Antonio Davis is within his rights !

In the article that appears today 01/20/2006 on AOL concerning Antonio Davis, Mr. Aschburner is just wrong. 100 % out to left field wrong. 0 % right and 100 % wrong. In my opinion, every sportwriter hack who takes this position is wrong also. Not to mention ignorant and goofy.


His argument, while grammatically correct, makes no logical sense. The incident did not happen in a vacuum. It cannot be viewed as mutually exclusive of the surroundings, the timing of the event, the time elapsed before security got there, the availability of security or their actual response time to the incident, not to mention his responsibilities and rights as a husband and as a man.

In order to follow the logic of his argument, he uses the player’s position, status, and past actions of other players to morally justify his point of view. In my view, his entire logic tree is built on a false foundation.

In the history of this country, virtually every court throughout time has recognized mans right to protect his life, property, domicile and the safety of his family as a fundamental right. This right exists exclusive of the surroundings.

Mr. Davis’ actions can therefore be viewed no differently than as if they had occurred in his own home, a shopping mall or basically anywhere he judged that his family "may be" in his view, in harms way. That judgement is entirely his to make as long as the action taken by him was reasonable in response to the force or threat that he perceived and could be viewed as a rational act by a reasonable person.

That has nothing at all to do with his status, wealth, or perceived power. It has nothing to do with his status as a professional basketball player. This is where Mr. Aschburner's argument loses steam. The facts do not bear out his point of view. He got to the incident from the floor faster than security did from the aisle. In his argument, basically Steve says, "He just should have let it go". In the words of my teenage daughter- "WHATEVER".

This is ludicrous and is a ridiculous assertion. Now the facts come into play, and for a moment, forget the "what ifs".

Ask yourself one question to get to the answer. Does Antonio Davis, citizen of America, have a right to protect his family or not from any and all perceived threats? Yes or No? If he does then no other questions need to be asked until you ask "Was his response that of a reasonable man, and was his response reasonable in response to the actual threat" If the answer there is Yes, then nothing else matters. Case closed.

I think that if he really wanted to he could sue the NBA and win the pay back from the 5 games based on those two points of logic alone. To advance any other position equates to saying that I or you (as a private citizen) regardless of wealth, status, position or power could not and have no right to protect your own family while in public.

That line of logic is why Mr. Aschburner’s arguments, while well intentioned, is baseless and emotional but not remotely correct. It abandons and abdicates my duty as a husband and father and says I should always let the police protect me.

That is not only a naive and dangerous position to advance, it also is in effect a direct affront to the Constitution of the United States. Specifically the right to self defense and probably the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to it as well as every state and common law covering the subject.

Parenting

An associate asked me the other day if I liked being a parent.

I told him that if "I could make a living being a parent it would be the best job anybody could ever have". The funny thing , unlike a lot of the normal back and forth that goes on everyday between people as you meet them and talk to them every day, I meant that one.

It is not like when somebody says "How are you ?", and the automatic answer is "Fine", "And yourself?". Its more like, testifying under oath, only you agree to do it with your hand on Gods shoulder and not just a bible.

I think the best thing I ever did and the things I am most proud of are my children. Weird huh?

I mean, I don't take responsibility for their accomplishments nor do I feel somehow accountable for their mistakes as an adult. Its not a "vicarious thrill" of living through my children that makes me proud, its the fact that even when they totally screw up they have the presence of mind to take responsibility for what they do.

After all, children are the exact same as adults, with a whole lot less life experience to base decisions on. Being twenty years older doesn't make me a supreme being, It just means I've had 7300 more chances to screw up and the next time something comes up, I have more instances of right and wrong to base my current decision on, in my view.

So talk to your children (once they are old enough to think for themselves) like adults. Expect them to be responsible for themselves and to be accountable to themselves first.

The approach is what matters I think. I have always said I am not raising children, I am raising adults.

After all, when I am 75 and old and infirm, they will be picking out my retirement home for me I'll bet.

-bigmike

Communicating with AOL (Impossible)

You know how every business web site in America (except maybe porn sites possibly) have a little link usually at the bottom of the page or near the top that says "contact us" ? Even my own person web site has a link that says "email me"

Well, don't try to find that little GEM at AOL.

