A Day in Paradise

California Executes Oldest Inmate - Yahoo! News

Is it just me or is this story absurd?

Allen, who was blind and mostly deaf, suffered from diabetes and had a nearly fatal heart attack in September only to be revived and returned to death row, was assisted into the death chamber by four large correctional officers and lifted out of his wheelchair.

His lawyers had raised two claims never before endorsed by the high court: that executing a frail old man would violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and that the 23 years he spent on death row were unconstitutionally cruel as well.

How can executing a 76 year old man be considered a punishment at all? It’s just revenge, not justice.

Independent Online Edition > Media

At first my intelligence was insulted, but then I saw the subtitle of the article:

Ana Kronschnabl and Tomas Rawlings pick the best open source websites where users can change the content

and then, while obviously not in the way the authors had intended it, it made perfect sense.

Other sites on the list are Wikipedia (where you don’t even have to hack it to deface it), an unknown bootable linux distro, some documentary website.

No, my intelligence is insulted… what kind of list is this, other than another opportunity for “journalists” to make an article with buzzwords in it. What is an “open source website” anyway?

The GBP 333 cocktail | This is London
Two bankers out celebrating their City bonuses have helped create one of the world’s most expensive cocktails.

The Goldman Sachs employees had just received sevenfigure sums and were determined to celebrate in style, so they asked a barman at Umbaba in Soho to create the most opulent drink possible. The result was the Magie Noir - costing GBP 333 a glass.

…

The pair ordered two rounds of Magie Noir, a total of 20 drinks. Because they were buying in bulk they were charged GBP 300 per glass, adding GBP 6,000 to their final bill of about GBP 15,000.

Umbaba has added Magie Noir to its cocktail menu and will launch it at a party on Saturday when each glass will come with a cocktail pin made of 24-carat white gold.

Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19

Can you Believe it! It’s talk like a priate day again!

Time flies!

I’m quite sure every world leader uses the bathroom, not all get photographed writing a note requesting permission.

This picture was all over the press… my favorite headline was “Bush needs to go … NOW“

Before listening to my lastest podcast be warned that the starting song contains explicit lyrics, and the following “quick rant” (you’ll get it after listening to it) contains a fair amount of Bush/neo-con bashing.

Songs by Legendary K.O. and Dave Mendoza, once I get all my servers sorted out I’ll mirror the music I play. Right now, I’m still leaching off good friends because I don’t want to disrupt my email service.

You know, I think I might I have said “Notorius K.O.” in my podcast… Oh well, as you can see I’m not that big a hip-hop fan, but this song is spot on.

Enjoy

PS. Great… so much for not doing show notes… I wanted to talk about German elections. I took my two kids out a couple weeks ago on a Saturday during peak campaigning hours, and SPD were the only party which gave us helium balloons. Pro 7 gave us HUGE bags of gummy bears, but unfortunatly it doesn’t look like they are running for anything. CDU gave us really crappy balloons, and the Green party just ignored us. Yes the guy from SPD was really nice, we chatted for a while and he left us with a couple really nice balloons plus gave me a couple spares for when we get home. He must have had kids himself.

The balloons were great, we don’t like bringing balloons home with us so the kids enjoy “setting them free” before getting in the car and then watching them for as long as we can see them. We must have watched these ones for a good 5-7 minutes. So all that to say VOTE SPD!

111343959.jpg (JPEG Image, 640×480 pixels)

Wired News: Some Sex With Your Clone Perhaps?

Some great Investigatory journalism here… Two “amateur documentary makers” (aka, kids with camcorders) “infiltrate” (walk into) the Raelians and take yet unreleased “rare video footage” of a Las Vegas seminar.

This “documentary” (which nobody has seen) was made with the intent to “further tarnish the group’s reputation and even help shut it down“. So it’s bound to be good investigatory reporting, right?

Oh wait… here’s the clincher “One ‘gotcha’ moment shows the Raelian leader riveted by the erotic gyrations of Raelian dancers.” Riiiiiight!

I’m always amused when I see these cookie-cutter cult articles, they must have a template somewhere which they pass around.

• Expose Evil Leader (especially evil because they continue to illude prosecution for thier crimes)
• Sex
• Control (either through sex or evil leader, or aliens in this case)
• Obligatory Rick Ross quote
• SEX
• Catchy title (including Sex, Aliens, Clones, or all of the above)
• PROFIT!!!

MSN Block Checker works on AOL & Yahoo also

NOTE: there are instructions for removing this below. If after using the tool it still exists them comment with information about what is happening and I will try to help.

Here is a tool which may help with the removal. Use at your own risk!

This peice of software is a real class act by yet another f*cking spammers. You install it thinking that you will be able to see who is blocking you in MSN, and I guess you have to give it your MSN username and password, and it hooks itself into your MSN so that it sends a message to everyone you chat with advertising itself.

Very sneaky! The “feature” is explained in the help page “Block Checker has a powerful fun feature to tell your friends about Block Checker without the headache of telling EACH friend about it. This is how we let other people know about our application. If you wish to remove this function from our software you can do so by downloading this tool (if in the event our uninstaller doesn’t work use this to remove it) .”

Update by: LifeDrain

LifeDrain gave the following input in a comment, I’m posting it here for anyone else who might find this page. Thanks LifeDrain!

