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I-35 Road Conditions

Check the website for a clickable state map, conditions by roadways, etc. It's done pretty nicely.

"3. CONCEPT: TxDOT envisions a concept where wireless internet service is available for public use.
3.1. The traveling public would be able to use a personal computing device, such as a laptop computer, equipped to acquire a wireless internet signal, to use the internet and send email during a break from the road.
3.2. A separate kiosk, provided by the vendor, would allow those traveling without a personal computing device to utilize the internet service.
3.3. This service will be provided at a cost to the consumer, not to TxDOT."

TxDOT is expecting the "People not traveling with wireless equipment" to cover the cost of the project when they "connect to the Internet at kiosks for a reasonable fee to be collected by the vendor."

Personally I think this is the fatal flaw in their plan. I doubt there will be enough kiosk users to cover the costs. Still I have to give them credit for trying.

What's the reasoning behind the national or international restriction? The local government handles building streets, and they're the ones who provide the maps. For example, the Texas Department of Transportation makes their maps available here.

Not sure if you're a confused yankee or just trolling, but I'll bite...it's a slow day.

Texas was not annexed from Mexico, we was a soverign republic from 1836-1845 before ALLOWING the US to annex us in exchange for better highways for our trucks and an expanded market for sellin' that sweet nectar known as Bluebell ice cream. In Texas History class we got learnt as to how the great general Sam Houston used the Battle of the Alamo (REMEMBER!!) as a dee-version to tie up the Mexican army, so's he could build up his own army for the Battle of San Jacinto...at which time we opened such a Texas-sized can o'whoopass on the Mexicans that to this day they still mow our lawns as part of the cease fire. At first the US didn't want nuthin' to do with us, but after 9 years of Texas showin up the yankees they finally got wise and came a'beggin for us to join 'em. Now, in school they tell how's we tricked the US into annexing us, but my grandpappy telled me the truth about how some durn fool lost Texas to the US in a rigged poker game, and didn't even shoot the cheatin' bastard.

Nowadays, we hear nothin but yankees makin fun of us for drivin trucks, or always having a gun within arm's reach (let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire RACK), or about how's the grocery store by my house sells horse bridles and salt licks in the pet aisle right next to the Puppy Chow. But oh here comes a war, somebody call the Texans to come pull our bacon outta the fire! How you whiny hippies beat England without no Texans to fight for you, I will never know. ;-)

What? Topic? Oh yeah. Virus writers. We had one of them down here back in the summer of ought'02. Some good ol' boy hitched him up to his truck and drug him around the corral a few times. No problems since.

The truth is here! All the rest is lies!

Current sales tax overview by state.

I can not find any single site with good historical data, but here are a few histories by state:

• Idaho
• Maine
• Texas

40,990 miles of farm to market roads.

4.15 cents * 60 mins. == 249 cents ($2.49 an hour)

Min. wage in the US is $5.15 an hour.

Mean US Power bill per month (1998):
$46.68 (500 KWH)
$88.12 (1000 KWH)

Mean US Phone bill, sans DSL, per month (1998):
$70
[NOTE: take this with a large amount of salt, source was trying to sell a phone service.]

Wrong, dipshit. If you live in Texas, surface water is public property. If you live adjacent to flowing water, you can divert enough water to irrigate lawns and gardens, as well as a limited amount for livestock. Crop watering is not covered, and must be permitted by the TCEQ. The "right of capture" refers to groundwater.

"befire" you start spouting off about the laws where you live, you should understand what those laws are.

~ after you are fired without severance or unemployment benefits.

I bet if you looked behind the numbers, you'd find Texas dropped solely due to the HP/Compaq "merger" (Capellas was an idiot, and Carly brillian on that one).
But, Adolph, because you asked, there are several good schools in Texas. Yes, certainly, UT-Austin, which is strong in almost any area you choose, but also Texas A&M is no slouch, especially for agrigcultural technology (don't laugh - people gotta eat). Rice University is also a nationally recognized school (including it's computer science program). Baylor and UT both have excellent law schools with very high bar passage rates. Still, all that aside, MIT, Harvard, and UMass are some power hitters that do pretty much put Massachusetts at the top of any list.

