I didn't feel good after Tuesday night's board meeting and have since been sick in bed. I wanted to make a quick post for two reasons.

1. There obviously are a lot of people wanting to talk more about the smoking ordiance. I will make a more in-depth post in a few days after I get to feeling better. I also want to make a post concerning the Borden house which is another growing issue for various citizens in the city.

2. A lot of people apparently read my blog and I wanted to say "thank you" to all of you. Above all I want people to feel like they can talk to me.

Tomorrow's meeting

Tomorrow's Board of Alderman meeting agenda has been posted on the city's website. Some of the more interesting topics will be the board hiring a receptionist for city hall, the possible creation of a cemetary commission, discussion and possible expenditure for a citizen survey, the city/MSU fire contract, an extension on Northland Cable's franchise liscence, and as always, drainage issues.

eBay's Rival?

It's already been dubbed by some as "eBay's killer" even though it hasn't even official launched yet. I am refering to Google Base. Google Base is another extension of Google which will provide users with an online datebase for storing... well just about anything. As an online, searchable database people will be able to store anything from recipes to local services they provide to even University researched information such as protein structures.

But how does this represent a threat to eBay? Well, this database can also be used to upload information about products and sell them much like one would do on eBay but with a critical difference. Google Base will be free. The service pays for itself through the now popular simple text advertisements centered around the products being featured. These ads use keywords in the document they're in so that the ad is relevant to whatever people are looking for. With the rising costs of selling on eBay many people have been searching for an alternative and are already lining up to take advantage of Google's services once they become available.

Further evidence that Google will soon be competing with eBay is the fact that they are in the process of setting up their own online payment service, called Google Wallet, which will be similar to the popular PayPal.

Ars Technica has an article concerning Google Base, as well as Outer-Court.com.

Scooter Libby Resigns

Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby resigned today in the face of a 5-count, 22 page indictment. According to CNN, "Libby was indicted on one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements, court documents show." His attorney's deny that he is guilty of any criminal conduct.

The indictment can be read in pdf format here.

Comprehensive Plan Off Tonight's Agenda

Due to still needing to work out some issues with the Comprehensive Plan, city planner George Rummel has requested that final discussion and adoption of the plan be removed from tonight's agenda.

Daniel Melder Featured in Slate

I have forgotten to give props where they are due. Former College Democrat's president Daniel Melder was featured in Slate. The article also featured Ole Miss liberal Will Bardwell.

Maybe I need to start providing commentary so I can get mentioned in a national website? Anyway congradulations Melder!

Long time no post for me, due to the normal stresses of school life and city business. One issue that's been mentioned is the possiblity of a no-smoking ordiance for Starkville's bars and restuarants. Before I mention where I stand on the issue, let me first say be forthright in saying that I do smoke on occasion. Usually when I am out with friends at a bar myself. While I do believe smoking is bad, state law already requires seperate no-smoking areas for restuarants. I believe that the issue should be up to the individual businesses as to whether they should choose to allow smoking in their establishment. I certainly wouldn't mind a few smoke free bars in town; however, I don't think government needs to force that decision on those establishments.

Poplarville

Upon speaking to various people in Jackson, I learned that the Mississippi Municipal League (MML) is setting up a program where cities in north MS adopt sister cities in the south that were affected by hurricane Katrina.

I thought this was a great idea and asked to be given the name of a city still in need that hadn't been adopted yet. Smaller towns were having more difficulty with this as a majority of relief efforts have been focusing on larger areas such as Biloxi/Gulfport. The city suggested was Poplarville (pop. around 2,601 at the last census). I motioned at the last board meeting that we adopt Poplarville and in doing so see in what ways we can lend assistance to them. It was passed by the board and so I have been in contact with some city officials down there.

Their sole fire station was destroyed in the storm. Their police station suffered damage as well and had to have 3" of water pumped out of it. They've been able to restore power and water/sewer. Various homes and businesses were destroyed and of the businesses left, many of them received their goods from distributors out of New Orleans. Needless to say it will be a while before they fully recover.

Currently they are worked with FEMA to set up a temporary fire station. Once fire/police services are fully re-established then they said they will provide us with a list of whatever items they need.

