Don't let us down this early

I mean, you're going to let us down at some point, Mr. President-elect. You're human. It's inevitable. But you don't have to do it this soon! I mean, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as head of the EPA? How much more anti-science can you get than an antivaccine wingnut and a thimerosal /mercury conspiracy theorist?

As Orac points out:

...he has been launching despicable attacks against anyone who dares to call him for his antivaccine winguttery, accusing them of "hating mothers," all the while cherry-picking studies, conspiracy-mongering, and ignoring the great mass of evidence that does not support his viewpoint.

So what's the big deal? you say. EPA doesn't deal with vaccines.

True enough. But RFK, Jr. has demonstrated himself on this issue not only to be prone to dubious science, but to have become a true believer in one of the most outrageous and dangerous forms of pseudoscience out there: antivaccinationism, or vaccine rejectionism. If you're trying to build an administration ostensibly devoted to using the best science as the basis for public policy, and the EPA is one agency where that is incredibly important, you do not want someone who is so prone to pseudoscience and promoting misinformation not just when it comes to mercury in vaccines, but when it comes to the very area where he claims expertise, the environment, where he blames Katrina on global warming, for instance (not even Al Gore does that). Indeed, his assaults on fact and science are legendary, right up to describing the small Cuyahoga River fire (which lasted only 30 minutes and was never caught on film) as "exploding in colossal infernos." Apparently, any "science" is good to him, as long as it appears to support his agenda. Add to that his "not in my backyard" hypocrisy in opposing wind power proposal off of Martha's Vineyard, and it's hard for me to comprehend how Obama could consider him for a post even for a moment.

Let us at least pretend that we've got a pro-science president for a little while longer. *sigh* I guess the political machine wears you down quickly. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that he'll change his mind. Stranger things have been known to happen.

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Congratulations, America!

Obama Wins!!!

Nation, you've restored my hope. I had honestly begun to think the majority of people in this country were idiots. I'm grateful to be proven wrong. Even the nation's wang great state of Florida proved their non-stupidity. Except for one little thing: the "Marriage Protection" amendment passed with over 60%, which means that bigotry is now written into my state's constitution.

Can't have it all, I guess. The fight still goes on.

It could have only been 34,998...

...if not for Mrs. CyberLizard and her intrepid friend Maggie over at It's Good To Want Things. According to the Orlando Sentinel: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton rally for crowd of 35,000 in Kissimmee. That's right, the 'Lizard clan was representin'! And all because Maggie drug her out of near-bed at the dead of night (9pm). You can read all about their crazy late-nite adventures in politics.

And in case you've been living in a cave and haven't gotten the message:

GO VOTE!

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What's really important

So you can watch this and wonder how people can be in such denial, but I could only think one thing: I LOVE this dudes hair! It's like all white, but not old-person white or dingy grey. It's like it's made of mithril. Having never seen this guy before, I have no idea if it was just the lights of the studio creating the effect or what, but it was cool. It reminded me of the pictures we used to draw in high school of futuristic cyberpunk characters.

Anyway, I've dented my hetero creds enough. Here's the clip, courtesy of Daily Kos:

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A different view of the elections

Blake Stacey of Science After Sunclipse brings us a fresh view on the impacts of the Presidential elections:

Obama Takes Lead in Galactic Polls

Polls compiled by the election-statistics website Five to the Thirty-Eight reveal a development surprising to some analysts: the galaxy Messier 101 has swung overwhemingly to Obama, with only a few pockets of McCain support in the outlying regions.


Read more analysis of the galactic campaign...

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I Voted!

Yup. I did it. I cast my vote. Did it yesterday afternoon. I was actually a little ambivalent about the whole early voting thing. It seemed kind of, I don't know, "fake". Like, what's election day really for if we don't actually vote on that day. Why don't we have an "Election Week" instead? However given the prospect of standing in line for many hours on November 4th, most of it outside in the Florida sun, and trying to wrangle two wiggly Little Lizards, I changed my mind. Actually, Mrs. CyberLizard changed my mind. She got a sitter and said "we're going to vote today". And it was a good thing. Spent about 30 minutes in line, filled out my little card, got my ballot and started bubbling in my scantron form. No fuss, no muss. Not like last time, when I filled in two people in the same category and had my form rejected by the machine. Humiliated at my stoopidity, I had to go get another form, fill it out, then spend ten minutes making sure I had done it right. Not this time, baby. Nailed it the first time!