Some other comments here had asked what good was Texas for producing doctors: Houston is a major hub for medicine. Undergraduates from all over the world (literally) flock to Baylor University for its pre-med school program. You really can't beat Baylor College of Medicine (not affiliated with Baylor University or the Baylor Healthcare System) and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is world class for cancer treatment and research. Some people complain about public schools in Texas, but as a product of that system, I'd say they do pretty well especially since Texas has had a lot of immigration in the past two decades or so.

As for high-tech, Austin, Dallas, and Houston are all three very heavy in technology type businesses. IBM has labs in New York (Watson), California (Almaden), and Texas (Austin). (I guess MA is close enough to New York not to get its own.) I think, overall, Tech is #1 or #2 industry in the state. In Austin (800,000+ people in the city proper), when I worked at IBM (99), I believe the largest non-government employers in the city were Dell, IBM, and Motorola. Dallas is home to EDS, and of course, Johnson Space Center is just outside of Houston.

In the area of trade, Texas is important, too. It was the number one exporter of all 50 states in 2002 and 2003 (source here).
I could go on, but I think you get the idea...

CSS does NOT always degrade gracefully with HTML ... depending on how well the web developers handle it. If absolutely NO HTML presentation is specified at all, then the site does degrade. Whether that can be called graceful or not is a matter of opinion.

But once a site starts using even the slightest bit of presentation specification in HTML, then things get bad very quickly. For example if a background color is specified in a table cell, it might be in conflict with the default color used for say hyperlinks by the browser. So if the background color is specified, so must every affected font color.

Here is an example of a site, and how it looks in an older browser, where the developers claim they are using "web standards" to make a site, and it degrades horribly. Actually, I would call this site absolute crap. When I communicated with them about it, they simply claimed that it "meets federal accessibility standards". Technically, they are not actually doing web standards correctly. But the point is, there are too many webmasters who are idiots and can never get it right, so I have my doubts about promoting this concept.

How on earth do you get your eyes to bleed? You got horned lizard blood or something?

*sigh* I wish people would stop and think, research some facts, and then stop and think again.

This oft repeated, yet completely baseless claim that police officers in the U.S. are some selfless, heroic individuals facing death on daily basis for a pittance salary to protect the safety and comfort of all of us un-appreciative citizens. In fact according to CDC statistics Public Safety isn't even in the top 10 when it comes to dangerous industries in the U.S. In fact in Texas a higher percentage of salespeople die on the job than Police Officers and/or Fire Fighters. Everyone of us in the U.S. is far more heroic and brave every time we get in a car and get out on the highway, where you are far more likely to be killed than an officer is in the line of duty. Especially since a large portion of the on the job fatalities of Police Officers results from driving in the exact same traffic that you are.

As far as pay goes, at least in any metropolitan area, Police make pretty good money. I know that in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex most cities for the past four years have had 0-3% raises for city employees...except for Police, who have averaged 5-8% raises per year over that same time period. Negotiated and enforced by their incredibly stong unions. The average Police Officer in Texas, with benefits included, makes just over $33k annually. With Texas cost-of-living that is not a bad salary. Not enough to raise 4 kids on, but certainly enough for a couple, and in major metropolitan areas pay is considerably more.

Additional compensations that they get are:
1)massive ego and power trips,
2)complete immunity from almost any traffic crime, on or off the job (I used to ride with the Police in my City, and numerous times saw officers let other officers off when they saw the badge in their wallet.),
3)Access to some of the most comprehensive databases of information on everyone. And almost no oversight in who they look up or why,
4)The extreme benefit of the doubt in public opinion, the eyes of other enforcement agencies, and the eyes of the courts when it comes to any suspicion of wrong doing.

Just to name a few.

Police Officers do perform a necessary service, however, so do garbage men, street pavers, sewer workers, electrical linemen, and a whole host of other jobs which don't have anywhere near the same prestige. Also the men who become Police Officers are not some small minority with the will and strength to sacrifice themselves, found after long hard searches. Every time there is an advertisement in our City that we are hiring, we get approximately 20 times more applications for the jobs than there are positions to fill. The last time (last month) we were hiring 6 positions and had 53 applications. This is unlike teachers, which the school district is desperate to find qualified people to fill vacancies for, who often have very similar dangerous situations to deal with, with none of the training, and no gun on thier hip, for essentially the same or lower salary.

