My friend BJ had a suggestion to give one of the sites a little extra touch during the Halloween holiday. It was a logo with a Halloween pumpkin in it. It is pretty sweet and reminds me of the PHP logo with the snow during the winter months. It is a good touch to a web site, but it alienates other audiences, those who have winters south of the equator.
PHP Winter Logo:
Issue 4 is just one example how big business influences government policies in very negative ways. Backed by the smoking industry, issue 4 aims to add an amendment to the Ohio constitution that bans state, city and property owners from making laws/rules banning smoking. It also goes as far as to define where smokers may smoke. The amendment implies that citizens cannot be banned from smoking in such areas such as nursing homes and private residences.
The idea of allowing citizens to smoke in designated areas of restaurants, bars, private residences, etc… sounds okay, but think about it! The wording of this amendment implies that citizens are permitted to smoke in these areas. Even if the restaurant has a no smoking policy, they could, if pressed, have to provide a smoking area in their business. Being forced to comply for people who are physically handicapped is one ting, but being forced to comply for people to participate in a recreation in their place of business is just messed up.
The first sentence uses the phrase ‘allow smoking in these areas’ and then goes on to list many types of areas, business and private property. Other Amendments that use the word ‘allow’ imply that you are given permission to do what ever it is that is specified. Noted from the League of Women Voters of Ohio (http://www.lwvohio.org/), ‘This amendment would impose uniform smoking standards around the state’. Yes, if you are a business owner, rent out property, or want to visit your grandmother in the rest home, you will have to abide by this law and allow smoking.
I will not even touch the fact that this is an Amendment. If this issue passes, the only way the Amendment can be over turned is by another Amendment which would take at least a year to vote on.
There are other issues on the ballot this November in Ohio that are written in a very shady way. It really saddens me that someone or some company with enough money can create such deceiving legislation. These companies and citizens, where ever you are, should be ashamed to call yourself Americans. Our children and grandchildren will look back at these things and think we grew up in the most selfish, self centered society. I will regret the day when my grandchildren sit on my lap and ask me about the times when citizens didn’t use reason and compromise to solve societies problems, but we used greed and the need to make money to drive the laws we live by. Hopefully my children and grandchildren will live in a better society than this.
In closing, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that you vote NO on issue 4. Put it this way, if you vote yes on issue 4, then that means you are either an idiot or you actually want to be the a-hole smoker that lights up in a previously smoke free restaurant. If you think you get dirty looks now for smoking in public, if this amendment passes and non smokers figure out they were deceived, you will see a huge voter backlash that may be much more severe than issue 5 is.
Now issue 5 is a state wide smoking ban for public businesses and places of employment. You can still smoke in your home, smoke in your car, smoke outside at lunch. If these terms seem to be a fair smoking ban for you, then please vote yes on issue 5.
More information about Issues 4 and 5 may be found here: http://www.smokefreeohio.org/oh/
Yes, as reported at the GeekNewsCentral (http://www.geeknewscentral.com/archives/006462.html), hostforweb.com filed a complaint to my ISP (Time Warner Cable) that I was scanning ports on their servers. hostforweb.com’s inability to assess the situation caused me (a hostforweb.com customer) hours of headaches trying to get my cable modem turned back on.
I had to go through 3 tiers of technical support at Time Warner Cable before I spoke with someone who could resolve my problem. First he gave me the IP address that I supposedly scanned and while I was looking it up he loaded the IP address up and it loaded my web site, spaceblue.com. I told the guy to click the about page to see that this was my web site. He promptly re enabled my cable modem.
While talking to Time Warner Cable support I found that if I get reported for abuse a second time they may turn my cable modem off indefinitely. This does not sit well with me.
I’m pretty pissed off about the ordeal. hostforweb.com has been a very negative experience for me. I’ve only been happy with the first 3 months of service. Since then I have noticed serious server slowness issues every Friday between 9AM and 3PM. I suspect they do a weekly backup at that time. Not the smartest time to schedule a backup if you ask me.
So now I am in the process of trying to get hostforweb.com to contact Time Warner Cable and clear this blemish that has been recorded on my account. Knowing how this stuff works, they will most likely just send an E-mail that Time Warner Cable may or may not follow up on and update my account status. Democracy on the Internet takes a hit on this one, I was found guilty of a crime that could not have been any farther than the truth.