So the moral of this story is to get your ass out there and VOTE! (even if you're voting for McCain. I'd rather have you out there voting than whining about how we stole the vote)

Vote, dammit!

I have just about convinced myself that it's OK to be excited about Obama. Not that I don't agree with him (I do), I just didn't want to go through the heartbreak of being emotionally invested in an election only to lose.

And then I see this headline and realize that, even if Obama wins Florida, other forces are at work out there doing their damnedest to prove what a backwater shithole Florida is:

Poll: Most Floridians will vote to ban same-sex marriage -- OrlandoSentinel.com">Poll: Most Floridians will vote to ban same-sex marriage

C'mon, what's wrong with you Floridians?!? Get it in gear! The vote on this amendment could conceivably have a more direct impact on you than the presidential election.

This isn't about gay sex, it's about human rights. It's about love and respect; respecting the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. You can't say, "I respect teh gays, I just don't want them to get married." BUZZZZZ! Wrong answer! You can't have it both ways. Separate but equal didn't work in the Jim Crow south and it ain't gonna work in this case either.

Nailed it!

Jon Stewart and his crew over at the Daily Show have managed to hit the nail squarely on the head. And then pound it in. Until it hurts so much you laugh. After working up a righteous indignation by watching Keith Olberman, it is a welcome relief to view the ridiculous side of this clusterf#@k.

Nobody Fucks With John McCain

Nobody fucks with John McCain

See more Hayden Panettiere videos at Funny or Die

Hat tip:: Liberals Must Die

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RUA Christian?

This is the kind of thing I get to see on my drive home from work.

The flip side was just as good.

You're seriously going to hold up Sarah Palin as an example of hope and change? Seriously? Sarah Palin, who abused her power as governor, who made women pay for their own rape kits, who wanted to ban books from the library, who makes incindiary and fraudulent remarks about her opponent? That Sarah Palin?

Watching Obama climb in the polls was beginning to give me hope that we might be actually moving past the stupidity and small-mindedness of the right-wing xian garbage that has seen such a resurgence in the last 8 years.

Then I see this and realize that we have a looooong way to go.

How about that debate, huh?

So, what did you think? How about that time when Barack said that thing and then John said that other thing? Pretty amazing, huh?

*sigh*

You got me. You and your "gotcha" questions. Fine, I confess: I didn't watch all of the debate. I wanted to, really. I got back up at midnight after falling asleep with the little Lizards. After catching up with the news (which means watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report), I switched over to the debate (aren't DVRs great?). I got through a question and a half before I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. I was a little annoyed at the beginning of Obama's answer to the first question. Enough rhetoric, answer the damn question! But when he did, he was a lot clearer and more factual than McCain.

I will be sooooo happy when this election is over and I don't have to see that little troll every single day. Of course I'll be glad that I won't have to see the candidates either.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

Straightforward and accurate representation of the candidates


Hat tip Hat tip to Caroline McCarthy via PZ via Rev. BigDumbChimp

Check out more here

Olbermann calls out Palin on her bullshit

I've never watched Keith Olbermann, but after seeing this, I'm gonna have to set my DVR to pick up this guy. Bravo for unflinchingly pointing out the utter hypocrisy and pure bullshit coming from our favorite VP candidate.



Hat tip: Gay Agenda

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I was really hoping we were past this

Growing up in the 70's and 80's, I was aware of racism, but it seemed to me to be a much more hidden, insidious thing than what I heard about from the past. Apparently, it's much more in the forefront than I had realized, and runs deeper too. When I read articles like these, I am in shock:

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Neo-Nazi Republican Delegates in Michigan

I had actually thought that our British friends were a little more advanced on this subject, but then I read Man shot three times by racist gunman - for wearing Barack Obama T-shirt

I know, I'm naive. I truly don't know what the best approach is. My 6 year old son doesn't know the term "black" or "white" when describing people. When he asked me why his friends had such dark skin, I showed him my sickly-pale white arm and compared it to his mother's olive-skinned Greek beauty. I compared those to his own tanned skin and explained that everyone was different and that different melanin levels caused different skin color. That's how I always thought about it.

