NZ? NZ...? Hmmm... I think the city of Houston, TX has more people than the entire "country" of NZ. And cycling is not something you see a lot of other than on bike paths. I enjoy riding my bicycle for recreation and exercise, but I won't wear a helmet. Why should I? I have runners pass by me going much faster. If a motorcyclist isn't required to wear a helmet, why should a cyclist?

From the article. They are guessing based on a known configuration how long it would take.

Best euphemism EVER to describe a talkative spouse. An Aural Artist. LOL!

I agree with this. I would go a step further and add in musicians and actors who think they know economics or politics. Shut and and entertain me you useless little monkeys. :-)

If any of you have ever been to a CiscoLive Networkers conference, you would say it is pretty mundane... Until you get to the BlueCat booth. This year (2009 in San Francisco) they had a blonde in a shiny silver VERY TIGHT body suit, with no underwear. How do I know she had no underwear? Well.. um.. diligent observation... I must say I was shocked! Shocked so much I went back daily to see if they were still perpetrating this outrage!!
(Really - this girl was hot!)

County governments regulate things like alcohol and sex toys. Here in Harris County (Houston), I can buy alcohol 6.5 days a week, and sex toys any time the adult store is open. I don't mean novelty items. I saw things in there that made me shudder (butt-cones, fist-shaped dildos, etc), and this was a "classy" adult store.

I grew up in a dry county, and every time the proposal to lift the alcohol ban comes up there - it is voted down. Seems like the government is actually listening to the people - not telling them what to do.

And as far as buying a car, from what I understand, the one-day weekend serves 2 purposes. One is to allow the consumer time to look at cars without being harassed by over-zealous car salesmen. And second, it allows car-salesmen to have at least one day off per week. Most car places are open at least 12 hours a day. Are you sure you can't buy your dream car sometime in that 72 (12 hours x 6 days) hours per week?

First off - Welcome to Texas!

Thanks for such an insightful comment on the situation of our state government. You are quite correct in you assessment. Texans want to be left alone, and not be harassed by our local, state or even national government. I'm not sure why you think that Texas being an independent country for a while is unfortunate. Other states were independent countries before joining the US.(Hawaii, Vermont, and maybe California)

We certainly believe in the independence and accountability of the individual. As an example - look at the difference between media coverage of Hurricane Ike (I live in Seabrook, TX) vs coverage of Hurricane Katrina. How many Texas officials have you seen on TV crying about not enough federal aid? Whether we receive aid or not (yes - I did 5 months later - Thanks!), people got up, dusted themselves off, and got to the work of cleaning up.

Anyway - back on topic. I consider myself a conservative, and I totally think that open formats should not only be encouraged, but forced for any government organization. Unfortunately, many politicians in this area are woefully tech-illiterate, and have no clue what this means. Actually, I think this probably applies to most politicians. I know I will be calling my representative to support this bill, no matter who initiated it.

Regarding the calendar issue - GMail now has an Exchange interface that supports calendar and contacts.

Since the iPhone only supports one Exchange server at a time (that's what mine told me) I changed my work email to IMAP only, and set up my personal Gmail account to the Exchange service and now - all my contacts and calendar are synched.

Also - I found an app that synch's my work Outlook/Exchange Calendar with my Google calendar - so I leave it running on my desktop at work, and everything is automagically synched!

I stopped reading right there. There is abundant food available for people on this planet. The problem exists in getting it to them. Sometimes, the governments of those starving, malnourished people is the problem. Others are terrified of GM (genetically modified) food.
Maybe you have valid points in your rant - I just get disgusted when people throw out this kind of statement. Sorry - I guess I might get started on ranting also. Bleh.

It could have been worse. They could have taken a cue from the Clinton playbook and removed all the letter "O" keys from the keyboards.

Your definition of patriotism is very simplistic, and not altogether accurate.
First definition off of Google - and one I wholeheartedly agree with says "love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it". That does not mean that you feel your country is superior - just that you love it and will sacrifice for it. In all honesty, I think that the US has a LOT of problems, and I do NOT feel that we are superior to other nations. BUT - I am still very patriotic.
Google the definition of bigotry and it basically says that it is the obstinate or even ignorant intolerance of others based opinions, lifestyles, or identities. Conversely, it could also be a preference for ones own social/etc group - but with the added intolerance of other groups. Am I bigoted regarding some things? Yes. We all are.
BUT - my bigotry and my patriotism are not related. And your explanation seems to imply that the two are inexorably related.
I submit that you are a bigot against those who are patriots.
Of course - that's just my $0.02USD - now worth less than ever!