Today is the 72nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan which launched the US into World War II. On December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared before Congress and gave the following speech, in which he termed December 7 as a “date which will live in infamy.”
The speech is worth reading and remembering as this was the call by the president to enter a global conflict which by its end will have cost the lives of some 80 million people world wide, including some 418,500 American citizens.
We should never forget.
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:
Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack. (more…)
On Wednesday, December 4, 2013, the City Council met in a regular meeting.
There are a couple of things we want to highlight in this post concerning that meeting as they have been on our mind.
One of the things that we will highlight later in a separate post is the acknowledgement and recognition of volunteers for the Satellite Police Department. A nice series of presentations were made to various individuals and as we said, we will highlight them in a separate post.
For this post, we want to concentrate on the continuing saga of the vacating right of ways within the city and an incident with an audience member.
Rather late in the meeting, and audience member was removed from the meeting at the direction of Mayor Catino. The audience member was escorted out by the police. As the meting had progressed, the person became more and more flustered at some of the things Council members were saying and the votes that were being taken.
There is always a little bit of whispering and quiet banter at these meetings and for the most port, it is kept at a minimum and doesn’t disturb or interrupt the proceedings.
We have to say the audience member was a little louder than most, and even after being asked by Mayor Catino three or four times to lower their voice, they continued to make it so the Council and the people around them could not focus on the meeting.
When the person would not lower their voice, Mayor Catino had them removed from the Council Chambers.
Sadly, we believe that was the right thing to do.
Normally we wouldn’t comment on something like this but there is a lesson to be learned or reinforced here: (more…)
A few days ago, we, along with other sites. brought you the story of a company named Klear Gear who was refusing to remove a charge on a customer’s credit rating and also a Florida based company named “Shore Dreams Vacation Rentals” that had a “no disparaging comments” clause within their rental agreements.
Klear Gear is still ongoing and continues to feel the wrath of the internet.
However, Shore Dreams has changed their rental agreement.
Hi Ken, I wanted to email you and let you know that I appreciate your forum as an important function of free speech and recognize that our clause was very restrictive; however it is a very common inclusion in agreements these days, be it right or wrong. Meanwhile I have removed the clause from our rental agreement. I am not an attorney, but a business owner and real estate investor and have worked had to make my business grow in a down real estate market as well as the economic effects of the oil spill. I run the company by myself, which is mainly due to the hardships with real estate and my need to climb out of the economic hole I was in. CNN made us look awful and like we are this huge BIG BUSINESS that doesn’t care, but we do. I work 7 days a week to make this work and have many happy guests over 10 years and over 7000 reservations. We have great approval ratings and reviews on Tripadvisor, Flipkey, VRBO, HomeAway and an A+ rating on the BBB. We are one of the best pet friendly rental companies in the Southeast, which is hard to find. While your forum is great, the emails I am getting are full of profanity and degrading comments. I hope that you will update your column and let them know that we are sorry and have removed the clause and encourage reviews and feedback always. Thanks again for your consideration in advance.
This is a good thing for Shore Dreams and their customers as the original clause was silly.
However, while we like the idea of the internet exposing situations like this, we have to say that we aren’t thrilled with the idea that according to the owner, some of the emails she received were “full of profanity and degrading comments.”
It is a shame that people cannot be on the side of right and yet express themselves in a “wrong” manner. While people can and do say what they want, trying to get a company to change polices by using profanity and “vile” ideas doesn’t make the writer look good.
However, in the end, this was a good result for the company and those wishing to use its services. We applaud Shore Dream Vacation Rentals for reversing course and doing the right thing.
If you are AT&T, a large communications company, you should know that spam – unwanted and unsolicited emails – is a plague on most email accounts.
We have several email accounts of which one is our “super secret, private, home” account. There are very few people who have the address and we only give it to certain companies for the purposes of billing.
After all, who wants to miss an online bill or a conformation that a bill has been paid?
Last month we signed onto the web version of AT&T’s email service (now run by Yahoo!). We don’t do that often because we access email through a different program most of the time, but we were away from home and wanted to check what was in the email account.
Because the account is not well known, we get very little spam on it. We were somewhat curious as to what was in the “spam folder” on the web version of AT&T’s mail interface.
Amazingly, there was only one email in folder. The email was from AT&T itself confirming our online payment. Call us crazy, but we don’t consider that “spam.”
So maybe that was a mistake, right? After all, no one is perfect.
Before we left for the holidays this past week, we paid bills, one of which was to AT&T. (more…)
The Calgary Hitmen are a hoceky team you may never have heard of. Generally speaking, minor league hockey is a rough and tumble game which often epitomizes the saying “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.”
For the past 19 years, the “tough” Hitmen have sponsored and taken part in one of the great promotions we know of.
Known as the “Petro-Canada Teddy Bear Toss,” the idea is simple: the fans are asked to bring a teddy bear with them to the game and when the first goal is scored by the Hitmen, the fans throw the teddy bears on the ice.
The bears are collected and then distributed to local charities. The players take some to local hospitals to distribute them too. This year, fifty charities have requested teddy bears from the promotion. The game jerseys from the players are auctioned off and the proceeds donated to charities as well.
So what does it look like when the fur starts flying after the first goal is scored? Well, here ya go:
You may have missed that Amazon and the United States Postal Service reached an agreement for the USPS to deliver packages on Sunday in som limited markets this year.
Amazon.com unveiled a new partnership with the U.S. Postal Service to deliver online orders from the world’s largest Internet retailer on Sunday for the first time.
The service started this weekend in the Los Angeles and New York metropolitan areas and Amazon plans to expand it to a large portion of the U.S. population in 2014, including Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix.
Amazon is not charging extra for the new service, so members of the company’s popular Prime service will be able to buy products on Friday and get them by Sunday for free. The service also applies to non-Prime members, who can get free five to eight-day shipping on orders of at least $35 (up from $25 previously).
That is stunning enough but the real stunner is that Amazon has announced they are looking into drones to deliver packages in the future.
We’re excited to share Prime Air – something the team has been working on in our next generation R&D lab. The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles. Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations. This is footage from a recent test flight.
While interesting in concept, we have seen comments on other forums saying something like “drones carrying packages are like new skeet targets.”
A regular reader wrote us and reminded us that there is a “State of the City” address by Mayor Frank Catino tonight at the Scotty Culp Municipal Center (Civic Center) at 7:00 P.M. Slighlty more information can be found here.
Tomorrow night, will be the last of the SR AIA Planning Workshops. As we have repeatedly said, this is a planning stage where the City and its consultants are looking for ideas to make the AIA corridor better for traffic, more appealing to the eye, and safer for those transiting the area. If you have an idea, it should be presented. Nothing is out of bounds at this stage. As a friend says, “if a person thinks that the City should erect a 100 foot diameter Ferris wheel in the center of AIA, they should present that idea.” Tomorrow’s meeting will focus on the section of A1A from Majesty Palm Condominiums to North City Limits. The meeting starts at 7:00 P.M. and is held in the Civic Center.
Finally, on Wednesday, December 3, 2013, there is a regular City Council meeting starting at 7:00 P.M. in the Council Chambers. The agenda can be found here and the agenda support packet can be found here.
Hope to see you at one or more of these meetings.
CLARIFICATION: We originally said the Tuesday A1A workshop was from “Majesty Palm Condominiums to South City Limits.” We got the information from the brochure / flyer the City mailed out and published it as stated the area was to the “South City Limits.” That information did not make sense to us, but we went with it. A reader says the meeting actually to the North City Limits and we edited the post to reflect that change.
