BryanS

You put all of that very well... I agree with you on most points. The idea of an abortion, any abortion, truly breaks my heart. And yet, I am pro-choice. I think the most immoral thing happening today is the way that our government and others are putting obstacles between people and birth control. To limit access to birth control is morally abhorrent, in my view.

...as well as inadequate sex education: the whole concept of abstinence, limiting access to protection (that can save your life), "no sex before marriage" (which sends the message to gay/lesbian youth - they cannot get married, therefore they should not have sex, etc.)

On a lighter note, the biggest issue I have is the "no sex until marriage." Would you buy a used car, and not test drive it? I don't think so (unless you're me! - but I knew what I was getting into.)

I disagree with this. The concept that the man should have no say is absurd. If he doesn't want it and she chooses to keep it, he is still held responsible financially for that child. Conversely, if he wants it and she doesn't, he has no right on the matter. This is the definition of unfairness.

This is currently the law, I believe. You cannot impose your wishes/desires/control upon a person who is pregnant - and what she should or should not do with her pregnancy - it is her body, not yours. AFTER birth - the whole situation changes (men and women both have a say in the upbringing of their children, etc). BEFORE birth - the ball is in her court. Life isn't fair, but that's the way that it is. If women want to grant men some level of control over their bodies - women should decide that.

So you think a child created by a man and a woman belongs only to the woman? I'm not saying all men are reasonable on this issue, but to say men shouldn't even be involved is taking it way too far.

No one gender "owns" a child. Men don't give birth. Women do. It is a woman's reproductive rights issue. As a man, you should not be able to force a woman to bear your child, if she doesn't want it. Likewise, you should have no say in whether she wants to keep it, either.

I wonder if you ever tell pro-abortion men to keep quiet. Do you believe that the Supreme Court in 1973 had no right to be involved in the Roe v. Wade decision since they were all male? Do you mind that the overwhelming majority of abortionists are men? Do the male escots outside of abortion facilities bother you? Evidently, the only men you think should have no opinion are those who think women deserve better than abortion.

What about women who can't get pregnant? Should only young, sexually active, fertile women who are not practicing birth control be allowed to have an opinion about abortion?

Who are we, as men, to make such a determination for women (what is "better" for them)? If the women of this country believe that we should be more anti-choice, than we are today - then wouldn't it be to your benefit - and the women of this country - of wanting to see this country move in that direction - to give more power to women to decide the issue, as you describe? I realize there are problems with the practical affect of doing this; however, it would be nice to see only the women, of a legislative body vote on abortion-related bills, only women in the executive sign them (starting with the secretary of education and working up the chain if need be), and only women on judicial panels weigh the issue (so Ruth Ginsberg would be the only vote, if it came to the Supreme Court today), and only the women on TV protesting for or against the issue. Then we'd get to the bottom of what women really want.

Instead, we have too many men working behind the scenes of "women's rights" groups who think women deserve better than abortion, polluting the issue.

I have a friend who lives in the 4th ward. On a couple of occasions... when I leave... People on foot chased my car! Anyone have this kind of experience?

...I loved the mist tree and the fountains... I was having to hold myself back from running through the fountains... being 28 I would have looked silly w/ all of the 10 year olds. ha ha We definitely plan on eating at the Grove sometime soon...

I'm 33. And it didn't stop me! Yippee! Next time, I'll even go in my bathing suit. This is a winner. Ate at the grove today... great place, food was OK. Price was about what you'd expect. I notice some key strategic decisions that went into the place: bum-proof benches (you can sit on them, but you can't lay on them), sharp, pointy holly bushes (or whatever they are) on the hill side, around the parking entrance (you can admire the beauty - but don't think about rolling down the hill - ouch!), st. Augustine in the shade, some other turf-grass in the areas with more sun, and the segregated dog runs (big dogs in one pen, little dogs in the other.) The "participatory" fountains (that you can run, play, get wet in) are great addition.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23942137/

WASHINGTON - The whistleblowers who exposed maintenance and inspection problems at Southwest Airlines told Congress their jobs were threatened and their reports of noncompliance were ignored for years.

Federal Aviation Administration inspector Douglas Peters choked up Thursday at a House hearing and needed a few sips of water to tell lawmakers about how a former manager came into his office, commented on pictures of Peters' family being most important, and then said his job could be jeopardized by his actions.

Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., said FAA managers' actions displayed "malfeasance bordering on corruption," adding that if presented to a grand jury, the evidence would result in an indictment.

