According to The Register,  the Cardell Media Family “claims copyright over any use of the name Chris Cardell and warns about “your website’s post ‘Junk Mail by Chris Cardell’ which unlawfully infringes upon the intellectual property of rights of the Cardell Media Family”.”

Really?  Reporting news while using someone’s name is an infringement of intellectual property rights?

Suck it, Chris Cardell.  While our British cousins may not have the luxury of falling back on the 1st Amendment like we do in the US, I’m reasonably certain that the legal system in the UK isn’t “bollocksed up” (yes, I know… not really a term) enough to let your threats of legal action stand up.  I’d like to congratulate the Cardell Family for spawning such a shining example of douchebaggery in an age where professional athletes threaten to corner that market. (Hi LeBron!)  Maybe you could hire John Fitzgerald Page to head up your PR department?

An Iranian cleric said that earthquakes are caused by promiscuous and immodestly dressed women.  To test this out, feminist and all American girl Jen McCreight organized boobquake.  Harnessing the power of social media Jen organized a Twitter and Facebook experiment to see if he was right.  The objective was for women to dress immodestly on the same day and see if there was an earthquake.  Over 185,000 people said they would participate in the Facebook event.

How did it turn out?  There was a very small earthquake in Taiwan which was because Asian women are so awesome.  No, the world didn’t shake apart and apparently the cleric was wrong.

Now our favorite cleric says that it is all part of God’s plan that nothing happened.

Sedighi notes that some might ask why there aren’t more earthquakes and storms striking Western nations that are “up to their necks” in immorality.

He says the answer is that God allows some of those who “provoke His wrath” to continue sinning “so that they (eventually) go to the bottom of Hell.”

You have to wonder who would want to take sides with a god that will send you to hell for being straight?  This further adds evidence to my hypothesis that Allah is a gay man or a drag queen who is jealous of hot western women.  That has to be why he tells his followers to cover their women in a burka.  He doesn’t want to be compared to real women when he goes on Ru Paul’s Drag Races.

So many Islamic clerics proclaim western society and values are Satanic.  Is that such a bad thing?

Satanism condones any type of sexual activity which properly satisfies your individual desires
- be it heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or even asexual, if you choose. Satanism also
sanctions any fetish or deviation which will enhance your sex-life, so long as it involves no
one who does not wish to be involved.

Satanism does not encourage orgiastic activity or extramarital affairs for those to whom they
do not come naturally. For many, it would be very unnatural and detrimental to be unfaithful
to their chosen mates.

Once again the clerics have demonstrated that Satanic western culture is far more desirable than following their vengeful, dragqueen, god.

“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Lori Deschene of Tiny Buddha.

If there’s one thing we all have in common it’s that we want to feel happy; and on the other side of that coin, we want to avoid hurting. Yet we consistently put ourselves in situations that set us up for pain.

We pin our happiness to people, circumstances, and things and hold onto them for dear life. We stress about the possibility of losing them when something seems amiss. Then we melt into grief when something changes—a lay off, a break up, a transfer.

We attach to feelings as if they define us, and ironically, not just positive ones. If you’ve wallowed in regret or disappointment for years, it can seem safe and even comforting to suffer.

In trying to hold on to what’s familiar, we limit our ability to experience joy in the present.  A moment can’t possibly radiate fully when you’re suffocating it in fear.

When you stop trying to grasp, own, and control the world around you, you give it the freedom to fulfill you without the power to destroy you. That’s why letting go is so important: letting go is letting happiness in.

It’s no simple undertaking to let go of attachment—not a one-time decision, like pulling off a band-aid. Instead, it’s a day-to-day, moment-to-moment commitment that involves changing the way you experience and interact with everything you instinctively want to grasp.

The best approach is to start simple, at the beginning, and work your way to Zen.

Experiencing Without Attachment

Accept the moment for what it is. Don’t try to turn it into yesterday; that moment’s gone. Don’t plot about how you can make the moment last forever. Just seep into the moment and enjoy it because it will eventually pass. Nothing is permanent. Fighting that reality will only cause you pain.

Believe now is enough. It’s true—tomorrow may not look the same as today, no matter how much you try to control it. A relationship might end. You might have to move. You’ll deal with those moments when they come. All you need right now is to appreciate and enjoy what you have. It’s enough.

Call yourself out. Learn what it looks like to grasp at people, things, or circumstances so you can redirect your thoughts when they veer toward attachment. When you dwell on keeping, controlling, manipulating, or losing something instead of simply experiencing it.

Define yourself in fluid terms. We are all constantly evolving and growing. Define yourself in terms that can withstand change. Defining yourself by possessions, roles, and relationships breeds attachment because loss entails losing not just what you have, but also who you are.

Enjoy now fully. No matter how much time you have in an experience or with someone you love, it will never feel like enough. So don’t think about it in terms of quantity—aim for quality, instead. Attach to the idea of living well moment-to-moment. That’s an attachment that can do you no harm.

Letting Go of Attachment to People

Friend yourself. It will be harder to let people go when necessary if you depend on them for your sense of worth. Believe you’re worthy whether someone else tells you or not. This way, you relate to people—not just how they make you feel about yourself.

Go it alone sometimes. Take time to foster your own interests, ones that nothing and no one can take away. Don’t let them hinge on anyone or anything other than your values and passion.

Hold lightly. This one isn’t just about releasing attachments—it’s also about maintaining healthy relationships. Contrary to romantic notions, you are not someone’s other half. You’re separate and whole. You can still hold someone to close to your heart; just remember, if you squeeze too tightly, you’ll both be suffocated.

Interact with lots of people. If you limit yourself to one or two relationships they will seem like your lifelines. Everyone needs people, and there are billions on the planet. Stay open to new connections. Accept the possibility your future involves a lot of love whether you cling to a select few people or not.

Justify less. I can’t let him go—I’ll be miserable without him. I’d die if I lost her—she’s all that I have. These thoughts reinforce beliefs that are not fact, even if they feel like it. The only way to let go and feel less pain is to believe you’re strong enough to carry on if and when things change.

Letting Go of Attachment to the Past

Know you can’t change the past. Even if you think about over and over again. Even if you punish yourself. Even if you refuse to accept it. It’s done. The only way to relieve your pain about what happened is to give yourself relief. No one and nothing else can create peace in your head for you.

Love instead of fearing. When you hold onto the past, it often has to do with fear: fear you messed up your chance at happiness, or fear you’ll never know such happiness again. Focus on what you love and you’ll create happiness instead of worrying about it.  

Make now count. Instead of thinking of what you did or didn’t do, the type of person you were or weren’t, do something worthwhile now. Be someone worthwhile now. Take a class. Join a group. Help someone who needs it. Make today so full and meaningful there’s no room to dwell on yesterday.

Narrate calmly. How we experience the world is largely a result of how we internalize it. Instead of telling yourself dramatic stories about the past—how hurt you were or how hard it was—challenge your emotions and focus on lessons learned.  That’s all you really need from yesterday.

Open your mind. We often cling to things, situations or people because we’re comfortable with them. We know how they’ll make us feel, whether it’s happy or safe. Consider that new things, situations and people may affect you the same. The only way to find out is to let go of what’s come and gone.

Letting Go of Attachment to Outcomes

Practice letting things be. That doesn’t mean you can’t actively work to create a different tomorrow. It just means you make peace with the moment as it is, without worrying that something’s wrong with you or your life, and then operate from a place of acceptance.

Question your attachment. If you’re attached to a specific outcome—a dream job, the perfect relationship—you may be indulging an illusion about some day when everything will be lined up for happiness. No moment will ever be worthier of your joy than now because that’s all there ever is.

Release the need to know. Life entails uncertainty, no matter how strong your intention. Obsessing about tomorrow wastes your life because there will always be a tomorrow on the horizon. There are no guarantees about how it will play out. Just know it hinges on how well you live today.

Serve your purpose now. You don’t need to have x-amount of money in the bank to live a meaningful life right now. Figure out what matters to you, and fill pockets of time indulging it. Audition for community theater. Volunteer with animals. Whatever you love, do it. Don’t wait—do it now.

Teach others. It’s human nature to hope for things in the future. Even the most enlightened people fall into the habit from time to time. Remind yourself to stay open to possibilities by sharing the idea with other people. Blog about it. Talk about it. Tweet about it. Opening up helps keep you open.

Letting Go of Attachment to Feelings

Understand that pain is unavoidable. No matter how well you do everything on this list, or on your own short list for peace, you will lose things that matter and feel some level of pain. But it doesn’t have to be as bad as you think. As the saying goes, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Vocalize your feelings. Feel them, acknowledge them, express them, and then let them naturally transform. Even if you want to dwell in anger, sadness or frustration—especially if you feel like dwelling—save yourself the pain and commit to working through them.

Write it down. Then toss it out. You won’t always have the opportunity to express your feelings to the people who inspired them. That doesn’t mean you need to swallow them. Write in a journal. Write a letter and burn it. Anything that helps you let go.

Xie Xie. It means thank you in Chinese. Fully embrace your happy moments—love with abandon; be so passionate it’s contagious. If a darker moment follows, remember: it will teach you something, and soon enough you’ll be in another happy moment to appreciate. Everything is cyclical.

Yield to peace. The ultimate desire is to feel happy and peaceful. Even if you think you want to stay angry, what you really want is to be at peace with what happened or will happen. It takes a conscious choice. Make it.

Zen your now. Experience, appreciate, enjoy, and let go to welcome another experience.

It won’t always be easy. Sometimes you’ll feel compelled to attach yourself physically and mentally to people and ideas—as if it gives you some sense of control or security. You may even strongly believe you’ll be happy if you struggle to hold onto what you have. That’s OK. It’s human nature.

Just know you have the power to choose from moment to moment how you experience things you enjoy: with a sense of ownership, anxiety, and fear, or with a sense of freedom, peace and love.

The most important question: what do you choose right now?

Read more from Lori at Tiny Buddha, providing simple wisdom for complex lives. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha’s feed or follow Tiny Buddha on Twitter for daily quotes.

—

Fellow Bloggers

You might be interested in a couple things I’m doing:

• A free report: Lessons from Zen Habits. You’ll need to sign up for the A-List Blogging Bootcamps mailing list to get the free report, and you’ll also get a copy of my other report, How I got 100K Subscribers in 2 Years. Disclosure: the mailing list is for news & updates about our blogger bootcamps, but if you don’t like the emails, you can always unsubscribe.
• Awesome bootcamp: How to Make Your Blog Pay the Bills. We’ll look at the most effective strategies for making an income off your blog, while still keeping your reader’s trust and your own integrity. This is going to be really fun, and sign-up ends soon!

After Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a radical Muslim group, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris wanted to counter the fear. She has declared May 20th “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”

Time to get out the Photoshop and Illustrator.  We can all have fatwas now!

Unfortunately, this lack of professionalism hurts the game industry. We need more real game journalists who do a good job covering the industry and showing what is really going on. Sadly, this is all too rare and most game "journalism" fails spectacularly.

Why journalism matters

Why get all worked up over game journalism? It's my old friend legitimacy again. Without real journalists and critics, we don't move forward as fast as we might otherwise to gain more acceptance as an expressive medium. If we have too many "journalists" that just read press releases and gives unfaltering praise to big games (reserving scorn for smaller games with little advertising budget), then we reinforce the same patterns that already dominate the industry.

This is also the reason why it's not entirely hypocritical for a crass game developer to point at a journalist and ask them to be professional. ;) What I sometimes lack in decorum I make up for by trying to move the industry forward in other ways.

And, I don't believe journalism can be completely replaced by blogging. As much as I love bloggers (being one myself), we just don't have the impetus to do the real work needed. Blogs are often good at lightly covering topics, or being quick to pick up on an interesting story. Real journalism digs deeper into the story and verifies facts.

I think that everyone, especially game developers, need to start appreciating good journalists more in order to move the industry forward. Real journalism takes time and effort, and has a potentially lower return on investment if we don't give them support. It might be nice to have a popular site willing to regurgitate press releases, but it's better to have critical insight. While I don't appreciate Roger Ebert's perspectives on video games, it's not hard to see that critics like him have had a tremendously positive influence on movies.

The culprit

So, let's look at an example of "game journalism" over at Joystiq about NDS closing down. Here are some of the inaccuracies in a two-paragraph blurb:

"We don't blame you if you can't remember Near Death Studios..."
Except that the company is newsworthy enough to get coverage on the front page of a major news site.

"...which today announced..."
Actually, the blog post referenced was dated the 31st of December, while this article was posted on the 5th of January.

"...nine years spent trying (and failing) to make money..."
Actually, we made a fair amount of money. Enough to pay five full-time employees at once time. Not luxurious wages, but about what my blue-collar father made when I was growing up. The problem is that we stopped making money just this last year and I didn't want to put the game in financial risk.