Comprehensive Plan Workshop Scheduled *Important*

At Tuesday's board of alderman meeting city planner George Rummel gave a brief update on his work on the comprehensive plan for the city. It was at this meeting that the board requested a public workshop be held for the purposes of educating the public on the plan and changes made since when Shelly Johnstone was city planner. It is both an opportunity for citizens to learn about this plan and also to ask questions/provide commentary. Confirmation was made today for the time/location:

Greensboro Center
Tuesday, September 27th, 2005
6:00pm until 9:00pm

If there is any one meeting that you, my readership, attend this year, I would encourage it to be this one. Why? Once this plan is approved, and it will be soon, it will lay the foundation for the future growth of the city for the next 25 years. Although for some of you who are students who may not be in town much longer, you will have friends that will stay, along with possible younger brothers/sisters and maybe even one day children who will become residents of Starkville. Ask yourselves what you want to see for this city and then come to this workshop with those ideas in mind.

If you would like to read the current copy of the plan, it can be downloaded from the city's website:
http://www.cityofstarkville.org/government/documents/Starkville_Comprehensive_Plan.pdf

Starkville's Budget

Last Thursday, September 15th, the board passed the upcoming F.Y. '06 budget. If you are interested in learning more about Starkville's budget, you can download both of budget committee chairman Matt Cox's presentations below:

F.Y. '06 Budget Expenditures
F.Y. '06 Budget Revenue

The documents illustrate sales tax growth, distribution of funds, and other areas of concern.

In addition, the board of aldermen meet again tomorrow at 5:30pm at City Hall. City Planner George Rummel will be making a presentation concerning his modifications to the city's comprehensive plan.

To my readership...

I promise that I have not dropped off the face of the earth. After a brief hiatus, I will resume reporting on local city happenings and various other topics this week.

Not another one!

I really hope that this projected path for hurricane Ophelia by Accuweather is incorrect. This is the peak hurricane season and it's not impossible that yet another hurricane will strike the coast.

Former Mayor Passed

Former Starkville Mayor Mack Rutledge, 72, passed away. He had been sick with cancer for some time. Funeral services will be held at 2pm today at Welch Funeral Home.

MSU 36 - Murray State - 6

I'm a bit late in posting this; however, the MSU football game on Saturday was great. I think that Murray State provided a good warm up for the real game that will take place next week: MSU vs. Auburn at Auburn. I believe that that game will give a good indication as to how MSU will fare for the rest of the season.

At the game I had the honor, along with the rest of the board of aldermen, to watch the game from President Lee's skybox. The view was great as I was right on the 50 yard line. We were each allowed to bring one guest, so I took my dad with me. Here's a picture of us with Bully:

Mississippi Power Update

Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, provides much of the power used in southeast MS including the coast. They have been emailing all city officials throughout the state with daily updates on the latest information on how the effort to restore power is going.

The latest email received from them said, "Service was restored to more than 13,000 customers Sunday and we were able to re-energize several additional substations, including Picayune, Bay St. Louis, Waveland, Richton, Poplarville, Shubuta, and Carriere."

They divide the area of coverage in MS into three areas: Coast, Pine Belt, and Meridian. As of yesterday their progress in restoring power to those three districts were:

Coast 22,281 30%
Pine Belt 23,534 40%
Meridian 28,503 76%

Chief Justice Rehnquist Passed

News is just now breaking, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist of the Supreme Court, has just recently passed away. This couldn't come at a worst time as our nation's attention is already focused on one tragedy and will drain both congresses and the president's attention as they prepare to appoint a new justice when they are also attempting to handle the situation in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Job Offer for Refugees

Synergetics, in Starkville, has an interesting response to the problem of Hurricane Katrina. For those with computer experience who are stranded and staying in Starkville for any given number of months until one can return back to the coast, Synergetics is offering temporary jobs for those who are here and want to work until which time they can return. The offer is being made to allow those who are stranded here to experience some degree of normalcy and consistency while here. I don't believe the owners set this up with any desire to use the people who are out of a home, but rather to provide them with a job opportunity while they are stranded miles away from their home and work.

Interesting Article on Fox News

I have a tendency not to watch Fox News because I feel they have an inherent bias, although I have been impressed with their coverage of Hurricane Katrina. I was surprised; however, when I read a rather scaving article on the Republican Party from the views section of Fox's website.

Storm Damage

In doing some research today on the amount of damage to the City of Starkville from Hurricane Katrina, I learned that no public buildings, i.e. city hall, police department, etc. were damaged from the storm. The main financial cost to the city will be in the form of overtime for the sanitation department and gas, etc. for the chainsaws being used to cut off dead limbs. Some residents had their homes and cars damaged in the storm. I believe it will still be some time before we are able to assess that sort of damage. I also called OCH and they told me there were no storm related deaths and only a few minimal injuries.

I do feel fortunate though that we fared much better than our fellow cities to the south. We should do what we can to help those who are suffering from this tragic event. Several student organizations at MSU are collecting food and goods to send down to the volunteer forces who are working to put people's lives back together. I encourage each and every one of you to donate at least one item to help with the relief effort. If you need someone to give the item(s) to, please let me know and I will gladly take it and give it to a group for you.

