Thursday, August 30, 2007

Torture school subjects children to lethal punishments...


You just have to love the State of Massachusetts!! When we live in Mass, there were over 40 registered Sex Offenders in the town. One of them was a dentist that molested patients while they were under sedation. In the town where I worked there was several "sex offender" schools way up in the hills. I kind of reminded me of Deliverance.

Now to this story.

Posted by Cory Doctorow, August 30, 2007 6:24 AM

Mother Jones has a long, chilling feature on The Judge Rotenberg Education Center, a private radical behavior-modification school based in Canton, Mass. The school is run by a rogue behaviorist who uses discredited "punishment" techniques -- electroshock -- on children as young as nine to change their personalities. Matthew Israel, the school's $400,000/year executive director, straps homemade, overpowered shock apparatus to children (including severely autistic and retarded kids) and has his staff administer strong shocks for even minor infractions. Some children have been shocked thousands of times a day, and several children have died at the school.

Eight states send troubled children to the school, where "high functioning" kids are "educated" by being sat in front of computers all day, running through automated tutorial programs. Talking, fidgeting, or acting out during this "school" time is punished with shocks. Some kids' shock apparatus misfires, shocking them without any provocation. The staff are instructed to activate the shock apparatus out of sight of the children, so that they can't mentally or physically prepare for it.

The Rotenberg process lacks any kind of scientific basis, and the school uses a 20-year-old film of its "successes" to convince parents to send their children to the program -- however, some of the success stories in the film are still institutionalized at Rotenberg 20 years after their "cure," wheelchair bound and in terrible shape.

Then, in June of 2006, a report produced by the New York State Education Department threatened to destroy the program's carefully cultivated image. A group of investigators, including three psychologists, spent five days at the Rotenberg Center and compiled a 26-page document packed with damning findings.

* Staff shock kids for "nagging, swearing, and failing to maintain a neat appearance" and once threatened to shock a girl who sneezed and then asked for a tissue.
* Some students must "earn" meals by not displaying certain behaviors. Otherwise they are "made to throw a predetermined caloric portion of their food into the garbage."
* When students enter and leave the school each day, "almost all" are wearing some type of restraints, such as handcuffs or leg shackles.
* "Students may be restrained"--on a four-point restraint board or chair--"for extensive periods of time (e.g. hours or intermittently for days)."
* Some students are shocked while strapped to the restraint board.
* A "majority" of employees "serving as classroom teachers" are "not certified teachers."
* Rotenberg's marketing reps bestow presents on prospective families--"e.g. a gift bag for the family, basketball for the student."
* Although the center has described its shock device as "approved" by the FDA in its promotional materials, it "has not been approved."
* The facility collects "comprehensive data" on behaviors it seeks to eliminate, but "there was no evidence of the collection of data on replacement or positive behaviors."
* The facility makes no assessment of the "possible collateral effects of punishment such as depression, anxiety, and/or social withdrawal."

This sounds on par for that draconian state that is about 50 years behind the rest of the USA due to it being a Commonwealth. As you can tell, i am not a big fan of that state and did nto like living there.
What is your opinion?
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895/150/I95 Interchange

895 Is Pocahontas Toll Way, 150 (Chippenham Parkway) becomes 895 at the top of the bridge/overpass because they all cross over I95 North/South and The James River.

This map gives you a look at what i am talking about.




View Larger Map

South 150

It is called The Chippengham Parkway.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Another incident...


Mom pushes Applebee's on breast-feeding policy.
WANTS CHANGE IN POLICY AFTER BEING TOLD TO COVER HERSELF

I totaly agree with the manager of the resturant in asking her to cover herself.
" waitress came over and said that if she wanted to breast-feed, she had to cover the baby with a blanket. Ryan said it was so hot that she didn't have a blanket. The waitress then repeated her request. Ryan said she then asked to see the manager and handed him a copy of the 2006 Kentucky law that prohibits interference with a woman breast-feeding her baby in public.

The manager said he knew about the law but a customer had complained about indecent exposure, so she had to cover the baby with a blanket."
Now when I go out to eat, I do not want to see a woman feeding her child with her tit hanging out of her shirt. I have been in many public places and seen women feeding their children with a blanket over their baby and that is acceptable to me and I am sure most other people. This woman asked for a booth in the back and proceeded to feed with no blanket.

"Sen. Tom Buford, R-Nicholasville, who sponsored the breast-feeding protection bill, agrees."She was not treated right under the new law," he said. "There should have been no comment made to her at all; the restaurant overstepped its boundaries. There's no way they can explain their way out of this."

Thirty-nine states, including Kentucky, allow women to breast-feed in any public or private location."