"The now-ironically named developer..."
That's not what "ironic" means. Unless you're talking about dramatic irony, in which case we got the joke because we picked the name in the first place.

"We can't help but wonder if changing the company name might have helped "Near Death" earn more confidence from prospective financial partners."
Let me end your wondering: No. Just like nobody turns away from Blizzard because they're afraid of being buried in snow. Coming from the Midwest, "blizzard" is most definitely a negative term for me.

And this is an article posted on the front page of one of the largest game sites. What's really unfortunate here is that this reflects typical attitude for large sites toward small developers: smaller developers get thinly veiled contempt. A topic that some other sites have handled with some delicacy becomes the target of mockery. It doesn't matter because I'm not likely to make a huge ad buy from a site like Joystiq. (Compare the tone of a story the previous day about EA shutting down multiplayer servers for old sports games. Less mocking there probably because EA will buy a large amount of ads when a new game they want to hype is coming up.)

A bitterly funny interlude

It sure is interesting that NDS is getting all sorts of attention these days now that it's ending. Few people took so much interest when it was still running. Props to the people out there who did pay attention and give it coverage before this announcement.

All is not hopeless

Let me give a counterexample about why we shouldn't give up on game journalists entirely. One journalist from GamePro actually contacted me by email to clarify some of the information for a story being written. Although the email got most of the information right, it was nice to see a journalist actually trying to do a good job. the article posted is pretty accurate and even includes a nice quote at the end from me. I appreciate the extra time it took to send an email before rushing to get a story out. Again, we should take time to appreciate people who do actual work to investigate a story.

A call to action

So, let's start putting this into action. Post in the comments if you've seen any particularly great or poor examples of game journalism out there. Let's start recognizing and rewarding the good people and sites with positive attention and shunning the poor ones. We may not be able to do much individually, but together we might have an influence, and that influence can spread.

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Game Journalism Fail

According to Rush Limbaugh, the health care reform that may be passed by Congress is socialism. Yet, it bears a striking resemblance to the universal healthcare system that just treated him in Hawaii that prompted his remark: "there is nothing wrong with the American health care system. I received no special treatment."

Yes, Rush. That's the point! American medicine is superb--for those who can get it. And, in Hawaii, no one gets special treatment, because everyone can get it.

[Er, by the way, just to help you out, Rush, a fair percentage of your listeners do not know Hawaii is part of the United States, so clarify that for them...otherwise, they will wonder about you]

By accepting socialist medical treatment in Hawaii, therefore, Rush Limbaugh has shown that, when one is ill, what matters is the availability of quality health care, even if it is socialist.

Rush follows a long litany of conservatives, such as all Members of Congress that have a medical office paid for by taxpayers available in the Capitol, by Dick Cheney who had socialist pacemakers implanted paid for by the government, and George W who had a government-paid socialist colonoscopy while in office. Members of Congress over 65 get single-payer socialist medical care from Medicare.

Hawaii has had nearly-universal employer-mandated health insurance since 1974. Although its Pacific Island location makes the costs of everything--from gasoline to milk to ice cream to housing--the highest in the nation, health care premiums in Hawaii, for comprehensive care with small co-pays and deductibles, are nearly the lowest and their costs per medicare beneficiary are the lowest in the nation.

Why? There are a variety of reasons, most traceable to universality. With everyone covered by primary care, emergency room visits tend to be for real emergencies, not the non-emergent care mainland ERs dispense for people without coverage. That reduces the costs of ERs and the costs of non-emergent medicine since patients can be handled less expensively and more effectively by their primary docs. Hospitals have not overbuilt, acquiring expensive machines to compete with their neighbors for patients. Insurance companies have instituted screening and other measures to improve wellness among their covered populations.

We can all be pleased that Rush appears to have survived his encounter with socialist medical care. He seems to be very happy himself, commenting on the results of a socialist angiogram that showed no disease in the arteries that feed his heart muscle.

Now, of course, Rush does not live in Hawaii and so his costs are not covered by the Hawaiian insurance system, but having that "socialist" system for more than 3 decades has not reduced the quality of the care he received. Who would have thunk it!

If Hawaii-style medical care is good enough for Rush Limbaugh, it is good enough for me.

Thanks Rush, and with it my hopes that your medical insurance covers all your costs and that the greatest country in the world can make that same care available to everyone.

Happy New Year!

As always, read after the jump if you are interested in details.

Results:

• Current Weight:  307
• Start Weight: 310
• Goal Weight by 3/1/2010 (12 weeks): 290
• Weight Loss to Date: 3 pounds
• Weight loss by 3/1/2010 at current pace (12 week total): 9 pounds

“While we support the freedom of religion and the right to free speech, we feel strongly that if the city of Raleigh is going to allow an overtly Christian display to be erected in our public square, other points of view should be represented as well,” noted Mark Zumbach, President of TFS. “Not doing so would have given the appearance that our city government is endorsing Christianity.”

Their display is a explanation of why we celebrate this time of year:

I think it’s positive without being disparaging — kudos to the TFS for the nice wording.

Even more positive is the fact that during the unveiling celebration earlier today, attendees were told to bring non-perishable canned goods or to make a financial donation for the Food Bank of Central Carolina.

(Thanks to Todd for the link!)

In a drastic move to tighten regulations of the Internet, individuals can no longer register domain names in China, and those who already have personal websites could lose them.

According to a statement on The China Internet Network Information Centre, as of this week, the only people who can register new domains will be businessmen or organizations, and all those new registrants will need to have both written application materials as well as copies of their enterprise’s business license or organization code certificate.

The China Internet Network Information Centre, which supervises domain name registration, says that the measure stemmed from concern over widespread pornographic content on personal websites.

Existing individual domains could also be in trouble. Website owners in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Henan, Zhejiang and Jiangxi said their sites were no longer accessible.

The Next Web

Two more parties this week, and of course, the big week next week with at least 3 Christmas dinners.  Workouts are key, so I’m going to cut this short and hit the weights right now.

Results:

• Current Weight:  310
• Start Weight: 310
• Goal Weight by 3/1/2010 (12 weeks): 290
• Weight Loss to Date: 0 pounds
• Weight loss by 3/1/2010 at current pace (13 week total): 0 pounds

Most folks don’t have the stones to do something like this during the holidays since most of Western Civilization has made an institution of overeating during the holiday season.  In my case, I plan on “More turkey, lesss mashed potatoes and other carbs” and hoping for the best.  Between that and all the travel, I hope to minimize the damage done.

Aside from that, my workout plans involve Kettlebells 3 days/week, and strict adherence to a diet plan for folks like me who have “insulin issues”. (According to my doc, I’m a “managed” diabetic, which would technically be true no matter what I weighed.  I just don’t have to deal with the constant blood sugar monitoring and strict diet.  It is, more or less, a “Sword of Damocles” that I’ll have to live with, courtesy of genetics.)

For my week 1 numbers… Well, you know what to do.  Suffice to say that I do not expect to maintain this kind of weight loss over 13 weeks.

Results:

• Current Weight:  307
• Start Weight: 310
• Goal Weight by 3/1/2010 (12 weeks): 290
• Weight Loss to Date: 3 pounds
• Weight loss by 3/1/2010 at current pace (13 week total): 39 pounds

An Associated Press feed reads:

Police arrested a vice president from Bieber’s record label, Island Def Jam Records, saying he wasn’t cooperating with attempts to disperse the crowd. James Roppo, 44, of Hoboken, N.J., was charged with a series of misdemeanours, including endangering the welfare of children and obstructing governmental administration.

“We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message,” said Nassau County Police Det. Lt. Kevin Smith. “By not cooperating with us, we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk.”

Now what group of teenagers is going to follow some VP at Def Jam on Twitter?  Note that the police didn’t ask Justin Bieber, the celebrity at the mall to send the tweet.  This shows that the police are getting out of control in Nassau County.  They could have just tasered Roppo like most cops do, but instead they decide to arrest him.

Get in shape or pay a price.

That’s a message more Americans could hear if the health care reform bills passed by the Senate Finance and Health committees become law.

This is CHANGE we can believe in.  The Senate is proposing that not everyone is equal in the health care debate.  Pressure will be on the workers to live a healthy lifestyle, or their employer can raise their insurance rate.  That’s right people it’s time to lose weight, stop smoking, and lower your cholesterol.

The proposal is backed by the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.  Opposition includes unions, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association.  No surprise that the unions are against the proposal.  Have you seen all the fat GM workers that were on television when the bail out was at its peak?

The incentives could attack a national epidemic of obesity. They also cut to a philosophical core of the health care debate. Should health insurance be like auto insurance, in which good drivers earn discounts and reckless ones pay a price, thereby encouraging better habits? Or should it be a safety net in which the young and healthy support the old and sick with the understanding that youth and good health are transitory?

Health insurance should definitely be like auto insurance.  It is a hedge against a potential bad outcome. If you are doing all the right things then you should be rewarded.    Instituting a system where those who are contributing to society and not over consuming are rewarded will make for a better world.

Valeo is a company that has some good ideas with regard to implementation of health standards.  You may get an insurance discount if you submit to tests proving your health.  If you choose to be anonymous then you pay a higher premium.  This concept is no different than drivers who allow their insurer to put a GPS in the car for a discounted premium.  Basically the message is everyone pays a certain price, but if you jump through hoops then you get a discount.

We are facing 10% unemployment, along with the rise of robotic factories, and information technology that reduces the need for manual labor.  A few less people would bring the labor market back into equilibrium. It would continue transforming the world workforce into intellectual laborers.  This would be progress from the industrial revolution where everyone labored in dirty factories.

What about the safety net for the old and the sick?  Since death is inevitable it would be illogical to expend resources on individuals where there would not be significant benefit.  The old have had their time in the spotlight and need to step off the stage of life and let a new generation take over.  The world belongs to the young and the ambitious, not the old, fat, and lazy.  This is not to say that we should stop research into life extending technologies.  If new technologies can extend the useful lifespan of the brain and body, thereby extending productive life years, then such research is welcome.  Research has shown that obesity and Alzheimer’s disease are related.  This shows that fat people will continue to be a drain on the system by taking up space in nursing homes at an earlier age.

What kind of world would your eyes prefer?

There should be some benefits for the obese.  We need a biodiesel commodity on the futures markets so that fat people can sell futures contracts to deliver a quantity of blubber for processing.  Considering that these people are irresponsible with how they live their lives today, they would probably sell more futures than they could deliver safely.  Which would mean that we would have to send some repo men to “collect” on the contract so the rest of us can drive our fine German or Japanese automobiles.  This is a good way to reduce unemployment, carbon emissions, and Alzheimer’s disease in one simple step.

There would be economic benefit from a futures market in fat.  Funeral homes could be transformed into biodiesel reclamation stations to provide our future energy sources.  This would be an economic shift and allow petroleum companies to get into a new market, thus creating jobs.  We could have Valvoline Haus or The Penzoil Home for the Obese as nursing homes for our large friends.  Monsanto could buy McDonald’s to create a new form of genetically engineered fast food for our livestock that will fuel the economies of the future.

McDonald’s macht Kraftstoff!

We must stand with our German allies because when the Taliban came for Oktoberfest, I said nothing.  When the Taliban came for Budweiser, I said nothing.  When the Taliban came for Milwaukee’s Best, I said nothing and then the Taliban had the best beer in the world.

On a more serious note the Tool that is head of the Songwriters Guild of America says,

“We make 9.1 cents off a song sale and that means a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money,” said Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters’ Guild of America. “Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I’m not kidding. People think we’re making a fortune off the Web, but it’s a tiny amount. We need multiple revenue streams or this isn’t going to work.”

It sounds like Rick has a serious problem.  They’re suffering from a pricing model that undermines their success.  This happens in many industries before they go under.  If Rick were Asian he might be figuring out a solution to the problem by coming up with a new business model.  Unfortunately he’s choosing to whine about needing multiple revenue streams rather than finding the home run revenue stream that will enable them to drop all the little ones.  Songwriters will find new ways to profit without the guild or the music industry will, god forbid, consist of people who enjoy writing music.  Maybe banning music is going too far, but making sure that the crap is off the shelves might be a nice side effect of this upset in the market.  Think of a world without Britney Spears or The Backstreet Boys.  Ok, we’ll have to figure out what to do with all the Top 40 radio stations, but surely some smart Asian will have an idea.