CAPTCHA - Pro's and Con's

When I made my first post to the blog, I had stated that it would be used to talk about issues important to me, including city politics, state & national politics, science & technology, and various going-ons in my life. I've focused primarily on City of Starkville related posts but today i'm going to expand on an entirely different topic: CAPTCHA's.

What's a CAPTCHA? It's an acroymn that stands for Completely Automated Public Turing-Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart.

What? You may be more familar with it in the form of images such as this:

where you are required to type the word on screen into a box to register for various sites or to post on various blogs. The purpose is to filter out automated computer programs (also known as bots or spambots) from being able to sign up for accounts to use in their spam. With the popularity of blogs, they're rapidly become a target of what is called comment spam, which is spam delivered in the form of comments from random "users" in various blogs. An example, taken from some comment spam left on Edward Sanders blog, is a comment post like this:

Anonymous said...
Hi, Blogs are very popular these days. I think you can potentially make the top 10. Go for it!

I have a Employment Screening site. I think it will eventually cover all things about Employment Screening .

Stop by if you get the change. : - )

In that example, the post was anonymous so a user account wasn't required. Many spam programs will automatically register accounts to use to make spam comments since it makes them look more "realistic" and also because some bloggers disable anonymous comments.

Blogspot, and other blog sites, are now allowing users to set a higher security setting which requires a CAPTCHA test before a comment can be posted. The idea is that this will deter spambots from posting comment spam.

There are some pro's and con's to using CAPTCHA's.

Pros:
Can deter spambots from registering/posting.

Cons:
Since CAPTCHA's are randomly created, they can occasionally be too difficult for even humans to read.
Annoyance of having an additional step to go through in doing something online.
Increased server load in image generation and storage.
Blind computer users are unable to use this and must seek assistance.

Weaknesses
CAPTCHA's are starting to lose some effectiveness now that spammers are developing software specifically for the purpose of cracking them. They will have the program scan the image and apply various transformations on it to allow various font scanning programs to read it. Good CAPTCHA's will use a variety of fonts, twists, rotations, transformations, random background noise, different colors, variable font sizes, and various other techniques to make them difficult for a computer to decipher. Again though one runs into the problem of making them too difficult for humans.

Alternatives
Various alternatives to word based visual CAPTCHA's. They include:

• logic problems ex. Which of these is not a bird? a. canary b. pigs c. woodpecker
• image based CAPTCHA's, where a user has to guess what an image is. Image recognition is much harder for computer programs to decipher.
  
• sound
• credit card verification
• live operators
• limited use accounts ex. Web-based email that only allows 10 emails a day. Prevents spam abuse from that account.
• biometrics ex. finger-print scanner
  

Personally I plan to turn on CAPTCHA on blogspot. It may not be able to deter all spam; however, if it can stop a few of them it would be worth it to me.

Links
Wikipedia Definition of CAPTCHA
W3C Accessiblity Problems with Visual Verification Systems
Spam: The Phenomenon (not about CAPTCHA's, but excellent overview on spam)

State of Emergency Declared

Today we, the Board of Alderman in Starkville, declared a local state of emergency for Starkville. It is essentially the same as what Governor Barbour has done on a state level. This will last for 7 days at which point we have authorized the mayor to decide whether to extend our state of emergency status or to have to cancelled. During this time, it will give the city more access to emergency funds as needed. Most of this will occur after the storm, right now our biggest concern is securing the safety of the citzens of Starkville and making sure everyone survives.

Stay somewhere safe, if you live in a house with structural damage or a mobile home then please proceed to a local shelter such as the First Methodist Church at the end of Main St. or Herbert Hall on campus.

Emergency Meeting of the Board of Aldermen

Mayor Dan Camp has called an emergency meeting of the Board of Aldermen to discuss the weather and what precautions the city is taking. Currently all non-essential personnel are being allowed to leave work. I checked with the Red Cross, which has set up emergency shelters at Herbert Hall on campus and the First Methodist church, and at noon they already had 38 people signed up to stay there. They have enough beds and supplies however to accommodate a fairly large crowd. I will report on the results of the board meeting after it is over.