There is no feedback that I can find unless you want to take a poll of questions that only they wrote that only applies to the problems they want to know about. Anybody with a problem can apparently piss off.

There is no mechanical way to write a person or a department, that I can find.

If you call them, you get India or Pakistan. Now no disparagement on those fine countries, but hey, remember me? America English speaking customer that I am ? I do not speak the language. I do not want to repeat myself 5 times only to say "What?" 6 times.

It pisses me off.

I don't care who answers the phone, just insist they speak English, Or the language of the country that you are doing business in , so your CUSTOMERS can understand your CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES. I'm not racist or uni-cultural. I just want to communicate in a normal tone of voice and not get mad at the person talking to me because they have such a heavy non-American accent that I cannot understand them from the word hello. Is that too much to ask?

All of my friends criticize my decision to remain at AOL.

They have all since left.

Here's why.

1. It is almost impossible to speak with a live person who speaks your language.
2. There is no effective way to access specific help files.
3. The automated programs are intrusive, unreliable and assume AOL is the only thing ever going to run on your system. They are all resource hogs , every last one of them.
4. Their CSR's are rude and arrogant. They must have been trained by Wal Mart. You cannot know anything, I suppose that presumption is because you are an AOL customer, you must be stupid. It is the only logical line of thought that makes sense to me.
5. There are no customer service email addresses and even if there was or is, it is so well hidden, that you will not find it. If you find it, it does not work, if it appears to work , the link is broken. Start over. Back in the 80's we would have called this "GIGO", (garbage in garbage out"), they call it "software". It's crappy coding and it doesn't work.
6. When you do finally get through to a live person, the first thing they tell is "Hold on please", and you start all over because they are incompetent and hang up on you.
7. Newly introduced products, ie- their Netscape browser, the AOL video player, their association with real player, etc, NEVER work as advertised. NEVER. EVER. NOT ONCE. Not until you fiddle with it and make about 5 calls to the helpless desk. NEVER.
8. They are owned by a large corporation that cares about "metrics", stock prices, licenses, negotiations and culture. They could give a crap less about customers. They seemed to be bothered by customers. At least when we criticized Steve Case , we knew who to criticize. Hell, now it doesn't matter, because they belong to the Microsoft, Wal mart school. The one that says "Screw em first, ask questions later" and who cares. Ignore em and they'll go away. Fact is, we are.

In short, although I have been with them since about 1995 , since the first floppy disk versions of their software, I have had enough.

The main reason I kept them, was I didn't want to give up a long established email address. Now I just am tired of the money grubbing, non- responsive BS and am over it.

Feel free to tell AOL my story.

Good luck getting in touch with anybody who gives a rats ass. It's disgusting.

-bigmike

Politico-Speak is an ART form !

I am a student of politics. Don't ask me why, but I've always enjoyed knowing what in the heck is going on. Or at least, lying to myself and pretending like I know what goes on.

The one thing that interests me more than anything else is a politicians ability to take what is to anyone else mundane or minutiae and turn it into something huge. Then sometimes they take major things and turn it into "spin" which favors them or "spin" which makes their "opponent" look bad.

Then I figured out how they do it. Most (I know, generalized!) politicians nowadays are lawyers or have law school training. I read the other day that over 90 % of the Senate are lawyers. Go figure. So, during the two most recent Supreme Court nominations, I saw Republicans (http://www.rnc.org/) use charts and graphs to explain how Sam Alito is just like Sandra Day O'Conner (whom he is replacing) and saw Democrats (http://www.democrats.org/) use charts and graphs to explain how he is the direct polar opposite of her. Both were pretty convincing and both made good points. The thing that struck me though, is how pretty much all the time they spent (the politicians) talking during their allotted time in both hearings, was posturing. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.....No direct questioning.

Do these guys even know what mainstream is anymore? How can a millionaire lawyer have a clue what it takes to live from paycheck to paycheck?

48 years in the Senate (http://www.strom.clemson.edu/strom/bio.html) ?
It's not a job, its a lifetime appointment!

And they were worried about a judge ? Two words "TEDDY KENNEDY. He's killed more people than any other senator anyway. He does hold the record (http://www.ytedk.com/) .

But, I digress.

