Things That Just Piss Me Off

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2008-08-29T07:19:00.000-04:00

NameCritic About Anonymous Cowards

2007-08-28T20:57:00.000-04:00

by Chris McElroy aka NameCritic

It amazes me how someone goes on the web and figures they can remain anonymous. They can for a short time, but it always comes out who they are in the long run.

They attack you by posting anonymous blogs because they are cowards. Nothing they say can be taken seriously since they refuse to put their name on it.

If they fear persecution, like someone who lives in a communist country who is talking about their government, then posting anonymously is the only thing they can do.

But here I am talking about anonymous cowards who just get mad at someone and start posting lies about that person.

It happened to me recently and is still going on. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. They believe they can hurt me, but in reality they are just jealous little peons who wish they had something better to do with their time.

I probably pissed the little weasels off somewhere down the line and they attack anonymously. I guess they are afraid of me. I did not realize I was such a scary dude.

I'm not really that scary. They are just that cowardly. They know they tell lies, so they remain anonymous. They know they can't back anything they say up with fact, so they post anonymously. They are scared to face me? That's what really makes me laugh.

If you are going to attack someone's character, do it in the open, under your own name. If you don't, anything you say is as worthless as your pathetic life.

If you are reading this and one of the people I am talking to, come on and comment out in the open. I'll publicly debate you on anything you have to say. Of course you won't. You are an anonymous coward.

by Chris McElroy aka NameCritic

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NameCritic Tips on Reputation Management

2007-08-25T03:11:00.001-04:00

These days managing your reputation on the web is important. There are more and more unethical companies who use tactics to destroy their competitors reputation rather than compete with them honestly.

Individuals do it to other individuals as well. It's ok. It's freedom of speech. Unless they are lying about you. People having the ability to post anonymously is great for people who fear reprisals, such as people who live in a country where you can go to jail for criticizing the government. That is why it is important to have the ability not to post your identity.

However, this protection also gets used by those who want to hide because they know they are doing something illegal, unethical, or immoral. The term "anonymous coward" then applies to them.

I can understand a whistle blower, who really may be hurt by posting their identity, posting anonymously. However, people who want to expose something should make sure that everything they are writing is factual, not just libel.

But many people don't care if they slander someone's reputation whether it is true or not. They believe they are protected by being anonymous.

Got news for you. Your ISP, Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc., do not care to protect you as much as you think. A simple request from law enforcement can give your identity to anyone willing to pursue you in court. So go ahead. Think that you are anonymous. Think you can say anything you like about anyone. When you find yourself in court, do not be so shocked though.

In addition to that, you also leave footprints that many people can follow. If you get someone like that looking for you, you will probably wish they were taking you to court instead.

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Things That Just Piss Me Off Has Moved

2006-08-02T03:46:00.000-04:00

Click here to go to the new home of things that just piss me off

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Political Crooks

2006-07-12T23:54:00.000-04:00

What is this trend that politicians even when caught red-handed taking bribes and committing other illegal acts refuse to step down from office?

You have congressmen taking bribes with the FBI videotaping them and raiding the congressman's office and finding the evidence. The response; You can't do that to me! Give that bribe money and the evidence back! You have no right! I'm an elected official!

You have delay who took forever to give up his position even though there are several ethical oif not illegal activities on his part.

And now In a sharp rebuke, the City Council of San Jose, Calif., formally asked the city's mayor to resign Wednesday, just days after he was arraigned on fraud, bribery and conspiracy charges. The mayor, Ron Gonzales, rejected the request for his resignation.

Politicians have been doing underhanded business and taking bribes for so long they have come to believe it is their right to do so and seem totally shocked that anyone would actually object to them continuing a criminal enterprise.

They seem to actually think they are supposed to take bribes.

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Who Does Ann Coulter Speak For?

2006-07-12T23:46:00.000-04:00

Demand House Republicans Denounce Ann Coulter's Hate-Speech

Target: Republican Members in the United States Congress

Sponsor: Democratic Congressonal Campaign CommitteeSignatures: 5,047

Goal: 25,000

Deadline: Ongoing...

As Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said on the House floor recently, we are blessed with many freedoms, and among those is the right to freely speak our minds. While Freedom of Speech is one of the principles that makes our country great, it also means we have to endure hate filled rhetoric, like what was recently used by Ann Coulter.
In her new book, the princess of the Right slanders the 9/11 widows, writing: "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief parrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much."

Ann Coulter has the right to speak of hate, but we also have a right to know whether our politicians stand by these hate filled comments. And right now there's a deafening silence from the Republican side, and their silence is allowing her to be their spokesperson.

Join the DCCC in telling Republicans to denounce Ann Coulter's hate speech - Ask the House Republicans is Ann Coulter speaking for you?

