"T" is for "track" -- or "T" is for "termination" -- He wants a letter. Pick "T"

I don't know if the educational character from Public Television, Big Bird, will visit Police Chief McNeilly or not. But, if he really wants a letter, I'd suggest that Bob O'Connor could sends him a "T" as that letter.

The mayoral transition: Police chief out 'All they said was they wanted to go in another direction. I asked what that meant, and they said they wanted to go in another direction. I asked that they send me a letter,' Chief McNeilly said.

As McNeilly winds down his career, he'll be able to send news articles along with his resume as he applies to other jobs. He doesn't need to get a letter.

I think it was interesting to see that he asked for a letter. I don't expect he'll get a letter of termination, but that is just my outsider's hunch.

To really toss a wrench in the Bob O'Connor transition team, McNeilly should have asked for an "email." That request could have been a show stopper, a real train wreck, a real -- off-the-track kinda communication.

Here is a golden opportunity for O'Connor's team, is it up to four now?, to deligate. Perhaps they should ask the Executive Director of the Citizens Police Review Board to ink a letter for the outgoing chief.

Others, more creative than me, might be happy to write a letter for the outgoing chief as well. Those rants in the City Paper might be a good place to find such a letter.

McNeilly will land on his feet. He is a good public servant. His work in the Pgh Police Force is done, for now. His next employer is going to be very happy to have a man of his talents and drive.

KDKA - Pittsburgh's Source for Breaking News, Weather and Sports: Murphy Remembers Time In Office Fondly

Goals and principles -- Morphed by Murph.

KDKA - Pittsburgh's Source for Breaking News, Weather and Sports: Murphy Remembers Time In Office Fondly The whole struggle of trying to keep the Pirates here, which morphed into building a new baseball park, which morphed into building two parks and then a convention center.

All along I said that it is much easier to cut a deal with the owners of a sports team, or the owners / players of a corporation than with a bunch of citizens. It was easy for Mayor Murphy to pick up the phone and wheel and deal with the Rooneys. That's one phone call. It is easy to deal with the deparment store bosses, such as Lazarus or Lord & Taylor. Same too with 'fix is in' folks like Station Square owners Forrest City or Chicago developers of downtown malls (Urban Properties whatever).

It is hard to get a handle on citizen groups. It is hard to reach a consensus with diverse populations. It is hard work.

Corporate welfare deals are easier deals. But, they don't work in the long-haul.

May I be the first to wish you all a happy Boxing Day!

We are still trying to get our Christmas letter -- side A and side B -- out the door. But, we had a great Christmas. I only wish that I'd be able to turn the clock back to December 1. I need another December.

This year, we gave the kids a ping pong table -- and a room for it to fit within. And, it was all a suprise.

Others came through with a lot of help and extras. Thanks!

Murphy looks back at his 12 rocky years

Every dog has its day in the sun. The days of Tom Murphy are just about to go to dusk -- finally. To his credit, he didn't have a "day" in the sun. Tom Murphy got more than a decade.

But the beauty of this news article is within the words of Rich Lord. He is great. I just love the angles he puts into print. And, I really love it that his words are being published in the P-G. That is as much of the magic of these times as anything else.

Make no mistake. I'm am thrilled that we're able to see Tom Murphy move to the private sector. And, I'm thrilled to know that Rich Lord is going to be on assignment with the P-G in the months to come.

Murphy looks back at his 12 rocky years There was little left in Mayor Tom Murphy's office last week but a bike leaning against a desk. That and enough attitude to fill a moving van, plus about a dust bunny's worth of regret.

The man who, at his 1994 inauguration, compared his job to Tom Sawyer, 'who got all of his friends to paint the fence,' is leaving office in a town spattered with his vision. He's unabashed about a dozen years of roller-coaster governance, featuring controversial development efforts, federal oversight of policing and a continuing struggle to fix the city's finances.

'We might have overreached,' he said of his administration. 'One's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?'

We should thank them for turning our once great city into a hell -- because when we die we'll go to heaven. Yeah, right.

The over reaching was classic. To over reach is exactly what should NOT happen now and next. We have to get centered. We have to reach within. We have to be unlike Tom Murphy if we are to have any future in this city.

Not only does Tom Murphy get to be the last mayor this might ever have -- but the same holds true for city council as well. Gene Ricciardi is gone too. Both Gene and Tom are departing Grant Street -- but we have OVERLORDS camped out there now.

This is another classic Tom Murphy thought. I say, 'think again.' He says the consent decree was unnecessary, but helpful in accelerating the changes he was already making.

