July 22, 2008
Over the past few days the Maryland State Police and the ACLU have really stirred up quite a shit storm here. The ACLU sued the State Police for records and discovered that for a 14 month period through 2006 the State Police had infiltrated two activist groups. The groups that had been infiltrated and spied on were The Baltimore Pledge of Resistance and The Baltimore Coalition to Stop the Death Penalty (BPR and BCSDP because I’m not writing those out again).
As far as I can find and as reported by the State Police and those involved in the infiltration, neither of these two groups have ever done anything wrong. They are exercising their First Amendment right and, regardless of my feelings about what they represent, they have every right to. Now, because of this infiltration and spying we are looking at formal hearings and possible legislation to impose legally binding controls on the State Police when it comes to matter like this. It has also outraged a lot of people.
Maria Allwine, a member BPR and co-chairwoman of the Maryland Green Party is one of those people. In today’s paper there was a commentary piece by her and while I understand her ire, I personally think her outrage is a bit misplaced. Her and others who share her point of view are screaming about repression and the terrorizing of citizens. She likened the actions of the State Police to the tactics that dictators, past and present use to put down their citizens to perpetuate their power. She claims that “someone with power and authority decided that she had no First Amendment right and labeled her a security threat or worse.”
Nobody in either of these groups was harmed or wronged. Freedom of Speech is defined in the Bill of Rights as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
At no time did the police violate or otherwise go against the First Amendment, nor for that matter any of the other rights and freedoms granted under the Bill of Rights.
Her whole commentary reads as if she is some poor repressed citizen living in a Dictatorship who was wrongfully incarcerated for her views. As far as I can tell, the only results of this police action was a report that stated no wrongdoing was taking place. She throws out terms like terrorize and repression as if these things happened to her. The very fact that her commentary was so easily put to print and that she wasn’t detained, incarcerated or worse for being a member of the BPR and that the report clearly states that both of these organizations are peaceful tells me a different story.
Maybe I’m a bit off in how I view the world, but personally, if Mr. Bush and his administration want to listen in on my phone calls, I say have at it. I feel a bit sorry for the poor slob who has to listen to me chat on the phone with my friends. As exciting as my life is to me, I can’t say that it would be as exciting to some third party. Sure, Tony and I enjoyed geeking out over the new Dragon*Con schedule, but would Agent X find it as entertaining? I doubt it and I equally doubt that they’d stay interested in the updates I get on a friend’s pregnancy or when I am and when I’m not going to my parents house for dinner. The truth is, I’m just a regular guy who works, spends time with his family, geeks out over sci-fi every so often and lives a pretty normal life. I’m not a terrorist or a drug dealer or some crazy doctor shooting activist so if the government wants to check in on my phone calls from time to time to make sure my status hasn’t changed then they are welcome to it. All I can promise them is some rather boring phone conversations. I don’t have anything to hide. Hell, between the blog and my Flickr site, I’m more of an open book than most.
She does bring up one point, however, that I am behind her on 100%. It is our tax dollars that are being spent to pay for these police investigations. What I would like to know is why were these two groups targeted? Was there an event or a situation that led the police to look into the activities of these two groups? Did either of these two groups do anything at all that would justify the investment of our tax dollars to fund this investigation? That seems to be the one area that nobody is clear on. What was the reason behind the investigation of these two particular groups? As cash strapped as the economy is right now and as bad as Baltimore is with crime, I think those tax dollars could have been better spent and that does irk me a bit.
If the police want to check in from time to time and monitor what some of these activist groups are up to I really don’t have a problem with that. A long drawn out investigation without cause I have issue with, but a quick in and out I’m cool with. If they’ve got nothing to hide then there should be no problem. Nobody is shutting these two groups down or trying to silence them. Nobody is terrorizing them or following them home at night to drag them from their homes. Their bank accounts haven’t been frozen or seized and they are still free to move about the country as they see fit.
The truth is, that even though these two groups were found to be peaceful and not a threat, there are activist groups out there who aren’t peaceful and are threats. You have the Pro-Lifers who believe life starts at conception and love life so much that they want to protect all life, yet support abortion clinic bombings and rally behind the nut jobs who shoot doctors. Then there are the PETA folks who claim to be peaceful yet condone arson and murder, and throw their support behind groups like ALF, ELF and SHAC and even adopt some of their more questionable practices. I had my own personal run in with a PETA person once and was given “grief” about my leather boots and belt. These are not very friendly people.
