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Thought this was interesting, shows the short sighted nature of government decison making!

From www.dailynews.com

Burbank airport almost cleared for $107 million in improvements
BY JASON KANDEL, Staff Writer

BURBANK – A Bob Hope Airport finance committee gave the preliminary OK on Monday for a proposed $107.2 million budget – 36 percent more than last year – that includes nearly $70 million for facility upgrades and runway improvements.

…

Last year, the figure hit an all-time high of 5.5 million, surpassing the 4.9 million in 1995 and 2004. The increase is fueled by new arrivals from Delta Airlines and JetBlue flights.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Six operators of eight car park sites near Bristol International Airport have lost appeals over using their land as unofficial car parks.

In 2003, North Somerset Council refused retrospective permission for the land to be used for parking.

…

Bridget Campbell, of the government inspectorate, said in two cases up to 350 cars parking on land was causing “a serious loss of openness”.

She said the numbers of cars at Freeman’s Farm and The Oakes made the countryside area feel urban.

…

The owners… were given until 20 January 2005 to cease the parking practice.

Councillor Peter Burden said: “The council is committed to protecting the green belt from further damage by mass off-airport parking.”

Brad DeLong recently had a problem remembering his password to Timbuktu Pro X. I had the following response:

I’ve run into this problem before. My solution was to create an Excel Spredsheet with all of my passwords and the corresponding programs/websites. Normally, this would be a serious security risk, but since I am the only person who uses my computer (although, occasionally my spouse uses my computer) I put the Spreadsheet file in a really obscure directory (not My Documents or Mac’s equivalent) that I only know. Whenever I forget a password I know where to look.

Of course, there is always the chance that my computer could get hacked and someone could gain access, but there is added security by using an obscure directory.

If you ever ship an item that you care about via FedEx or UPS, etc. then you should really read this article from a person who used to handle those packages.

This is the best quote from the article:

I worked as a package handler for roughly ten months, and in that time I handled many packages. I couldn’t even hazard a guess at the number, as I moved several thousand some nights. The point being: I’ve seen a lot of packages. From this I’ve learned something: Most people have no idea how to pack cargo. Not only do they not know, they don’t even try. In fact, I believe most of them to be under the delusion that I, the Package Handler who was paid but a pittance for hours of physical labor, was in some way concerned with the welfare of their package(s).

Did you know that there have been 104 children born to fathers killed on 9/11/01. (Source: Meet the Press 9/29/02) These children were robbed of the opportunity of ever meeting their fathers.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

If you have children, spend time with them, you never know if it will be the last time that you can tell them “I love you.”

I love the fact that blogs have proliferated on the internet. It is an excellent way for people to air their views on any topic that is of interest. The biggest problem with blogs, though, is that they are one sided. There is little discourse on the site that a blog is hosted. Look at my blog, I can say whatever I want, but currently, the only way someone can disagree with me is to either, send me an email and hope that I post it, or post a counter argument on their own blog, assuming they have one and then notify the world that they disagree with me. That still doesn’t mean that I will ever know of their disagreement or have the opportunity to respond, if I desire. (As my blog matures and I become more adept with the blogging software that I am using I will be adding the ability to comment on my posts.) I feel that every blog of substance should enable the reader to comment on each post. I, hopefully, will soon add the ability for people to comment on my own posts. My blog is currently ‘immature’ at the moment, because it is new, but there are many blogs out there that I read on a regular basis that I would like to leave my own comments on, but they don’t afford me the opportunity to do so.

The Kansas City Royals’ Coach Tom Gamboa was attacked by a father/son duo during last night’s game with the Chicago White Sox. This is just a truly sad thing! To think that a person would attack a coach at a professional baseball game! I’m not a huge fan of MLB or the players, but really, I’m not that discontent about baseball. I just hope that these people go to jail for a long, long time!

Today is September 11, 2002, America’s Second Day of Infamy. I truly hope everyone had a healthy and peaceful day. My heart and thoughts go out to those who lost loved ones. I spent the day thinking about my wife, this is a day where you don’t want to be away from your family, it is especially difficult when you a required to be 500 miles apart in graduate school.

I feel the outpouring of emotions by people worldwide is a wonderful thing. In some instances last year’s events showed us that humanity is still alive, but it also showed us that there are people out there who only care about their own points of view, humanity be damned!