Cheer's Future Uncertain

Over the past week or two i've heard rumors going around that the bar formerly known as Cheers, located in what was once the LaGallaria Shopping Center, may be closing down. Upon speaking to the establishment's owner last night, I learned that since being bought out the rates to rent space in the now Cotton Crossing Shopping Center have double or even tripled. As a result most if not all of the local businesses are having to relocate to other locations. Even Papa John's, a national chain, may be having to move, and even if they do not their lease, formerly a 10 year lease, has been revoked and replaced with a new 3 year lease. As far as Cheer's goes they should learn in 3 - 4 days whether they'll be offered a new lease. Word is that they may not be offered a lease renewal at all. In that case, then pending possible litigation, the establishment will have to close.

Cheers has been around for 21 years and is the oldest bar still open in Starkville. The owner was planning to renovate and increase the size, including a downstairs lounge area. It would be a shame for Starkville to lose a historic bar that even famous people such as Raphael Palmeiro and Morgan Freeman have frequented.

Pat Robertson in hot water over remark

The Vice President of Venezuela, Vicente Rangel, is upset over comments that tv envangelist Pat Robertson made on air. Pat Robertson remarked that the U.S. should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Robertson was upset over Venezuela's relationship with communist Cuba and also accused them of being "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent."

CNN reported that "[Robertson] did not explain how Venezuela was to be used by Muslim extremists. The U.S. State Department Web site says 98 percent of the population are Roman Catholic or protestant."

Full story here. (cnn.com)

City Hall Meeting - August 16th, 2005

Some of the highlights of last night's board of alderman meeting centered around three actions that the board took. They were:

1. Patrick Nordin, representing Starkville in Motion, made a presentation for a bike lane to be placed within University Drive. Patrick had been working with Bill Webb, Matt Cox, and other city officials on the plan. Representatives from Starkville in Motion contacted the residents and businesses along University Drive and the only objection came from the Catholic Church who feared losing some of their upfront parking. However, they are placing a bike rack in front as more and more of their congregration is biking to church. Matt Cox motioned approval and I seconded with the entire board approving the measure. The only pressing legal concern left is with making sure that proper maintenance is made on the paths to prevent potential accidents.

2. Jon David Cole and other select representatives from the Student Association came before the board to request permission to host Bulldog Bash in the Cotton District. This annual event also requires police and fire protection as well as electrical needs. I had previously requested that if the funds were available that enough be allocated to support the overtime fees of the police department for the event so as to save the SA money that can then be used to make the event even better. This event is a huge tourism and sale tax revenue generating event for the city and deserves to be supported. I motioned approval and Sumner Davis seconded with the entire board approving.

3. A brief presentation was made on a possible downtown location for the police department. This location would include a police department, municipal court, and new electric department all rolled into one. The preliminary plans can be viewed in this pdf that I scanned. The electric department, whose funds are seperate from the city's, can be used in land procurement as well as any development related directly to the electric department so the cost to the city will be less than what is presented. The board approved looking into this location further to get a more accurate cost estimate. Steve Langston of the Downtown Business Association voiced concern over the future location of city hall since that wasn't included in the plans. The issue over city hall is whether a new one should be built or whether the old city hall, after the police department has moved into a new complex, should be renovated. The concern is that a new city hall would require removing more land from the tax roll.

In addition to these highlights, Matt Cox also made an excellent presentation concerning the revenue portion of the city's budget. I will post a link to that presentation at a later date.

The agenda for the meeting can be downloaded and viewed here.

Wait, that's my present not my future...

After eating at the delicious Peking Chinese restuarant tonight in Columbus, I opened my fortune cookie and it said:

Someone is looking up to you. Don't let that person down.

Anyone have anything that you don't want me to let you down about?

City News from WMSV

WMSV logo from website

Starting at the end of this month, I will be hosting a short radio program on upcoming/past city hall news from 91.1 WMSV. The segment will become a part of the Perspectives radio show and will be on the last Thursday of every month. Starting at 11:30, the segment will last around 10-15 minutes. I will recap the various motions made as well as upcoming items. I will not be giving any sort of personal opinion. The format is purely an informational one without being an attempt to persuade listeners to feel one way or the other.

My desire to do this is tied in to my promise to bring local government to the people. Between this and writing for the Reflector I hope to raise awareness of city issues and how they affect us day to day.

City Budget Meeting August 9th

Last night Matt Cox, head of the budget committee, gave a presentation on what progress has been made so far towards the F.Y. 06 budget. The good news? It's balanced. The bad news? There are some additional sources of revenue and expenditures that have been mentioned/requested that could unbalance it. A indepth proposal of the new budget will be presented over the course of two board of alderman meetings to be followed by final board approval before the September 15th deadline.

If you are interested in reading Matt Cox's powerpoint presentation you can download it here.