This just keeps getting worse...

My two cents on this...

1.) No rivers.

2.) No terrace.

...Riverside terrace has been a place "about to turn" for a decade+ now. If you like bungalows, and the general feel of that type of neighboorhood, consider Idylwood (and just hope you don't need a lot of closet space). It still has deed restrictions, which so far, has limited the intrusion of townhomes into the neighborhood (a few old homes have been leveled, but large single family houses went up in their place). Idylwood too expensive, consider Country Club place, just around the corner. Places that do not have restrictions (which specify set backs and minimum lot size), that look desirable now, are at great risk of losing their appeal/character (if that is what you are going for). If you like large 50's modern homes, consider Glenbrook Valley - Section 1. Urban Lofts has invaded parts of Riverside Terrace/77004. If you still really want to live in 77004, consider Timber Crest (not Timbercrest).

Actually, if these new allegations hold up, it crosses the line into the scenario I portrayed as crazy for Southwest to attempt, because there was no way to get away with it. And thus, they got caught.

I can only assume the person(s) who made the decision to keep flying the planes after they were found to be in violation of the ADs had little experience dealing with the FAA and thought it really wasn't that big of a deal. It was a very big deal. Nobody familiar with FAA regs or how that agency deals with non-compliance would take such a risk. This is the kind of thing that could cost them their brand name, once it's all done.

I'm just a lowly private pilot. I invested $6000-$7000 into obtaining my certificate and hate to think of giving the FAA a reason to take it away. Can you imagine what kind of idiocy it takes for SWA to risk the $billions in their operation over something like this? Even if they're just held to the $10 million, or a portion thereof, that's a serious case of stupidity.

I've gotten up in the air and realized I had forgotten to set my transponder to "altitude," which allows ATC to know my altitude on their radar screens. Though this is a very common occurrence, I was so afraid of an FAA call that I self-reported the incident. After doing a little reading on the subject, it turns out that this has happened so often that modern radar has been updated to handle the quirks of transponders' old technology, so there's really not a reason to turn them off of "altitude" in the vast majority of cases, as we're all instructed to do on the ground. It's safer just to leave it on and that is now the prevailing opinion. Well, my reporting, and that of thousands of others is leading to this safety measure becoming common practice. I've flown with my transponder properly set since.

That's how the system's supposed to work.

The FAA and Southwest, are both to blame, in my view:

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower complaints, reported allegations in December that Southwest's regulatory official "falsely stated" and an FAA supervisor "falsely accepted" the airline's statement.

Hence, the FAA supervisor was fired, Southwest fined. Southwest should have stopped flying the aircraft. And the FAA did have the authority to stop them, had the FAA done its job:

According to one of the whistle-blowers, Mr. Gawadzinski stopped being strict with Southwest after a former FAA colleague, Paul Comeau, joined the airline. Previously, the whistle-blower said, the FAA had forced jets needing inspections to stop flying.

I am also a private pilot (though I have not flown in years and years). Even airworthy aircraft crash. Part of the recovery and healing, is to investigate root cause and change safety processes/inspections to mitigate future disasters, as required. It is one thing to lose an aircraft to an unknown problem, but to fail to inspect (and keep flying) aircraft that you know could have a specific, known problem is just pure negligence. Giving them a pass for an honest, simple oversight (or inexperience) is not enough, because the end result could be that people die for those "honest" mistakes by inexperienced employees. It appears, that at least in this case, had people died, it would have been due to fraud, on the part of Southwest and the FAA.

Also, I don't believe that an industry, where safety is so critical, can effectively self-regulate (what happened here is an obvious example). We need very strong safety standards and a very strong and independent government organization (or an organization with no profit motives) with real teeth to enforce those standards to keep the flying public safe. That is the way it should work. It is one thing to self report minor infractions, but quite another to disregard/ignore potential problems, in flagrant violation of rules, that could result in the sudden, assured, and violent destruction of aircraft where everybody dies.

These people were just lucky (Aloha 243):

...or at least most of them were. 5 of 95 died. Still too many, in my view.

EDIT: Put in a different picture/graphic from http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2001/Jan...localnews1.html.

You just spent a whole 5, 6 lines talking about Austin. You don't seem to have much to add to a conversation about Montrose. I see you claim Clear Lake as home. Have you lived in Montrose? Are you even old enough to have known it before the townhome invasion? Have you ever set foot in a bar that wasn't "Numbers when you were a kid" Just curious.