Now you may claim that these extremists are few and far between and for the most part they are, but if one doctor’s life is saved from a crazy pro-life gunman, or if several nurses who are just doing their job are saved or if a lab tech survives a brutal arson or bombing because of police activities like the one causing such trouble in Maryland right now wouldn’t it be worth it? If this type of spying could have prevented the Oklahoma bombing or 9/11 wouldn’t it have been worth it?
Freedom of Speech is a wonderful thing and I support wholeheartedly everyone’s right to that freedom, but you have to remember, when you speak freely, you can’t pick and choose your audience which means everyone has the right to listen, even if they are the police and even if they may disagree with you.
Posted by cayusa under activist, peaceful protesting, PETA, activism, police spying, First Amendment, Bill of Rights, ACLU, spying, Maryland State Police, Maryland, violence, The Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, State Police, The Baltimore Coalition to Stop the Death Penalty, Rights and Freedoms | Comments (0)
July 18, 2008
I am often amazed at how much credit politicians are given for saying very little. The other day, the Baltimore Sun claimed that O’Malley “threw his support yesterday behind a wind farm off the coast of Delaware.” What O’Malley really said, though, in response to a question about his feelings on Bush’s lifting of the executive order prohibiting oil drilling off of our coasts was that the Deleware Wind Turbine project was “one offshore effort I would like to go in on.”
Back in October of last year there was a proposal to put Wind Turbines off the shores of Ocean City. The proposal is apparently still under review. Delaware, in the other had seems to be ready to start with theirs. Just this past month the project cleared important regulatory and legislative hurdles in Delaware. They still need federal environmental approval, but if that is granted, these turbines could be up and running by 2012. Meanwhile, O’Malley seems to be more interested in just encouraging Maryland utilities to purchase electricity generated by offshore turbines? Encouraging our utilities to buy power from yet another outside source? And what part of the word “encouraging” means throwing your support behind? What kind of support is that? “Um, hey guys, we’d like it, if you could, ya know, try to buy power from those guys, OK?” They are never really clear about what O’Malley’s intentions are in “going in on” this project. Will our tax dollars go to help fund this project?
John Carney, the current Lt. Governor of Deleware spoke with O’Malley at a National Governors’ Association conference over the weekend and claims that O’Malley is “very positive and very excited about the opportunity.” I’m still not 100% sure what opportunity there is. Again, what does his comment mean?
Then The Sun goes so far as to suggest that his willingness to participate in this project shows that he may be willing to consider the proposal for turbines off the coast of Ocean City. There is no claim of O’Malley’s in that article or elsewhere, other than the statement that “building a field of turbines off Ocean City was one of several options under consideration.”
The major concerns that most seem to have with putting turbines up off the coast of Ocean City is a visibility issue. Mayor Rick Meehan, Ocean City’s mayor, is “concerned what the horizon will look like” if these turbines are put up. Proponents of the project have already assured him, and everyone else, that on a clear and sunny day these turbines would barely be visible and no bigger than your thumbnail. On a hot and muggy day, typical of Ocean City summers, you wouldn’t even be able to see them. And really, visible or not, can anyone really picture a family canceling a trip “down the ocean” because of a wind farm?
What bothers me the most about this whole deal is that O’Malley is still not committed to building the turbines here in Maryland. The administration is claiming that any such project would require study of its possible effects on birds, fish and other marine animals. Delaware has already done this and “found little reason to expect trouble.” So what is the hold up?
BGE seems to be tacking on an extra five to eight percent to their charges every few months on top of their already high electricity prices. Gas prices, even though reports from the past week claim the cost of a barrel of crude has dropped, keep going up (so much for their claims that the prices are based on the cost of crude oil, that lie only works when the cost is going up, not down), and the cost of food, and everything else is following suit. Here we have a proposal that will at least start to reduce not only the cost of our electricity, but reduce our “carbon footprint” as well.
These same type of turbines are already in use off the coast of England and Denmark with no major issues that I could find anywhere on the internet and seem to be quite the success story. England is even planning a larger wind farm that could be generating enough electricity to power 1,000,000 homes by 2018 and offsetting 2.3m metric tons (tonnes) of carbon emissions each year.