In Texas, you can't legally call yourself an Engineer until you've passed the Professional Engineering examination. I haven't heard of anyone in Texas who had to stop calling themselves an MCSE, however.

...and on the other side the number is 22,118,509. Still, per capita is the only fair way to look at things like this.

Still, a long-distance maglev line would have been really cool, and there's got to be a region where it would make economical sense as well. Maybe we'll see one in Japan first.

I beg your pardon, but I am most certainly allowed to use my concealed handgun to protect my own safety or to prevent the theft of my personal property and my family's property.

See here for the relevant sections of the Texas Penal code regarding the use of deadly force.

Deadly force, by the way, has a very precise legal definition and is different from the normal use of force. Neither would be acceptable in your silly little road rage example.

I beg your pardon, but I am most certainly allowed to use my concealed handgun to protect my own safety or to prevent the theft of my personal property and my family's property.

See here for the relevant sections of the Texas Penal code regarding the use of deadly force.

Deadly force, by the way, has a very precise legal definition and is different from the normal use of force. Neither would be acceptable in your silly little road rage example.

In the self-reliant state of Texas, statute 9.42. Deadly Force to Protect Property allows the use of deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property in some situations. Basically, deadly force is allowed after dark when there is no other way to protect or recover the property.

On what planet? The average US manufacturing wage is more like $14-15. In some states (e.g. Michigan) it is as high as $20, and even the lowest state average (South Carolina) is over $11.

The registry protects kids and only prevents them from getting jobs that involve kids.

People need to get over the fact that some actions prevent you from being a "normal" member of society.

Would you kill kids who offend?

Look at that kid. He was 11. His supposed victim was 8. You'd kill him, would you? Maybe they were playing doctor, and the parents of the girl caught them.

Does your thinking apply to kids on sex offender registires as well?

This one was 11. The victim is stated as 8. Maybe they were playing doctor. But you want him on the list til he's at least 21?

Part of the penalty for being a criminal is lugging around that label for the rest of your life.

Check out this offender.. I know I'd be scared if he lived next door to me :)

http://records.txdps.state.tx.us/soSearch/soDetail .cfm?ShowNav=False&dps_number=07777777

DOB 02/12/1987, disposition date 03/28/1998. That makes him fucking ELEVEN when he was convicted, and probably 10 when he did it. His "victim" was 8.

And for this he is ostracized for life? Is he going to go up to each of his neighbors after the DPS sends them postcards to explain that he was just a little kid playing doctor? I'd say something nasty about Texas right now, but the other states are doing this shit too.

How about, say, a pedophile searches a handy registry and finds someone that lives in a nearby area and even looks like them, then goes there and rapes some kid. The mob goes after the registered sex-offender, and the real criminal is never even suspected.

Psshhh, forget John Jones, have a look at this guy here!

At least, if you look at the Texas registry, they have lots of details about the conviction, so the people you mention won't be mistaken for child molestors.

Going with a generic John Jones, here's one of the records you get: John Jones, Pervert


Interesting to note he's DEAD and they still have a record of him. One does wonder how they took that "current" picture. He looks pretty good, what with being dead and all.

Also interesting to note, did he die BEFORE or AFTER they stuck his name, address, picture, and the fact that he molested a 9 year old girl IN TEXAS up on the web?

The State of Texas has had this for some time now.. gives their picture, their crime, vital stats, etc ,etc.

http://records.txdps.state.tx.us/soSearch/soSearch .cfm

I found a 1997 Texas law that mandates proper Caller ID identification. But individual state laws are harder to enforce...

The federal law that accomplishes the same thing will take effect next year. From the FTC's page:

Requires caller ID transmission.
Beginning January 29, 2004, telemarketers must transmit their telephone number and if possible, their name, to your caller ID service. This will protect your privacy, increase accountability on the telemarketer's part, and help in law enforcement efforts.

That should help. Vigilant anti-marketers should notice any blocked Caller ID, and switch into feigned-interested-consumer mode to gather enough information from the company to report them.

- Peter

These taxes were originally supposed to be temporary. It's high time that we got rid of them!

They have no place in the world of TCP/IP.

If you want the largest audience possible, then using the latest web standards, such as promoted by Zeldman, is not what you want to do. The reason for this is because not all web browsers in current use work with these standards. And there are many reasons people won't or can't upgrade those browsers.