First it was the knee injury, then doctor’s orders to stop working out until we get my BP under control. (much better now…)  Suffice to say I didn’t get much working out done.  That said, I still managed to maintain a steady 2 pounds/week weight loss pace. (I had a small blip in the middle when I went to Florida with the family, but I buckled down after that.)  I’m sure I will continue this plan after I return from Dragon*Con, and I’m not exactly eager to eat a bunch of sugary crap food, but I’m not going to fret over it for a few days.  The doctor checked me out last week and said that I’m on the right track and to keep it up.  That’s a pretty nice vote of confidence.

Details:

• BP is coming down to acceptable levels, but we’re still figuring out the right cocktail of drugs to get it perfect.
• Body is adjusting to new BP meds, but it’s not too bad.

Results:

• Current Weight:  310
• Start Weight: 334
• Goal Weight by 9/1/2009 (DONE): 300
• Weight Loss to Date: 24 pounds (2 pounds per week)
• Weight loss by 9/1/2009 at current pace (12 week total): 24 pounds

Plan for this week:

• More walking (Dragon*Con… I’m sure I’ll get more walking in.)
• Stay on diet plan, but understand that meals will be irregular, like everything else at D*C)
• Take a break for a week or so, and then set a new goal. (300 is only 10 pounds away, so I’m thinking 280 pounds by the end of the year)

Continue reading Breaking: Turbine sues Atari over Dungeons and Dragons Online

Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Business models, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Legal

Breaking: Turbine sues Atari over Dungeons and Dragons Online originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Went to the doc and had my blood pressure checked, and it was “holy shit!” high.  High enough that I am temporarily restricted from lifting weights, and must confine my workouts to walking and tennis.  The good news is, it is trending downward, and with continued weight loss, I should be fine.  I’ve been told to “forget that salt exists” but that “a drink or two per day with caffeine isn’t the end of the world for you.”  Doc says that my current diet is fine, and that I am heading in the right direction.

Details:

• Did well on the diet, but need to do better on between-meal snacks. (cannot miss them)
• Must keep exercise “low intensity” for a few weeks due to BP.
• BP Medication is playing a few tricks with my energy levels, but I feel fine overall.

Results:

• Current Weight:  316
• Start Weight: 334
• Goal Weight by 9/1/2009 (2 weeks): 300
• Weight Loss to Date: 18 pounds (1.8 pounds per week)
• Weight loss by 9/1/2009 at current pace (12 week total): 22 pounds

Plan for this week:

• More walking
• Stay on diet plan.

Or are you willing to rein in anarcho-capitalism long enough to come up with a solution that works for everyone? People who rail against “Socialized Medicine” live in constant fear of having medical decisions made by government bureaucrats, but would you rather live at the whim of insurance company executives who see you as nothing more than an account ID? Choose your poison folks.

Ironically he cites a life expectancy graph that has Japanese at the longest lived.  First of all, there is no comparing Japanese society to American society.  Diet is typically cited as the reason Japanese people live so long, not the kind of health care they have. As a matter of fact the Japanese system is more privatized than the US according to Professor Naoki Ikegami with 80% of hospitals being truly private with no government subsidy or subsidized workers.  Americans need to drop the burgers for some rice, tofu, and fish.  Then hit the gym more than they do to get the effect of walking everywhere like the French and Japanese do.

On the topic of which is better for you, the government plan or the plan of the big corporate insurance providers, we can take a look at the pros and cons of each.  Brother Grim says that the corporations will treat you like an account ID.  Well the government will treat you like a social security account ID, so there’s no difference with regard to identifying you.  Government is also a less trustworthy due to remarks that ignoring constituents because “they are just people” and the partisan closing of GM and Chrysler dealers.  It would appear that viability of the dealership was not a criteria, but who the owners donated to was.  This shows that government does not look at numbers only when making decisions, which is bad.  You know that the decisions made by government will be to the political benefit of who is in power.  Unlike China where there is only one party, you are at the mercy of your party being out of power when you have to depend on government.  So a government system is automatically stacked against 49% based on the consensus of the popular results of the general election.

How are the corporations superior to the government system?  Both identify you by some number and treat you like a number.  Where does the corporate system have greater benefit?  First, you get to choose which entity you want to go with.  I’m also including HSAs in the mix for young people who want to be self insured.  This lets the population choose which plan suits their lifestyle.  The next area that insurance companies excel at is data.  Actuarial tables and the Statistical Value of Life (SVL) can be used to calculate an appropriate payout.  This is superior to the government solution which relies on humans to make the decisions and puts these decisions in the hands of economists, mathematicians, and programmers.  If the formulas used by an insurance company are under change control and auditable then the consumer knows what circumstances they can expect the insurance company to pay and what circumstances the insured is better left to their fate.

This serves to enhance marginal private benefit by letting the formulas decide for families the appropriate time to stop throwing good money after bad.  There is no single formula for SVL, but many take into account occupation, education, hereditary diseases, current age, and other factors.  There are also general flat rate formulas such as the US DOT’s Treatment of the Economic Value of a Statistical Life.  If you’re in a plane crash you’re worth $6million.  Any way you calculate it, you can determine what is the best solution for your family.

How does this benefit a family?  If you have ever had to serve under medical power of attorney, you know that it is illogical to run a family into bankruptcy expending resources on someone where the computations indicate a lack of equlibrium between cost and benefit.  Americans unwisely bankrupt themselves on spending for end of life care.   If it makes little numerical sense to put grandma’s house on the auction block to pay for 6 months of chemo or dialysis then why do it? Another area is nursing home care which costs approximately $6000 per month according to the 2007 Genworth Cost of Care Survey.  It may may more sense to ship grandma to Portland Oregon or Beijing China where an honorable assisted suicide is legal, rather than wasting the family’s money on a futile effort or worse, allowing the government to seize grandma’s estate to cover her care costs, thus depriving the clan of resources.

That resource could be used to fund the college education of the children of the clan then why undertake such “heroic” measures as the medical care field says.  This leaves fewer resources to pour into a dynasty trust which in turn leaves fewer resources for education and betterment of the clan unit.  In one generation a clan can go from blue collar and poor to white collar through education.  We can also apply the same principals to child care as well.  If a very young child has a terminal disease the parents can always make another one.  This would be logical if the family has more than one child to care for.  With a minimum of $200,000 of child raising expenses, it’s better to reboot early on than spend a ton of money then lose out and have to reboot.

The corporate alternative provides us with a logical and auditable solution that doesn’t put families in the poor house, and maximizes marginal private benefit without the introduction of subsidies, taxes, and dead weight loss.  It also benefits the individual by creating the positive externality of reducing marginal social benefit that a government plan would introduce, thereby reducing competition for resources and enabling the individual to obtain said scarce resources in a more accessible fashion.

While trying to get past my general level of disgust for the Richardson and the “Good Samaritan” (TM) that turned the harlot Mercado in I’ve come up with a few quips. This is what happens when Conservative Family Values and Political Correctness fuck each other and spit out some horribly deformed assbaby. Also, come on, there are Boobs and Food, surely no man in the world can find something wrong with that.

Look joking aside, if you are reading this and are in a position to help Jacqueline Mercado and Johnny Fernandez or know someone who can please don’t sit by the sidelines. If nothing else, spread the word and help make sure people out there know what’s going on.

Here are a few other images of child pornography according to Texas.

I like Henry V for the same reason most others do; the inspirational tones, the mounting suspense of battle, and the dance numbers. Ok I made that last part up, but still.

I like to draw parallels to my own life and often quote the play as the situation demands. Often I can be heard walking through the office exclaiming “Once more into the breach, dear friends…” But nothing inspires me against the overwhelming forces we all deal with every day like hearing or reading the famous St. Crispin’s Day speech. The French outnumber the English 5 to 1, they are veteran troops and fresh, unlike Harry’s bag of tired sore soldiers. No one would mock them if they just packed it up and came home, but the rallying cry of Henry steels his men and tempers that steel with swagger and off to win the Battle of Agincourt they go behind their inspiring leader.

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

God Save the King.

(P.S. If you haven’t seen Kenneth Branaugh’s Henry V do yourself a favor and watch it immediately. The following is a scene from that film which has one of the greatest choral arrangements I have heard in a long time.)

The Dow Jones Islamic Market International Index Fund (JVS) seeks performance that corresponds to a benchmark index that measures investment return on “Shari’ah compliant securities. JETS notes that certain businesses are incompatible with Islamic law and therefore excluded from the fund. These sectors include alcohol, conventional financial services (banking, insurance, etc.), casinos, firearms, and pork-related products.

That last part doesn’t sound very fun.  To many people investing is not fun, so let’s get down to basics.  The JVS fund opened up on July 1, 2009.  The opening price per share was $399.99.  In less than a week the fund as fallen down to $38.85 per share.  Sharia doesn’t appear to be a good investment.

The stock market works through good old supply and demand.  Let’s take a look at the JVS fund in depth and see what it looks like.

This looks very pitiful.  There were only 100 shares of the Sharia fund traded today.  It’s not that popular compared to other picks.  Let’s take a look at the Level II screen to see how many shares are for sale.  A Level II Quote lets you see all the buyers and sellers along with their prices.

The Ask price is what a seller wants to get rid of his shares.  If you’re a buyer you typically buy from a seller at the Ask price.  Here we have someone with 800 shares of the Sharia fund and they are Asking $399.99 for each share.  If you want to buy 1000 shares, you’re out of luck because there are only 800 shares for sale right now.

The Bid or Offer price is what a Buyer is offering to take the stock off someone’s hands.  There is a buyer out there and he’s wanting to buy 800 share of the Sharia fund, but he’s only willing to pay $0.15 for each share.  He obviously doesn’t think these things are worth that much.

What this means is, if you want to buy some Sharia fund shares you can put an order in to buy at the Ask price of $399.99 per share.  You could set your Bid price lower than the Ask price to see if the seller will lower his price.  If you Bid price is higher than the currently listed $0.15 your order will appear above the one pictured.  This goes on and on until both parties enter the same price for the stock if you don’t offer the Ask price up front.  But it gets even better folks.  Let’s say that you bought 800 shares of the Sharia fund for $399.99 and now you decide you don’t want them.  There’s a buyer out there offering $0.15 per share.  You can either lose $399.84 per share and take him up on his offer price, or you can name your price and it will appear in the Ask column.  Then you hope and pray to Allah that someone will buy those shares at your Ask price.

Now let’s look at a more exciting example, the Direxion 3x Daily Financial Bear (FAZ)

This fund also has a good example in it to illustrate price moves with a volume of over 185 Million shares traded today.  There are a total of 22400 shares for sale between the NASDAQ and PACX at 5.07.  What happens if someone buys all those shares from these two sellers?  The price next price listed is 5.08 with 3500 shares.  That is what happens behind the scenes when a stock price goes up.  Unfortunately the Sharia fund is unlikely to go up since it only has one seller who will probably never close a deal at $399.99.

This fund (FAZ) is not Sharia compliant.  This is a fund that performs opposite to the traditional financial sector we all know and love to hate (Citigroup, AIG, Bank of America, etc).  This is a 3x short fund so it basically means when the stock market goes down, this thing goes up at 3x the rate.  If the banking sector is down 5%, this fund goes up 15%.  And that’s how you make money when the market is going down.  Unlike the Sharia fund.  This puppy has had over 185 million shares traded today.  The Sharia fund on the other hand only traded 100 shares today.  Finance is hot, Sharia is not.

If you aren’t feeling very Sharia, then the Vice Fund (VICEX) might be worth taking a look at.  It is a traditional mutual fund and not an ETF.  The fund managers invest in tobacco, alcohol, and casino companies.  In a recession vice companies tend to do better than regular companies . I don’t own any VICEX shares, but it may be something worth researching if you don’t find the Sharia funds to be that profitable or fun.

Lasala, 33, is one of 10 young employees and interns at the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center who are collecting videos, photos and news reports as they wait to arrange interviews with eyewitnesses to the violence.

Killed and Detained Since 12 June.

They also said that they plan to clear the country of hooligans.  Which is pretty easy to do when you don’t have a serviceable soccer team anymore.  I had no idea there were that many British soccer fans in Iran, but if the Supreme Leader doesn’t like them trashing his stadium then he’s well within his right to make a losing soccer team so the Brits don’t destroy the place after they lose the match.

Poor planning is one many reasons Iran will fail and Asians will end up ruling that part of the world.  We understand the value of building a winning team at all levels.  We also understand that winning at all levels is important.  But Iran has yet to produce a Supreme Leader that rivals the skills of Mao Zedong or Ho Chi Minh.  Not that the current Supreme Leader has any math skills to speak of since he only realized this week that more than 100% voter turn out is not normal.

Back straight, relax your arms, use your hips… I pick up the 53 pound kettlebell, and it feels a lot damn heavier than 53 pounds.