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Pankaj Saini is a Pedophile?

2006-07-10T20:40:00.000-04:00

Most of you know I run a missing children organization and take that very serious. Well today I learned that someone is taking content from the missing children blog here at http://www.missingchildrenblog.com and putting it into the source code of their website.

So when you go to http://blogsearch.google.com and type in kidsearch one of the results on the first page is a story I posted to the blog about myspace.com and sexual predators. That result leads to http:// www. mymyblackteen. com a porn website. DO not go there if it offends you.

But here is what the guy put into the source code.

Is Myspace.com still a вЂpredatorвЂ™s dream?

by Teen make up (teen-make-up) @ Mon, 03 Jul 2006 06:05:12 +0800

Typical that the National Center for Made up and Exaggerated Statistics (NCMEC) is ... Click here to learn how you can monitor your child or teen's computer ... Kidsearch Network Website Runaway Teens Make a Donation to Kidsearch

So he is using content from missing kids websites to promote teen porn.

So I do a whois on the guy and get this;

Whois Server: whois.wildwestdomains.com
Name Server: NS2.MYMYBLACKTEEN.COM

Whois Record

Registrant:
Pankaj Saini
16, rue michel le comte
Paris, IDFrance 75003
France

Registered through: registerasite.com
Domain Name: MYMYBLACKTEEN.COM
Created on: 23-Jun-06
Expires on: 23-Jun-07
Last Updated on: 26-Jun-06

Administrative Contact:
Saini, Pankaj
16, rue michel le comte
Paris, IDFrance 75003
France
(014) 278-6434 Fax --

Technical Contact:
Saini, Pankaj
16, rue michel le comte
Paris, IDFrance 75003
France
(014) 278-6434 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYMYBLACKTEEN.COM
NS2.MYMYBLACKTEEN.COM

so I do a search for Saini, Pankaj and find that he also has another domain name http://www.learnanddoit.com where I also compared whois results and got this;

Whois Server: whois.wildwestdomains.com
Name Server: NS.OVH.NET

Whois Record

Registrant:
Pankaj Saini
16, rue michel le comte
Paris 75003
France

Registered through: registerasite.com
Domain Name: LEARNANDDOIT.COM
Created on: 07-Apr-05
Expires on: 07-Apr-07
Last Updated on: 03-Apr-06

Administrative Contact:
Saini, Pankaj
16, rue michel le comte
Paris 75003
France
(014) 278-6434 Fax --

Technical Contact:
Saini, Pankaj
16, rue michel le comte
Paris 75003
France
(014) 278-6434 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS20078.OVH.NET
NS.OVH.NET

And I find that this guy is a self-proclaimed SEO guru who writes articles and gives advice about SEO. Some SEO technique, steal content from missing kids websites to promote teen sex websites. Other people have already found my posts about this pervert and have told me he does the same with their content.

Well, I have already contacted a lot of people like webhosts he uses and his domain name registrar, etc.

What I would like to do is have as many people as will do it go to http://www.learnanddoit.com and ask this pervert if he recommends this SEO technique to everyone . . . or whatever you would like to tell him. Oh and the rumors that Pankaj Saini is a Pedophile may not be true.

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Colorado U. Chancellor Advises Firing Author of Sept. 11 Essay

2006-07-07T17:55:00.000-04:00

The interim chancellor at the University of Colorado said on Monday that Prof. Ward L. Churchill, whose comments about the victims of Sept. 11 prompted a national debate about the limits of free speech, should be fired for academic misconduct. Professor Churchill, 58, was immediately relieved.

This is troubling. Not because I agree with this guy's theory about 9-11, but the fact that our Professors and Teachers can be fired for having an opinion they speak freely about that goes against the current politicians in power.

That begins tyranny. The message it sends is if you value your job do not speak out against the government. That is not democracy. That is not freedom of speech.

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The Knicks Fired Larry Brown?

2006-07-07T17:52:00.000-04:00

Its no wonder the New York Knicks suck at basketball every year. They have owners with no desire to have a winning team. Every team Larry Brown has coached has been taken to the playoffs, including teams that had no stars to rely on. He could have done the same for the Knicks given the chance, but the owners don't want to win.

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Doctors and Researchers Bribed?

2006-07-07T17:45:00.000-04:00

As she presented research results indicating that a new medical device was "an important breakthrough," the doctor's enthusiasm was clear. Less evident were some of the financial links between the researchers and the device's maker.

Dr. Maria Rosa Costanzo, making her presentation at a March conference of cardiologists, said the study found that a $14,000 blood filtering device was better than intravenous diuretic drugs at removing excess fluid from patients with heart failure.