For me, this all seems like a no brainer. Lower electricity cost…check. Lower carbon emissions…check. New jobs for Maryland…check. The only drawback that I’ve been able to find is that occasionally a bird will fly into the wind farm and get whacked by the blades. That seems to be the biggest concern whenever a project like this, be it land based or sea based is proposed. Now while I’m something of a bird lover and I’d hate to see any bird get whacked, Ocean City could do with a few less sea gulls, and, I think, that after a time, the birds would learn to fly around. You also have to consider which is worse. Is a few dead birds by turbine blade worse than what will happen if we don’t start reducing our carbon output? How many animals are endangered when there is an oil spill? How many environments are in jeopardy right now due to climatic changes?
Our governor seems to be getting a lot of credit here for committing to absolutely nothing. I reread the article about seven times and I still come away from it wondering just what he has committed to and asking myself, how much is it going to cost me. All I see is that he has come out in support for is somebody else doing exactly what we should be doing here in our own state!
Posted by cayusa under O'Malley, wind farm, Delaware, offshore, electricity, wind turbines, power, Maryland | Comments (4)
July 16, 2008
Considering where I was this past weekend, the following Lolcats photo is strangely appropriate. I just had to share it!
Kathy thought it was appropriate as well. She gives me that same look the cat has every time I talk about Dragon*Con, Shore Leave, Far Point, or just conventions in general. She just doesn’t get it!
Posted by cayusa under Lolcats, humor, convention, Funny | Comments (0)
July 16, 2008
OK, so I know it is Wednesday. I was actually updating my list and hit publish instead of just save. I don’t know if it is possible to unpublish a post, and I really don’t want to bother with it. So here is the Friday Spam List a few days early.
Last week was surprisingly sparse on SPAM comments on the blog. Only two managed to get through and it wasn’t worth posting those at that time. I figured I’d see how this week went and then go from there. Here it is, Monday, and my list has grown by leaps and bounds. The spammers apparently had a busy weekend (28 so far and still counting!)
Wow, it just keeps coming and coming and coming and coming
59.99.85.201
203.115.68.31
202.109.114.145
213.60.224.106
58.188.178.254
206.47.242.42
201.4.150.203
203.211.44.166
216.127.78.98
201.1.165.151
200.242.95.162
219.64.65.201
211.18.86.209
84.103.63.38
202.149.223.136
202.82.119.17
196.35.158.183
206.47.242.42
219.133.45.202
201.43.47.128
198.54.202.250
202.7.176.132
222.137.42.16
201.42.152.26
201.74.140.51
61.11.0.158
192.71.66.145
203.115.71.10
200.158.196.251
203.143.227.19
203.189.72.42
116.48.128.123
201.24.21.204
201.24.231.119
201.27.116.92
69.79.32.144
190.152.40.143
59.95.220.74
206.220.40.8
81.215.200.24
201.14.165.107
58.188.79.64
You can find the entire “blacklist” here.
Posted by cayusa under blacklist, spaming IP's, spam, computer problems, Blog, Computers, Internet, Blogging | Comments (0)
July 16, 2008
As I told you in the previous posts, I attended Shore Leave this past weekend. This was my first local sci-fi convention and I had a lot of fun. All and all it was about what I expected, although I was a bit disappointed in the lack of costuming and the very brief Masquerade. As cons go, and I’m sure this applies to most of the smaller local cons, it shared some similarities with Dragon*Con and it had its differences too. Most of those differences, though, are more likely than not because of its size.
You don’t get much bigger than Dragon*Con, at least not on this side of the Mississippi. On the west coast you have the San Diego Comic-Con, which is the largest in the world, boasting an attendance of over 125,000 in 2007. Dragon*Con, with 30 to 40,000 attendees isn’t too shabby though. Dragon*Con literally takes over Atlanta’s Peachtree Center and this year has even had to add an additional hotel to the convention and those are just the host hotels. The smaller (and cheaper) hotels fill up as well. Shore Leave, on the other hand, logs in at about 2,500 attendees.