He's going to have to understand the dynamics of race as he gets older, but for now I just don't want him to have to deal with such hatred. I want to delay the end of innocence. The lament of all parents, I imagine.

Screw the debate, I scored an interview with Palin!

How's that for a scoop! I got to talk to the Sarah-cuda in person. Well, as close to "in person" as is possible for any of us (including mainstream media) to get. Courtesy of the website Interview Sarah Palin.

Q: How will you fix the economy?

A: The economy and putting it back on the side of the grade of problem that America is facing today. As I say, we are today with so much collapse on Wall Street, affecting Main Street. And we've got to be able to speak with him the other party, also. Americans are just getting sick and tired of a lot of background work first and shoring up our economy. It is, somebody was saying this morning, a toxic waste there on Wall Street. That's to blame. And that is just that acceptance of the message that Americans are just getting sick and tired of a process that's not allowing that process that progress to be able to go back and forth.

Q: Why should the US elect Senator McCain?

A: McCain and I have the same answer that I just gave you. But, again, we've got to count on our allies to help us do that in this post-9/11 world, where we are at a point, here, seven years later, on the side of the people, and that has much to do and serving for the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade we've got to be done in unifying people and companies to get caught up in this one and who the bad guys are.

Q: What is your foreign policy experience?

A: Alaska Oil and coal? Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, first, Fannie and Freddie - that, that's paramount. That's more than a heck of a process that's not allowing that process that progress to be found here. Consumers and those who were predator lenders also. That's, you know, the molecules, where it's not. But in the war. You can't blink. So, I believe that what Congress is going to continue good relations with Saakashvili there. I do bring to this table, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, that is needed to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia.

Don't miss out on your chance to put lipstick on a bulldog. Go to http://interviewpalin.com and get your own scoop!

Hat tip: Ed Brayton over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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I'm lazy, read other people

I had been looking forward to the debates all day. I had it written down in my DayTimer. I was all set to go. Then dinner came. And one of my little Lizards wanted to play Wii. Then we went to bed. And I completely forgot.

So here are some reactions from others who are more diligent than I am.

• Enemy Combatant Trailmix Appreciation Club
• Athiest Revolution
• Pharyngula
• Dispatches From The Culture Wars
• The Field Negro
• Rev. BigDumbChimp
  

I'll try to dig it on YouTube later and see what I think.

Drill Here, Drill Now; How About "Drill Your Head"?

It'll make as much difference to the price of gasoline. Really, how hard is this to comprehend?

So I'm driving behind this big 'ol SUV, Lincoln Navigator or something, with a bumper sticker containing the brilliant slogan "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less". After resisting the urge pull along side and point out not only the idiocy of the sticker but the hypocrisy of putting it on such a behemoth gas-guzzler, I decided to get some facts instead.

Jonathan Dorn of the Earth Policy Institute has put it quite succinctly in this bulletin. Some highlights (emphasis mine):

• The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 10.4 billion barrels of oil are technically recoverable in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)—less than one and a half years of consumption. (5)
  
• DOE projects that lifting the OCS moratorium would not increase production before 2017 and that by 2030 production would only amount to 0.2 million barrels per day—less than 1 percent of current consumption. (7)

• DOE projects that opening ANWR would lower gasoline prices at the pump by a mere 2 cents per gallon. (10)
• Lifting the moratoria on drilling in ANWR and the OCS would reduce the price of a gallon of gasoline by at most 6 cents—and this would not be seen for at least another decade. (11)
• Oil is traded as a global commodity and its price is set on the world market. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could simply reduce exports to negate even the nominal potential price reduction, a fact acknowledged by DOE. (12)

This isn't rocket science, people. If politicians are suggesting that opening ANWR and the OCS will reduce gas prices, call it like it is: call them liars. It's not a matter of spin or interpretation, they're flat-out lying. Then again, they're politicians. Isn't that what we pay them for?

The Bush (and Republican) Legacy

Ozymandius by: Percy Bysshe Shelley

Adaptation by: The CyberLizard

I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandius George W. Bush, King of Kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I Can Haz Munny?

IANAE (I Am Not An Economist). I vaguely recall taking economics in college. I think. But things are lookin' pretty bad out there. I hear even fervent supporters of the "free market" clamoring for more/new regulation of our financial markets. But one thing they will never acknowledge is the fact that their pushes for deregulation are what led us here.