Humm.... but the changes he was making didn't have room for the citizen police review board. Those were changes demanded by the people's votes. So Tom's changes were Tom's to make and his to ignore if they weren't his.

The same gutter thoughts come when Tom Murphy cheered the arrival of "distressed status." The arrival of the outside forces was something he was quick to roll out the red carpet for. Murphy wanted others to come in and do the bailout. Murphy needed those outside forces because he couldn't manage inside forces. His administration could not coordinate nor execute the right changes with the right people within this town.

How sad for him as a Mayor.

Murphy didn't send the Pirates packing. But Murphy is a marathon runner in a town that does not have a marathon. Murphy's management killed the Pittsburgh Marathon.

We'll just have to restart the Marathon. But, we'll need to do it in a much different way.

Rich Lord even tossed in the word, "lockstep" into the article. That raises another concept that we'll need to crack -- like Humpty Dumpty.

Well, I'm not going to waste any more Christmas minutes on this.

Jazz these electrons, if you please

independent solutions Blog hits upon the new downtown development

independent solutions Here we go again, and again...

Just what are our elected officials up to this time? O?Connor and Rendell are happily shaking hands as they use our money to partially finance a thirty story office tower at the initially projected cost of $170 million. That is about six million dollars per floor.

WPXI.com - News - Italian Judge Issues Arrest Warrants For 22 CIA Agents

Some were worried about roid using NHL players going to Italy for the 2006 Olympics. Now there are other worries. Seems as if the judges in Italy are going to be assertive.

WPXI.com - News - Italian Judge Issues Arrest Warrants For 22 CIA Agents ROME -- An Italian judge has issued European arrest warrants for 22 purported CIA operatives wanted for the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric, a prosecutor said Friday.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro said the warrants allowed for the arrest of the suspects in any of the 25 European Union member countries. Italy issued warrants for the arrest of the 22 suspects within its own borders earlier this month.

Schools Save with Open Source

Schools Save with Open Source

A lot of people ask about the real savings that Open Source can bring to school districts. Noxon Schools has used Open Source software for 6 years now and so I wanted to demonstrate the actual savings and philosophy of Open Source in a real life setting.

Noxon Schools is a rural school district in remote northwest Montana with a student body of about 270 students. The school uses 4 Linux Terminal Servers on separate networks to serve 125 Linux Thin Clients. In addition, the school has a Web server, DNS server, 2 Proxy Servers, Backup Server and a Samba server to provide all of the services the school needs in house. 60 computers run Windows 2000 or XP.

Philosophy
As Technology Coordinator I am provided a budget to manage each year for the school's total technology development K-12. The bad news is, the budget changes every year, often the changes are as much as 40% from one year to the next. What this means is that you really cannot plan a five year project because likely the funds will not be available. This factor was one of the primary reasons I began to exam Open Source, we need stability. The expectations of administration, students and community is that technological assets will be available to every student in increasing complexity.
The second primary reason for examining Open Source is the ability to manipulate the Open Source product to meet our needs, not someone else's needs. We need servers that are setup the way we need them to be setup with the hardware we have available. We need desktops that will do what we want, not want some corporation dictates. In other words we need freedom and options.

Pittsburgh Laurels & Lances has two corporate welfare examples worth watching

When public money goes out to big corporations -- it is called corporate welfare. The Penguins' deal could be worse, but it isn't finalized. And, just because the deal is not as bad as it could be does NOT mean that I'll embrace it. To soar again as a region, we can't make goofy deals.

Why, for instance, should the new arena be given over to the sports and exibition authority? If the Pens get a new arena built for them -- then the Penguins should own it, operate it, pay taxes on it, and then decide its long-term fate.

In my neighborhood, I'd much rather have an owner-occupied building on my block -- rather than renters. Renters are fine, but owner-occupied is even better as the investment is there. And, this is a generalization. One of our blocks, if not the world's best neat freaks in terms of sidewalk trash is a long-term renter. Bless her heart. I love her devotion and how she picks up around these parts. But generally -- we've got to think about the best solutions.

If the Penguins get the handout from the developer, perhaps the Penguins should build a building to their own specs and keep it. The SEA shouldn't take ownership of it.

Furthermore, the public owns a Civic Arena. We'll just take that one back, without a main renter (The Pens). We'll program the Civic Arena, as a true civic arena. I don't want to see the Civic Arena get knocked down with the building of the new home for the Penguins.

