06 Nov 2006
Grrrr....

Well, the starter just died in my S10 - continuing my impeccable run of rotten fortune. Good grief!

12:38 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Activists lob meat, condoms

This has to go in humor:

Witnesses said a purple-robed protester also interrupted the lecture, claimed that he was Ayn Rand and threw condoms with Vice President Dick Cheney's and other political figures' faces on them at the audience.

In fact, Lyndon LaRouche himself belongs in anybody's comedy category - how anyone can take him seriously is seriously beyond me.

A battle of political extremists ended in the throwing of meat and condoms Friday as about a dozen protesters from the LaRouche Youth Movement interrupted a lecture by an Ayn Rand Institute speaker.

(link) [Daily Trojan]

via LewRockwell.com Blog

12:36 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Zune problems for MSN customers

Plays for Sure: not! There are a lot of developers out there who really don't trust M$ for reasons like this - they push one "standard" and then unexpectedly (and sometimes inexplicably) shift to another, leaving those with investments in the first stranded.

But, as Bill G. & Co. discovered with the Internet, that can also play against you. There are an awful lot of devices that are compatible with the Plays For Sure "standard" - with a significant number of customers. Zune is gonna hafta be pretty darn cool to get these folks to pony up, and the media available for it had better be pretty broad and deep. Even with $90 billion (or some ridiculous amount) of cash in the bank, M$ cannot afford to keep this going forever if it flops out of the gate.

It's going to be an interesting holiday shopping season.

Customers of Microsoft's MSN Music store could face problems if they try to move tracks to a Zune player.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

10:49 /Technology | 2 comments | permanent link

Ousted pastor admits 'sexual problem'

Well, surprise, surprise: I was right. But I'd like to suggest that his real sin was not sexual at all: it was the rank and odious hypocrisy he displayed when preaching every Sunday against gay marriage and gays in general, after boinking gay hookers the night before.

It's one thing to believe that homosexuality is a sin, a crime against nature and an abomination. It's quite another to screech those positions to the world while carrying on your own homosexual affair.

The Rev. Ted Haggard was fired as pastor of the Colorado church he founded in his basement more than 20 years ago, after an independent board ruled he had committed "sexually immoral conduct."

(link) [CNN]

10:03 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

US Citizens to Require ''Clearance'' to Leave?

The Slashdot poster is wrong: a passport isn't required by the government to leave, it's required by the carrier to insure that it's passengers can enter the country to which they're bound.

This is just incredible. How long before "Your papers, please!" can be demanded of anyone, anytime? We've got to get rid of the government that thinks like this while we still can - like tomorrow. I'm not a big fan of voting, or as Lysander Spooner phrased it "joining the nameless gang of robbers and murderers", but I'll hold my nose long enough to try and throw this particular gang of thugs out of office.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed a system which will in essence make it mandatory for you to have permission before leaving or entering the country, effectively putting everyone on a no-fly list unless the government says otherwise. Interestingly, the proposal does not seem to cover personal travel, only that on some sort of carrier like an airline or cruise vessel. While this certainly is concerning, it isn't exactly new, as a passport is already required for circumstances covered under the proposal.

(link) [Slashdot]

08:27 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link