While Shore Leave can’t compete with a convention like San Diego’s Comic-Con, or Altanta’s Dragon*Con, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The one thing I did notice about Dragon*Con was that there was just too much to do. At Shore Leave, if there was an event I wanted to go to, there wasn’t as much competition for my time as there was at Dragon*Con. For those of us who are broad fans of the genre our options are limited by the abundance of selections at Dragon*Con. Just because I’m not a super science nerd, or ghost hunting lover of the supernatural, or comic collector extraordinaire, or super superhero fan boy, or a paparazzish celebrity hound, or writer, or costumer doesn’t mean that I don’t have any interest in some of the events held in those tracks. Unfortunately, it usually boils down to a choice of do I want to see this or that more. With Shore Leave being so much smaller and their tracks being a bit more limited, I typically didn’t have to choose one event over another. That, in itself, was kind of nice.
Shore Leave is also not nearly as overwhelming as Dragon*Con. It is a much more intimate setting where you have more of an opportunity to meet and get to know fellow fans and many of these fans attend all of the local cons so instead of throwing us all together for one single event once a year, there is the opportunity to meet these same folks several times throughout the year.
Even with its much smaller size, however, it still managed to draw some big names; Jewel Staite, David and Kate Hewlett, Malcolm McDowell, Mark Sheppard and his father William Sheppard and even George Takei. While Dragon*Con can boast more stars, again, Shore Leave provides a much more intimate feeling setting in which to meet these actors.
As with any convention, Shore Leave did draw its share of basements and even brought out Steve’s first basement moment when he went got a bit doe-eyed and gushy with Malcolm McDowell. Hell, we each of us have our moment in the basement, I’m just glad mine was over Erin Grey! It isn’t that I don’t respect of appreciate Malcolm McDowell, he is one hell of an actor, but I’ll take Wilma Dering over Mr. Linderman / Dr. Tolian Soran any day. It is a boyhood fantasy thing. I have a feeling that there is great potential for me to go basement again this year over Jewel Staite as well. Why do you think I kept my distance at Shore Leave (LOL)?
All in all, I had a great time. Getting to know my future Dragon*Con roommates was cool. Steve is a great guy and a lot of fun to hang out with. He fits perfectly into my group of friends as well, with his sarcastic remarks and attitude. The Fem was a lot of fun too and fits in just as nicely as Steve does with my gang. Meeting their crew was also a treat and they are a great bunch of people. Hopefully in the upcoming months I’ll see more of them and actually make it to Far Point, Otakon and Balticon in the next year.
While Shore Leave in no substitute for Dragon*Con, sorry, it is hard to compete with the happiest place on earth (I know Disney likes to make that claim, but they will just have to settle for second), it is a lot of fun and I’m glad I went. Now I just have to make it through the next 42 days, 20 hours and 51 minutes before I board my flight for Atlanta.
Posted by cayusa under Shore Leave 30, Comic-Con, San Diego Comic-Con, Malcolm McDowell, Jewel Staite, Shore Leave, Erin Grey, basement, convention, Dragon*Con | Comments (0)
July 15, 2008
The one area of the con that I actually took the time out of my wanderings to sit and watch were some of the celebrity panels. I caught a bit of Kate and David Hewlett’s talk as well as a bit of Malcolm McDowell. I sat in on most of George Takei’s talk. I missed Jewel Staite’s talk, but I am hoping to catch her at Dragon*Con. All of the talks were fun and informative, but I have to say George Takei blew me away.
I’ve been a fan of George Takei’s due to his role as Sulu on Star Trek. His cameo roles here and there on TV and a few interviews of his that I’ve seen only increased my respect for the man. Hearing him talk though is something completely different. He came off, to me at least, as a very educated man who is quick to laugh, even at himself, genuine and passionate. He isn’t passionate like some evangelical speaker who is overcome with emotion, but rather a soft-spoken man who knows himself and is firm, and comfortable, in his beliefs. He doesn’t need to become overcome with emotion for you to pick up on how passionately he believes in the things he spoke about.
When I walked in he was speaking about the recent ruling in California that allows same sex marriage. For those of you who don’t know, George Takei is gay and has been with the same partner for around 30 years. This change in the law will allow him and his partner to finally tie the knot. He spoke of his joy in seeing that law pass and how disturbing it is to see another group try to change the California Constitution back to make same sex marriage illegal. I can’t think of a better, more eloquent speaker not only for the equal rights of homosexuals, but for all people.
