I saw this link in a story posted by The Register today: The Interdictor blog. This is a blog written by a military veteran and current employee of directNIC Web Hosting, a company based in downtown New Orleans that has been kept alive and functional by a dedicated staff of employees locked away on the 10th floor of their building with a Diesel generator providing power to the servers. I won’t rehash The Register story nor the blog entries; they’re plenty powerful enough on their own without me watering down the mix. Check it out.

So some dumb-ass grandmother is suing Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive because she bought GTA: San Andreas for her 14-year-old grandson. Why is she suing? False advertising, consumer deception and unfair business practices (how does that make any sense?). Why is she really suing? Because it’s possible to use a third-party hack to unlock code for a secret, sexually explicit mini-game. That’s right, because it’s possible her grandson might be exposed to sexually graphic images. Can I countersue her for being a dumb cunt, disregarding the “Rated M for Mature - 17+” label on the game and buying it for her FOURTEEN YEAR OLD grandson? (more…)

Say you’re on a vacation on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, hanging with a few friends and having a real good time. Unfortunately, as with everything, the good times must end. Say you’re a young fella who has to leave the island for an SAT camp, which is probably going to be about as much fun as ritual flogging. You don’t want to go, and your friends, dedicated as they are to you, don’t want you to leave. What do you do?

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If you’re going to start crashing data-gathering machines into comets, can you really expect to succeed without getting sued? I mean, seriously: you’re “breaking the natural balance of the Universe.” You bastards! You’re ruining the life of Russian astrologer and spiritualist, Marina Bai. Apparently, only $310 million will soothe the damage you’ve done to her life and moral values. It’s good to see that the US still hasn’t cornered the market on wackos.

Some folks pointed me to this press release today. It appears that some people up in New Hampshire are going to take advantage of the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows local government to claim your private property via eminent domain and sell it to private business. Of course, the land in question in this case is owned by Supreme Court Justice, David Souter (who voted in favor of the town of New London, CT in the recent decision, effectively abolishing parts of the 5th Amendment). Best of luck to the folks from Freestar Media, and I look forward to giving your hotel, restaurant and museum plenty of business to help out the poor people of Weare, NH.

I go out of state for a long weekend, and the Supreme Court puts a big ol’ chill on technological innovation. Did someone steal the Supreme Court’s lunch money on the way to school, or throw their books into a mud puddle, or tell them they couldn’t stay up late to watch Letterman? Apparently, it’s not enough to abolish sections of the Fifth Amendment, the Supreme Court also decided that it’s more important for large businesses to be able to sue small companies, and their users, into oblivion than to allow companies to develop products for the competitive marketplace. (more…)

What the hell is this country coming to? We’re trying to step all over our freedoms in order to “protect” the symbol of that very freedom. We’ve got a Federal Government run by Republicans who are supposedly supporters of less Federal Government and more State responsibility, but are actively denying State’s rights to determine where Liquified Natural Gas terminals are installed in their locales. And just today, we’ve got a Supreme Court who basically just abolished protections against the eminent domain sections of the 5th Amendment.

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I can’t believe, with all the other problems we, as a country, are facing (corruption, wars, and crime, just to name a few) that we are really seeing another anti-flag burning amendment working its way through the House and Senate. Good ol’ Orrin Hatch is getting into the act again:

“It’s important that we venerate the national symbol of our country,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the amendment’s chief sponsor. “Burning, urinating, defecating on the flag - this is not speech. This is offensive conduct.” (USA Today - on Yahoo! News)

This is the same guy who suggested that the Recording Industry use some sort of remote method to destroy people’s personal computers if they are using P2P software and downloading copyrighted materials. I’m not sure I want some guy who’s all about invading people’s homes and remotely destroying their property telling me what’s offensive conduct. (more…)

My words to a West Coast friend over ICQ were, and I quote, “Holy crap!” when I read the news that the almost-original lineup of Pink Floyd was reuniting to play the Live 8 concert. Bob Geldof, the organizer of the Live Aid concert and the guy who played “Pink” in the movie “The Wall”, is organizing the Live 8 concert to “focus attention on the need for political justice for the world’s poor.”

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It’s not particularly shocking anymore, but there’s more evidence that the Bush administration lied to the American people about their reasons to start the war in Iraq. Again, I don’t care what you think about Bush or Democrats vs. Republicans mainly because I believe they are all corrupt leeches, but I do care about being deliberately lied to by our supposed leader. So when something like the Downing Street Memo comes out, it adds to my frustration and anger.

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