Although outside researchers raised questions about the study's conclusions, the doctor betrayed little doubt. "We believe these results challenge current medical practice and recommendations," said Dr. Costanzo, who predicted many patients might benefit.

Dr. Costanzo did disclose to the audience that she was a paid consultant with stock in the device's maker, a Minnesota company called CHF Solutions. But she omitted another potentially important detail: CHF Solutions was also one of the largest donors to the nonprofit research foundation that had overseen the study. The company contributed about $180,000 in 2004, according to the foundation's federal filings.

This is what medical care has gotten to. Doctors prescribe the drugs that pharmaceutical companies pay them to prescribe. Medical studies find the results that those same drug companies want them to find.

The medical profession has sold their oath to the highest bidder. If you trust the medical profession these days then you are just being naive.

source: NY Times Story

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Chicago Officials Convicted in Patronage Arrangement

2006-07-07T09:01:00.000-04:00

CHICAGO, July 6 — A jury convicted four former city officials here on corruption charges Thursday, sending a resounding message, prosecutors said, that City Hall's legendary patronage machine should come to a halt.

After a six-week trial and three and a half days of deliberations, the jury of 10 men and 2 women agreed with the federal government's argument that the city's longtime practice of awarding jobs and promotions to politically connected candidates and campaign workers was a crime.

Led by the office of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney here and also the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case in Washington, prosecutors attacked what they called a "corrupt clout machine" that orchestrated a fraud in city hiring and promotions.

So when is George W. Bush's court date? Bush appoints his cronies to every post there is including FEMA and the Supreme Court as in the attempt to put Harriet Miers in there. If the federal government says this is illegal for the city to do, then why isn't it illeagl for the politicians in the federal government to do? Whats good for the goose . . .

The rest of the story

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Ann Coulter: Shock Publicity

2006-07-06T14:30:00.000-04:00

Ann Coulter: Still Bomb N.Y. Times

Ann Coulter, whose book, "Godless, The Church of Liberalism," has reached runaway best-seller status, won’t back down on comments made about bombing the New York Times main office building in Manhattan.

Coulter’s comments are reverberating around the journalism world. This weekend, Editor & Publisher magazine featured this story: "Coulter Affirms Prevous Statement About Bombing 'NYT' Office.”

First she says the widows of people who died on 9-11 are enjoying their husband's deaths and she has made other statements like bombing the NY Times.

All she is doing is selling books and selling out. She doesn't care about conservative causes or anything else except money. Ann Coulter cares about Ann Coulter.

No one should take her or her comments seriously simply because she is a bimbo out to make a buck. This latest book by Ann Coulter is to the publishing world what street-walking is to the real world. Ho, Ho, Ho, and I'm not talking about Santa.

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The Cure is Worse then the Disease

2006-07-03T18:25:00.000-04:00

For three days now I've been locked out of one of my blogs because either google's blogger spambot or some individual flagged the blog as possible spam.

When they do that, you can ask for a review. So far after three days I have no word as to whether it has been reviewed or not.

So what is worse, getting some spam or haviung so-called anti-spam people locking you out of legitimate blogs. I post daily and get paid to do so. Think blogger will apologize and reimburse me? The spammers cost me nothing.

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Burning the Bill of Rights

2006-07-01T17:39:00.000-04:00

Editorial from the NY Times - With the Fourth of July fast approaching, Senate Republicans are holding a barbecue. Unfortunately, instead of grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, they are trying to torch a hole in the First Amendment's free speech guarantee by passing an amendment to the Constitution that would allow federal and state authorities to punish flag-burning.

Some things should be out of bounds even in a competitive election year. Messing with the Constitution is one of them.

Here I agree with them. They should just pass a law that if a flag-burner gets beat up for doing so that the beating wasn't illegal either.

Click to Enlarge

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Rep. Bev Harbin - Bad Checks and Bad Government

2006-06-30T20:55:00.000-04:00

Blogger shuts down Web site that mocked legislator

An irreverent local blogger has chosen to give up a Web site making fun of state Rep. Bev Harbin after Harbin threatened to take him to court under the state's law against cybersquatting.

Jon Asato, a tour guide and writer, said he agreed to drop the domain names BevHarbin .com and BeverlyHarbin.com after Harbin sent him two letters warning of a civil lawsuit. Asato said his Harbin Web site, which had cartoons that likened Harbin to The Incredible Hulk and the Joker character from the movie "Batman," should be protected as free speech.

But he said he did not have the money for a legal fight and instead has posted the cartoons and commentary about his experience on his celebrity gossip Web site, "talkstink.com."

Harbin was appointed in September by Gov. Linda Lingle to fill a House vacancy but was asked to resign after it was discovered she had unpaid state taxes and misdemeanor convictions for writing bad checks. She refused to resign and is running to retain her seat.