There is a way to make web pages so that they can use standards, and still work on older browsers. However, you might not like the end result. What you get on the older browsers is a very poor presentation. For example, if you define the look of your page in cascading stylesheets, when viewed on a browser with no support for CSS, you get crap.

Boundary conditions are even worse. If the browser is a version that tries to support something, and does it wrong, you can get even worse that crap. It might not work at all.

Mixing standards can cause problems as well. Here is an example. Lots of designers seem to like blue backgrounds for the side rail menus. But lots of web browsers default to blue for hyperlink text. If you specify the color of the text in a stylesheet, but specify the background color of a table cell (or worse, the whole page), in HTML, then you can end up with a situation where some of what you specify is acted on, and some is not. You'd end up with blue text on a blue background, and therefore unreadable.

It would be great if everyone could upgrade to the latest browser. But if you are trying to reach the widest audience possible, you do have to consider that many in that audience will be using older computers which have smaller drive space, smaller RAM space, slower CPUs, and can only run older versions of operating systems and browser software. While Linux might well be a great replacement for old versions of Windows on those machines, you still have the problem if shaving a recent version of some Linux distribution down to fit, and getting a huge obese browser to run on a tiny, slow, machine.

Here is an example of a real web site done in a way that displays terrible on some browsers. You can see what it looks like in Netscape 4 in PNG, or JPEG, or true color GIF (works on Netscape 2 and later) formats. If you scan very close in the blue area on the left (this does not work with the JPEG image), you can see that the colors are #5a61a9 for the background, and #5b61a9 for the text (specified by their HTML in the body tag, so they intentionally did this). By radically exaggerating the red plane (e.g. everything #5a and below is made #00, and everything #5b and above is made #ff), you can see (PNG, JPEG) the text was really there. And you'd think that a state government would be concerned enough about making their site available to all audiences, including the economically disadvantaged who can just barely even get a computer and internet access. But no, they don't actually care (I talked to these people, and they really don't care). Here is another crappy web site. By comparison, this site and this site look fine in this older browser.

That's right. There's also SARS patients, grizzly bears, incompetent politicians, no jobs, horrible traffic, we're right next to the Pacific Ocean (which routinely produces typhoons that kill thousands of people), nuclear power plants, deadly blizzards... we even have a place called Death Valley.

Hmmm... maybe I should reconsider. Here in Texas, we have West Nile Virus, alligators (though they leave people alone), incompetent politicians (wish they would), jobs that go away when oil prices dip, horrible traffic, we're in Tornado Alley (with a direct hit on downtown Ft. Worth), cement plants, 120-degree weather, and we have a 32,000 square mile region (larger than all of New England) called the Llano Estacado that is so flat, it slopes just 10 feet per mile, and barely gets 12 inches of rain a year.

Screw it all, I'm moving to Barbados!

That's right. There's also SARS patients, grizzly bears, incompetent politicians, no jobs, horrible traffic, we're right next to the Pacific Ocean (which routinely produces typhoons that kill thousands of people), nuclear power plants, deadly blizzards... we even have a place called Death Valley.

Hmmm... maybe I should reconsider. Here in Texas, we have West Nile Virus, alligators (though they leave people alone), incompetent politicians (wish they would), jobs that go away when oil prices dip, horrible traffic, we're in Tornado Alley (with a direct hit on downtown Ft. Worth), cement plants, 120-degree weather, and we have a 32,000 square mile region (larger than all of New England) called the Llano Estacado that is so flat, it slopes just 10 feet per mile, and barely gets 12 inches of rain a year.

Screw it all, I'm moving to Barbados!

Maybe not, but castor beans produce ricin. Some people were found in the UK recently trying to manufacture it. It's an uncannily good bio-weapon.

Boo-hoo: we don't treat illegal combatants as prisoners of war;

Okay, so we declare war, and then declare that anyone who fights against us is doing so against our will, and thus illegally. Viola! No more POW problems.

It doesn't work that way. There are quite clear rules laying down who is and isn't a valid combatant, agreed to by international treaty; we aren't making them up as we go along. The rules of war exist in order to make a fundamentally terrible exercise (wholesale murder) somewhat less so. In this case, the rules for legitimate combat serve to protect civilian populations from reprisals, and to give both military sides a fair chance.

we had a few incidents of police brutality (which will be punished)

Uh, there are no US police in Iraq.