Pittsburgh Laurels & Lances - PittsburghLIVE.com On the 'Watch List' I: The Penguins' development plans. The NHL franchise, partnering with a major gambling company and an Ohio developer, has put a bold proposal on the table to privately finance a new hockey arena and redevelop the lower Hill District. On first blush, it appears to be a great plan. There are, however, plenty of details we'd like to see. And it all is contingent on the developers getting one of those stand-alone slot parlor licenses. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, those involved in the Penguins' plan might want to walk down Fifth Avenue to show PNC's Jim Rohr how not to shaft the public.

On the 'Watch List' II: Jim Rohr. The CEO of PNC Financial Services Group next month becomes chairman of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. Given PNC's deal this week that dives into the public pockets for Mr. Rohr's Three PNC Plaza skyscraper, we are not encouraged that he'll offer anything in the way of meaningful reform at the long-in-the-tooth conference.

The remainder of the L&L is worthy reading too. See the comments or the link above.

City's General Services director to depart

Another bites the dust.

City's General Services director to depart Mr. Perrett, 49, is a 21-year veteran of the department. He said his accomplishments include contracting out the city's vehicle maintenance, negotiating a deal with the Pittsburgh Public Schools to have city workers televise their meetings and 'just maintaining services despite severe cuts over the decade.'

The Pgh Cable Department / General Services did do some telivision work with the Pittsburgh Public Schools. However, the broadcasting of the Pgh Public Schools Board Meetings is to end, sadly. The success of the program was short lived.

The effective outcome of the broadcasting of the meetings is questioned too. One can't listen to any meeting on the web. Getting the meetings into MP3 files and stored there, for listening, is a no-brainer that General Services could have and should have done.

The Cable TV offering from the city were stripped of a number of employees and a lot of the wind in their sails departed. They work hard to just keep their heads above water. Other efforts for more cooperation among the other institutions in town could have been championed from the upper administration managers.

The O'Connor camp is not commenting on personnel moves. It is December 23 and we've heard of one person being hired.

Perhaps the higher cost of either parking or fuel has gotten to the transition team efforts. Bob might be waiting until he gets his official parking spot before he ventures out, as he got nailed by the media for nicking extra graces in prior parking news coverage.

Splendid Concept Maps of I.D. issue from MN prof.

I love the concept of "Concept Maps."

Here is a great example of Concept Maps on I.D. He is an assistant professor in MN.

I've not even looked far into the conclusions he puts forth. But, I love the use of technology in the covering of the issue.

Insight: I've been so busy in the past two weeks, I've not even watched the news or read the newspapers. I saw ID in the headlines. And, I've got all the papers sitting here, for reading soon.

Some Libertarians with an guest speaker, now a GOPer, at the Allegheny County Lib Christmas Party

Mark, Russ Diamond, Dave, Joe.

I'm now the Allegheny County Libertarian Party Vice-Chair. That's Dave Powell, my boss, the new chairman in the photo.

Russ has been working hard with Operation Clean Sweep in the past months. His site is at www.PACleanSweep.org.

Family Christmas Letter. It is about to hit the mail.

Season’s Greetings - Boas Testas - Meilleurs Voeux - Felices Fiestas

December 21, 2005

From the Palmer / Rauterkus home: Mark, Catherine, Erik, and Grant.

108 South 12th Street Pittsburgh, PA USA 15203-1226 412-298-3432

Mark@Rauterkus.com

For the first time, this Christmas letter comes on paper and CD. Play the CD both in your computer and on an audio boom-box/car stereo. On the CD this letter (as PDF, .html, and OpenOffice.org document) comes with underline links to treat you to plenty of pictures from the past year. If you're without a computer, just read and know that the kids are taller, Catherine and I are older, and everybody looks happy. Another first for our family Christmas letter is a supplemental, political call found on the the flip side.

We enjoyed two trips to Asia this year. Catherine was invited to Chengdu, China, for an advanced class. The highlight was purchasing a rick-shaw, a three-wheeled bike. With the boys in the back seat, we biked around Chengdu. The bike was sold the day we departed, sadly, but for a fair price. We felt like we were going to our second home in Chengdu and the boys once again swam at the provincial facility. The boys learned lovely Chinese folk songs from a Chinese violin teacher. Plus, we hired a splendid art teacher and got into ink paintings of bamboo!

This trip included visits to Shanghai and Thailand.

Upon our return, another invite came for teaching in China, but from Hong Kong University for two weeks in October, 2005. Catherine and two different graduate students commuted to class by ferry from Discovery Bay, Landau Island. Meanwhile, we played and explored, plus cousin AJ came along, too.