Now, I'm all for making money. I have a good job, I pay taxes, pay (most) of my bills. I understand the need to exchange currency for goods. I'm not anti-money, or anti-capitalism. But it seems to me that there is a fundamental problem that the free-marketeers are overlooking: humans are selfish, maybe even greedy. We've evolved that way. Survival of the fittest. May the best man win. It's what kept us alive when survival was a tooth-and-nails experience. However we, as thinking, rational people, manage to balance this innate desire with some common sense and compassion.

Also, most of us are living in a world where we will never have access to the kind of money (and power, I think that falls under this same concept) that Wall Street tycoons, big corporate CEO's, certain religious leaders and high-level government muckety-mucks deal with on a daily basis. Because of this, our desires tend to take a back seat to necessities, like paying the mortgage/rent, car payments, buying food and fuel. We live in a much smaller world where the impacts of our actions have a much more noticeable affect on our immediate family and friends. If you cheat your friends or your community out of money, or commit crimes against them, there is a much more direct and immediate response against you. So our desires for more money and possessions, at this level, generally lead to us working harder, getting education, trying to move up the corporate ladder and so forth. The results of this are generally beneficial to us and those around us. There are exceptions, of course, and those of us in more dire circumstances find a lot more pressure to engage in activities that circumvent the improvement process; crime, get-rich-quick schemes, lottery tickets, etc. But on the whole we manage to make do and hopefully improve our lives. All well and good.

But I think that when you reach a certain level of wealth/power, those negative impacts become further and further removed from you. Rather than engaging in commerce with a specific individual, you're dealing with an abstract "corporation". You're dealing with "constituents" rather than neighbors. You begin dealing in numbers so staggering that the relative impact of losing a few grand gets smaller and smaller, so you lose sight and comprehension of that impact to someone not in your position.

I must admit to falling into this trap myself. I can remember a time, not all that long ago, 10 years or so, when my wife and I would literally scrounge pennies and loose change from the sofa to be able to go to Taco Bell (remember $0.39 tacos?). Time passes, careers progress, and I have found myself sweeping up those same pennies and dropping them in the dustbin without thinking. Humans have a remarkable ability to forget pain, which can be a good thing; otherwise women would never have more than one baby ;-) But it also allows us to forget how to relate to others in more difficult circumstances than we are. And if you've never experienced more difficult circumstances yourself, it becomes that more more difficult to relate. I've never been homeless, never been truly hungry. I've never had my family massacred or been forced to flee my home.

But that's where another human trait comes in handy. We have the ability to empathize with others. We are capable of consuming information, processing it, and using it to extrapolate what it must be like to be in an other person's situation. This means that is possible to understand the impacts of our decisions on others who aren't at the same place in the world that we are. And the further you are removed from that situation, the more difficult that process becomes. Which is why we need to work harder at it.

So, my point, after all this rambling, is that we need to provide safeguards against the known proclivities of people and part of that, I believe, is reasonable regulation of the financial markets. That way, even if those people who are so far removed from our reality that they fail to or cannot fathom why them making money at the risk or expense of others is wrong, they might still avoid doing it for a greedy and selfish reason: to avoid going to prison.

Some confirmation of what I've suspected

I have been struggling to find some logical reason for the Republicans refusal to acknowledge reality. The hypocrisy displayed by the republican party this election cycle is just astounding. Even when they are flat-out proven wrong, the right-wing pundits keep spouting the same garbage.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one to notice. Jonah Lehrer of the blog "Frontal Cortex" has a good summary of this phenomenon:

I think this experiment helps explains a rather disturbing amount of our political discourse. What it neatly demonstrates is that the main reason so many campaigns traffic in dishonest allegations and pseudofacts is that, when it comes to voters, the facts don't really matter. Most of us are just partisan hacks:

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same "backfire effect" when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration's stance on stem cell research.

I had to read this a few times to wrap my head around it. Basically, it shows that more people believed the lies after seeing proof of its fallacy than before. WTF?

He continues:

The Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels analyzed survey data from the 1990's to prove the same point. During the first term of Bill Clinton's presidency, the budget deficit declined by more than 90 percent. However, when Republican voters were asked in 1996 what happened to the deficit under Clinton, more than 55 percent said that it had increased.