He is probably some dirty old man that likes this. IF you have to feed your children, go to the bathroom or use a blanket to cover yourself, not just flop it out and let the baby suck. I do not agree with the bill and think that it should have an amendment where the mother needs to use a blanket to do the feeding in a very public place like a restaurant or bus station. I do not think that just facing the wall is sufficient for such a personal and private matter especially is there were complaints like in this case.

She, in my opinion is making a spectacle of herself and this practice.

"August is World Breast-feeding Awareness Month, and Ryan has organized two related public events:• A "Nurse-In" at the children's play area at Fayette Mall from 1-3 p.m. Saturday. Ryan says the mall is not a target, but has a place for kids to play.• From noon to 2 p.m. Sept. 8, she is holding a "Nurse Out" with posters and breast-feeding in front of the Applebee's on Nicholasville Road.

She's also asking for a public apology from Applebee's and training for its employees about the rights of breast-feeding mothers. Some day, she says, she would like to see the international breast-feeding symbol of a mother and child in every restaurant that supports the practice.
"I'm not trying to be provocative," she said. "I want to teach."

What is she going to teach by doing this type of exhibition in front of the restaurant? It will teach people to think that she is a news monger and a complete NUT!! That is what it would teach me But then again, this is in Kentucky.

What is your opinion?
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Sugar Ghost Drinking with Paw...

This is out cat Sugar Ghost. She is a very strange cat and she will drink with her paws. She also likes baths and loves to walk in the snow!! We have had her since we lived in Colorado.

What is your opinion?

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Sugar Ghost

Drinking with paws

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The RMStringers

I did a totally redesign of our site tonight.  Please go and let me know what you think.  It is only pictures.

Thanks,

 

RMStringer

+++++++++++++++++++++++

"We are all geniuses when we dream"

- E.M. Cioran

 

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question



She re-answered the question on NBC this morning. I will try to find her response soon.

What is your opinion?
Blogroll Me!

Bald Eagles...







Busch Gardens is a wildlife preserve and they have over 6 Bald Eagles that are wounded and cannot fly. They live their all the time.

What is your opinion?
Blogroll Me!

Alpengiest


0828071549, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

We rode it 5 thies today!!!

Monday, August 27, 2007

Genito & 360

Intersection @ night.

Neat night shot?

Genito & Old Hundred Rd.

Weekend...

Well, another exhausting weekend has come to a close. I worked all weekend long and I am tired today. I had to mow the lawn yesterday before the rain hit. So I got off at 7.15am and drove home, got here around 7.45 and started to cut the crass about 8am.. Needless to say I was dead at work last night. I have not gotten much sleep today as I have had to get a few things done. So, I am tired, cranky, and hungry. I need to eat soon or try to get a little nap in before I go to the gym and try to work out. I want to emphasize try.

I don't see any rain forecast in the next few days, so I might get to cut the grass before the weekend or at least I hope to do that. I will try to post a few items over the next few days.

RMStringer

#################

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,

anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." - Author Unknown

New Thumbnail

Saturday, August 25, 2007

I want one of these!!

What is your opinion?

A strange match up...

Beaver.

Apollo's Chariot

Their could not be a more strange pairing than these two items; a beaver and a roller coaster. While we were at Busch Gardens the other day having our Ride-A-Thon (33 rides in an 8 hour period) we were ridding Apollo’s Chariot. It is a very good ride! Perhaps one of my all time favorites out of all the parks that I have been to. Well anyway, back to the main topic, Beavers and Roller Coasters.

While riding waiting to ride Apollo's Chariot there were beavers eating grass. We were like cool as BG is a nature preserve and a park all at the same time. So we got on the ride and after the first few drops we started seeing beavers lying around on the ground just eating whatever they eat. They did not seam to be bothered buy the loud noise or people screaming or for that matter, the roller coaster. So we were like SCREAMING BEAVER when we would see one of them. I know it sounds stupid, but it was fun with my daughter and her friend. We would all trade seats and take turns spotting the beavers during the rides. I would say "Beavers and Roller Coasters Kick Ass"! The girls would say they Rock!

It was a kind of bonding experience with us all and we had fun!! All in all, I think that we counted about 5-7 different Beavers during our 14 rides. Weather permitting on Tuesday, I think that me and my daughter will go back and use our VA Residence passes one more time before they expire…

It was a very strange pairing, nature and man at their best but on separate terms.

What is your opinion?

Philip Morris Building

Their main building looks like a pack of cigaretts. Their main HQ is located off of I95 North in good ole Richmond!

Orb Spider...

Friday, August 24, 2007

Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme

Old Dr. Strange Costume.










New Dr. Strange from movie

I watched the movie today and I was not disappointed at all!! Dr. Strange was always one of my favorite Marvel characters due to his immense power and use of magic. It was updated to the present era as opposed to the late comic book title. It starts off with several magical people fighting monsters in New York City with them crossing paths with Dr. Stephen Strange.