He also discussed his early childhood and how, during the Second World War, his family was rounded up and shipped off to an internment camp. The man has lead a very interesting life and he speaks of it with an openness and honesty that you don’t find too much nowadays.
As I said in the earlier post, if ever you have that opportunity to go and see George Takei speak, go! I am glad I was able to catch at least part of his talk and hope in the future I have another opportunity to see and hear him.
Posted by cayusa under Shore Leave, George Takei, Shore Leave 30, California, LGBT Rights, lesbian, prejudice, convention, gay, Rights and Freedoms | Comments (0)
July 15, 2008
This past weekend was a busy one for all of us. I had been planning on attending Shore Leave for several months, along with Tony and Mike. Unfortunately, my sister also chose this past weekend for her birthday tubing trip. Having already committed myself to Shore Leave I had to take a pass on my sister’s camping and tubing weekend event, but Kathy and Savanah attended. From everything I have heard, they had a great time, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
I took Friday off of work this past weekend. I wanted to get to Shore Leave earlier than I would have gotten off of work and I’ve been putting in extra hours and quite frankly just needed a break. Kathy and I got up a bit early (early for us considering Savanah was away and it was a day off) and went to see Hellboy II. Great movie, we both really enjoyed it and for the second time in a row, the crowd in the theater was well behaved. Well behaved movie crowds have been in short supply lately. After the movie we headed home and I helped Kathy get her car packed up for the camping and tubing weekend.
After she left I headed over to Shore Leave. Friday isn’t the big day so the crowd, while a decent size for Shore Leave wasn’t that big. Steve hadn’t arrived yet so I popped into the Con Preview talk and then stuck around for the premier of a fan produced Star Trek movie, which I’ll post about a little later. Steve eventually showed up and I met up with him and his friends from the NoVA Browncoats.
Just a little background so you know who is who, Steve is a friend of my buddy Mike D. If you’ve been following this blog you know Mike and I went with Tony to Dragon*Con last year. Mike talked up Dragon*Con enough, along with, I suspect, some of Steve’s NoVa Browncoat buddies, that Steve has chosen to come with us this year. I met Steve for the first time just a few weeks ago when we attended the “Where Comics Go To Die” Comedy Show that Mike participated in (follow the link provided for more on that). Past that I didn’t know much about Steve other than that he was going to be rooming with us at Dragon*Con and that his friend Jen (aka The Fem thanks to me not remembering her name when we were booking flight information) was coming along too and rooming with us. I spent pretty much all of Shore Leave hanging with Steve and the NoVA Browncoats (NoVA’s to make it easier on my fingers) getting to know them and I gotta say they are one hell of a fun group to hang with. I got to know Steve and Jen a lot better so they are now the friends that are staying with us at Dragon*Con as opposed to Mike’s friend Steve and The Fem. Tony also ended up at Shore Leave on Saturday and got to know Steve and Jen better as well. Mike was a no show, but as much as we’d have liked him to make it, we didn’t miss him much (Sorry Mike! LOL).
Anyway, Steve finally got in touch with me and I met up with him and then the rest of the NoVA’s and hung out at the Browncoats Table until we all decided it was time to hit the bar. We hung out for a few hours and then a good number of us hit a local diner for breakfast.
Saturday was spent pretty much the same way, although I did catch a few panel discussions. I spent most of the afternoon getting shots of Jewel Staite from Firefly and Stargate Atlantis. I could stand around and shoot her all day. Saturday was also the day Tony showed up so him and I struck out on our own for a bit and hit the vendor booths and such.
This year the folks at Shore Leave were offering free bone marrow donor screenings. Usually the screening for tests like this are rather expensive so this was a good opportunity to get on the registry. I’m happy to report that I am now in the system and should they ever need me I’m available. It isn’t very often that they find matches (I think the screener said it was only like 2% of those screened are ever called back to donate), but at least I’m in the system if they need me.
We capped off Saturday night with another few hours hanging out at the bar and then the 10 Forward party, which is really nothing more than a dance. It was entertaining, although not my cup of tea. I’m a country boy and I line dance, which is definitely not what these folks were doing.