I’m not going to overdo it today, just a few swings to make sure I can use proper form without the knee hurting.  Just a few halos to make sure my shoulders are still up for this.  Something I haven’t noticed in previous workouts.  After only 10 reps on each side, I’m breathing heavy.  Nothing hurts.  I don’t feel fatigue, but my heart rate is definitely elevated.  A “normal” workout for a kettlebell beginner is 12 minutes of swings one one day, 5 minutes of “get ups” on the next.  Take a day off, then repeat the first two days. (10 minutes of stretching exercises (pumps and halos) before each workout)

I think I’m going to cut that in half for the next week or so until I’m sure I’ve got my wind back, or maybe work in an extra stretching break  in the middle of each set.  I’m still going to use the 35 pounder for get-ups, but I feel strong enough to give the 53 pounder a shot soon.

“I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest,” Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. “They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities’ attention to their appeals.”

Unfortunately Chen survived the fall, so this means he is going to have to try again later.  Lai should be getting a medal from the police for quickly resolving a situation that could have impeded commerce for a long time.  We should take Lai’s example in the US and legalize pushing jumpers off their objects.  After all it is being a good samaritan when you help others attain their goals.

Sexy mascot can stay if curves covered.

Seriously, has any political movement gone from “Majority Party” to “Clown Shoes” so quickly?

Here are some of the choicest tidbits from President Obama’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

• “Dick Cheney was supposed to be here, but he is very busy working on his memoirs, tentatively titled, ‘How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People.’”

• On House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), whose apparent fake tan has long been the butt of jokes inside the Beltway,  “We have a lot in common: He is a person of color,” Obama joked. “Although not a color that appears in the natural world.”

But the line of the night had to be this gem from Wanda Sykes on Rush Limbaugh…

• “I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight,”

The Republican Party has become a complete shambles.  When your party’s guiding lights are talk radio hosts, and some of your oldest and most established members are jumping ship to the other party, perhaps it is time to think about how disconnected you have become from “Mainstream America”.  Seriously, these clowns are seriously entertaining the notion of running Sarah Palin for President in 3 more years.  It might be more dignified, and certainly less expensive to just say “We give up” and let Obama have his second term without a fight.

As a parting shot, I’ll leave you with this little nugget to think about.  The same “Conservatives” who decry Obama’s spending bills and invoke the “holy name” of Ayn Rand when espousing their preferred economic philosophies are the same bozos who voted for Bush’s bailout bill back in December and managed to turn a budget surplus into record deficits in only a few short years.   Hypocrite much?

What the f, seriously? Please tell me who is responsible for the current advertising you have deemed appropriate enough to peddle to children your kids’ meal. You know the one I’m talking about, in which the King is rapping with all the gusto of a strung out white boy, in front of some hoochies pop-locking with square asses. Aw hell, here, it’s this one.

Some douche in your marketing department was sitting around, smoking up and watching Spongebob when he thought, “How can I combine the two things children love the most; sex and cartoons?” Well, mission accomplished. Never mind the fact that if children continually eat your greasy, cholesterol inventions, they will end up with butts more in line with Sir Mix-A-Lot’s original song, namely “round and big.”

Incidentally, I just love the fact that you had to make each one of your dancers a different race, so that she can appeal to a broader genre of future pole dancers. Hell, I’m almost sure in the still shot above that I can trace the outline of a vagina. Why give them shorts at all? Just have some naked bitches straddling the Burger King riding on his giant french fry and shouting “Buy our Kid’s Meal! Get a free Dora the Explorer butt plug!”

Damn, now I’ve given you your next commercial.

Sincerely,
Millamber

As always, when such big news spread all over the world, the rumor mills in the Arab world start to work around the clock. The most popular rumor in this regard is that the Muslims themselves created this swine flu virus with the aim reducing the world’s Christian population….

“I believe that it’s indecent. I guess it would categorized as soft porn. If there is a definition of that I would call it soft porn,” said Father Edward Commolly.

The statue is more dressed than people at the beach.  Apparently Father Commolly has not been outside of his church too often or he simply thinks that there is a lot of soft porn out there.  This is where you end up creating idiots like District Attorney George Skumanick.  The misguided belief that not being covered up 100% is pornographic is another slippery slope that threatens to turn our culture into that of the Taliban.  Father Commolly and Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali have too much in common and too much against what makes America great.  Watch the video and see if you think the statue needs a burka.

According to Ars Technica, DA George Skumanick decided to protect young people by threatening to charge them with child pornography unless they submitted to reeducation programs and go on probation. So basically he’s attempting to shake down people and make money for his district by collecting probation fees and by charging $100 to attend a reeducation program. He’s also attempting to copy the Vietnamese by ripping off our reeducation camps. Sorry but nobody does reeducation like Charlie.

What is silly about the whole thing is these girls took pictures of themselves in their underwear. No full frontal nudity at all.

But the parents of Marissa Miller and Grace Kelly were less than scandalized when they saw the snapshot for which their daughters had posed: both were shown wearing opaque white bras no more revealing than a bikini top—one on the phone, the other flashing a peace sign. Skumanick averred that it was nevertheless child pornography because the girls were posed “provocatively.” The pseudonymous Nancy Roe was a bit more exposed in her photo, which showed her fresh from the shower with a towel wrapped around her torso, below her breasts. But her mother doubted whether a bit of nudity was all it took to make a picture “pornographic.”

From the ACLU complaint filed in court excerpt from the INTRODUCTION

One photo shows Marissa and Grace, from the waist up, lying side by side in their bras, with one talking on a telephone and the other making a peace sign. The other photo shows Nancy Doe standing upright, just emerged from the shower, with a white towel wrapped tightly around her body just below the breasts. The two photographs, which depict no sexual activity or display of pubic area, are not illegal under Pennsylvania’s crimes code and, indeed, are images protected by the First Amendment.

Skumanick nevertheless persists in threatening to prosecute the girls because he has deemed the photos “provocative.” Since there is no basis to prosecute the girls for posing in photographs that plainly are not child pornography, in terms of content or production, Skumanick’s threat to prosecute the girls must be considered retaliation against the plaintiffs for asserting their constitutional rights – the parents’ right to direct their children’s upbringing and the girls’ rights both to free expression and against compelled speech – in refusing Skumanick’s demands. Accordingly, plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to enjoin Skumanick from bringing the retaliatory criminal charges against plaintiffs based on their refusal to accede to his demand that they submit to probation and participate in the re-education program.

It gets even more interesting on page 8 where the ACLU alleges that Skumanick did not pursue those who distributed the photographs, but only those who were in the pictures or who possessed them. That’s like saying it’s ok to traffic cocaine, but you can’t produce it or consume it. Way to go idiot Skumanick. To show what an asshat this guy really is check out page 10.

29. One parent stood up during the meeting and asked how Skumanick could be prosecuting his daughter because, according to him, she was in the photograph wearing a bathing suit. Skumanick told the assembled crowd that she was posed “provocatively,” which made her subject to a childpornography charge.

30. In response to Skumanick’s comment, Marissa’s father stood up and asked who was deciding what was provocative. Skumanick replied that he was not going to argue and that he could charge all of the minors there that night but was instead offering them a plea deal. Skumanick also told Mr. Miller

This jerk is a real winner. He doesn’t have to provide any reason or justification beyond “because I said so”. He apparently has the mentality of a 5-year old. He also rubbed it in their faces that minors are not eligible for jury trial. I would assume that the juvenile judge is a good golf buddy of his would be the sole juror, judge, and executioner in such a situation.

Does the ACLU have a good case against this guy?

48. The three plaintiff minors have committed no crime by simply having allowed themselves to be photographed, either in their underwear or topless.

49. The provisions of 18 P.S. § 6312 prohibit depicting, possessing or disseminating images of “sexual intercourse…., masturbation, sadism, masochism, bestiality, fellatio, cunnilingus, lewd exhibition of the genitals or nudity if such nudity is depicted for the purpose of sexual stimulation orgratification of any person who might view such depiction.”

50. The images of plaintiffs do not fall within the definition of the materials prohibited by § 6312.

It seems to be pretty straight forward to me. I wonder how he could have messed that up. Oh, wait. We had come to the conclusion based on evidence at hand that he has the mentality of a 5-year old. Silly us!

The other nice thing the ACLU went on to say is that :

55. Moreover, Skumanick’s decision to prosecute the subjects of the photographs, the three plaintiff minors, is unprecedented and stands anti-child-pornography laws on their head. Anti-child-pornography laws are intended to protect the children shown in the photos and videos, and plaintiffs’ counsel has found no published Pennsylvania or federal court decision sustaining such a prosecution against minors shown in such pictures.

In case you missed it earlier, Skumanick has done nothing to find out who took the pictures and who distributed them. Yes, that’s right. Based on everything in the media and the court papers I can find nothing that shows he expended any effort at all. At least the ACLU has some logic here. How can you be a perp and a victim at the same time? I guess if you appear to have the mentality of a 5-year old you don’t have logic as evidenced by Judge Munley’s smack down on Attorney Hailstone who is representing Skumanick

“It seems like the children seemed to be the victims and the perpetrators here,” the judge, James M. Munley, told a lawyer for the district attorney, George P. Skumanick of Wyoming County. “How does that make sense?”

The lawyer, A. James Hailstone, said state law “doesn’t distinguish between who took the picture and who was in it.”

Hats off to Judge Munley for detecting use of the Chewbacca Defense.  I guess this explains even more. Apparently Skumanick is a mindless automaton who only knows how to follow literal directions. So in fact our assumption that he has the mental capabilities of a 5-year old was vastly out of bounds.

Skumanick must also have some problem against free speech, swimming pools, cameras, and swimwear.

57. Skumanick’s threatened prosecution chills Plaintiffs’ First Amendment right of expression, causing them concern about whether they may photograph their daughters, or whether the girls may allow themselves to be photographed, wearing a two-piece bathing suit.

58. The plaintiff minors will in the near future want to be photographed in their bathing suits, for instance during the summer when they go to a swimming pool or the beach, to which the respective parents have no objection. They are, however, chilled in their ability to take such photographs because of concern whether Skumanick will find them “provocative.”

Mr. Skumanick is now our personal nanny. YAY! I’m sure he’s going to go far under John Ashcroft with the Bush Administration’s PATRIOT ACT to help him. Oh wait!

60. Skumanick’s demand that the girls participate in the re-education program, which requires them to write a homework paper explaining “how [their] actions were wrong,” violates the plaintiff minors’ right to be free from compelled speech.

65. Skumanick’s threat to file felony charges against the plaintiff minors, charges for which there is absolutely no evidence or cause, unless the girls participate in a program that requires them to write a paper explaining “how [their] actions were wrong,” constitutes retaliation against the girls for exercising their right to be free from compelled speech, a right protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Can’t argue with any of the First Amendment points the ACLU is making here. But it gets even better

THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION (RETALIATION AGAINST PLAINTIFF PARENTS FOR EXERCISING THEIR FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS RIGHT AS PARENTS TO DIRECT THEIR CHILDREN’S UPBRINGING)

66. Skumanick’s illegitimate use of government authority to coerce the plaintiff parents to send their daughters to a re-education course that, among other things, would direct the girls to “[g]ain an understanding of how [their] actions were wrong,” “gain an understanding of what it means to be a girl in today’s society,” and “[i]dentify non-traditional societal and job roles,”
infringes on the plaintiff parents’ Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right to direct and control their children’s upbringing.

Skumanick must have some strange male inferiority issues, which makes him a prime candidate for a job with the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan. From reading the entire ACLU complaint this guy seems to have a problem with freedom and liberty and he abuses his authority in a way that allows him to become moral dictator.

From the not so bright department comes this statement from Skumanick

On the other hand, Skumanick stated he will fight the lawsuit. He said, “Frankly, we just wanted to protect these kids, and say, ‘Doing this is not right.’ We wanted to offer this course to educate them, and make them understand the long-term ramifications of having photos like this out there.”

And another

Skumanick, however, remains unfazed. The New York Times quotes the campaigning crusader as saying: “I’m simply giving them an option. We’re not forcing anybody to do anything. Frankly, it’s sad to me that their parents don’t realize this is wrong and they should be encouraging them to take the classes.”

Much like the idiot PIG in Dallas Texas who killed Ryan Moats mother this moron believes that putting teenage girls in jail for 20 years on child pornography unless they agree to be coerced into a reeducation camp is the right thing to do. If his intentions were genuine he would have made attendance at the reeducation camp an option rather than forcing it at the point of a gun.