Why do we put up with this junk and why don't we throw the bums out?

The point is Tom DeLay says he stepped down because he didn't want to hold his party back and become the focal point of a nasty campaign. Where in the heck has he been for the last 12 years anyway? He stepped down because he got caught.

Bill said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Anybody believe that crap?. His wife don't care.

One of my favorite comedians said that while riding a tour bus recently his wife asked him what a particular building was. He said "Well during the Clinton years honey, it was a "Hooters", but I heard that since George Bush came into office they turned it back into the Lincoln memorial........

Good old George said "Read my Lips, No New taxes".

Scooter Libby is the source? OJ got off didn't he. If it wasn't spit, you must acquit. ..No wait , that was Johnny Cochrans line not Bill Clintons lawyer, right? Sorry Miss Chaney this is complicatin' the issue ain't it ? To hell with it, "Bring 'em on. Mission accomplished.

Saddam has WMD's. Democrats said it too, but NO.........It's your fault, No its your fault, no its your fault... What a joke.

And now Humvees, fitted with armor, are overturning and killing more servicemen than IED's are?

There is no area 51 , if you believe the Air Force. It is a reflection from a weather balloon and the fog from hot swamp gas.

Next time I get the flashy thingee.

I just wish our politicians would for once do what we sent them there to do. Their job. Not one will speak straight English. John McCain is the closest you are gonna get. The rest of them count on the fact that no more than 30 % of us vote.

Of the 295 million people in our country:(http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html) the USA

estimates say that less than 30 % vote in any election ( http://www.edgate.com/elections/inactive/how_and_why/).

Were roughly 50 % Republican, 50 % Democrat (or some flavor of either) with a smidgen of the anarchists, communists, etc thrown in for good mix. That means really that 40 million people or so control the destiny of the country. Really its just the ones who contributed. So really its a tenth of the forty million. More like 4 million control destiny.

Guess how many people in America have a net worth of one million dollars? You guessed it 8 million people. No really. Nah just kidding I made that one up. It's really only 7.5 million.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/25/pf/record_millionaires/

The politicians have doublespeak and the after life of "speaking fees". They sit on their thrones and invent new ways to spend money and when their hand is caught in the cookie jar, good old "Plausible Deniability" comes into play. It must be my fault.

After all, how can I blame this mess on the 206 and a half million eligible people in the fourth largest populous area who didn't vote to begin with.

They didn't put these bums in office. I did. I voted.

However I did because I only wanted to set a good example for my kids. So my Mayor is named "Jimmy", my Governor is named "Sonny", and Good old "Which way did he go George , which way did he go?" is the President.

Plausible Deniability. They been beating that one to death since Ike !

I wonder if my boss would buy that one.

Politicians are a tremendous waste of time

I don't get politicians. Seems to be a little crazy to aspire to want to be one. Our whole system is screwy if you think about it.

I mean, look at the whole thing in this perspective. The average politician in Washington (the ones in politics that are elected) makes about 125,000 dollars a year. The average term of office is about 4 years. The average political campaign costs about 12.5 million dollars to successfully get elected.

So their aspiring to office, to make 125 G's a year, and spent 3.125 million dollars per year in office just to get the job? And these guys and girls are in charge of my money?

And somehow I am supposed to believe that they are "Serving the public good"? I am supposed to believe they are serving me? I think I'll just keep believing they are all crooks. Somebody tell me you would spend that kind of money to get a job? And now I am not supposed to believe that the reason they are in the "game" has nothing to do with a political after life. I hear Bill Clinton gets $40,000 for a twenty minute speech. Sweet deal if you ask me.

Miners tragedy

Just a short note to express my sorrow and condolences for the families who lost their loved ones in the latest mining tragedy. What a waste. No sarcasm intended. - BigMike

Oh, holy Micro-holy-soft

I am just stupefied and annoyed at how history just keeps repeating itself. Take a look at the behemoth software giant beast Microsoft.

Actually nothing they do anymore suprises me. I have been working with their products (like the rest of the world), since there was only an MS-DOS and I just don't get it. Maybe I was never supposed to.