Cold Beer passed

The board of alderman tonight approved the proposed resolution and ordinance to allow for the sale of cold beer and light wine in Starkville tonight. This change will go into effect 30 days after the ordinance is formally presented to the public in the local paper, which should be Thursday. All board members but P.C. MacLauren approved the measure.

I'm excited over the change. I have been working towards this night for the past month. I know a lot of people who will appreciate the simple privilege. I think I will celebrate by walking over to Roxies and purchasing... a cold beer.

In other news from tonight's meeting, more people attended to protest a possible change to the Planning and Zoning board. The core of the issue revolves around the fact that after the redistricting of the wards several members of the PNZ board found themselves in another ward than they were in previously. This left 4 wards: 2, 4, 6, & 7 without a representative on the board. Proposed fixes to this problem ranged from just adding 4 more members for a total of 13 to changing to board to only 7 members, one from each ward, and allowing the board members to reapply for their seat. The motion that passed was to replace one member's seat who had just left recently with one of the unrepresented wards and temporarily add 3 more seats for the other three wards. Then, in 10 months when three of the board member's terms will expire, their seat will disappear entirely and we will continue to have our 9 member board with at least one representative from each ward.

Meet the Reflector's newest guest writer

I have spoken to Elizabeth Crisp a little while back and asked to be allowed to write a bi-monthly column in the Reflector entitled "From City Hall". It will be my chance to inform students of the issues facing the board of alderman and how it may effect them. This is just one of the many things I plan to do to keep both students and citizens informed and involved in local government. Included at the end of these articles will be my email address and cell phone number should anyone need to contact me.

In addition to this initative I plan to speak to all of the fraternities/sororieties as well as various students organizations at least once a year. I will also occasionally recanvass various neighborhoods in Ward 4 to see what the current issues facing the residents are.

My goal is to not be able to walk across campus without people knowing who I am. It is important that students, faculty, and staff at MSU as well as citizens of Starkville get to know me and feel comfortable being able to approach me on various issues.

Cold Beer... finally!

What never should have happened in the first place will hopefully change at tomorrow's board of alderman meeting. I will make a motion to allow for cold beer sales in the city of Starkville. Either tomorrow's meeting will be like any other, or it will be standing room only, full of people anxious to voice an opinion one way or the other. The restriction on cold beer is unneccessary and does more harm than good for the following reasons:

• If the concern is intoxication while driving, it is far more likely for a resident to get home safely when they don't have to drive half an hour, as in West Point or Columbus, to buy their cold beer.
• Starkville loses sales tax revenue when people go to other cities to buy cold beer.
• Beer spoils faster when not kept cold, which can further drive up costs for businesses.

I personally don't believe that restricting cold beer prevents accidents. If anything, people are more likely to go ahead and drink on the way back from a half hour trip. Furthermore, as adults 21 and over, the government allows us to purchase beer. It should not then restrict the temperature of the beer itself.

Finally, cold beer is something that many of the citizens of Starkville and people who visit want to see. Earlier today I was on the air with Supertalk Mississippi discussing my opinion on the importance of electronic voting machines that create paper trails (which i'll cover in a later post). The hosts J.T. and Dave asked me when cold beer was going to be allowed in Starkville. This is something that people around the state and alumni nation-wide have wanted to see.

Google Earth

As usual, Google has come out with something revolutionary. Previous a company called Keynote had released some software that would allow one to see the Earth and zoom in on locations using satelite imagery. Google has taken over and released Google Earth Now you no longer have to pay for the service. In addition, its been enchanced with optional overlays of geopolitical data including: railroads/roads, restuarants, gas stations, banks, postal codes, congressional districts, and crime data to name a few. Unfortuently only the darker areas can be zoomed in really closely. They haven't gotten more accurate image data from Starkville yet.


I think I can see my house from here!


This was about as close to Starkville as I could get without the image becoming blurry.


Columbus on the other hand I could zoom in close enough to see individual cars. This is the Leigh Mall.

Also, if you have some free time to kill, check out Google Moon.

Greetings All!

This is my first post from this blog. My intended contents of this blog will include:

• statements and information about the local government in Starkville, MS
• going on's in the MS Democratic Party state-wide
• views on national politics
• latest technology & computer science news
• personal events/stories of my life

For those of you who don't know, I am a computer engineering major at Mississippi State University. In addition, this year I ran for the Ward 4 position on the Starkville Board of Aldermen. This was my first election which I am proud to say was a victory, albiet by a very close margin. Election night: Lee Beck - 113 votes, Richard Corey - 114 votes. So don't ever tell me that your vote doesn't count! After the affidavit votes were counted, I won by a 5 vote margin. It is my hope that I can be a voice for the citizens of Ward 4 and the city of Starkville.