The disagreement between Asato and Harbin may seem small in scale but involves a fundamental constitutional right — free speech — and the evolving rights of people to control the use of their names on the Internet.

Asato, in e-mail to The Advertiser, said the legal threats squelched his freedom of speech and caused him to reduce his posts on his other Web sites. He said Harbin used a badly worded state law to bully him.

"There are local political issues that I find incredibly frustrating, but Harbin was the first public official whose arrogance made me say to myself that I had to do something," he said. "Some people join political parties, go to City Council meetings, attend protests — me, I find that being creative is how I best come to terms with life's frustrations."

Harbin said Asato could have confused readers searching for information about her even though his site was for satire. She also wonders why he did not just post the cartoons on one of his other Web sites, like he eventually did anyway.

"They'd rather just sit back and hide behind a computer screen," she said of some bloggers. "They won't come out and scrap."

This is a call to all bloggers who have any balls at all. Hide behind a computer screen? At least we're not out writing bad checks and dodging taxes.

You wanted to be blogged about then you should get your wish Bev. I hope all bloggers who read this make ol Bev a pet project.

Lets find more about Bev harbin;

Harbin refuses gov, won’t resign. Gov. Lingle's chief of staff says the legislator lied by omission and now doubts whether she can work effectively. » Constituents want Harbin out
After Lingle appointed Harbin earlier this month to a state House seat, Harbin was the subject of news reports that she still owed the state $125,000 in back taxes and she had been convicted of passing bad checks in 1987.

Asked why she didn't explain her criminal record, Harbin said she was told the governor would do a criminal history check and nothing was said about her conviction when she was interviewed. "I don't think I lied by omission," Harbin said.

Should I post this woman on my Most Wanted Fugitives Blog

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Windows 98 No Longer Supported by Microsoft

2006-06-30T13:32:00.000-04:00

I didn't switch from windows 3.1 to windows 95 until I was forced to. I didn't switch to windows 98 until I was forced to. Now I suppose I will have to switch to windows XP just as microsoft is about to release vista.

The software companies really have it good don't they? Think if car manufacturers got the same privileges as they got.

Yes, we are now releasing the new mustang version 07. Mechanics will no longer work on your old 2006 mustang. Or at the very least, we will no longer be producing parts for your mustang version 06.

Realplayer is even worse. I bought realplayer G2. When realplayer came out with a new version they not only did not provide support for realplayer G2, they disabled it so it will no longer play realplayer media files.

That is like buying the 06 mustang and when the 07 comes out, your 06 mustang stops working altogether.

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For the Doubters about the Bush Administration wanting to spy on US Citizens

2006-06-29T19:24:00.000-04:00

Each little piece of the puzzle should be enough to convince Americans that our goivernment intends on spying on Americans and not just those they claim have ties to Al Queda.

The idea of monitoring what library books people check out.

The gathering of phone records from the phone companies.

The wiretaps of international calls.

The new "smart passports" and proposed National ID Cards with smart chips that contain your personal data.

The whole banking thing where they go through everyone's bank records to look for "suspicious" transactions.

And now, this story;

Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites
09 June 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Paul Marks

"I AM continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves." So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software. He is far from alone in noticing that fast-growing social networking websites such as MySpace and Friendster are a snoop's dream.

New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.

If you can truly examine each of those things I mentioned above and still say you don't think our government intends on spying on US citizens and harvesting information about US citizens and maintaining a database about each of us, then there is absolutely no hope for you.

Click here for the rest of the story

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To Cheney everything is legal

2006-06-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

I think Bush and Cheney took courses before starting to run our government. They took finance classes from Ken Lay, legal courses written by Senator Joe McCarthy, military classes from the French and italians, and ethics classes from Jack Abramoff.

Cheney and Bush run spend most of their time running around telling everyone that what they are doing is legal by their own personal definition of legal. When you have to explain that often something is obviously wrong with what you are doing.

Honestly officer, the light was only a little bit red and thats not my booze in the car, the drugs were some I'm just holding for a friend and the bodies in the trunk were there when I bought the car.

Cheney Assails Press on Report on Bank Data

WASHINGTON, June 23 — Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday vigorously defended a secret program that examines banking records of Americans and others in a vast international database, and harshly criticized the news media for disclosing an operation he said was legal and "absolutely essential" to fighting terrorism.

It's only wrong when we get caught. If we do something that is totally unethical, then the press reports it to the American public, it's the press's fault for exposing it in the first place?

If Cheney were arrested for bank robbery, this would be his response;

Your honor, the only reason I appear in the courtroom today is because that police officer was taking a break at the donut shop while on the clock on taxpayer money across the street from the bank I was robbing.