He is the gifted, arrogant surgeon that was riddled with guilt and we find out later whey this was and as in the book he has a car crash. He goes through the pains of realizing that he can no longer perform surgery and tries in vein to get his hands to work while exhausting his fortune. Destitute, he comes across an oriental man that gives him a map and is told that he will find what he is looking for. He makes it to the Himalayan city of the Ancient One and gets an audience with him. We see Baron Mordo, Wong and a whole cast of other people in an apprenticeship of the Ancient One. He takes Strange as an apprentice and we see the trials of this event.

We see the training and distrust between Strange and Mordo when we find out the Strange is to assume the mantel of Sorcerer Supreme instead of Mordo which begins a life long struggle between them. The Dread Dormammu tries to attack earth and come across, but is thwarted by Strange and the Ancient one who dies during this struggle. At this point, Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme and stops Dormammu from being able to cross into the Earthly dimension. Thus begins anew saga as it ends with Wong and Dr. Strange walking into the Sanctum Sanctorum mansion in New York City's Greenwich Village and closing the door.

I cannot tell everything about the movie. It had very good character development and action scenes. It is a good representation of the comic book. Before the movie was release there was a 6-issue comic book titled "Strange" series. I was written by by J. Michael Straczynski (Author).It was released last year that was to be the screenplay for a live action movie. It says that he has a skiing accident. In the movie we hear a reference to Dr. Donald Blake (Thor), but we do not see him. Also, we do not see him use any of his coined phrases like: "By the all-seeing Eye of Agamotto!" or "By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!" Or how about "By the shades of the shadowy Seraphim!"

I can only hope that we see other releases with Dr. Strange as the main figure…

What is your opinion?

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Going home...

9 times!

4 times!

14 times!

Graffiti!!

Chel&Shannon @ BG!

Wolf...

Griffon...

Part of park.

Busch Gardens

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The Death of a Legend...

I spoke to the owner today and Thomas said that he hopes that the site is only down temporally, i have known him for many years of being on the KLF Mailing list. His site was legendary in the KLF community and it will be missed while it is down.

From His Site:

THIS IS A KLF ONLINE COMMUNICATION...

Whenever questioned about THE MANUAL, Bill Drummond replied that its essence was that, whenever you want to start something, you should not wait for someone to come along and tell you to do it. Just do it. I think this also applies to putting things to a rest.

From the days when I joined Daniel, Jens and Torsten to work on KLF ONLINE, our website has grown larger with every year, having seen various changes, added features and layouts. I say "our website" cause although I was not part of the initial list of members, after putting about five years of work into it, I adopted it as my child just like everyone of us.

The ever-growing list of added features, however, is one of the reasons I am writing these lines now. Both the code and the interal database structures have gone through so many incarnations that large parts of it are still patchworked into the (not anymore) current website, while other parts seem to never see the finish line.

Another reason is that content management currently is a pain. Most things happen directly in the database, making it impossible for others to add, update or delete parts when needed. I had added some things to change this, but they only add up to the clutter which the source code had become lately.

That is why, in my opinion, the whole website needs a fresh start. Tear it down and start rebuilding it from the grounds up. So much for the technical side of things.
On a more personal note - well, life moves on. There are many other things on my to-do list which just do not seem to happen due to the fact that, even after great time management, a day still has only 24 hours. And while being able to contribute to one of the few remaining KLF websites was a priviledge at first, it slowly has become a duty which seems to consume more and more time. Time which I would rather invest in different things nowadays.

There are some website projects waiting inside my mind to get out for... well, years. Things I know I would absolutely love to create and of which I hope will be interesting for others as well. But in order to get these things started, KLF ONLINE has to move down on my priority list.
This is no complete departure from this page, though. It just means that, as I wrote before, things have to be started from scratch again, not repeating the mistakes that have been made. A new version of KLF ONLINE will eventually grow and prosper again. Hey, someone has to do it, right? ;-)

This is not the end. There WILL BE further communications.
Cheers, Thomas

(c) 1999-2007 KLF ONLINE

What is your opinion?

More roses are blooming...

I cut all my roses back several weeks ago and now, after the rain, they have started to bloom again!

What is going on?

It has been a crazy few days and i am very tired. I wanted to get up at 12.30pm today but i just could not. Tomorrow i am taking my daughter and her friend back to Busch Gardens for a marathon roller coaster ridding cession!! IT should be fun!


What is your opinion?

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Hurricane Dean Pictures...

Texas-Sized Powerful Hurricane Dean Hits Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula
Dean came ashore as a Category 5 hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 165 mph.
This image of Hurricane Dean was created with data from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-12), which is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The image was created on August 21 at 9:10 a.m. EDT (13:10 UTC) by NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.