And, no, Meyerland isn't going to be the next Montrose.

Yes, yes, and yes. I wouldn

Montrose had a certain appeal. One that drew gay-friendly (well... and maybe perhaps not too gay friendly) residents into the area... and now suddenly, the appeal that drew people in has been diminished because its looking more and more like a Katy suburb, resident-wise, than an eclectic neighborhood. I know, I know. I live in Clear Lake. I just add to the problem when I do go out there. =)

I don't know what's worse: what's happened to Montrose or what's happened to 4th and Lavaca in Austin. I remember the day when it was dark, dicey, and somewhat of a gamble to park your car when you went out (not that anyone would want to break into it - but rather if it got stuck in the parking lot!)... It was fun. Fast forward to today... the parking lot is paved, there's a huge parking garage now, the place is well-light, the days of Area 52/404 are long gone (that whole era is long gone), and there's now a str8 bar right in between OCH and Rain. And for some reason, it seems straight women like OCH more than gay men. But who cares about Austin...

Lemme ask... Is Meyerland really the next Montrose? Timbergrove? Oak Forrest? The Heights don't count (it

I concur. We do almost agree.

I still contend they were putting profits first, ahead of safety, however. Because when they found the discrepancy in their logs, they disclosed it to the FAA (which was good). At that point, the FAA should have grounded the aircraft and forced Southwest to get caught up with their inspections, or otherwise trace down the error in their log books. Instead, Southwest was permitted to keep flying those aircraft (after their sob story of how it would hurt their operations/profits)... and then when they finally got around to doing the inspections, they found troubling defects, in six aircraft. Had the process worked as intended, the flying public would have not been exposed to such risk, on those particular planes. Just goes to show that sometime the airlines and the FAA are a little too comfortable with each other, from time to time.

EDIT: And actually... when Southwest found the discrepancies and reported it, they should have said, "we found an error, we've pulled the planes from service and are looking into the situation now (and will track down the error in our books, or inspect the planes now)" vs... "we'll get to it later, we need to make money right now." The FAA should have put a check on the later case: "I don't care if you want to make money; people need to fly on safe aircraft - inspect them now." I place the blame equally on the FAA and Southwest in this case. Where is Mary Schiavo when you need her?

No, an aircraft that is deemed not airworthy cannot LEGALLY take to the air, but is not necessarily unsafe. That's the only point I was making. Plenty of planes out there are out of annual inspection and not flying, but are perfectly safe.

You can't know this for sure. You cannot, under any circumstances, determine or otherwise bless an aircraft's airworthiness - the ability to fly the plane safely - without inspecting it, on a regular interval, because you don't know what could be wrong with it. Once you get out of balance on your inspections (flying with known, dangerous defects, or not having performed the necessary inspections per a mandatory inspection schedule, etc.), such aircraft should be deemed perfectly unsafe and kept on the ground until proven otherwise. Else, you're gambling with people's lives.

This wasn't a case of flying planes just one or two days past a safety inspection deadline. They had inspected some aircraft, found cracks - which should have kept those aircraft on the ground - but kept flying them anyway. Southwest knew it. The FAA knew it. It was wrong, but they did it anyway... and Southwest (and the now-demoted FAA supervisior/managment) got caught, with their pants down, in front of the general public. Southwest put their own profit motives ahead of the safety of their passengers, which I find tragic, because I like them so much.

EDIT: The above (second paragraph) is slightly incorrect. They found the cracks when they eventually got around to inspecting the planes. They did not appear to knowingly fly with those defects. Both Southwest and the FAA knew Southwest was flying the planes "hot." The end result is still the same: they put profits ahead of safety because they did not know, for sure, if the planes had any problems or not.

I've flown Southwest many times.. and I'm still around to talk about it! *Gasp!*

So.. the safety issue seems to be that inspections weren't done.. not that they found damaged/compromised airplanes..

This does not necessarily equate an unsafe airplane.. If they do indeed do inspections that they didn't do, and find something wrong, then I'll be the first one to throw a stone..

They did find something wrong.

In a news release Thursday afternoon, the FAA said Southwest operated 46 Boeing 737s on nearly 60,000 flights between June 2006 and March 2007 while failing to comply with an FAA directive that requires repeated checks of fuselage areas to detect fatigue cracking.