If that bad police officer was out patrolling the streets where he was supposed to be I would not be standing here before you now.

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How to Get 5 Billion Pages Indexed in Less Than 30 Days

2006-06-26T18:25:00.000-04:00

Ok, everyone that is google adnonsense crazy, you definitely need to read this. Google has a little over 8 billion pages in its index. Over half of that belongs to one entity?

Read the story here.

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Google Brass Jumping Ship?

2006-06-24T19:57:00.000-04:00

I'm no expert on the stock market but whenever google is being compared to other search engines on the web many believe google will always be on top while others believe MSN search and Yahoo as well as others will catch up and give them some serious competition.

If you owned stock in google, it would seem you would form your opionion by voting with your stock. If you believe google was in for some serious competition, you would sell at least some of your stock. If you believe google was still on its way up, then you would buy or at least hold onto your stock.

Click here to see how the top brass at google are casting their stock/votes

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The MO of the Bush Administration

2006-06-23T14:51:00.000-04:00

Modus operandi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modus operandi (often used in the abbreviated form MO) is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation." The plural is modi operandi ("modes of operation"). It is used in police work to describe a criminal's characteristic patterns and style of work.

The term is also commonly used in English in a non-criminal sense to describe someone's habits or manner of working, the method of operating or functioning.

A criminal's MO may also be used in offender profiling, where it can be used to find clues to the perpetrator's psychology.

The method of operation or MO is sometimes confused with a criminal's "signature". While a criminal's MO may change over time, his or her signature will usually stay the same.

The Bush Administation's MO for a profiler would include several instances of, "I can do anything I want because I'm the (Fill in the blank with President, Vice President, Defense Secretary, Advisor to the President, or other Bush administration official).

Bush can detain prisoners without applying the geneva convention even though he calls the war on terrorism a "war" because he's the president.

Bush can wiretap phones without going to the special court set up for that purpose, because he's the president.

Latest is Cheney. "Dick Cheney to Arlen Specter: I'll Talk to Senators Whenever I Want" which he can but it fits the MO so well I have to include it.

Click here for that story.

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US Government Wants More Information On YOU!

2006-06-22T14:28:00.000-04:00

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is asking Internet companies including Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and AOL to preserve records of customers' Web activity to aid terrorism and child pornography investigations.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller made the request last week at a meeting with industry executives, said Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman. More talks are scheduled for today and tomorrow. Also included in the discussions are representatives from victims' rights groups, privacy advocates and law enforcement officials, he said.

``We have begun initial discussions with Internet service providers and others on this issue of data retention to help the department with bolstering its investigative efforts,'' said Roehrkasse.

Every day this administration finds another avenue to gather and retain records on all US citizens. McCarthy did it with Communism, J. Edgar Hoover just did it, and President GW Bush uses terrorism. The three of them are perfectly comfortable in the same sentence.

Click here for the rest of the story

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Sorbs.net So Called Spam Lister.

2006-06-17T01:05:00.000-04:00

You know you have some people who really think they are God's gift to the Internet. They think they know everything and they believe that everyone should bow to their superior knowledge. Usually that is how someone who is really inferior deals with their own shortcomings.

The people who run Sorbs.net are perfect examples of the type of people I am talking about. If anyone isn't familiar with this group you should be. They blacklist domain names whenever one of the group decides to basically.

Besides this blog I also run a nonprofit missing children organization. Through it's websites and blogs we provide a lot of safety information and other valuable content.

Having a name like kidsearchnetwork.blogspot.com isn't as nice as http://www.missingchildrenblog.com

mostwantednewspaper.blogspot.com isn't as good as mostwantednewspaper.com

There are places I don't use ThingsThatJustPissMeOff.Blogspot.com in my signature line out of politeness, instead I use newsandmediablog.com

I can do this by registering a domain name and doing a url redirect to point at the blog. It's much better than the longer names. When you do a url redirect, you are not actually on a web host. You can't send email from that domain name. At least not at my registrar.

However the good folks at sorbs.net has put these three domain names on a blacklist for spamming. It says on their website that they only do that if one of their "administrators" gets a spam email from one of those domain names.

Since I cannot send mail from those domain names, that pretty much makes them liars. They are causing harm to a nonprofit missing children organization due to their superior attitude and self-serving behavior.

If you type any one of those domain names into your browser or click those links you will see what I do is legitimate. That pretty much means that since sorbs has decided to attack this missing children's organization, I will now have to defend it with any legal means necessary.

Anyone who uses their so-called service should be aware that blocking the use of my legitimately registered domain names will get them also named in any lawsuit I file.

I tried to deal with them through their website. But they assume they know everything there is to know.

How did I get listed in the first place...?

