Wednesday, July 3, 2013

FAA Rules Violations

Dozens of planes making a terrible noise, for years. I've been complaining to PDX noise management and FAA until i got tired of it. On Port of Portland noise management web site there is a link to www.webtrack.com.

One day i got so mad after a conversation with FAA that i started making a collection of what i think are clear violations. However, this web site is not reliable. I saw planes flying much lower and closer than shown there. So i picked a date, May 1st and dragged that slider with the mouse and took screen shots until i got bored. I forgot about that little project but i saved a few screen shots. Here there are.

According to FAA, a plane cannot fly in urban "congested"  areas below 1500 ft above ground level. Average elevation on the map below is 200 to 300 ft, and where i live, where the house is shown on the map in the last 4 pictures below there are about 750 ft.









Everything Breaks

Since i moved in here many strange things happened they didn't happen an the other apartment. I mean they did but on a smaller scale. Besides endless cleaning and repairing of things broken, old and smelly.

After a few days my blood pressure monitor disappeared. I've been using it a lot in the past, maybe obsessively. I found it months later in a box in the storage in the balcony. Then it broke. The little air bag that was pressing when it was inflating got pierced.

I don't know if i can remember many things from the past, but i'll try. I'll start with the last one i found today. A month ago i replaced the shower hose. It was about five years old, ten bucks at Home Depot or Lowes, i liked it because it was light and flexible. The handle itself broke by the thread where it joints the flexible hose.

I bought a similar one at Lowes, about a month ago. A few days ago it was leaking and i tightened it by hand, lightly. Today the nut is cracked.

I had in the bathroom a number of spray bottles with all kind of cleaners, cleaning enzymes and stuff like that. For a few days now the exhaust fan at my down stairs neighbor runs continuously, day and night. It is out of balance and vibrates.The floor vibrates, the whole bathroom vibrates and all the bottles caps came loose. I had some chlorine left in a gallon bottle under the sink that had a loose cap. Yesterday i touched with my knee the door of the cabinet that closes the space under the sink when was opened and it broke with no effort, didn't fixed it yet. The result is this morning in the bathroom smelled like chlorine and other stuff. I thought it was coming from the walls from my neighbors, but after i cleaned everything and closed all the bottles and removed them from the bathroom i think the smell disappeared.

All this things happen mostly around holidays. To me holidays started to become a nightmare.

So this morning before i cleaned the bathroom we went for a walk in the park. I forgot something and came back from the parking lot. Just before i got into the car i saw this very low flying plane, making no noise, just above the tress.






About one hour after i came from the park (a three mile walk, 400 ft climb) i got really sick.

Yesterday i went to the ocean. (got some pictures on flickr here ). I ran out of gasoline and went to a Chevron in Seaside at @4:50. I bought 20 dollars worth of gasoline and when i tried to get back on the road, thinking heading south, a large gray silver truck (I think it was a Silverado with heightened supsension) with no license plate in front, with two mature heavy built blond male persons with very short or no hair came from the middle of the road into the right lane where i wanted to go to and accelerated and it was a tenth of a second that made the difference to me when i decided to look one more time to the left before taking off from the alley). Immediately two other cars came after him, cars i haven't seen when i first looked before i decided to make a right from the gas station's alley, a red Toyota Prius and a gray Ford Focus. Then they slowed down so i could not get close to see the number of that Silverado, cause it had one in the rear. But i had enough time to see it was of turquoise color, like that of an Arizona plate, as i've seen so many around here (in the last two or three years i've seen an unusually largy number of out of state license plates).

So i tried to follow the Silverado but the distance to the truck grew bigger and bigger until right before the intersection between 101 and 26 i lost sight of it and did not see which way it went. My initial plan was to go south to Rockaway Beach so i did. When the road turned to 2 lanes in one direction, right after the intersection, i passed the Ford, and saw an old man with a ducks' fan cap with the big yellow O on his head at the wheel and i thought i saw him sneering nervously at me.

Then i accelerated but there was no sight of the Silverado.

Than at one of the first left turns i saw the other driver, that of the Prius, that stopped unexpectedly (he too was covered by another car that stopped in front of me). But i didn't see his face.

But on 101, before losing sight of the Silverado, i took one picture, unfortunately it was too far away and the truck partially covered by a pole. Maybe people with more technology could do a spectral analysis of the plate for the color.


Monday, July 1, 2013

BBC Correspondence

On the date and time written below i received a confirmation letter form BBC following the filling of a form on their site (can't remember which). I know it had a 350 character limit. This is what i wrote in there (i hate email forms because they cannot be forwarded or easily reproduced and they generally do not behave like email).

"About the last referendum in Romania; the numbers simply don't add up. 19,0 [population INS] - 19,0 * 0,242 [24.2% under 18 (from US, in Romania unknown)] = 14,402 [right to vote]; 14,402 * 0,462 [turnout] * 0,875 [yes] = 5.822 # 7,4 [media]. Worried about the maths abilities of Romanians after 23 years of freedom. If i am wrong and why EU is silen"

From: BBC Audience Services <automail faq.external.bbc.co.uk="">
Date: Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 9:06 PM
Subject: Email confirmation
To: "Mr. George Ion" <george .ion.email="" gmail.com="">


BBC

Thank you for contacting the BBC.