Mainland China and Hong Kong are quite different. We loved these educational experiences. The boys made terrific presentations for their classmates and teachers after each trip.

Voters saw “Mark Rauterkus, L,” on the ballot for Pennsylvania's Senate in a special election on May 17, 2005. As a Libertarian in a 3-way race, I garnered 7% of the vote, 2,542 to be exact. These terrific results came as each old-party candidate burned nearly $1-million in negative campaigns. Elect.Rauterkus.com raised $3,400 (more on the flip side). So, I was out-spent 500-to-1 by both the Democrat and Republican, but was only out voted 5-to-1 by the “R” and 7-to-1 by the “D.”

Currently, another race for public office, City Council of Pittsburgh is brewing. This district is much smaller, just 1/9th the size of the city. I'll continue to be a political advocate and a dad you can count on to go on field trips. There is plenty to do to improve Pittsburgh, so we're expecting another busy year in 2006.

As planned, I'm coaching swimming again, and the boys are both competing, with the same team. I was on the board and coached with Green Tree in the summer. Winter coaching and swimming is with the Carlynton Swim Club, just south of the city. We pulled together an elementary school team for the kid’s school, Pgh Public School's Phillip’s Elementary. About 15 kids participated. We practiced for five weeks on Sunday nights. They all loved it. Erik took first place in the breastroke. Everyone was pleased.

Erik continues to play violin and continues to be a terrific student (5th grade). His passions are politics and traveling. He has enjoyed the church choir and got a lead and solo in the school holiday musical. Erik has several violin solos for this year’s school concert as well. Although he swims seriously, his fun sport is ice skating with Grant and Catherine. The three hit the ice at an outdoor rink in a park every Sunday afternoon throughout the winter.

Grant is an excellent student in 2nd grade. He joins Erik at the Gifted Program on Thursdays. Grant seems to enjoy those challenges. He too plays violin and joined the school orchestra a year early in order to play with his brother before Erik moves on to middle school next year. Grant still loves Star Wars. He saw Episode III in China. Anything that includes violence as a critical element plays well with Grant, a joke on peace loving Mom and Dad. Grant is also into long hair and eating ham. (The joke continues.) One of Grant's weekly joys is spending time alone with Grandma at Grandma’s house (right across the street) -- a real treat.

We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary by returning to Evanston, Illinois. Northwestern Univ. invited Catherine to return as a visiting scholar, so the timing was perfect. We dined at the Davis Street Fishmarket where we enjoyed our first date, wedding proposal and 15th anniversary.

The family spent a week in D.C., while Catherine chaired an audiology conference for 7,000+ people. The boys had a wonderful time meeting senators, congressman, and seeing the sights.

Summer included another wonderful week at SUUSI (church camp) and a yearly tour of New England with visits to Catherine’s family and surfing.

We fit in a week long trip to Southern California in August and had wonderful beach time and catching up with some west coast friends.


We're lucky all year seeing Pittsburgh family for various holidays. Fourteen cousins populate the Rauterkus side.

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year!

---

Blog visitors, the links internal to the letter above, do not yet work, yet. I'll post the PDF or do a re-do with active links for the photos. But, there are so many images, I'm not sure I'll have enough space on my webserver. It might just stay a CD thing for now.

U.S. hockey opts for experience over potential

I hope the voters opt for both experience and potential in the race for city council. I have experience dealing with the issues of our community. And, I have the perspectives, potential and creativity to demand that we put the best possible solutions on the table.

SI.com - Writers - Michael Farber: U.S. hockey opts for experience over potential - Tuesday December 20, 2005 11:53AM Age before beauty
Veteran-laden U.S. hocey team poised to surprise

I love the Olympics. Sadly, no Penguins are on any team, so I understand. Yes?

I'll cook up some 'torch talk' services shortly. If you're interested, drop me a note.

In political circles, a friend did some check about me, for me, with some others who she has known for some time who are politically aware. She reported that all the people she talked to knew me. They all thought I was a good guy with plenty of solid ideas. But, the word was that as a Libertarian, I'd not win. I'd need to join another party.

I said, "Great! I got em right where I want em."

Perhaps the same plays true for the USA Hockey team as well. The experience factor, coupled with the lack of attention heading into Turin, could make Team USA sneaky good. American hockey teams often have done well when they were not particularly fancied (Lake Placid in '80, the silver medalists of '02)

Business Plan Archive and a couple of my flaws...

