Peter's Place

Social Security Benefits Not Expected to Rise in ’10 - NYTimes.com So the Congressional Budget Office has predicted that for the next two years , people who receive social security benefits will receive no increase at all, and a very small increase in the third year. This means that the amount of money I receive now from my social security disability payment will remain the same at least until the year 2012 and then only rise by a few dollars in 2013: Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, predicted that inflation would remain low for several years, so Social Security might not pay a cost-of-living increase until January 2013. President Obama ’s budget assumes no increase in 2010 or 2011, then a 1.4 percent COLA in 2012. Could you imagine earning the same exact wage for three consecutive years in a row? The economy is supposedly supposed to be recovered from this "recession" that we're in by the end of this year. If that's the case, then ...

So I just coined another new word, for use on # Twitter . Y'know, Twitter is really inspiring me to do so much, coin new words, start a #LGBTQ civil rights movement , get out and play with the Tweeples ... If you're not on Twitter, you should be. Lance Ulanoff even agrees that you should be. So my new word: Twilog . I'm using it to describe a Twitter Log, or the log of tweets that a particular user makes. Yes, we can say that this is in their "tweets" but that doesn't really explain that there's actually a log of one's tweets being kept. Thus, Twilog.Or, if you'd rather, think of it as a portmanteau of Twitter blog (of course, "blog" itself being a portmanteau, so perhaps this is a portmandeux?). You can find my twilog on Twitter .

So now that it's public knowledge that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has announced his support for full marriage equality of all committed and loving couples, and his office has confirmed his much-touted change of heart, there are two questions that linger in my mind: Did Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have anything to do with Sen. Schumer's change-of-heart? Is New York the first state in the union that now has both United States Senators in full support of marriage equality, or has someone beat us to the punch? In any event, thank you, Senator Schumer (and Gillibrand), for finally coming around and finally realizing that marriage is a fundamental right and that hatred, discrimination, ignorance, and homophobia have no place in our society, which reverses your previous stance and your vote in favor of DOMA .

What's of interest in this article isn't the fact that local police have announced that they're going to be using Twitter to inform the public, as that's something that's occurring with regular frequency around the nation. What is of interest in this article is the extremely poor journalism in the description and explanation of what Twitter is: This is the text of the article, written by Terence Corcoran , a journalist for the The Journal News , a regional newspaper published by Gannett --the folks who bring you newspapers such as USA Today : Peekskill police have joined Twitter, an online community that serves as a venue for people to communicate through brief messages that are dispersed via e-mail and text messaging, Lt. Eric Johansen said today. Members of Twitter are able to post messages that contain less than 140 characters. They can be viewed by people who have signed up to receive them on their mobile telephones and e-mail accounts. While the service was...

So my sister's back on chemo, although this time it's a low-dose. They found some cancerous cells floating around in her bloodstream, which means that there's cancer somewhere in her body but it's so small that they can't find it (or so they say). And then I found this video of her dealing with her battle with breast cancer at the age of 31 on-line (she never told me about being interviewed by the local news...)

I voted in the November 2008 presidential election in my voting district in the City of Peekskill , State of New York but I had a lot of difficulty in doing so. I have recently discovered that the vote that I cast that fateful night was not, in fact, counted at all. How do I know this? Let me give you, gentle reader, the entire set of facts and see if you reach the same conclusion that I did: On Tuesday, 2 November 2008, I walked into the voting area assigned to me and signed the log of voters, where my signature-on-file was verified against the signature I had just signed in the log book. After a wait of approximately two minutes (while someone else was in the voting booth), I went into the booth, and voted for the candidates whom I was certain about. I spent another minute or so making some last minute decisions and voted for a few more candidates. Then I went to do my write-in votes. That's right, I actually am one of those people who s informed and educated about voting and kno...

Ryanair isn't the only airline that's thinking about this. My friend just flew from NYC to Florida on Spirit Airlines , and he said that they're contemplating such charges, too. He also told me that Spirit actually charged him for choosing his seat in advance (window as opposed to aisle). But he had to go to Florida on a family emergency so he didn't have much of a choice, as they were the cheapest rate. Although, quite honestly, he probably wound up paying just as much as the "major" airlines after all of the nickle-and-dime charges. So when you fly, you have to pay extra to choose your seat in advance (meaning that if you want to choose aisle/window before you get to the ticket counter, you're going to have to pay). You have to pay to check your luggage. Pay to carry-on luggage. Pay airport fees, taxes, and the homeland security surcharge. Pay for beverages/meals/snacks. Pay for this, that and the other thing. While the "rates" have dropped a b...

So I came across an article on Gather.com stating that gays and lesbians are attempting to take away the free speech of churches and religious folk b/c they're attacking the tax-exempt status of the Mormon Church. I just had to set the record "straight" (pardon the pun...): In response to You don't have to worry about flagging this for Hate Speech, it's already been done and Gather claims it is NOT. Christians--I have a serious question for you that I need your help answering!

I just got finished watching this video. I don't know if it's the combination of the music, lyrics, and images but I was pretty much bawling by the time it was over. The fact that I've been off my psych meds for about two weeks now probably doesn't help things, either (I wish Medicaid and Medicare would stop their little pissing match and pay for my damned anti-Depressants!): So yeah, run over and sign the petition, NOW! Link back to my Gather.com article on this topic.

I just lost five hours of my life due to a theft that occurred when I submitted my debit card number to pay for two hours of Wi-Fi service from an AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. Here's what happened: On 2 February 2009 I was up visiting Mom in Harford, CT . I was really itching (and needing) to get on-line, and knew that I would have to resort to finding some WiFi hotspots when I went up, as my mobile broadband was temporarily disconnected (I need money to pay the bill!). So before my trip, I prepared by printing out a list of Wi-Fi hotspots in the Hartford, CT area (both paid and free). I was using a free Wi-Fi spot (one of the few in the area that were open late) but unfortunately, the battery in my notebook had drained since I'd been using it for a while and there wasn't anyplace for me to plug in. I decided to search out some of the paid spots and came to Barnes & Noble , which had a Starbucks cafe inside of it, which provided Wi-Fi for a fee through AT&T's WiFi...

OK So I've basically had to choose between one of the three FireFox extensions that I've been trying out that integrate the Twitter service into FireFox. I think I've got my top pick; however, there are some issues that I need to take up with them, and some features I'd like to see implemented: The new version of Twitbin (2.0) is much, much better than the previous release and really puts it back into the running as a contender. In fact, the only reason that I started looking for an alternative is because I found Twitbin to be pretty much broken--but that was the old version. So I love love love the RT (that's "Retweet" for you non-Twitterites ... a RT is when you basically twit out someone else's tweet in order to help spread the word to your follows; it's basically a "pay it forward" form of good-will on Twitter) function in Twitbin; I don't know of any other Twitter extension that offers the ability to RT with the click on an ic...

2 February 2009, 14:00 OK, so the Psycho Bitch (my younger brother's daughter's mother--who, when she met my sister told her "well I would never have a child out of wedlock because I am a CHRISTIAN ") just showed up to my brother's apartment building (not the apartment itself but the building). She's actually standing downstairs, outside in the cold with her daughter (my younger brother's daughter, aka my niece Cherokee Phrakousonh, whom I have never met) and refusing to come inside because she saw me poke my head out of the window (I poked my head out of the apartment window because I heard somebody calling "Hellooooooooo" downstairs--not in a loud voice mind you but in a normal talking voice). Now, why she didn't pick up the phone and call my brother to let her know that she was here, I can't tell you because I don't know. Now here's the best part: essentially, because this psychotic "Christian do-gooder" firmly ...