Again with the denial of reality. Is this really so hard to comprehend:
Or how about this one? To difficult to process?

Yeah, right, "Drill, baby, drill". Graph from ::Architecture 2030

Anyway, back to the analysis:

What's interesting about this data is that so-called "high-information" voters - these are the Republicans who read the newspaper, watch cable news and can identify their representatives in Congress - weren't better informed than "low-information" voters. (The sole exception was Republicans who are ranked in the top 10 percent in terms of political information. As Bartels notes, it's only among these people that "the pull of objective reality begins to become apparent.") These citizens According to Bartels, the reason knowing more about politics doesn't erase partisan bias is that voters tend to only assimilate those facts that confirm what they already believe. If a piece of information doesn't follow Republican talking points - and Clinton's deficit reduction didn't fit the "tax and spend liberal" stereotype - then the information is conveniently ignored. "Voters think that they're thinking," Bartels says, "but what they're really doing is inventing facts or ignoring facts so that they can rationalize decisions they've already made." Once we identify with a political party, the world is edited so that it fits with our ideology.

Sigh. Still, I feel the need to keep preaching, even if it is only to the choir.

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I'm coming out...

... so you better get this party started.

... I want the world to know

I really liked the first one. Turns out I'm really bad at my lyrics. The Pink song is "I'm coming up" not "I'm coming out". Diana Ross did the "I'm coming out" one.

Anyway, the point is that I'm coming out. And it's not what you think. Not that I have anything against that kind of coming out. Really.

Anyway, what am I babbling about? There's a new icon in my sidebar. A big scarlet 'A' (Most people would call it red, I like the implication of "scarlet A"). I'm talking about The OUT Campaign. You can read Richard Dawkins' Introduction to it. It's doing my little part to help the world realize that godlessness does not equal lack of morals or satanism or eating little babies (or communism or anti-americanism or any of a number of other things the Xians would like you to believe about us). One really big point to make is that we are NOT trying to eradicate Christians, or any religion for that matter. Our biggest gripe is that religion is trying to be forced into places it doesn't belong.

The presidential election cycle here in the United States has forced me out of the closet. The ramrodding of so-called "Christian values" into our government must stop. It is literally sickening to me to see our country betrayed this way by a bunch of hypocritical bullshitters. I believe that our founding fathers would be rather disgusted by what's going on today. Archiving Early America has a great article that clearly shows that the intent of our government is secular. My favorite is this quote from the Treaty of Tripoli back in the late 1700's:

As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. [emphasis mine]

I mean, you can't get much clearer than that. This was written in the last term of George Washington's presidency and signed into law by John Adams during his presidency. Pretty unambiguous statement from our founding fathers themselves, eh? One of the basic principles of our country is freedom of religion. This also includes freedom from religion.

So I'm coming out. Reason must win. The motto of the Scottish clan that I am technically a member of (Keith) is "Veritas vincit" (Truth conquers). I'm going to hold to that and work to make it so.

Links to a few other good Atheist blogs that I follow:
Pharyngula
Rev. BigDumbChimp
Possummomma (aka, Atheist in a minivan)
Atheist Revolution
Enemy Combatant Trailmix Appreciation Club

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HOA's can go to hell

You might remember this post wherein the future of my garden is threatened by my neighborhood's Home Owners Association. You might also remember my carefully worded and researched reply. I hadn't heard anything in response and, being very ADHD and somewhat passive-aggressive, I didn't follow up on it. No news is good news, as they say. Well, I finally got news. Just as Fay was starting to really blow, we discovered our upstairs window was leaking. As we were frantically moving bookshelves and pulling up carpet and trying to stem the flood, the postal carrier pulls into our driveway to deliver a certified letter. From our HOA.

In short, they decided to forward the matter to their attorney. "With no positive response to previous notice, the Board has no other option except to proceed with legal action." So either my response was not "positive" enough or they didn't give a shit about what I had to say. Naturally, I felt it necessary to respond:

Dear Board of Directors:

We were very disappointed to receive the Final Notice of Violation dated August 19, 2008. Especially disturbing was the statement that no positive response had been sent with regard to the prior notice. Apparently the letter attached to emails sent to the board members and the hardcopy mailed to the [management company] office did not count as positive response. Perhaps we do not understand the bureaucratic processes of home owners associations.