According to the records from Wyoming County this idiot makes $157,127.88 a year. The detective makes $39,862 and the Assistant DA makes $71,294.28. The parts that don’t look right are the fact that the line item titled Secretaries is $30,667 and Paralegal is $22770.00. Since I could only turn up one Assistant DA on the website, one would assume that you only need one secretary and one paralegal. So why is the secretary making more money than the paralegal? The second largest item is Ins. Fraud Tsk. Force (REIMB) at $92,000. What expenses does the Insurance Fraud Task Force have that need reimbursing that costs more than the Assistant DA’s salary? His entire budget is $467,253.22. He doesn’t have a lot to spend on prosecuting violent criminals so he’s aiming for low hanging fruit by targeting teenagers. This brings into question what is really going on in the Wyoming County DA’s Office and since he was going to pawn off 3 girls to the prison system for a minimum of 20 years each at an estimated $50,000 per year that comes to $3,000,000 that he would inflict on the taxpayers because he wants to make a point. All things considered I would think he has failed in his fiduciary duty to the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.

The good news is that he has opposition in the 2009 election. So head on over to Deborah Albert-Heise’s website and make a campaign contribution. I have chipped in to make sure this ass hat doesn’t have a job and to make sure that Paralegals get fair pay in the future.

“I can screw you over,” he said at one point in the videotaped incident. When another officer came with word that Moats’ mother-in-law was indeed dying, Powell’s response was: “All right. I’m almost done.”

Even after another COP (notice that good policemen are COPS and bad ones are PIGS) pointed out that there was a problem, the retarded PIG continued to write a ticket while this woman was dying.

In a statement to the press DPD Chief Knuckle demonstrated his ability in understatement

“When we at the command staff reviewed the tape, we were embarrassed, disappointed,” Kunkle said. “It’s hard to find the right word and still be professional in my role as the police chief. But the behavior was not appropriate.”

“His behavior, in my opinion, did not exhibit the common sense, the discretion, the compassion that we expect our officers to exhibit,” Kunkle said.

Not appropriate? Lack of common sense? When you have a dying woman in the car you tell the driver,

“Shut your mouth,” the officer said. “You can either settle down and cooperate or I can just take you to jail for running a red light.”

When the exchange was at its most contentious, Powell said he could tow Moats’ SUV if he didn’t have insurance and that he could arrest him for fleeing because he didn’t immediately stop when Powell turned on his sirens. The pursuit lasted a little more than a minute.

That’s just bull that a case like this would be considered fleeing.  This guy obviously forgot his training where people are allowed to not stop until they get to a safe location.  Maybe he also likes to help rapists out as well as kill innocent mothers.

The scary thing to keep in mind is this excerpt from the article.

Police officials said Powell told his commanders he believed he was doing his job,

That’s right ladies and gentlemen. This PIG thought that murdering a woman was part of his job. This PIG believed that revenue was more important than a person’s life. Do you really want these people protecting you? For the record I am using the word murder since he continued to deny the dying woman medical care after a real police officer, who is sworn to tell the truth, informed him that the woman was dying. If it didn’t cross the line from negligence into premeditated murder before that point it certainly did after.

This isn’t the first time a Texas PIG has caused the death of a loved family member through detaining a driver seeking medical care.

After some other fuck ups where cops break into people’s home and shoot family members in the back and then realize they got the wrong address, I believe it’s time to correct this problem with some serious legislation. I’m calling for the death penalty for any police officer who willingly allows his gun and badge to extend his inadequate manhood where it results in the death of a person or harm to any member of their family. This may be a burden on good COPS, but we need some serious weeding out of the undesirables. The collateral damage from creating a shortage of police officers and the risk to good COPS is far more than acceptable. It is needed to only have people who put their lives on the line for others wearing that badge. If you don’t want to do that, then you really don’t understand what it is to be a police officer or a firefighter.

Now the brilliant people on FoxNews are saying that, hey “we” own 80% of them and don’t we get a say?  Well, did the Federal Government call a board meeting to say “We’re the new owners and the new policy is no bonuses or stock options until we say so”?  No, they didn’t.  Though to be slightly fair I bet they didn’t think they needed to call an emergency board meeting to get that point across.

The other dilemma that the people at FoxNews are facing is that the Board has a fiduciary duty to perform.  I doubt it would be legal for any Board of Directors of a public company to simply say, we’re not paying our contractual obligations in terms of bonuses or to foreign creditors (German and French banks) that we owe money to because it’s the American people who own this joint now.  The new stock holders (the government) should have proactively gone to all of the banks that AIG owes money to in order to get a better rate or defer payment until things stabilize.  It’s too late for that now, but Geitner should have a great To Do list.

The other rant I have is about all the Las Vegas parties that the financial industry haven’t canceled.  I’m not up to date on Nevada law, but in Georgia you are not entitled to a refund if you pay in advance.  If you pay your gym membership up front, you get a form that tells you under state law you have no recourse if the other party fails to perform because you are paying in advance and that the seller will not issue refunds for any reason even if the business closes.  You are entering into a 1-year or 2-year contract with payment in full in advance after all.  If I’m running a resort and I have some big wall street types, or small business types or a wedding party, wanting to rent the place out, you can sure bet I’m going to stick them with the non-refundable contract under state law.  They can either cancel their party and I keep their money, or they can throw the party and I can keep their money.  So, don’t be mad at Wall Street for continuing to party.  They’re just doing business with ordinary people who have a facility to rent.

StumbleUpon has carried many web surfers deep in the night, into the wee hours of many mornings by offering a never ending stream of interesting randomness that is always just a click away.

It’s an adventure. Your clicks bring you to visuals and sounds you never would have expected to find on the internet. Before stumbling existed, web surfing consisted of search engines and links given to you on web forums or by friends on IM. Surfing used to be a mundane process where you knew what you were looking for and only needed to find a way to get to it.

Stumbling has brought us unseen destinations, exciting vistas of information and opinion and stupidity, the exotic dangers of a random NSFW page, and the mindless time wasting flash games we would never have found otherwise. StumbleUpon has given people a reason for being on the internet when they have nothing else to do but explore.

Parents have always told their children that it is best to take things in moderation, this also applies to the click of StumbleUpon. Most stumble addicts out there know who they are, and that’s a good first step. No more stumbling through papers and meals, no more stumbling until the crack of dawn scares you into your bed. We can enjoy StumbleUpon, but we must not abuse it. The world misses you, and we only want to see you again and we hope you are doing well.

It is the evolution of the web. We’ve moved past railways and roadways and are now flying through the internet, teleporting from destination to destination. There is a new world to explore, and its all at your fingertips, just one more click away…

The bill declares that “any organism with the genome of homo sapiens” is a person protected by rights granted by the North Dakota Constitution and state laws.

The bill passed 51-41 and is sponsored  Republican Dan Ruby.  Like many Republicans he attempts to get votes from “the core” of the party, unfortunately he has opened up a can of worms that doesn’t help out the Republican party.

“Human embryo” means all human beings from the beginning of the
embryonic period of their biological development through eight weeks,
irrespective of age, health, function, physical dependency, or method of
reproduction, whether in vivo or in vitro.

So harming a “human embryo” is the same as harming a person according to this clown.  This effectively means that birth control is off the menu in North Dakota since you are bringing harm to the embryo by net letting it implant in the uterus.  It would also ban fertility treatments since some of the fertalized eggs are discarded or simply fail to implant.  The creation of a “human embryo” with the knowledge that you may not have a successful implantation may be harming that embryo.

The state shall naturalize all preborn persons and shall afford to them all the
privileges and immunities of state citizenship guaranteed in section 21 of article I of
the Constitution of North Dakota, except that the state is not required to include
preborn children in state and local censuses

Rep. Ruby should be glad North Dakota does not border Mexico.  Mention of the word “citizenship” for the preborn would bring thousands of illegals across the border who don’t get the meaning of what is being accomplished here.

The people over at Office of Strategic Influence had an interesting thought.  Since an embryo is a person, does that mean that uploading your ultrasound to Facebook to share with all your friends is Child Pornography?  You are taking a picture of a nude “person” under the age of 18 and distributing it on the Internet.  Unintended consequences and as idiotic as some prosecutors are expect someone to make a name for themselves by charging people for distribution of child pornography.

The right to life is the paramount right of a person. The right to life is a more
fundamental right of a preborn child than the mother’s right to liberty or pursuit
of happiness, which does not include the right to kill other people. In no way
does a child’s right to life interfere with a mother’s right to life.

Whoa! Here come the Christian Taliban!  The right to life of a preborn child is greater than the mother’s right to liberty or pursuit of happiness.  There is no logic in this piece of legislation.  The pursuit of liberty and happiness is paramount.  Being stuck with a parasite for 9 months then a leech for 18 years interferes with both.  Logically speaking, you can always make another which means the woman has higher priority than any preborn.  She can always make another and we would assume that she is currently contributing to society, whereas a preborn has at least 15 years before they begin doing anything useful due to silly laws.  At least we Asians start contributing at an earlier age in our home countries.

This is clearly in line with something the Taliban would say, therefore we must oppose any legislation that puts our government on a sympathetic track with the terrorists we are fighting against.  Women fought a long time for rights in this country and anything that reduces the importance of women, or those of us that are already here for that matter, is sympathizing with Islamic terrorist philosophy which treats women as less than goats.  The idea that a state representative would commit to writing the idea that freedom and the pursuit of happiness is secondary is frightening and a sign that our elected officials do not have the interests of the American people in mind.  People being those of us that contribute to society and pay the politicians salary.

Ready to see a real Burlesque show we wait patiently as the DJ tries to sort out who’s on stage. After fifteen minutes or so a woman in a bikini and clear three inch heels. Okay, no Burlesque show, just a strip club, we can deal with this. Or, so we thought. Four or so dancers in Pixie is leaning over punching my arm, to make sure I’m awake. Yes, it’s true my droogs your Sultan of Sexy had knocked off somewhere between a titty shake and a thong roll.

Has it come to this? Watching all but naked women gyrating on stage, badly, was just not cutting it. There was no arousal. Maybe some mild amusement as we watched “Bros” try to get a stripper to snatch the fiver from their mouth with something other than a hand. It was all stripper dance number 7, nothing new nothing interesting. Could they at least have the decency to pull a string of beads from some unseen crevasse? That may just be me, but please don’t do the same lame walk and shake as the last girl. I realize asking for creativity may be asking a lot but at least some variation.

So my lovely loyals I bring the question to you. Can you become so desensitized to the vanilla that it’s painfully boring? Better yet, if you have a story out there let’s hear it. Post it in the comments section along with a way to contact you and you may win 2 free rentals at the nearest Blockbuster.

Action Alert – Winter Wickedness

Support the Holiday Inn – Worthington, OH!

February 4, 2009

Please make a phone call now to support the Holiday Inn Worthington, the host hotel for Adventures In
Sexuality’s (AIS) Winter Wickedness Event taking place February 6-8th. The religious extremist group, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, along with a local religious radio station in the Columbus, Ohio, area are running a smear campaign against this pansexual BDSM event.

Peter LaBarbara of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality calls the event “a freakish sadomasochistic perversion-fest” and urges people to call the hotel’s corporate headquarters to pressure them into canceling “for the sake of decency and public health.”

Bob Burney, a religious extremist Talk Radio DJ, devoted an entire segment of his show slamming Winter Wickedness and attempting to link the event with non-consensual and criminal activities. He urged his listeners to call and mount a campaign against the hotel. (Tuesday, Part 3 starting at 10 min 42sec: ) Click here to listen.
It will only take a minute for you to help! It doesn’t matter where you live or if you’re not going to
attend this event. Please call the Intercontinental Hotels Group Corporate Customer service line at 800-
621-0555, then press option 1, then option 5, and thank them for not discriminating against groups, and
for being willing to face minor adversity for the sake of our freedom.

You can also call the Holiday Inn Columbus-Worthington today at 614-436-0700 – they’ll be very glad to
hear a friendly voice to counter the hatred of the religious extremists.

Suggested points to make:

1. Thank you for upholding the Fair Accommodations Act and choosing not to discriminate against legal
events.

2. Please don’t let a small number of religious extremists manipulate you by drumming up fear with their misinformation campaigns.

3. There are over 200 weekend-long BDSM events that take place every year in America – we bring in a lot of revenue in these hard times. We like to stay at hotel chains where we have been welcomed when we’re traveling on personal or business travel.

4. Organizers of BDSM events such as Winter Wickedness at The Holiday Inn comply with state and local
laws prohibiting public sexual intercourse and other forms of sexual intimacy. Demonstrations, lectures
and discussion groups as well as dinners and evening parties compose the variety of offerings to guests,
nothing different from any of the other hundreds of conventions hosted by your franchisees on a weekly basis.

5. Thank you for standing strong against hate and ignorance.

Please pass this on to your friends to call now!