Here is the condensed story- In the beginning there was DOS and DOS was good. Even if it was really IBM DOS , it was still good. Then Apple was the threat. Not to worry, "Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated", and poof then there was Windows. Then the various point OH's of windows until we get to 3.1 for Workgroups and all was right with the world.

Except..... The code was buggy. Real buggy and slow. And we bought it and bought it and gorged ourselves on it until King Gates decided there was no more money to be made selling bugs. NT was introduced as the secure bug destroyer. "NT will kill the bugs ", said the King. And the NT bugs fed the virus and made the bugs healthy. A new industry was born, cattle ranchers, fed by virus riders. And the beasts stuffed themselves on all the products and the Office furniture until the bugs ate whole industries. Nah, the King said, "We near the new millennium, there must be a better way and the virgin Redmond gave birth to a son, Windows 95.

Except..... The code was buggy. Real buggy. And we bought it and bought it until King Gates decided there was no more money to be made selling bugs. Alas, though, we bought two huge versions of revised bugs, A first and second edition of bugs called 98. Slay the attackers, buy their houses, and throw them in the streets. "Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated", and the king ate heartily and bought and bought until the ministers said " Yo! King, you ate too much too fast, that's why you have the bugs. You must change and modify your diet. And the king took a tablet or two of X-Box to soothe his digestion. And all was again right with the world, for a time.

And all was right with the world, until one day, the advisors said" Whisper, whisper, King "..... Business says they don't like our two editions of 98 as it has bugs! And the King said "Let there be NT for everyone. And on the seventh day, while the world rested and hammers were being thrown at giant TV screens, this time in parody, The World saw the poor second cousin, Windows 2000. It was so buggy and poor; it couldn't even afford a driver. I know said the King, " Package it better, put better clothes on it like we did the emperor, and we shall call it "millennium" in honor of my reign. Sell them licenses and new packages and patches for their clothes and call it professional dress. And all was right with the world.

Until..... The salesman said, "The public doesn't like it King, we can't sell it, what shall we do?" and the King laughed and said" Let them eat XP cake, I have 50 billion dollars, what does it matter?" Sell them licenses and new packages and patches for their clothes and call it professional dress. And XP professional clothing was born. One day the advisors said, "King, the commonfolks are hungry what shall we feed them?" And the "King said give the masses a dose of X-360 and charge more and dress it up and make the marketeers responsible for it. Except the commonfolk didn't understand. What should we do with our prescription of X-regular you gave us only two weeks ago? Will our new medicine work in the new bottle? "Of course it will" said the King, for a price........(And if it was the popular pills and has a hard drive and has an X-Box livesubscription.) Other wise, sorry about your luck, medicine is not backwards compatible, unless you pay for it.

And then burst forth upon the screen, the White Knight Lindows on his trusty steed, Wal Spart. The fight goes on to this day with Lindows and Wal- Spart attacking and the King retaliating with the ultimate weapon of doom "The Longhorn", oops I mean "the Vista weapon".

See how silly this is? They make billions to write sloppy code full of bugs and we buy it. They just decide to stop supporting a product after a length of time, no matter that if the code were built correctly in the first place, it wouldn't need the support anyhow and it should last about freaking forever.

Then they release a new version of another product not really ready for market, which has to be patched to death in what are now called "Service packs" and we just keep on feeding this beast day after day, year after year.

Doesn't it matter anymore that the supposed reason for the so called patches, is that they screwed up the product in the first place and continually release new versions of more products before they have been tested?

If any other craft functioned like this we would shut them down. Or we at least wouldn't buy their houses they built.

Why do I need to (read have to), buy an antiviral program to protect my computer from faulty code that they wrote to begin with? Shouldn't the maker be responsible for the damage they create?

My mistake, I'm sorry. Oh, I forgot, the EULA say they aren't responsible because we opened the package. No matter that the EULA is on the software, inside the package and can't be read without opening it or installing the software first. Does any of this make any sense to anybody? (Who has not made a gazillion dollars as a lawyer)?

I wonder what would happen if we bought cars from them? You are driving down the street and a big red light comes on the dashboard and says "Engine fault" and it dies. Must have been because I used the wrong key and tires. Hope they weren't counting on my purchase of Vista to put them over the top. I'll just stay here in my professional dress until about service pack 86 I think. -BigMike