The FAA alleges that after Southwest discovered it had failed to comply, it continued to operate the same planes on an additional 1,451 flights. The airline later found that six of the 46 planes had fatigue cracks, the FAA said.

...and you could have ended up in the convertible version of the 737:

I encourage you to read this thread at Airliners.net to get a more accurate picture of what's going on. The media likes to oversensationalize things, especially when it comes to aviation and can't really be trusted to deliver accurate info. Aviation industry insiders and workers post there, so you're getting it straight.

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/gener...d.main/3875631/

=) I love "air whiners".net... Rumor mill more than anything, in my view. Entertaining to read though...

Agreed, and being lax with the FAA is never a good thing. However, the idea that SWA was flying planes that were "not airworthy" was the issue. By definition, that was true. By evaluation of the planes -- albeit in absence of said evaluation -- that wasn't the case...yet.

Keep in mind that the FAA doesn't inspect planes. Airframe and Engine inspectors inspect the planes -- just like the hundreds of ones SWA has on staff maintaining the fleet every day. The absence of an official inspection is not an indication of a plane not receiving maintenance to keep it airworthy. In fact, much, if not all of this could be a simple bookkeeping error, which in itself is still a violation, but not an indication the airplanes were unsafe, just that they were not airworthy.

An aircraft that is not airworthy is not safe, by definition, and per FAA regulations cannot take to the air. Period. Kinda like being only half pregnant... you either are or you are not. There is no gray area. They got caught with their pants down, fair and square. They are my #1 airline though, eating everybody else's lunch. Too bad they were risking our lives though.

Would love to hear what people think of it. Personally, I think they've committed suicide.

I still call them stewardesses when letting them know that I speak Jive.

But don't call me Shirley.

Roger, roger.

Houston's next gay gym. After the Fitness Exchange fiasco and re-location to Washington... my opinion.

EDIT: Not that there's anything wrong with that...

my, my... aren't we all the tacky police... the people who live there, probably love it - and that's all that counts.

On my last flight into Houston the air hostesses repeatedly called it "George Bush Airport." American Airlines, FWIW.

Is this the new politically correct term for flight attendant? First it was stewardess... then flight attendant (when more men entered the fray)... should we start calling them "air hostesses" now?

If converting the dome into a hotel/convention center... was really a good idea... honestly... it would be done. Supporters of this idea claim a 72% occupancy rate of such a facility (per the chronicle). I doubt those numbers. The business case is all wrong for it, regardless of who ends up paying for it (tax payers or private business), and losing their (or our) shirts. In terms of debt, prior contracts, bonds left to pay, tearing the place down and re-using the land for something else, income - all those have monetary values. If the honest business case were strong enough, a viable alternative use (or re-use) of the dome would emerge. It hasn't.

It is what it is: a huge sports arena, sitting right next to huge (competing) sports arena. It is optimized for such use... I think the bonds (that we issued to remodel the place in the 1980's) are paid of in 2012 (on the order of 50 million). You can bet that's going to factor into the fate of the dome... that said, Seattle didn't wait... they leveled theirs with debt left to pay.

How about HOU? Should we have kept it Houston International Airport and renamed it Houston Municipal Airport when Intercontinental opened?

When you build and name an airport, leave it alone. Why anyone (or anyone who has authority) would want to (re)name an airport after someone (or rename it, period) is beyond me. The airport is the last place on earth I want to be stuck in, or really even enjoy going to. (Re)name other buildings... e.g. "The Toyota Center" ... "Enron Field" after people who have made a significant impact on society, not an airport for crying out loud.

So then we should continue to call Louis Armstrong International (New Orleans) as the Moisant Stock Yards (MSY)?

Yep. Same for DCA... Let's try to keep things consistent... (I realize it's not practical to re-code airport designators, in reality... so we should leave well enough alone when it comes to renaming airports, just my opinion...)

Until they change the tags on my bags from "IAH" to "BUSH" ... It's Houston Intercontinental...

God Bless America... I wonder how much revenue it brings in, each month? Enough to cover the mortgage?

I'm looking for an old church building that has great, classic design that is either condemned or abandoned within the city limits (preferably in the midtown area). I saw one once near all those Urban Lofts near PE but haven't been able to find it again. It looked like it was just the walls left.

Does anyone have any photos or suggestions?

Thanks.

For 270K, you can have a direct, across-the-street view of the church I think you're talking about...

http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cfm?mlnum=7732377 (check the map on this listing - Andrews/Crosby St is where the church is.)