S118-E-07918 (18 Aug. 2007) --- A still photo close-up of the eye of Category 4 Hurricane Dean. Crewmembers on the Space Shuttle Endeavour captured this image around Noon CDT of Hurricane Dean in the Caribbean. At the time the shuttle and International Space Station passed overhead, the Category 4 storm was moving westerly at 17 mph nearing Jamaica carrying sustained winds of 150 mph.


S118-E-07920 (18 Aug. 2007) --- Crewmembers on the Space Shuttle Endeavour captured this image around Noon CDT of Hurricane Dean in the Caribbean. At the time the shuttle and International Space Station passed overhead, the Category 4 storm was moving westerly at 17 mph nearing Jamaica carrying sustained winds of 150 mph.


What is your opinion?

Leading edge out east of city

Heavy rain on I64 East.

Downtown on I95 North.

Contrast!

Storm Clouds looking back down 288 Northwest.

Swift Creek Reservoir of Genito road.

Storm is comming...

Foggy morning Near Southside Speedway.

Bit Torrent and Comcast

According to the latest reports, Comcast is hindering Bit Torrent traffic and doing packet shaping. Their method of "throttling" torrent traffic is sending RST packets.

These are the ports that will be affected: (Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide)
Prior to version 3.2, BitTorrent by default uses ports in the range of 6881-6889. As of 3.2 and later, the range has been extended to 6881-6999. (These are all TCP ports, BitTorrent does not use UDP.)

Intrusion detection
"A standard transmission control protocol (TCP) connection is established by sending a SYN packet to the destination computer. If the destination is waiting for a connection on the specified port, it responds with a SYN/ACK packet. The initial sender replies with an ACK packet, and the connection is established. If the destination computer is not waiting for a connection on the specified port, it responds with an RST packet.
Most system logs do not log completed connections until the final ACK packet is received from the source. Sending an RST(Reset) packet instead of the final ACK results in the connection never actually being established."


INFO: Winsock TCP Connection Performance to Unused Ports
"Upon receiving the ACK/RST client from the target host, the client determines that there is indeed no service listening there. In the Microsoft Winsock implementation of TCP, a pending connection will keep attempting to issue SYN packets until a maximum retry value is reached (set in the registry, this value defaults to 3 extra times).

Since an ACK/RST was received from the target host, the TCP layer knows that the target host is indeed reachable and will not double the time-out value in the packet's IP header, as is standard during connection attempts with unacknowledged SYNs. Instead, the pending connection will wait for the base connection's time-out value and reissue another SYN packet to initiate a connection. As long as an ACK/RST packet from an unused port is received, the time-out value will not increase and the process will repeat until the maximum retry value is reached."

So perhaps a way around this is to not use the normal ports that are associated with regular Bit Torrent Protocols as I am sure that they are being monitored. If this is done to all ports then people will start to complain about their service being disrupted on a wide range scale.


What is your opinion?

Monday, August 20, 2007

Michael Vick will plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges.

What a thug... He had it all, the power, the money, and the endorsements from his football career and he will loose most of it if not all of it over what? A dog fighting ring. A mere $20,000 dollars for literally millions of dollars from his athletic ability. He could have been a force for good in these times with all that he did do for the community, but the thug came out and ruined everything. Perhaps in time, people will forget about the dogs and he will go back to professional sports and people will care more for what he can do instead of what he did…

This from the news today:
By Andy Jenks, NBC12 News
NFL star Michael Vick will plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges. Word of the plea agreement came late Monday afternoon at the federal courthouse.Vick had almost nowhere to run. Three former co-defendants all pleaded guilty. Now Vick, the multimillion-dollar NFL superstar has been left with no choice but to admit to his role in illegal dogfighting.

Vick will plead guilty next week for participating in an illegal dogfighting conspiracy that began in 2001 at a home in Surry County. In a statement to the media, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson confirmed the agreement but would not offer specifics.Published reports indicate that Vick will agree to a prison term of 18 to 36 months. The resurrection of his NFL career remains in question. The plea agreement means Vick knowingly and willfully funded and participated in Bad Newz Kennels and in the brutal killing of pit bulls that did not perform well in fights.

Word of Vick’s plea agreement comes following guilty pleas by three former co-defendants, all of whom implicated Vick in the illegal conspiracy.Calls to Vick’s attorneys and the U.S. Attorney’s office for comment were not immediately returned.The sentence that Vick will receive is not clear. That will be up to the judge later this year. The dogfighting charge he’ll plead guilty to carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.


What is your opinion?

More haze, I64 East

Hazy day

An Intimate Celestial Bond

If you want to Purchase any of my music(s), Please go to https://djrenigade.bandcamp.com/ 1st Track For The New Year! #DownTempo #RenigadeCi...