We are attaching a copy of the previous letter we sent in response. Furthermore, a hard copy has been sent out the the address listed above via certified mail, return receipt requested. We hope that this will constitute sufficient response to the violations. If any further information is needed, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are very interested in working with the board to resolve this matter.

Now here's where my expectations came crashing into reality. What I expected was a dialog between reasonable parties where the issue could be discussed and resolved in a professional manner, even if the boards decision went against me. In my original response, I included reasonable questions requesting clarifications on the rules and advice on how to best follow them in the event the board did not see fit to rule in my favor. What I received was something much different:

I for one live on the street as this vegetable garden and it is a sight. It keeps getting bigger and bigger and looks terrrible. She can build a fence even though she is on a corner lot. I say we stick to the no vegetable gardens and if you are considering changing this, drive by and have a look yourself. It will change your mind. This is my thought

Now, a home owners association is a quasi-legal organization with the authority to file liens on your home and even to initiate foreclosure. The board of directors act as the representatives of this body and, indeed, of all the members of the community. That a member of the board would feel that this was an appropriate response to a reasonable discussion of policy came a quite a shock. In addition to the factual errors (the garden hasn't grown since it was established, unless you count the growing of the plants) the attitude just blew my mind. After the shock came anger. Much anger. Darth Vader-type anger. If I could have force-choked this individual, I probably would have. While I despise bureaucracy, I have an appreciation for the niceties and formalities that generally accompany legal proceedings. I would expect this kind of reply in a blogs comments section or on some internet forum. Coming from one of the leaders of an organization that, quite literally, could force me out of my home was disgusting.

At this point, the representative of the management company that our HOA hired to handle all the paperwork and act as enforcer decided to throw in her $0.02:

They have received 3 notices and they haven’t removed the vegetable garden. What more needs to be discussed?

This person has no role on the board, has no decision-making authority and has absolutely no business interfering in a discussion between the board and a resident. At least that's my opinion. Besides which, she was completely incorrect. We did respond and have been trying to engage the board in a dialog. Which they apparently are steadfastly trying to avoid.

Fortunately, not all the members of the board are such small-minded individuals. Later, another member offered their take. While well-meaning, it was full of fallacies that I will address in-line below.

I did read your letter that you sent, you did respond,

Good of you to notice. You'd think that maybe this could be relayed to the guard dogs that the board hires to do its dirty work.

I believe the notice is referring to the action that needs to happen. It clearly states as you have noted that vegetable gardens are not allowed in the neighborhood unless properly contained.

No shit, why do you think I was writing a response?

I can totally appreciate where you are coming from in your letter, growing your own produce is very beneficial, I myself do it, but it is contained in pots on the back porch and in a tiny fenced area in the back of the home displayed neatly. I have driven and walked by your home on several occasions and recognized your vegetation as an eye sore. Tomato bushes in general grow rather wildly, the manner in which you have planted them is the problem.

So in other words, tomato plants are ugly and shouldn't be planted in a Square Foot Garden, only in "tiny fenced areas" because that's how you like them.

The wood enclosure which surrounds the plants looks bad and the location that you choose is random.

Two things wrong here: the wood enclosures are cedar planks used for the siding of houses. They form a border 8" high around the square beds. Not exactly a hideous bit of landscaping. And their location was FAR from random. The two beds are exactly 36" apart and stand 36" from the nearest landscaping, to allow for the passage of the lawn mower. They were placed on the south side of my house which recieves direct sunlight all day long.

It is obvious that you have a green thumb and I think that is great, speaking for myself I would not like for you to tear them up, just move them and make it look neat. I know you have a patio just off of your slider, why not plant the vegetation to the left of that patio and put some PVC 12" fencing around it with some trellising? We have a long weekend ahead of us, maybe this could be a project for you.

Nice thought, but that location is in perpetual shadow and is so waterlogged that the only thing that will grow there are swamp plants. There's about an hour a day that the sun can penetrate most of the back yard. The south side is the only viable location.

I think your property would look a lot nicer is you chose to take my advice, I am not sure what the other Board members might think about your garden because quite honestly we haven't discussed it.

In retrospect, this part bothers me more than anything else. The association documents outline a process for handling violations that includes the right of the homeowner to respond an