We're not discussing about Iraq--we're discussing the Amnesty International report on the US. RTFA.

The US is the only first-world country that still executes prisoners.

So what? If everyone else were leaping off a bridge, would you follow? Execution is a perfectly reasonable response to certain crimes. From the Texas Death Row Homepage:

The following crimes are Capital Murder in Texas: murder of a public safety officer or firefighter; murder during the commission of kidnapping, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, arson, or obstruction or retaliation; murder for remuneration; murder during prison escape; murder of a correctional employee; murder by a state prison inmate who is serving a life sentence for any of five offenses (murder, capital murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, or aggravated robbery); multiple murders; murder of an individual under six years of age.

Is it enlightened to let those who commit the above crimes live? Multiple murderers, murder-rapists, child murderers, hit men &c.?

[Re: the ICC]Translation: we won't be held accountable, except to ourselves, and even that's negotiable lately.

As opposed to being held accountable by a politised court which will charge innocents for the `crime' of being Americans? See the Belgian courts which have indicted Rumsfeld et al. Not to mention that the traditional safeguards of Anglo-American jurisprudence would be completely lacking. No sane state would wish to have its citizens be susceptible to such an open-ended, unfair and untrustworthy court.

Yeah, because "leftist = bad", right?

Let's see, famous leftists of the twentieth century:

• Lenin
• Stalin
• Hitler (yup: National Socialist Democratic Worker's Party)
• Mao Tse-tung
• Pol Pot

Leftism is dedicated to the annihilation of the individual and of individual freedom in favour of collectivism. It's an abhorrent philosophy wholly opposed to liberty. Yes, leftist = bad.

I'm not constitutional scholar, but with my vast experience (5 minutes with Google's help) it looks like you just have to be 30 and have lived there for 5 years

How is my quote misleading? I quoted the exact same paragraph you did.

Your indentation implies that the second section is not dependent on the first, when it is.

The real question is are you aware of anyone in Texas being sanctioned for calling themselves a Software Engineer without being a PE?

The statute states that first offenses are dealt with by a cease and desist notice, not sanctions. Cease and desist notices do not appear to make it into the TBPE sanctions report.

And since your nick is Captain Nitpick:

You said, "If you weren't P.E. certified, you couldn't legally call yourself an engineer in Texas. No exceptions."

As I said in the comment you were replying to: "Why do you think I have that sig? It's because everybody screws up occasionally."

I'm tired of arguing this, but since you insist on playing, I'm bringing in a pinch hitter.

Opinion No. JC-0525 - July 9, 2002

SUMMARY

The Texas Engineering Practice Act, article 3271a of the Revised Civil Statutes, does not allow an in-house employee of a private corporation, though classified internally as an "engineer" or under another engineering title, to use the title of "engineer" on business cards, cover letters, or other forms of correspondence that are made available to the public.

John Cornyn
Attorney General of Texas

(emphasis added)

Now, John Cornyn is no longer Texas Attorney General (He got himself into the US Senate), but I doubt the current AG would have a radically different interpretation of this statute.

In the state of Texas, you cannot call yourself an "engineer" in any meaningful manner without PE certification (unless you drive trains). You can insist the company secretary call you an engineer, but you'd better be damned sure she (or he, whatever) doesn't say you're an engineer when a client calls.

in Texas you can't claim to be an Engineer unless you really are one

I don't see anybody linking to the 5th District Court of Appeals's opinion yet, so rather than relying on the biased CBLDF perspective on what the ruling means, why not read the Court's opinion and get it straight from the source? The Majority Opinion is from two of the three judges, and the Dissenting Opinion is from the other. davidh

I don't see anybody linking to the 5th District Court of Appeals's opinion yet, so rather than relying on the biased CBLDF perspective on what the ruling means, why not read the Court's opinion and get it straight from the source? The Majority Opinion is from two of the three judges, and the Dissenting Opinion is from the other. davidh

However, if you read the Texas state constitution (I haven't), I'd bet there is a clause or amendment asserting free speech within it.

