Category Archives: Current Events

No more Word!

Ok, so… it’s not completely gone, so we’ll still have to deal with the bloated monstrosity that passes for a word processor until everyone (read that as ‘businesses’) comes to their senses and switches to something else.

However, M$ did just receive the smack down (again) for doing bad things in word, specifically, stealing someone else’s IP (not that that’s unusual, they just happened to get someone who noticed and wouldn’t take the hush money).

Earlier this afternoon, the verdict was handed down in M$’s appeal of the guilty verdict they were given earlier this year for stealing someone’s XML code and rolling into word.

The good news?  M$ has to pay $290 million dollars, and stop selling copies of word (2007, primarily) that contain the infringing code by January 11th .

The bad news? M$ says they’ll have fixed copies ready to hit the shelves by then… too bad.. I was hoping to watch their profits flounder if they couldn’t sell Word (or, any package containing word) for 6-8 months or so.

Oh well…maybe next time they get caught doing something wrong….

and Grats to I4i for standing up to M$ and making them pay.

Pirate Day

Don’t forget that tomorrow Sept. 19th, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

If you’ve been living in a cave the last few years and don’t know what I’m talking about, you can get more information at the official site here

July 4th

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

That is what we celebrate today.  Take a minute or 10 to remember that while BBQing, Playing with kids, drinking beer, etc.  Then, celebrate today, and the recent SCOTUS decision that proves without a doubt that the 2nd amendment, like the rest of them, is an individual right.  Go buy a gun!

Time to move?

Hmm… looks like it might be time to relocate.. Montana looks good.  They’ve shown that they agree that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right, and are threatening to leave the union if SCOTUS rules otherwise when they hear the case later this year.   Interesting tact, they’re claiming that it’d be a breach of contract between the Feds and Montana, since the 2nd was represented as being an individual right when MT joined the Union.

It will be interesting to see what happens as the case goes on.

Stupid Teacher

Sigh… and people wonder why we rate low on worldwide education scores.. you have idiots like this lady.. who call the police, when they hear someone singing a song…

From the article:

 State police say a teacher at Booth Free School barricaded herself inside a classroom Wednesday when she mistook someone singing a Guns N’ Roses song over the public address system for a threat.

Idiot.. are you seriously that god damn insecure and afraid of the world, that someone singing the lyrics from an 80s song scares you enough to call the police and barricade yourself in a classroom?  How the hell do you even manage to get out of the house in the morning if you are that terrified of the world?

Quit, now.. before you do any further damage to the kids in your school.

Bye-Bye Ban!

Yesterday the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Appeal by Washington D.C, to try and overturn the decision ruling their unconstitutional gun ban was, well unconstitutional (Parker vs D.C was the orignal case, being heard by SCOTUS as D.C, vs Heller).

This is a good thing, as it should finalize once and for all that the 2nd amendment means exactly what it says, and is the only gun control we need.

From NRA-ILA:

U.S. Supreme Court to Hear First Second Amendment Case Since 1939
Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Fairfax, Va. – The United States Supreme Court today announced its decision to take up District of Columbia v. Heller-a case in which plaintiffs challenge the unconstitutional gun ban in the nation’s capital. The District of Columbia appealed a lower court’s ruling earlier this year affirming that the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, and that the District’s bans on handguns, carrying firearms within the home, and possession of loaded or operable firearms for self-defense violate that right.

The NRA will participate in this case through briefs as a friend of the court. Oral arguments are likely to take place in early 2008.

In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that “[T]he phrase ‘the right of the people,’ when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual.” The D.C. Circuit also rejected the claim that the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia because D.C. is not a state.

The decision marks the first time a Second Amendment challenge to a firearm law has reached the Supreme Court since 1939.

Mother of the Year Candidate

Yup, this one is definetely trying to win a mother of the year award.  Full Story Here .

Fun excerpts from the story:

The DA’s office says on August 31, Rosales drove in the alley in the 2900 block of Champa and Curtis with her two children, ages 9 and 10, riding on the hood of her car.

Prosecutors say the children then got off the car, and Rosales drove forward, pinning the 10-year-old under the rear tire.

See? a real winner..  Same category as the Grandmother who gave her 9 year old granddaughter gin!

Bye-Bye!

Awwww… poor little Paris Hilton is broke!  Well..mostly..  Seems Granpa Hilton has decided that her jailterm was the final straw… and has removed her from the inheritance.  Guess she’ll have to work for her money like the rest of us now.. Good thing she’s already got that head start in the Porn industry.

She was what?

Apparently, the number of idiots in the world is in no danger of getting lower.

Out of Florida, we have this lady, who thinks “settlement would be nice”, because she was trying on a bra, and a construction worker saw her naked.

This raises a few questions:

1 – Why was she naked to try on a bra?  I did a quick survey of all the women in the house, and exactly zero of them get completely naked  to try on a bra.

2 -  From the article:

“Turner said she had recently had breast implants and was trying on bras at 10 a.m. last Wednesday when she spotted the man”

Ok.. so she just had fake boobs.. this means..everyone has already seen her boobs..they now look like every other pair of fake boobs out there!  And even if she hadn’t had fake boobs.. they are still just boobs.. get over it! You’ve got nothing that everyone hasn’t already seen before..

My favorite thing from the article is the picture.. it looks like her husband, who is supposedly “angry” that “there’s a guy out there who knows what my wife looks like naked.”  looks like he’s trying to avoid laughing his ass off while his wife talks about it..

Marines 1, Bear 0

Normal people, when confronted with a large carnivorous bear that wants to add them and their family to the lunch menu, defend themselves with guns, big ones.  This former Marine brought a stick to a gunfight.. and won.

He threw the stick (ok, small log) at the bear, managed to hit it in the head..and kill it… crazy stuff