The Associated Press is on the wrong of a fair use argument again. It is actually going after artist Shepard Fairey for his iconic Obama poster, which it recently discovered was based on an AP news photograph by Mannie Garcia. The poster is clearly based on that photograph (see comparison at left), but this is exactly the kind of use of copyrighted works that is meant to be protected.

The poster is art. The image it is based on has been sufficiently transformed that even the AP did not know it owned the copyright to the underlying work until a few weeks ago. And Fairey says he hasn’t made any money from the poster, although others have. You can buy the image on posters, stickers, coffee mugs and T-Shirts, and copies of the poster signed by Fairey sell for thousands of dollars. Still, the AP is wants money from Fairey.

I’d link to the AP story describing the dispute, except that we’ve banned the AP for exactly this kind of behavior in the past. The AP has a history of making copyright infringement claims that push the boundaries of the law. Last year, it went after Websites that copied its headlines, even if they had links back to AP stories. (The AP syndicates its headlines to news organizations, that’s how it makes money, but using headlines as links is also common practice on the Web).

Fair use is under attack, and the AP is leading the charge. Artists like Fairey take copyrighted images and reinterpret them all the time. Many argue that is what art is. Fairey’s Obama poster certainly made a bigger impact on our culture than the original image, which he reportedly found by doing a Google image search. He is being represented by the Stanford Fair Use Project.

I hope he tells them to go to hell, because if this isn’t fair use, I don’t know what is.

Update: This gets worse. It is not even clear that the AP owns the copyright to this photo. The photographer, Mannie Garcie, says he was a temporary staffer when he took it and never signed the AP contract. In a Q&A with Photo News Forum, he throws doubts on the AP’s claims of ownership:

2) Where you either an employee, or a freelance photographer, as defined by their contract, for the AP when you took this image?

I was a temporary hire, filling in for a staffer at the AP. It is my understanding that I was neither a freelancer nor a staffer, but rather a temporary hire. I have never been an AP staff employee, and no, I have never signed an AP contract.

3) So, you own the copyright to the image?

The ownership of the copyright is in dispute, as per the AP. It is my understanding that since I was not a staffer, and was not a freelancer, and did not sign any contract, that I am the owner of the copyright, but I am in discussions with the AP over this issue.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

By now, you may be wondering why we’ve taken such a liking to this album. That can be summed up in a word: Oasis. Not that the wankers from across the pond are directly involved, but they do play a key role in this. As you’re cruising through take a tour of track 10, then go back and listen again. Here I’ll help you out:

So are we taking a stab at rape? Making fun of abortion? Well, yes. Now ask why. Here’s a snippet from Amanda’s blog:

WHEN YOU CANNOT JOKE ABOUT THE DARKNESS OF LIFE, THAT’S WHEN THE DARKNESS TAKES OVER.

Also see:

you’re damn right this shit makes people uncomfortable.
it makes people uncomfortable to hear ANYONE talking about abortion and rape bluntly, much less talking about it LIKE THIS….

and i think it makes people uncomfortable to hear the truth about a very real and sick situation:
if you don’t know - or have never encountered - a teenager who is going through intense heavy experiences (like rape, abortion, eating disorders, abuse, fill-in-the-blank)
and is laughing these things off like THEY DON’T MATTER, then you are not ALIVE and AWAKE and living on this planet.
IT’S HAPPENING EVERYWHERE. i see it all the time. it’s called being a confused teenager. it’s real. it SUCKS.

abortion is serious. rape is serious. lots of things are serious. do they think i’m blind?

the song isn’t even so much ABOUT those topics, it’s about denial, it’s about a girl who can’t find it in herself to take her situation seriously.
that girl exists, everywhere. you probably know her. you’ve probably met her. you might be her.

Straight from the artist and that’s the real tragedy. During a tour of Jolly Ole’ apparently there was a spot of bother with this song. No stations were willing to play the song. The label rep goes so far as to suggest changing tempo, and mood to make Oasis more acceptable. One would think that, of all places England would understand irony and possibly subtext considering the intricacies of ‘proper English’. Then again what can I say? I am but a humbled yank.

If anything comes across, at least for me, it’s this: Pay Attention. Just because something is no longer making headlines doesn’t mean it does not happen anymore. The BBC did breakdown and gave airtime to Oasis on channel 6 but if you check out Amanda’s blog you can see the list of stations that have refused this work, including of course MTV. (Insert quick shot at them not playing any videos.)

If we don’t question then no one is held accountable. If we don’t listen then the answer is meaningless. As always, we don’t have all the answers. Just never forget to think. Don’t be afraid to be heard and if people don’t want to hear what you have to say it might mean it needs to be said.

Amanda Palmer’s Blog

Who Killed Amanda Palmer

We’re all worried, we’re all in pain. That just comes with having eyes and having ears.

- Mark Hunter, Pump Up the Volume

and just ‘cause they call themselves experts
it doesn’t mean sweet fuck all…

- Amanda Palmer, Who Killed Amanda Palmer “The point of it all”

By now, you may be wondering why we’ve taken such a liking to this album. That can be summed up in a word: Oasis. Not that the wankers from across the pond are directly involved, but they do play a key role in this. As you’re cruising through take a tour of track 10, then go back and listen again. Here I’ll help you out:

So are we taking a stab at rape? Making fun of abortion? Well, yes. Now ask why. Here’s a snippet from Amanda’s blog:

WHEN YOU CANNOT JOKE ABOUT THE DARKNESS OF LIFE, THAT’S WHEN THE DARKNESS TAKES OVER.

Also see:

you’re damn right this shit makes people uncomfortable.
it makes people uncomfortable to hear ANYONE talking about abortion and rape bluntly, much less talking about it LIKE THIS….

and i think it makes people uncomfortable to hear the truth about a very real and sick situation:
if you don’t know – or have never encountered – a teenager who is going through intense heavy experiences (like rape, abortion, eating disorders, abuse, fill-in-the-blank)
and is laughing these things off like THEY DON’T MATTER, then you are not ALIVE and AWAKE and living on this planet.
IT’S HAPPENING EVERYWHERE. i see it all the time. it’s called being a confused teenager. it’s real. it SUCKS.

abortion is serious. rape is serious. lots of things are serious. do they think i’m blind?

the song isn’t even so much ABOUT those topics, it’s about denial, it’s about a girl who can’t find it in herself to take her situation seriously.
that girl exists, everywhere. you probably know her. you’ve probably met her. you might be her.

Straight from the artist and that’s the real tragedy. During a tour of Jolly Ole’ apparently there was a spot of bother with this song. No stations were willing to play the song. The label rep goes so far as to suggest changing tempo, and mood to make Oasis more acceptable. One would think that, of all places England would understand irony and possibly subtext considering the intricacies of ‘proper English’. Then again what can I say? I am but a humbled yank.

If anything comes across, at least for me, it’s this: Pay Attention. Just because something is no longer making headlines doesn’t mean it does not happen anymore. The BBC did breakdown and gave airtime to Oasis on channel 6 but if you check out Amanda’s blog you can see the list of stations that have refused this work, including of course MTV. (Insert quick shot at them not playing any videos.)

If we don’t question then no one is held accountable. If we don’t listen then the answer is meaningless. As always, we don’t have all the answers. Just never forget to think. Don’t be afraid to be heard and if people don’t want to hear what you have to say it might mean it needs to be said.

Amanda Palmer’s Blog

Who Killed Amanda Palmer

We’re all worried, we’re all in pain. That just comes with having eyes and having ears.

- Mark Hunter, Pump Up the Volume

and just ‘cause they call themselves experts
it doesn’t mean sweet fuck all…

- Amanda Palmer, Who Killed Amanda Palmer “The point of it all”

The motto “In God we trust” was added to the dollar bill in 1957. Since then its purchasing power, relative to the consumer price index, has declined by a staggering 87 percent.

That’ll make you laugh for a few seconds before you curl back up into the fetal position and get depressed again.

(Thanks to Lexi for the quotation!)

So there you have it. The true way to fill the inner crisper. As one may have suspected it’s not to soon for the parodies and responses to start popping up:

Till next time my loyals.

Saddlebacking: sad•dle•back•ing \ˈsa-dəl-ˈba-kiŋ\ vb [fr. Saddleback Church] (2009): the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex in order to preserve their virginities

After attending the Purity Ball, Heather and Bill saddlebacked all night because she’s saving herself for marriage. Unfortunately her parents found out because they got santorum all over the sheets.

Find out more about Saddlebacking at saddlebacking.com

But, more recently, I have turned to hating Billy’s douchebaggy replacement, Vince. Vince sells products like the ShamWoW! which after further inspection is not a Warcraft Shaman Powerlevelling service. Vince has a different approach then Billy, prefering more to stare wildly into the camera and not blink you into buying whatever he’s peddling.

Turns out that the not blinking thing has a source. And after reading this article from Skepchick.com I have reluctantly had to shoulder the hate I have for these guys in order to fuel the other hate I have for the Church of Scientology.

Turns out Vince is a castaway from the CoS and is using the money he makes from selling his products into paying to fight the cult.

From the article,

He filed suit against them in 2004 for ruining his movie, his life, his business, and being dickholes. I couldn’t find any information on the outcome of this lawsuit, but according to ESPN, Vince is still fighting the good fight. And he is using every dime he makes from selling ShamWows and SlapChop as well as all the proceeds from Underground Comedy to fight them.

Taking on Scientology is one of the bravest things a former member can do. The Church doesn’t take kindly to dissent. Though they claim that fair game is no longer a Scientologist policy, there are plenty of stories to indicate that fair game is still alive and well, if technically “unofficial”.

Good luck Vince.

“Alcatraz is a tourist attraction. It’s a prison that is now sort of like a — it’s a national park.”

Pelosi has obviously missed the boat here.  If you say “tourist” with a Texas accent you get “terrorist”.  Just a little change in marketing and you can now sell it to the people.  But let’s look further into this.  It’s a national park.  It’s a prison, that is a tourist attraction, and is a national park.  What do you call a park that attracts tourists and is a prison?  It’s called a zoo.  Add some Al-Qaeda baboons and you’re all set.

Posted from a href=’http://sampath.wordpress.com/moblog’moBlog/a – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

In October 2008 a judge in the Bayou case, Adlai Hardin Jr., ruled that investors who cashed out their interests within two years of the scheme’s exposure had to hand back their principal as well as their profits—even though they were innocent victims of the swindle—if there was evidence that they got out because they suspected, or had been warned, there was something amiss. (The court also ordered profits made within the last six years to be surrendered.)

Mitchell Banas, a lawyer who represents an endowment for Christian Brothers High School in Memphis—which got its money out of the Bayou fraud before it collapsed but now must return both profits and principal—says the outcome is “extremely unfair.”

So, if I’m reading this right if you invest in the stock market and you lose, then you can expect everyone who cashed out to pay you off.  Following this logic any stock holders of Enron who got out before the collapse should be paying their entire investment (read savings) out to the losers who were holding stock on the day Enron collapsed.  This explains why our government is bailing out GM and Chrysler.  Some idiots seem to believe that the winners will bail out the losers.  This means that our free market system is going down the toilet.  Las Vegas will also be wiped off the map due to this sort of thinking.  I also believe it is a racist policy.  Think of all the Indian reservations that will go out of business if the house has to share it’s winnings with people that lose money.

Surely the envy of any desk-bound office worker, Tommy Lynch has travelled over 27,000 miles this year, for his job testing holiday resort waterslides.

Mr Lynch, 29, works for holiday giant First Choice, checking the height, speed, water quantity and landing of the flumes, as well as all safety aspects.

He said: ‘I do have the best job in the world. No-one believes me when I tell them what I do.

This guy flies all over the world and slides down waterslides for a living! I think the only guy that tops that is the guy who gets to body paint naked supermodels.

“I wanted to see what happened here and use that as a guidepost to see what the court finds appropriate,”

That’s right ladies and gentlemen.  This asshole is going to toy around with this girls life because he wants to set some kind of legal precedent.   He actually has the balls to say that he’s not doing his job, but he is instead doing legal research.

The other thing here is that a cellphone is now a criminal tool.

The defendant entered a plea of admit to one count of possession of criminal tools, a fifth-degree felony, for the employing a cell phone to transmit nude photos of herself to others in September.

That’s right a cellphone is a criminal tool.  This is a great win for the PATRIOT ACT fan club.  There are over 500 million felons in the US.  No, I’m not being too rough on the injustice system here.  This is just idiocy that this prosecutor would consider all cellphones a criminal tool and then make this poor girl plead guilty to possessing a god damn cellphone.  Watch out Steve Jobs!  Ken Oswalt is going to be coming after you next for making criminal tools.  The next innovation from Apple will be the iJail.