Every person shall be at liberty to speak, write or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege; and no law shall ever be passed curtailing the liberty of speech or of the press. In prosecutions for the publication of papers, investigating the conduct of officers, or men in public capacity, or when the matter published is proper for public information, the truth thereof may be given in evidence. And in all indictments for libels, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts, under the direction of the court, as in other cases.

The status of SB 1579 can be found here.

It was left pending in committee on 5/8/2003, before 55 Democrats fled to Oklahoma on 5/11/2003 to break the quorum and prevent Republican gerrymandering of Congressional districts and replace Democrat gerrymandering of Congressional districts back in 1991.

It's not clear that the exodus actually prevented further action on the bill, but the legislative session ended on 6/2/2003. The next regular session will not start until January, 2005.

Go to the Texas death row site and state that those crimes don't deserve death. Bruce Jacobs, executed on Thursday, broke into a home and stabbed a 16 year old boy to death in 1986 in front of the kid's parents. Roger Vaughn, executed on the sixth of this month, raped and strangled a 66 year old woman in 1991. John Chavez, executed in April, shot and killed a man for that man's wallet. And so on and so forth.

Committee On: Criminal Justice
Hearing Site: E1.106
Date 05/06/2003
I do not wish to testify but wish to register as indicated (check this box)
against (check this box)
Subject Matter SB 1116
Name Your Name
Occupation, Profession, or Business Your Job, the More IT sounding the better
Address Fields Your Address (TX preferrable, not required)
In appearing before this committee I represent: check myself, unless you're filing on behalf on an organization

Then, sign your name on the signature of witness line, and fax to 512-475-3737.

If you can't make it to Austin, you can fill out a Witness Affirmation Form and fax it the subcommittee (fax:512-475-3737). The form can be filled downloaded from this PDF, on page 53. This form states for the committee your opinion on the bill at hand. You can testify against SB 1116 without speaking before the committee. This lets the subcommittee know your opinion on the matter without having to appear in person. One final note, this is an old version of the witness affirmation form; however its close enough to the current version that I think it should be acceptable.

You can't get the zoning changed unless you have gobs of money, or are on the Board of Zoning. Don't pursue that route.

Many states allow "low impact" home based businesses. There are restrictions, like how many deliveries you may receive a week and so on. (example) The objective is to keep the residential areas residential, and move all the 18 wheelers into industrial areas.

Do some research into what the local municipality allows. You may find it's friendly for what you want to do. Otherwise, move.

Oh, and don't think you'll sneak by with having a PO Box as your registered place of business. Most states won't allow a PO Box as the business location. If you put your home address down, you can expect the local code enforcement officials to come a knockin' in a few months. The gub'ment has programs in place to hunt down folks who are "non-compliant." Your tax dollars at work.

Googling for my own state's (Texas) Super DMCA, I found this by Dan Wallach, an asst. professor at Rice University. He has some interesting things to say aout the bills before our House and Senate. So in the interest of fact checking, I looked at the Senate version.

Sure enough, by the letter of the law, NATs would be illegal. It prohibits owning or creating any technology that is used to knowingly modify a communications sevice in ways unauthorized by the service provider. The bill imposes a Class A misdemeanor for the first offence, except where five or more 'communications devices' are employed in the 'criminal episode'. In that case, the crime is a felony.

In my home, I have a wireless NAT setup. There are four desktop systems and a laptop that regularly access the internet via that network. Additionally, there is one more desktop that occasionally joins the network. That makes seven discreet communications devices, including the router, that are employed in gaining access. The definition of a communication device is very broad and includes single connectors,switches and connections (presumably between devices). Theoretically, the state could use each cat5 cable and external wireless nic as communications devices, upping my number of devices to 10 or 12. Since my ISP only grants authorized access to one communication device in my service contract, I would fall squarely under the stated definition of a felony under this bill. For running a freakin' home network!

I freely admit that I use my internet service connection in ways unauthorized by my provider. Sure. And they can cut my service at any time of their choosing if they find out. I accept that. I'm violating the agreement, therefore they have the right to terminate it. Simple, to the point, and effective.

But now I could become a felon as well. That's where I draw the line. In my opinion, the state has no business enforcing civil contracts with the criminal justice system. That's what the civil courts are for. If my provider cares to, they can try to get compensation for any perceived loss in a civil court. There is no need to make my activities a felony.

Somethings got to be done. I'm going to do my part and write a letter. Please do yours.