An article on ten reasons for failure for dot coms is at Business Plan Archive. (Hat tip to local blogger, Anthony, at http://bizzbangbuzz.blogspot.com/. )

Business Plan Archive 3) Too early? Too bad. Timing issues continually pop up in the post-mortem of the dot com shakeout. Many of the web's wrecks came to market with high-cost products well before the infrastructure was ready to receive them. The digital entertainment category is one good example. Companies like Z.com, Pop.com, Icebox.com, Digital Entertainment Networks and Pseudo Networks all may have had good products, but they were much too early for the broadband marketplace."

Generally, I think that there are too many ways to fail to really study failure in great detail. People don't aim to fail. Rather, it is better to study greatness and then walk along those pathways. But, of course, it helps to know, generally, where the sticking points reside.

Before I got into politics and community activist work, and while I've been here, I did a lot on the internet. I'm a failed dot com businessman. I have owned a slew of domains and have two or more shelves of failed business plans to show for it.

By in large, I failed in Pittsburgh with these ventures because I was too early. I was way too early for Pittsburgh's markets and for setting up the headquarters in Pittsburgh.

I was talking to bankers and possible investors before Netscape went public. The Netscape IPO was the single biggest day for wealth creation from any company, ever. I knew that this was to happen, but, I couldn't get others to come along for the ride then.

Later, I saw that most Dot Com ventures were not really doing much except for selling stock and burning investor's money as they grew their equity. It was formula for a crash -- and it happened.

Speaking of Netscape, I was part of a group of netizens that urged them, years after their IPO, to put out its source code in a dual format with a PUBLIC DOMAIN version. They didn't. Mozilla was formed. But a year or more later, after the rush of community was gone, the code licenses were changed again.

Oh well. Live and learn. In the past, I have been guilty of being too forward thinking. This habit is going to be impossible to break. To make up for it, I try hard to not repeat, "I told you so."

Yahoo! Answers Relies on the Kindness -- and Knowledgeability -- of Strangers

Two weeks in Pittsburgh. Is this some kind of joke? Is this because Google set up a new office in town recently? Is this because it is 7-degrees outside as I type this?

Yahoo! Answers Relies on the Kindness?and Knowledgeability?of Strangers The point system (http://answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system) rewards both the quality of answers and the frequency of participation. All participants start with 100 points and can build up their scores without ever answering a question just by asking questions and voting on answers. However, achieving ?best answer? ratings can add 10 points, the highest lump sum of points available. Accrual of points leads to seven answer levels?white (0?249), yellow (250?999), blue (1,000?2,499), green (2,500?4,999), purple (5,000?9,9999), brown (10,000?24,999), and black (25,000-plus)?with different ?thank you? status awards attached. The awards range from a simple thank you note, to eligibility as a ?featured user? on a community editorial page or even on the home page masthead, to something so astounding it remains unannounced (?Be the first to find out!?). The higher the level one attains, the more opportunity Yahoo! promises to ask, answer, comment, and rate. (?Second prize is 2 weeks in Pittsburgh.?)

At a number of different junctions in my online life, I played critical roles in leadership. There was the Village Chat Server, the Village Compass Bundle, the USS Swim Boards, the Better-Swim-List, the SC buy-out and the Eureka Squared! discussion with Netscape, to mention a few.

Because of the knock above -- and I can take a joke -- I'll pass on the Yahoo! Answers network.

Lou's List: "He's just a name."

Lou's List: "He's just a name." 'He's just a name.'

People are finally beginning to realize that st. Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr. may not be the ideal candidate to go head to head against U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in November. Casey continued to unimpress ...

Tom Leturgey's article about City Council in The Front -- at news drops now

The cover has a big photo of Bill Peduto. The inside article is full of interesting insights and great photos of each member of council. It isn't online yet. It is worty reading, for sure.

Well done Tom.

The Front's website is at http://www.TheFrontWeekly.com.

The Front Weekly article on blogging

The Front Weekly Blogging by David DeAngelo

The author of the article writes, in part, "I have to say that I still have no idea what the future looks like." He should have asked, or perhaps that will be part two of the story. I'll be glad to connect the virtual dots if you ask.

Some might say that our brians are one big gray glob of more or less useless informational static, just has he described the blogosphere.

But the possibility of more bloggers searching through source material and analyzing what our elected officials (and un-elected punditry) assert should have those officials and pundits more than a little concerned. Imagine a huge mass of people going about fact-checking on the news.


To me, that isn't scary. It is duty.

The Man Who Would Be Mayor (InPgh news article)

Blast from the past: The Man Who Would Be Mayor (InPgh news article) Wednesday, January 03, 2001