What a waste of taxpayer money and of a few kilobytes of space in the Bar Association’s database.  This guy needs his law license revoked and his records need to be deleted from the system.

We’re reposting Mr. Oswalt’s contact information again in case you feel that he didn’t understand what you said the first time when you informed him that he’s an ass hat.

Licking County Prosecutor’s Office
20 S. Second St, Newark, Ohio 43055
General Telephone number: (740) 670-5255
Fax 740-670-5241

Mumbai Terror Victims

This raises the stakes in the War on Terror.  Not only do we have to worry about being killed by the terrorists, but we now have to be worried about being sodomized as well.  The main problem here is that police officials still say that you’re better off not resisting than trying to fight back if you’re kidnapped or taken hostage.  That strategy really worked well on 9/11 didn’t it?  It will be interesting to see when law enforcement types get their heads out of their asses and realize that there is a greater than 50% chance of getting killed by any perp when certain crimes are committed.  I’m just waiting for some papers at Ready.Gov to be published detailing how we should be ready for a back door terrorist invasion.

I noticed that the Pope is silent on this issue specifically, but he does liken gayness to Global Warming.  So if there is a connection here, then why don’t we save the planet by bombing the gay terrorists out of existance?  It’s something both liberals and conservatives can agree on.

Submitted by Pascal V

Atlanta Protest Part 1

Atlanta Protest Part 2

You can find out more about at Join The Impact

My wife has to work through most of the holidays as there is a show that opens the week of Christmas. So, I innocently suggested to my family relations that, since I live in Atlanta, my father and sister in Knoxville, and my mother and brother in Charlotte, that everyone could come to our house for Christmas dinner.

You’d have thought I’d invaded Poland.

Brother didn’t want to spend the money on travel, then my mom had some other engagement and could we do it on the weekend, then ok brother and mom are going to carpool, but his ex-wife is supposed to have the kids that weekend, he’ll have to swing something.

Then I get a phone call from my sister and she thinks that it will be awkward to have Mom and Dad in the same room, nevermind that they have been divorced for 15 years, and mom is calling her wondering if he’s coming, but Dad has inventory at work that weekend, and O no I’ve gone cross-eyed.

I swear I’m the only stable person in my whole family.

Submitted by Deb A

YTMND version of this fail.

The 2 biggest holidays in the church market is Christmas and Easter. Christians are big into birth and death. The in between parts, meh, not so much. Megachurches love to take advantage of these events and hold huge concerts or passion plays during these times.

Seems every year around this time, I get drafted into programming a lightshow for a Christmas concert or 2 (or 4!) This week it is a giant behemoth of a show, with 80 moving lights and a Vista T2 console, which I have never used before, and programs unlike anything I am used to. Not that that is a bad thing, as I am really impressed with the Wacom pen tablet GUI and the visual approach to programming, I just wish I had a better grasp of the interworkings of the programming commands. Of course, that is another blog post.

The trepidation comes from just knowing how these people operate normally and what they expect of you. Most of the time the stuff they expect you to do, they expect you to do it for free because they are a church and it’s the “christian thing to do”. I generally nip all that talk in the bud real quick and let them know that God works for free and I’m not God. However good this show is for my wallet, it is murder on my body, mind, and sleep schedule. Since Monday, I have put in 80+ hours with notes and the performance still to come on Sunday.

These people have a full 80 piece orchestra and 3 full choirs: children, youth and adult that number over 300 voices. They want all of them on stage, at the same time, and didn’t think to rehearse or stage any of that until 2 days before the show. /fail

Anyway, here are some iPhone pics I snapped real quick:

Shared by Data Vortex

Be there or be dead to me.

speaking of things that will really ought to get our and see, the plaza theatre will be hosting a showing of the documentary nerdcore rising friday night.

i’ll be honest with you, i knew absolutely nothing about nerdcore, which is apparently nerd rapping about world of warcraft, online bulletin boards and other such things, until i was perusing the plaza’s web site last weekend.

now i am hooked.

i will totally be at this event. you should too.

wondering about nerdcore, here’s a sample, optimus rhyme’s obey the moderator.

f’ing brilliant. it’s even better ’cause it isn’t a joke.

(details after the jump)

nerdcore rising
december 5, 7:30 pm
plaza theatre
1049 ponce de leon ave.
atlanta ga 30306.
404.873.1939
www.plazaatlanta.com

Shared by Atari

How to make an Old-Fashioned the old fashioned way.

December 5th marks the 75th anniversary of Repeal Day, when Prohibition ended and Americans depressed by the Depression could once again drown their sorrows legally — instead of having to get tanked in Tijuana, hammered in Havana, or literally paralyzed with the Jake Leg after quaffing poisonous home-brewed hooch.

To toast that auspicious occasion, here at the Deadbeat Bar we’ll be tossing back our favorite pre-Prohibition drink:  an Old Fashioned.  “And just what,” you ask, “is Tiki about that?”  Well, for one thing, the Old Fashioned was Trader Vic’s favorite nightcap (in his later years, he averaged two a day in his office after work).  Vic made his with rum, but we prefer ours with good ole ‘merican whiskey.

Recipe:  Place a half-dollar-sized piece of orange peel scraped clean of all pulp, a teaspoon of cane sugar, and three dashes of bitters (either Angostura or Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel) in a rocks glass.  Add a little water, then muddle everything vigorously.  Fill the glass with ice, add two ounces of 90-proof bourbon (we like Knob Creek or Buffalo Trace), and stir until well chilled.  Repeat until your depression about our own impending Depression lifts.  (Four times usually does the trick for us.)

Former NFL quarterback Michael Vick won’t be allowed to plead guilty to dogfighting charges by videoconference, a judge ruled Thursday.

Vick’s lawyers had requested that he be allowed to enter the plea from federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., where he is serving a two-year term since admitting he bankrolled a dogfighting operation and helped execute dogs.

But citing high public interest in the case, Surry County Circuit Judge Samuel Campbell said it would be better for Vick to appear in person.

It’s amazing that Vick’s defense team understand good business sense and they’re environmentally friendly. You now have to believe that they’re the smart ones in this case. We have to give props to them for respecting our wallets and the environment. Better than the other idiot in the case.

The Dishonorable Judge Campbell decides it is in the tax payer’s interest to have Vick flown from Kansas to Virginia just to plead guilty. Here’s a judge that must have been a GM worker at one point since he believes that the US taxpayers should be footing the bill to move Vick from federal prison to a local jail just to show up and say the word “guilty”. This does nothing for expediency and it holds up the process going forward. Business does not get done effectively by waiting to see someone in person when the telephone or Go To Meeting will do. We should also consider the carbon footprint that Campbell has left in his wake due to the fact that there is “interest”. The other thing mentioned on the radio today is that no reporters or video cameras will be allowed in the court room. Let me get this straight. There is a high public interest in me footing the bill to have Vick flown to Virginia, but I’m not allowed to see what is going on in the name of public interest. Where is the logic in that? Where is the common sense in that? How is this good for my wallet? How is it good for the environment? I think we need to name the next “C” hurricane after Campbell since the carbon released into the atmosphere in the public interest will contribute to warmer oceans and the next years hurricane season.

Hopefully the people of Virginia will terminate the Dishonorable Judge Campbell at the next election. In the mean time I have provided the contact information for the court if you want to write and express your outrage.

Surry Circuit Court     
6th Judicial Circuit of Virginia

Clerk

Gail P. Clayton
email: gclayton@courts.state.va.u

Judges

• W. Allan Sharrett
• Samuel E. Campbell

Phone: 757/294-3161
Fax: 757/294-0471

Address

P. O. Box 203
203 Church Street
Routes 10 And 31
Surry, VA 23883-0203

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Most people shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

…than an 5th Grader elected official?

US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.

Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

Take the test.

(Photo credits to Rick Green at the Hartford Courant).

After 4 years and 2 months, Julie Amero is now free.

You’ll recall that Julie Amero was convicted of 4 felony counts, each count carrying a maximum of 10 years, for exposing school children to pornography.

The reality is that Julie, a 40–year old, pregnant substitute teacher, found herself in a storm of popups and didn’t have any idea as to what was going on, or how to fix the situation.

Julie leaving the courthouse last June with her husband after the original conviction was overturned.

There were numerous technical errors made during the trial, and I led a team of forensic investigators into analyzing a copy of the hard drive. We ultimately published a report which was used in Julie’s original conviction being overturned, for a new trial last June (I am seeing if I can get the report published).

This afternoon, at an empty Norwich Superior Court, Julie pled to the misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, in a deal negotiated by her pro-bono attorney, William Dow.

Her fine was a $100 charge, and her Connecticut teaching credentials are revoked (Julie told me she really doesn’t care, that she has no plans ever to teach in that state again).

I wish the whole thing had been dropped by the prosecution. But that was just not something they were willing to do. And Julie needed her life back.

According to Julie, the courtroom was empty. It was just Julie; her husband, Wes; her attorney, Dow; the prosecutor, David Smith; and the judge, a Judge Young.

Smith continued to say that the State felt that they had enough of a case, but that due to Julie’s declining health, that he and William Dow had agreed to a lesser charge.

Dow told Smith that he’s more than willing to try the case, if the State is still willing.

Smith went on to describe all the terrible things that he believed Julie did. The judge interrupted him, telling him that he was only opening a wound, picking at a scab.

Now that it’s over, I hope this story gets told. Broadly. We can’t have another Julie.

Many thanks to many people for all of their help. There are so many — literally, in the thousands. Walter Hooper, who worked tirelessly with me when this whole thing first broke. Herb Horner, the original defense witness who became Julie’s strongest voice. The pro-bono forensic investigators – Glenn Dardick, Ph.D., Joel A. Folkerts, Alex Shipp, Eric Sites, Joe Stewart and Robin Stuart. Ari Schwartz at the CDT, who helped us immensely getting legal help. The pro-bono attorneys, William Dow, Clint Roberts and… some others that have chosen to remain behind-the-scenes. The many champions, including Rick Green, Randy Abrams, Steve Bass, Ryan Russell, Roger Thompson, Robin and Paul Laudanski, Ray Burns, Phil Malone, Chris Boyd, Eric Howes, Nancy Willard, Merja Lehtinen, Lindsay Beyerstein, Karoli Kuns, Joe Scalia, Frank Krasicki, Charles Neville, Brian Krebs, Bob Johnston, Ben Edelman, AJ Fontaine and so, so many others. I’m blogging fast, so if I missed you — forgive me. It’s not intentional. Just send me a note.

While I wish Julie would have been fully exonerated, this at least brings the subject to a close. The reality is, her health has been in a precipitous decline. I really don’t think she was prepared mentally and physically for the pain of another trial.

She acquiesced to the lesser misdemeanor charge, and while it may have been a bitter pill to swallow, she can at least can move on now without this sick cloud hanging over her head. It was less than two years ago that Julie was facing felony charges with a maximum of 40 years in prison.

Hopefully, we can help other “Julies” who may find themselves in a similar terrible situation.

(The ever-awesome Rick Green is following this closely, subscribe to his blog for the latest news. And my history of posts on the subject can be found here. )

Alex Eckelberry

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Written by Mitt Romney.

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”

You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.

Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don’t want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don’t fire the best dealers, and don’t crush them with new financial or performance demands they can’t meet.

It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

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maybe he has a cold

(From the diaries — kos)

It’s amazing – the entire world body of leaders REFUSES to shake George Bush’s hand.

The video, courtesy of Greatscat and Youtube:

11-19-08: CNN: George Bush snubbed at the G20 Summit. Everyone greeting each other and shaking hands, but Bush walks with his head down like the dejected most unpopular kid in high school.

Among the people President-elect Barack Obama has appointed to his FCC agency review transition team are Net Neutrality advocates Kevin Werbach, assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, and Susan Crawford from the University of Michigan, who teaches communications and internet law. Werbach, as it turns out, is a World of Warcraft player, according to Wagner James Au at GigaOM.Werbach has written about MMOs on his blog (back in 2006), that games “provide an incentive for people to develop new software and ideas for collaborative production. Many of those ideas will…

Obama’s FCC transition team includes MMO gamer, virtual world resident originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marijuana has been used for over 5,000 years.
No one has ever overdosed on marijuana.
Aspirin has been used for 108 years.
Approximately 500 people die every year by taking aspirin

Written by nunya

This is a repost with a few edits…

When Bayer introduced aspirin in 1899, cannabis was America’s number one painkiller. Until marijuana prohibition began in 1937, the US Pharmacopoeia listed cannabis as the primary medicine for over 100 diseases. Cannabis was such an effective analgesic that the American Medical Association (AMA) argued against prohibition on behalf of medical progress. Since the herb is extremely potent and essentially non-toxic, the AMA considered it a potential wonder drug.