Sunday I was back at the NoVA’s table getting more shots of Jewel and some additional celebrities, including Mr. Sulu himself, George Takei. I had managed to catch his talk the day before and I have to say that as much of a fan as I was before I heard him speak, I’m a bigger fan now. The man has led and incredible life and is such a fantastic speaker. He covered everything from his early childhood in an internment camp during World War II to the recent ruling in California that allowed him to finally marry his life partner. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak I highly recommend that you seize that opportunity. It will be time well spent.
Things wound down around four or five and I headed home. I was a bit shocked when Kathy’s parents showed up at the house minutes after I did. They were in the area and it made more sense for them to meet Kathy and Savanah at our house as opposed to her driving all the way up to their house right behind them. Gas is just to expensive for stunts like that. It all worked out rather well though, as I was really missing my little girl and this afforded me an opportunity to see her, albeit very briefly.
It was a fun weekend and Shore Leave really did whet my appetite for Dragon*Con! Only 43 Days, 22 hours and 6 more minutes to go!
Posted by cayusa under Steve F, Jen, George Takei, Jewel Staite, The Fem, Northern Virginia Browncoats, Shore Leave 30, NoVA's, NoVA Browncoats, Browncoats, tubing, Shore Leave, Tony, Sister, Kathy, Family, Birthdays, Baltimore, convention, Lita, Mike D., Savanah | Comments (0)
July 15, 2008
For those of you who use Flickr, the good people over at Photojojo have a neat little application that can actually take you back in time. Well, maybe not physically, but rather photographically.
Twice a month I get an e-mail from Photojojo. Contained within the e-mail are photos of mine that I shot over the current two week period one full year ago.
Now I don’t know about any of you, but for myself, with a current photostream of 4,111 photographs that grows by at least one photograph per day and sometimes more, I loose track of what I shot a year ago. This e-mail notification with photos from my past is a nice little reminder of where I was, what I was thinking and what I shot a year ago.
The service is free and sign up takes about 60 seconds. You can find it here.
Posted by cayusa under Photojojo, e-mail, Flickr, Photography | Comments (0)
July 10, 2008
I meant to blog about this back when I first read it, but I’ve been so busy I never got around to it until now.
Back on July 1st an explosion wrecked a militants’ compound in Pakistan which killed as many as eight terrorists/militants. As soon as the explosion happened the pro-Taliban militants said that it was due to a missile that was fired from Afghanistan. If only that were true. We are always up for good news that shows progress is being made in this war against terror. Up to eight terrorists killed with a single strike and no loss to American or allied forces? Hell yeah, that is good news. There is, however, one problem with reporting that. It wasn’t us.
First, there is no record of any activity on our part in that area at that time. We weren’t mounting an offensive against these terrorists at the time. It isn’t like we are covering up anything here. Like I said before, we are always happy to report a successful attack. Especially one that results in no further loss to American lives. If it had been us, we’d be talking it up. A major stockpile of weapon and eight bad guys gone. That is good news.
The Pakistani paramilitary forces were in the area to protect the city of Peshawar which was being threatened by the pro-Taliban terrorists. The Pakistani troops, however, faced no resistance in the area and were able to occupy key hilltops and re-establish checkpoints in the area so there is no evidence that they fired any rockets either and they were coming in from the opposite direction of the alleged rocket attack.
The next problem with this claim by the terrorists is that the blast site was examined by Fazal Hussain, an explosives expert and he claims that a missle would have left a hole in the roof and in the ground upon a strike, but no evidence of that was to be found. He says that the most likely cause was that explosives stored in the building detonated.
The terrorists don’t want to hear that though. In a statement released by the terrorists they blamed everyone, but themselves.
“We do not know if our country Pakistan is involved (they are even hesitant to blame their non-terrorist countrymen), but our claim is on America! We do not know from where it was carried out, but we claim that Jews and Christians did it!”
OK, the evidence all points to them blowing themselves up and they even admit they don’t know from where the “attack” was carried out, but it must have been the Jews and Christians? The thought process of these extremists just blows my mind. They most likely don’t store the explosives correctly, as most of them probably don’t have any real training, or they were working on making a bomb for a suicide attack, yet we are at fault for the explosion. It just couldn’t have been their own fault, even though the evidence points that way.