There are many possibilities.

The IP address that you use for your outgoing mail was used to send spam to a SORBS spamtrap or administrator. Hmmm, since I have no OUTGOING MAIL SERVER I guess that doesn't apply

There are multiple possibilities for how this could have happened:

You spammed directly. Hmmm, since I have no OUTGOING MAIL SERVER I guess that doesn't apply

Either you are a dedicated spammer, or you operate an insecure mailing list to which the address of a SORBS spamtrap or administrator was added without their knowledge or consent. Hmmm, since I have no OUTGOING MAIL SERVER I guess that doesn't apply

It is a shared server and some other user on the same server spammed directly. hmmm, since I am only on the domain registrar's server and not on any other type of hosting, I guess this doesn't apply either.

The machine was illegally taken over via vulnerabilities in software and abused for spamming. This includes vulnerabilities on servers as well as viruses and trojan horses on end-user computers. Since Enom.com is a pretty healthy and stable registrar where in 11 years of registering domain names I have never had or even heard of this hapopening there, I guess this doesn't apply either.

You are an ISP who provides supplementary Internet services (DNS, web hosting, mail exchanger) or a credit card operator who provides credit card processing services to a domain advertised in spam that was received by a SORBS spamtrap or administrator. again, not me

You are an innocent party whose IP address is listed as part of a larger range of blocked IP addresses because your Internet service provider is not taking action against other customers of theirs that engage in spamming. So pretty much you can just blacklist anyone you feel like blacklisting due to something someone else did? Since you add these manually to the databse you are liable for the decisions you make.

You inherited a listed network after your provider moved the previous tenant, who was a listed spammer, elsewhere. They may have simply moved them around in their own IP address space, or they may have terminated the spammer. At any rate, it would have been kind of the ISP to double-check whether the address block was blocklisted anywhere before reallocating it. Again, if this is the case YOU have made a choice to blacklist those domain names without cause.

SORBS will not delist you without paying the 'fine' for any of these reasons. So this self appointed group of jerkoffs think they have the right to FINE someone?

However, if the listing is a part of a wider range that is blocked you the end-user are not required to pay the SORBS 'fine' as the entry was not generated because of your actions. In such a case only the Internet service provider involved can address the matter. Oh, how gracious of you that I might not have to pay the fine THAT YOU MADE UP!

Then the best part is to submit a delisting request, you have to provide the IP address of your mailserver or the form will not go through. They are so sure that whatever they do is correct that they didn't allow for any other way. Hey assholes! IF I DO NOT HAVE A MAILSERVER I CANNOT GIVE YOU AN IP ADDRESS FOR IT!

This makes it so I cannot email them to tell them they have made a mistake, because they assume that they do not make any mistakes.

If you do not know what your IP address is, please read the Support Request FAQ because you cannot be delisted without knowing it. This is simply because we are not mind readers. Any requests that do not contain the IP address(es) involved have to be ignored and deleted unread. Sorry.

The 'fine' was created to stop spammers from quickly removing themselves from the database. It also has the side effect of reminding people the hard way that they are responsible for their own actions.
Putting an unpatched, unfirewalled Microsoft Windows® machine on the Internet is irresponsible in the highest degree, installing a proxy server and leaving it open for the world to use is both foolish and irresponsible, yet people are doing these things every day, and no one is telling them they can't or that it is wrong.

The 'fine' is US $50.00 and is designed to be small enough to so that the home user will think twice about getting listed a second time, and small enough to be a 'right royal pain in the butt' to any large company, the idea being that whether you are a multi-national company or a single home user, you will think twice about getting relisted for any reason.

Needless to say, the 'fine' policy has proved controversial, particularly with those listed. It has also received negative press from several large U.S. ISPs

Yeah as in we list you and you pay us to be taken off the list. That is extortion plain and simple. They claim the money goes to charity. I run a charity and they are trying to extort money from me to give to a charity?

and finally, if you are really not a spammer, or you are truly reformed, de-listing is relatively easy. You donate US$50 to a charity or trust approved by, and not connected with, SORBS for each spam received related to the listing.

So If I really not a spammer I have to pay the extortion anyway.

The "charity the donation goes to is to a lwyer who defended a guy that did exactly what these guys are doing. He got sued for the equivalent of defamation for accusing someone of being a spammer. It says that the guy already won the lawsuit but any extra money will go to defend people who accuse other people of being spammers.

So in other words, Sorbs accuses you of being a spammer and you must pay them to be taken off their blacklist. The money goes into a fund that helps defend them if you sue them.

Click here to see the so-called charity the money goes to.

I DON'T agree with the fine! Will SORBS change it...?

In a word, YES! However...
What will it be replaced with? That is the question SORBS has for you.