Instead, the invention of aspirin gave birth to the modern pharmaceutical industry and Americans switched away from cannabis in the name of “progress.” But was it really progress? There can be no doubt that aspirin has a long history as the drug of choice for the self-treatment of migraines, arthritis, and other chronic pain. It is cheap and effective. But is it as safe as cannabis?

History:

Marijuana has been used for over 5,000 years.
No one has ever overdosed on marijuana.
Aspirin has been used for 108 years.
Approximately 500 people die every year by taking aspirin
The Law:

Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug, meaning the US government believes it is extremely dangerous, highly addictive, and of no medical value.
Aspirin is available for pennies and can be purchased by children at any drug, grocery, or convenience store. Often they are just handed out free by people with no medical education.
Marijuana side effects and dangers:

The dangers of marijuana include possible respiratory problems caused by the deposition of burnt plant material on the lungs. This danger can be eliminated with alternate forms of consumption such as eating or vaporizing the medicine.
For two to four hours, marijuana causes short-term memory loss, a slight reduction in reaction time, and a reduction in cognitive ability. (It makes you stupid for a little while.)These conditions DO NOT persist after the herb wears off.

Hunger
Paranoia
Depression
Laughter
Introspection
Creative Impulse
Euphoria
Tiredness
Forgetfulness
Aspirin side effects and dangers:

When taken with alcohol, aspirin can cause stomach bleeding.
Reye Syndrome in children: fat begins to develop around the liver and other organs of the child, eventually putting severe pressure on the brain. Death is common within a few days.
People with hemophilia can die.
People with hyperthyroidism suffer elevated T4 levels.
Stomach problems include dyspepsia, heartburn, upset stomach, stomach ulcers with gross bleeding, and internal bleeding leading to anemia.
Dizziness, ringing in the ears, hearing loss, vertigo, vision disturbances, and headaches.
Heavy sweating
Irreversible liver damage
Inflamation and gradual destruction of the kidneys
Nausea and vomiting
Abdominal pain
Lethargy
Hyperthermia
Dyspepsia: a gnawing or burning stomach pain accompanied by bloating, heartburn, nausea, vomiting and burping.
Tachypnea: Abnormally fast breathing
Respiratory Alkalosis: a condition where the amount of carbon dioxide found in the blood drops to a level below normal range brought on by abnormally fast breathing.
Cerebral Edema: Water accumulates on the brain. Symptoms include headaches, decreased level of consciousness, loss of eyesight, hallucinations, psychotic behavior, memory loss and coma. If left untreated, it can lead to death.
Hallucinations, confusion, and seizure.
Prolonged bleeding after operations or post-trauma for up to 10 days after last aspirin.
Aspirin can interact with some other drugs, such as diabetes medication. Aspirin changes the way the body handles these drugs and can lead to a drug overdose and death.
If you think that cannabis is actually safer than aspirin, you are not alone. In October 2000, Dr. Leslie Iversen of the Oxford University Department of Pharmacology said the same thing.

In her book, ‘The Science of Marijuana,’ Dr. Iversen presents the scientific evidence that cannabis is, by-and-large, a safe drug. Dr. Iversen found cannabis had “an impressive record” when compared to tobacco, alcohol, or even aspirin.

“Tetrahydrocannabinol is a very safe drug,” she said. “Even such apparently innocuous medicines as aspirin and related steroidal anti-inflammatory compunds are not safe.”

So if safety is your concern, cannabis is clearly a much better choice than aspirin. If you eat it or vaporize it, it just might be the safest painkiller the world has ever known.

References: 1 2

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Fuck it. Shoot them.

A week ago we discussed the takedown of McColo (and the morality of that action). McColo was reportedly the source of anywhere from 50% to 75% of the world’s spam. On Saturday the malware network briefly returned to life in order to hand over command and control channels to a Russian network. “The rogue network provider regained connectivity for about 12 hours on Saturday by making use of a backup arrangement it had with Swedish internet service provider TeliaSonera. During that time, McColo was observed pushing as much as 15MB of data per second to servers located in Russia, according to… Trend Micro. The brief resurrection allowed miscreants who rely on McColo to update a portion of the massive botnets they use to push spam and malware. Researchers from FireEye saw PCs infected by the Rustock botnet being updated so they’d report to a new server located at abilena.podolsk-mo.ru for instructions. That means the sharp drop in spam levels reported immediately after McColo’s demise isn’t likely to last.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Prosecutors say motorcyclist Antonio Hall drove at a dangerous and excessive speed as he tried to evade the state troopers who were chasing him.

But prosecutors also say that didn’t give Bartow County recreation supervisor Jeff Brooks the right to steer his county truck into Hall’s path, causing the collision that killed Hall.

“He is not a law enforcement officer,” prosecutor Mickey Thacker told the court.  “There was no need for him to be involved in this pursuit.”

Mr. Brooks just did a great service to the taxpayers of the State of Georgia by helping the Georgia State Patrol stop a fleeing felon (fleeing itself is a felony).  So instead of giving Mr. Brooks a community service award, he’s instead up on murder charges.  Personally I think Mickey Thacker is an asshat who is an enemy of the tax payer.  He wants to give felons a break and put useful citizens in jail. Thank God there aren’t any terrorists in Bartow County.  He would probably want to let them have a free ride too.  We need less felons breathing our air and Mr. Brooks has done the world a service by reducing the carbon footprint of what is now a non-entity.  If you want justice, Mr. Thacker, your effort is better spent building a time machine to go back and prevent Mr. Hall’s death than attempting to do harm to useful members of society.

Congratulations you win our stupid lawyer of the week award.

Here is his contact information if you want to drop off your comments to him directly or to his boss.

BARTOW COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
135 W Cherokee Ave
Suite 368
Cartersville, Georgia 30120
Phone (770) 387-5080
Fax (770) 387-5085

Congratulations to Dustin Pedroia, the 2008 American League MVP.

I met Petey 3 years ago while on rehab in Pawtucket and I can assure you the guy you see in Boston is the same red ass ‘kick your teeth in no matter how big you are, or how hard you throw’ guy he was there.

he respects the game, his teammates and he plays the game hard, he plays the game right and there isn’t a pitcher on the planet that he thinks can get him out.

I’d relate a ton of stories but there isn’t one I can tell that doesn’t contain multiple four letter expletives about himself, or the guy that got him out (on the rare occasion that would happen).

He earned this and we’re proud as hell to call him a teammate and a friend.

       ]]> http://www.grimnews.net/2008/11/congrats-you-little/feed/ 0 http://www.grimnews.net/2008/11/i-keel-you/ http://www.grimnews.net/2008/11/i-keel-you/#comments Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:00:46 +0000 Cheezburger Network

I KEEL you!

but b4 dat, i will take ur soal.

picture: dunno source, via our loldog builder. lol caption:

» Recaption This

I KEEL you!

but b4 dat, i will take ur soal.

picture: dunno source, via our loldog builder. lol caption:

» Recaption This

   Tagged: angry, costume, dog, i, kill, loldog, viking, what breed, yellow, you   

]]>

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Or the next time Warren Buffett labels something like derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction,” he could instead tell us which companies to bet against. This will force these companies to change their behavior more than any government regulation ever can.

Submitted by Karl W

We have relaunched the Azeroth Advisor with newer, fresher content!

The launch of Wrath of the Lich King is our first opportunity to service level 70s with content relevant information, the original reason for the Azeroth Advisor way back when. This new content, classes, skills, instances, all of that, is now part of the AA and makes it more useful than ever for WoW players, regardless of your level!

Pass it on.

O’REILLY: So you can see the debate over gay marriage is now a full fledge national battle. As talking points said last night the election of Barack Obama has emboldened secular progressives who feel it is their time. Gay marriage just the beginning. Other cultural war issues will also be in display very shortly. These include limiting gun possession, legalizing narcotics, unrestricted abortion and the revocation of the Patriot Act.

I’m not too crazy over limiting gun possession because guns are a form of population control.  But legalizing narcotics is great since the War on Drugs is a total failure and overdosing on narcotics is an effective form of population control.  Attempting to mug people for your next fix ties population control nicely into the right to own a gun.

It is interesting that O’Reilly ties gay marriage to unrestricted abortion.  I had no idea gay men need abortions.  Unrestricted abortion is something that the whole world needs.  With 200 million more people than there are jobs it says we need to stop reproducing and get rid of some of the people we have.

Revocation of the Patriot Act.  Well, there’s a big steaming pile of shit that just needs to go away.  Idiots like O’ Reilly claim that the Patriot Act is for national security.  What he and his supporters do not realize is that any security measure must be commisurate with what it is protecting.  The Patriot Act is a waste of time and money as well as a tool to infrienge on the liberty of US citizens.  It is not possible to reduce a risk to zero, nor does it make sense to spend a large amount of money on protecting something with a lower value than the cost of those protections.

Yes, I’ve heard the argument that we could have an entire city get nuked off the face of the earth by terrorists with a suitcase bomb. That really isn’t going to make a difference.  After 9/11 many businesses adopted guidelines to open offices and datacenters in separate geographic regions.  Many companies in New York City could have their offices destroyed tomorrow and still continue operating.  Those that chose not to implement the post 9/11 guidelines will be out of business which leaves other companies an opportunity to step in and take over their customers.  The odds of being killed in a large scale terrorist attack are very remote compared to lightning or gun shot.  Based on the numbers I can’t really justify the expense and inconvenience of keeping the Patriot Act around either.

If gay marriage is going to bring about all of the above things then we really need to fight for the rights of our gay citizens.  Even if you don’t believe in gay marriage, support the cause just to make Bill O’ Reilly cry.

I just finished giving what could only be described as the worst presentation in the history of presentations. It was horrid, absolutely horrid. I am incapable of ‘writing’ a presentation, it’s not who I am.

The 5-10 minutes of opening and the 10 minutes of Q&A at the end I thought were cool and fun and good, everything in between was atrocious. It’s impossible to talk about people, passion, leadership, and all that you feel goes into those things from a ’script’, no matter how prepared you are.

All my life I’ve been motivated by people the do this ‘unscripted’, I can’t stand to listen to ’scripted’ presentations, they come off fake and unfeeling and I just spent 45 minutes doing exactly that.

Never again. You only fail if you quit, otherwise you take the losses and learn, and I learned for the last time today that I am not a ’scripted’ presenter, that hard way.

To the 400 people in the room I apologize for the 45 minutes you’ll never get back!

Heading to San Francisco to deliver the opening keynote tomorrow morning. Way out of my ‘comfort zone’ here, but it should be interesting. Shonda will be speaking on a panel on day 2 regarding charitable work and efforts moving forward in this industry.

38 Studios heads to the middle east, originally uploaded by gehrig38.

A small gift for the men and women serving in the Middle East from the folks here at 38. I hope to be able to hand them all out while visiting. We’ll be selling these when I get back. We’ll be organizing a program to have portions of the proceeds donated to families of fallen soldiers. Details will be forthcoming. Check it out here

There are multiple things wrong with this scenario. Marriage is a private affair. Neither the state nor the church should have any say in the topic. Licensing of marriage is just another tax and is only millimeters away from a time when the King of England decided who could get married and who couldn’t. The only difference is that it’s a bunch of bureaucrats, rather than a monarch who is owned by the church. Is there a situation where it is even appropriate to divulge that you are married? What about Medical and Car insurance perhaps? No, you simply say there are two people in this household and we want to pay extra on a single policy for two people. As far as total strangers go, I don’t need to know if you’re single, married, gay married, swingers, asexual, or what. Just make me a damn soy latte so I can get the hell of out of Starbuck’s. The same goes for friends as well. If I’m hanging out to watch the game, it doesn’t mean I need to know how your household runs.

The other problem I have with the Mormons is they’re messing with another state. I’m all for them doing what they want, provided it’s within the boundaries of their home base of Salt Lake City. What your neighbor does is none of your business. If you don’t like your neighbor then pack up and move.

If the Mormons are willing to screw with California lifestyle, how safe are the rest of us? Mormons don’t smoke or drink. You can expect them, like the Taliban, to be forcing this view on the rest of the country. Mormons don’t like chocolate, coffee, tea, or Coca-Cola because they have caffeine in them. This means that carbonated beverages with your lunch are out the door, along with chocolate cake for dessert. The Mormons are on the verge of waging war on The South by trying to take down our unique institutions of iced sweet tea and Coca-Cola. Mayor Ray Naign of New Orleans should be very worried. If the Mormons succeed in banning chocolate, will New Orleans be a “chocolate city”? If you like to eat or drink what you want it is time to go stand with the gays because when the Christian Taliban finish with them, the rest of us are next.