We will reply to your enquiry if we can but cannot promise to answer everyone individually so hope the following information is helpful:

Information about particular programmes and when they will be transmitted or repeated is available at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ (please note our schedules are only confirmed for 7 days in advance).

You can find more information using our search service at www.bbc.co.uk, and information about the BBC at www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc.

If you asked about available BBC DVDs, books or other products please check with local or online retailers to see if they have been or will be commercially released.

For information about receiving TV or radio or dealing with interference issues, please visit www.bbc.co.uk/reception.

Thank you for contacting us.

Best wishes

BBC Audience Services.

NB: Please do not reply to this email. It comes from an automated account which is not monitored.

Today i finally received an answer

From: bbc_faq_website@bbc.co.uk <bbc_faq_website bbc.co.uk="">
Date: Sun, Jun 30, 2013 at 4:25 PM
Subject: BBC Audience Services - Case number CAS-2174909-D9M0F5
To: George Ion <george .ion.email="" gmail.com="">


Dear George

Reference CAS-2174909-D9M0F5

Thank you for contacting the BBC.

The role of this department is to respond to comment, query or complaints concerning programmes on any of the BBC's national, regional and local television or radio services broadcast within the UK. We also deal with issues related to BBC's policy.

As it’s not clear from your correspondence that your comments have any bearing on the BBC or reflect directly on its output, we’re unable to help you further.

Thanks for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

Paul Graham

BBC Audience Services

www.bbc.co.uk/faq/

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

Following their answer i went to BBC news submitting page and i filled yet another email form with approximately the following content. Some phrases are voluntarily censored. But for that, i did not receive any confirmation.

 "Reference CAS-2174909-D9M0F5

Thank you for contacting the BBC.

The role of this department is to respond to comment, query or complaints concerning programmes on any of the BBC's national, regional and local television or radio services broadcast within the UK. We also deal with issues related to BBC's policy.

As it’s not clear from your correspondence that your comments have any bearing on the BBC or reflect directly on its output, we’re unable to help you further.

Thanks for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

Paul Graham

BBC Audience Services"

Following my 350 character "letter in a form", (i cannot remember which form).

"About the last referendum in Romania; the numbers simply don't add up. 19,0 [population INS] - 19,0 * 0,242 [24.2% under 18 (from US, in Romania unknown)] = 14,402 [right to vote]; 14,402 * 0,462 [turnout] * 0,875 [yes] = 5.822 # 7,4 [media]. Worried about the maths abilities of Romanians after 23 years of freedom. If i am wrong and why EU is silent"

Since the last referendum in Romania, i've been intrigued by the following:

Lack of clear numbers regarding as the total numbers of persons with right to vote in Romania, deriving from the 2011 census. On their official governmental site http://www.recensamantromania.ro/rezultate-2/ there are only preliminary results and a vague total number of Romanian population. However within the last few days are given deadlines for completing those numbers.

It is troubling a referendum has been done last year without knowing the exact number of people and people with the right to vote. It is not clear to me what numbers they used to calculate the result. However, from my educated guesses, and putting together whatever appeared in media, those numbers do not add up or verify simple arithmetic calculations as in above "equation".

Since Romania is member of the EU and EU has not said anything regarding the irregularities of the last referendum, i am worried as well... well there are numerous legal, moral and ethical question on this subject as well.

Since i am alone in this as nobody followed up with direct answers to my fb posts regarding this issue, i am also thinking i may be wrong and i am missing some numbers. I used the preliminary numbers from the INS site mentioned above as 19 million total population and the percentage for people under 18 from... the US population, which for 2010 is 24.2%. From this i calculated an estimated 14.4 million with right to vote. Applying the percentages for numbers of voters present and numbers of voters who said yes that stabilized lately in media, results a total of 5.822 million yes votes, that contradict the number as well more repeated in media, of over 7 million yes votes.

Being and English speaker (as a second language) and a constant reader of www.bbc.co.uk i thought i should signal these findings that do not match any other analysis i've seen so far in any type of media as being a very worrisome deviation from standard democratic practices in Romania and EU.

If the calculations above are, there are very serious questions... well, you get the picture.

I did not want at first to fill out this information on a form as a news tip but i see no other way since BBC due to its nature as being a news agency cannot deal with this issue in other ways but i also was not sure of my calculations.

But doing this i let you decide whether this is a newsworthy issue or BBC should deal with this information in other ways, such as submitting it to EU decision structures i am only vaguely familiar with in case you decide my calculations are correct.

What worries me most about the above numbers is they confirm a theory that one can easily build by following online media from Romania in the last years, and that is the country is being subjected to enormous unprecedented political, economical, psychological and mediatic pressure with the obvious (to me) purpose of making as many people as possible leave that country and making it permanent and in the same time using the confusion created by the modification of electoral numbers in order to falsify further elections or referendums as sole purposes of admitting that country in the EU.

According to the news site www.cotidianul.ro, only last year over half million Romanians left the country.

If this "trend" continues and the "political" factors seen on Romanian media scene are continuing to try and hide it, in a few years there will be not enough native Romanian population in Romania to justify the naming of that territory.

[two rows missing]

I am also wondering if the EU leading countries do not give in into lobby from their part [a few words missing] and decide to turn a blind eye and breaking UE legislation regarding the organizing or supervising of census, referendums and elections in its member countries. But since i am not familiar with international law nor with how far EU legislation is going regarding the supervising the democratic processes in its member countries, i simply do not have a clue.