny thing. People actually believe what they read is 100% true. All I ask of my readers is that you think about what you've seen happen and apply what you read about it to the facts you know.

This blog is what I have to say. If you are interested read. If you aren't don't. If you want to comment, please do. If you want to say nasty things about me, there are plenty of other places that would love to hear from you, so don't bother here. If you want to say nasty things about other people - well, I won't be allowing that either. One thing I have retained throughout this mess is my integrity and I'm not going to compromise my ethics now anymore than I was willing too before.

The messages that follow are my original explanation with addendums following that. Enjoy!