A blatant threat that if you do not pay something worse will happen.

I've taken screen shots to make sure I have it all as written and personally I believe they are going to need that defense fund.

Things That Just Piss Me Off!

Our Own King George

2006-06-16T22:52:00.000-04:00

It just keeps getting worse. This administration has done more to piss people off since King George III of England.

Take a look at what led to the American Revolution.

Bush attacks privacy the way King George opposed taxes.

Bush ignores the geneva convention. Says it doesn't apply to his war.

Bush and Cheney regard torture as a means to gather information totally acceptable.

Bush orders wiretaps on American citizens without the court order from the secret courrt set up for exactly that purpose.

Bush thinks monitoring what books people check out at the library is acceptable.

Bush has had the phone companies assisting the NSA to compile the phone records of US citizens and NOT just those that are suspected of terrorism.

And now he wants to force ISPs to keep everyone's records on file just in case the government might want to look them over someday. Click the image to read the article.

Our own King George has crossed the line so many times its amazing to me how people can think any of these things can or will stop a terrorist from bombing a bus, a subway train, a car, or anything else.

What is more amazing to me is people's willingness to allow this president to take away their rights by using fear as a tool to convince them that these things are necessary.

For just 30 seconds, just 30, I want you to imagine you are a terrorist. How many ways can you think of to hurt the people around you? Could you really be stopped? Would any of the things our King George is doing stop you if you really were the type of person who wanted to attack America?

If giving these things up actually gave us any real security, then maybe they should be considered, but they don't. All they do is allow the government to have more information on everyone in this country.

Even if you think bush is a great guy and would never use that information in a bad way, just remember, he won't be president after 2008. Do you really want to put all of that information into the hands of Hilary Clinton? John Kerry? Some future president we don't even know of yet?

It seems everyone, at least every neo-con, thinks that anyone who disagrees with King Bush is a traitor to this country, let alone being a traitor to the republican conservative movement.

It is the duty of every patriotic American to question the motives of those they elect to govern them. To be unquestioningly loyal to the government is NOT patriotism.

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Two Tier Internet Explained

2006-06-05T21:08:00.000-04:00

We have all been hearing about the telephone companies attempting to charge websites who use more bandwidth than other websites. They want to provide those who pay them faster and better access while slowing down the access of websites not paying for that extra bandwidth.

These websites and companies already pay for that bandwidth to their hosting company who pays the telcos. Now the telcos want to get paid twice.

What about the indians in mexico that used the web to make the world aware of Mexico trying to exterminate them. Thos ewebsites used a lot of bandwidth but made no profit. Under the telcos planned two-tier system they would be extinct.

Unless you have not heard, Verizon, AT&T, Bell South and other telecommunications giants are lobbying Congress to establish a legal basis for charging website owners for traffic with the help of two-tier Internet.

If telecommunication lobby succeeds it would mean the end of online freedom and higher prices for online goods and services for all of us.

So what do telecommunication companies want? Quite naturally, greedy corporations want more profit and they are keen to find a way to stuff their pockets even tighter.

Hold on there, telecom companies already charging us - the consumers - for broadband and cable access, right? But now they want to charge content providers too based on the amount of traffic their sites generate. Nonsense! Although telcos argue that they want to curb proliferation of online video and other types of data-hungry streaming that allegedly taxes their networks they think imposing traffic fees on content providers would be a fair solution.

Click Here for the rest of the story.

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High Court Helps Government Officials Hide Corruption

2006-06-03T18:57:00.000-04:00

Now that an FBI raid has siezed documents from several politicians that could prove to be proof that they were taking bribes, now that it seems GW Bush has overstepped his Presidential Authority in Guantanamo and with the whole NSA wiretapping issue, and with the Jack Abramoff scandals, the Supreme court comes to the rescue!

Now those politicians won't have to worry about people snitching on their illegal activities thanks to Judge Alito swinging the vote their way. Hey, the guy has to thank those that got him on the high court doesn't he?

The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote.

In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs.

Critics predicted the impact would be sweeping, from silencing police officers who fear retribution for reporting department corruption, to subduing federal employees who want to reveal problems with government hurricane preparedness or terrorist-related security.

Now the politicians are free to continue to be corrupt and those who wish to blow the whistle on them can get in trouble. Now that is a good law to have. Let the criminals go free and punish those who report them?

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The NTIA to Review ICANN's Progress

2006-06-02T16:32:00.000-04:00

The NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) has asked for comments related to how ICANN has been doing their job. Well if you read my blog much, you know how I feel about the job that ICANN hasn't been doing.

I decided to make it known to the NTIA as well since they asked for comments. My comments can be found here in html format, here in Word format, or here in PDF format.