No wonder peace talks always end up like they do with these extremists. It is like having an argument with a six year old. No, wait, scratch that, my daughter, who is six, makes better and more logical arguments on a daily basis, not to mention more creative, when she gets caught doing something wrong. How can you win a war against a group of morons like this? We are damned it we do and damned if we don’t. At least I can understand why they’d be mad at us for toppling their government and blowing them up all the time, but blaming us for their own stupidity? That I don’t get. It is just laughable. If they weren’t so dangerous they’d be funny.
Posted by cayusa under terroism, The War On Terror, militants, terrorists, Idiocracy, General Stupidity | Comments (0)
July 9, 2008
I’ve only recently gotten into going to conventions. When I was much younger I attended one or two small local comic book conventions, but nothing along the lines of Shore Leave or Dragon*Con. Last year I attended my first Dragon*Con and I was hooked. I am returning to Atlanta this year for my second Dragon*Con and I hope to return many many times in the future. This year will also find me at my first Shore Leave and hopefully the Baltimore Comic-Con when I get back from Dragon*Con. There are a few more conventions in the area that I hope to make it to as well.
Now, having never been to Shore Leave, Balticon, Farpoint, etc. I am not sure how big they are. I can say based on what I’ve seen of Dragon*Con and what I’ve read of our local conventions that our local conventions can’t hold a candle to Dragon*Con. They are a decent size, but nothing like the 30,000 plus memeber convention that is Dragon*Con. When it comes to conventions, Baltimore just doesn’t rank as high as some of these other major cities and their conventions. San Diego, Atlanta and New York are just biger cities and have more to offer I guess.
All of that may change in early Spring 2009 or 2010. Lucasfilm Ltd. is eyeing Baltimore for a four day Star Wars convention. The convention, known as Celebration V, would coincide with the release of a possible live action TV series (according to the print article which I read the other day due to the lack of a local paper in Towson.
We do have some competition though. We are competing for this honor against such evil cities as Minneapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis and Orlando. Actually, they aren’t all that evil. I’m sure they each have their merrits, except for Indianapolis (I’m still a bitter Baltimorean LOL). When in a competition with my current hometown, however, they are evil and worthless cities! No offense to anyone living there, but second place doesn’t count for nothing when it comes to something like this.
There have been rumors of holding it in LA again, and a fan spotted a sign at the last Celebration that said “The line for Celebration V starts ‘here’” pointing towards something Indianapolis related. The article I read specifically mentions that Baltimore was mentioned, along with those other evil citie, by Steve Sansweet, director of content management and head of fan relations for Lucasfilm.
As much as I raz on Baltimore, it does have a lot going for it. The harbor is a great place. With the hotels and Convention Center as well as a ton of restaruants, the Science Center, Ravens Stadium, Camden Yards and the Aquarium it is hard to beat. Everything is located right there.
We also have a good fan base here. While the conventions we have here may not be the biggest, we do have our fair share. There are three science fictions conventions here that I know of (Balticon, Shore Leave and Farpoint), as well as an anime convention (Otakon), a few horror conventions that I have heard about (Horrorfind and Slasher-fest) and we have played host to both the World Science Fiction Convention and the World Fantasy Convention in the past. Baltimore also is home to The Old Line Garrison, a very active garrison of the 501st Legion.
While all of those things are fantastic reasons for holding Celebration V, there is one reason that I haven’t mentioned that trumps all of the other reasons, at least for me. My travel expenses would be almost nil. I live here. I could attend all four days without having to worry about flying in to some evil city and getting a hotel. With the money I’ll save on tickets and hotel accomodations I’ll finally be able to buy my Stormtrooper armor and join the 501st Legion!
I plan on sending e-mail to Mr. Sansweet begging for Celebration V to be held in Baltimore. If you are a local who reads this blog, I hope you’ll do the same!
I hope I’m OK in doing this, I’m sure I’ll hear about it if I’m not, but you can e-mail Mr. Sansweet at sansweet@lucasfilm.com. (at least that was the e-mail I found online)
Posted by cayusa under Celebration V, Celebration, Lucasfilm Ltd., Star Wars, Con, Maryland, convention, Baltimore | Comments (2)
until DRAGON*CON 2008