You don’t need to download anything to get rid of it. First, log off MSN and go to Start > Control Panel> Add/Remove Programs and look to see if there are any BlockChecker progs to be removed. If so, Remove those and proceed to the next step. If not, just move on. Next, go to whatever drive ur program files folder is located on (most ppl use C: drive) so C: > Program Files >Block Checker and manually delete all of the files inside that folder except the one with the little MSN person icon because that one will give you access denied. After doing this, go to your Start button, click RUN and type in regedt32 then hit OK. When the box pops up, BE VERY CAREFUL HERE cuz screwing with ur registry can bork ur whole machine if you don’t know what ur doing. Navigate your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >SOFTWARE >Microsoft >Windows >CurrentVersion >Run and delete the Block-Checker reg key there (and anything else that says Block Checker ONLY on it). Close out of that and reboot your machine. Now, make your way back to C: > Program Files and delete the Block-Checker Folder still listed there. Empty your Recycling Bin and reboot one final time and that nasty Block-Checker should be gone.

If you successfully removed it, you should now consider going to http://www.grisoft.com and downloading AVG Anti-Virus FREE version by clicking on their site-map and clicking AVG Free and to http://www.lavasoftuse.com and downloading Ad-Aware SE. Run both of these regularly to keep spyware and viruses to a minimum. Another tip, don’t be such a cybernoob and stop downloading shit for MSN Messenger becuz it’s all ad infested crap that doesn’t do anything but infect your PC and the PCs of your idiot friends who read ur spam and DL it too… if you can’t keep your PC free from this crap you shouldn’t own a computer.Good Luck and Have a nice day!

Update:

As far as I can see the file crss.exe does not have anything to do with this problem. the CRSS.exe file is part of a virus called “W32.AGOBOT.GH“. Get a decent virus scanner to protect yourself.

The Australian: Brazilian did not flee UK gun cops [August 18, 2005]

Surprising how what really happened always has to come by the way of leaks. At least there are people who are willing to leak the information.

The amount of mis-truths which were propogated in the hours/days/weeks after the shooting were criminal.

CCTV footage showed Menezes was wearing a thin denim jacket that could not conceal a bomb, and he was not carrying a bag. Far from running away from police, he did not realise anyone was following him and even picked up a free newspaper before using his season ticket to pass through the station barrier. He began to run only when he saw his train pull into the station.

At the time of the shooting, Scotland Yard said Menezes’s clothing and his behaviour at the station added to their suspicions.

It was only when Menezes boarded the train that a surveillance officer guided four armed police into the same carriage.

A man sitting opposite Menezes said: “Within a few seconds, I saw a man coming into the double doors to my left. He was pointing a small black handgun towards a person sitting opposite me.

“He pointed the gun at the right-hand side of the man’s head. The gun was within 12 inches of the man’s head when the first shot was fired.”

And the report reveals that one of the surveillance team members had grabbed hold of Menezes before he was shot.

“I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his side,” the statement says.

“I then pushed him back on to the seat where he had been previously sitting … I heard a gunshot very close to my left ear and was dragged away on to the floor of the carriage.”

dict.org- amend

You learn something new every day

  Amend \A*mend"\ ([.a]*m[e^]nd"), v. i.
     To grow better by rectifying something wrong in manners or
     morals; to improve. "My fortune . . . amends." --Sir P.
     Sidney.
     [1913 Webster]

  Emend \E*mend"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Emended; p. pr. & vb. n.
     Emending.] [L. emendare; e out + menda, mendum, fault,
     blemish: cf. F. ['e]mender. Cf. Amend, Mend.]
     To purge of faults; to make better; to correct; esp., to make
     corrections in (a literary work); to alter for the better by
     textual criticism, generally verbal.

OK, here we go, Razorskins just got themselves a place in my “F*cking Spammers” category. They aren’t spamming anyone (that I know of), but have a ripped off one of my good friend Dan’s fantastic Squirrelmail theme and is selling it on his site as his own.

The kicker is their lame-ass disclaimer “We apologize for the low quality images on the screen shots but it helps cut down on those who wish to pirate our developments.” Yeh, they seem to know all about that.

The lesson to be learnt from this, is that if you’re going to rip of someone, don’t buy it from them first using your company name, and then sell it again at the same company. I think I’ll add this to my Village Idiots category as well.

Thankfully, Dan has updated his stuff and his site with a fresh new look… so I guess Razorskins will need to buy the new version so that they can update their pirate copy

BBC NEWS | UK | Man shot by armed police on Tube

What ever happened to those good old batons which the bobbies have used to keep the peace in London for the last couple centuries? What about a taser?

The only logical reason why it MIGHT be nessesary to shoot someone is if they WERE just about to blow themselves up. If you were being chased by police with guns and were planning on blowing yourself up, then it would be smart to do so before the police were on top of you (or even in range for that matter).

Mr Whitby, told BBC News: “I was sitting on the train reading my paper.

“I heard a load of noise, people saying, ‘Get out, get down’!

“I saw an Asian guy run onto the train hotly pursued by three plain-clothes police officers.

“One of them was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him.

“I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy - he’s dead.”

Five gunshots in a tube car must be deafening. Now we just need to find out if the guy did anything other than be asian and 6.2 feet tall with a backpack.

Note: Here are comments as left by BBC visitors

MasterCard Says 40 Million Files Put at Risk - New York Times

OMG!!! Someone just bought a brand new laptop using my credit card, oh wait… that was me!

Anyway, it is scary if you have a mastercard, especially the line that said “The accounts affected included credit cards and certain kinds of debit cards.” Very disturbing.

“She would not elaborate on how long the breach might have lasted” probably means that they don’t have a farking clue, “the investigation is just beginning.” means that they probably never will.

CNN.com - Arrests over ‘Happy slapping rape’ - Jun 18, 2005

Kids these days…