Let's Talk About ICANN
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Pedophiles to launch political party

2006-05-31T23:03:00.000-04:00

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage. The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!"

The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

"A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper. "We want to make pedophilia the subject of discussion," he said, adding the subject had been a taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighboring Belgium.

In the US GWBUSH wiretaps people who are possibly remotely linked to terrorists. If anyone should be monitored, it's pedophiles. They harm more people in the US than terrorists every year.

"We want to get into parliament so we have a voice. Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals," Van den Berg told Reuters.

Uh, thats because you are criminals you moron.

The Netherlands, which already has liberal policies on soft drugs, prostitution and gay marriage, was shocked by the plan. An opinion poll published Tuesday showed that 82 percent wanted the government to do something to stop the new party, while 67 percent said promoting pedophilia should be illegal.

Only 82%. That is sad. So 18% of the people polled think it's okay?

"They make out as if they want more rights for children. But their position that children should be allowed sexual contact from age 12 is of course just in their own interest," anti-pedophile campaigner Ireen van Engelen told the AD daily.

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Michael Moore to Provide Veteran Benefits?

2006-05-31T18:37:00.000-04:00

Everyone feels sympathy for those who are injured while serving this country. I support our troops 100%. Personally I believe veterans deserve way more than this country gives them.

GW Bush talks a lot about support for the troops, etc. yet doesn't do much about helping them once they are through serving HIS war in Iraq.

Now a veteran is suing Michael Moore for using a news clip that made him "appear" anti-war. He doesn't say he didn't say the things that were shown in the movie Farenheit 9-11, he says now he was talking about not liking the painkillers he was taking and that Moore has ruined his reputation.

The guy is a double-amputee and a veteran who seved his country so naturally we all want to side with the poor guy because he deserves something.

However, that something is not an 85 million dollar settlement from Moore like he is trying to get. The something he should be getting is better benefits from the US government without the Pentagon trying to take money away from veteran benefits constantly.

Damon is asking for up to $75 million because of "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation."

Click here for the rest of the stunt, I mean story.

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Contextual Advertising Disease

2006-05-31T01:32:00.000-04:00

When contextual advertising like google adsense first came out I thought, "what a great idea! Ads based on my content that my readers might be able to actually use and want."

Notice I no longer put adsense into my blog. The reason; I don't want to be part of spreading this infectious disease.

I write articles for clients and have to use the web to do research. Everytime I go to search for something now, I have to sort through all of the garbage websites that are built for just google adsense ads.

I'm not talking about websites that have actual content AND have google adsense in addition to that. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm talking about websites that have no content, have spammy content, or even have hidden content where the spammy text is the same color as the background of the page.

Websites like this one, which was number 1 in ask.com for the term "make money". How about this one, which was number 1 in google for mancoon cats. Try any of the sites for that search term. They are almost all garbage.

The google adnonsense disease is ruining search on the Internet and google and the other contextual advertising creators don't care.

Google's terms of service say they do not allow websites like those. However, they are not only allowing it, they are ranking them in the top 10 results for search terms.

They can't tell me they can't find those websites that are violating the TOS. They can't miss them. If any google employee uses the web at all they would see them every day.

The defenders of this say they are providing another way for people to search the web. What? By having you as the middleman? If it weren't for the garbage parked and monetized domain name disease and the trash websites all about adsense, then the user would find what they are looking for through the search engine.

The user would get to a website that had related content. One that actually had some kind of value. Parked monetized domain names and garbage no content or spammy content websites add no value to the web at all. It's a disease that's killing web search as we know it.

But the ones that are doing it don't care. Give me some clicks and let me earn my two cents! Then you have the adsense gurus promoting more of it and charging people to learn how they too can create more garbage on the web using google adnonsense.

I'll be glad when people start talking about google the way they now talk about Veronica the extinct gopher search tool.

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Pot Doesn't Increase Cancer Risk

2006-05-27T11:24:00.000-04:00

In yet another study on marijuana the results were surprising and probably not very pleasing to the bush administration who considers all pot smokers to be supportive of terrorism. I think their are people becoming seriously addicted to marijuana studies.

People who smoke marijuana may be at less risk of developing lung cancer than tobacco smokers, according to a new study.

Bloomberg news reports that in a study of 2,200 people in Los Angeles even heavy marijuana smokers were no more likely to develop lung, head or neck cancer than non-users, in contrast with tobacco users, whose risk increases the more they smoke.

The findings are a surprise because marijuana smoke has some of the same cancer-causing substances as tobacco smoke, often in higher concentrations, said the senior researcher, Donald Tashkin, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles.

One possible explanation is that THC, a key ingredient in marijuana not present in tobacco, may inhibit tumor growth, he said in an interview.

Oops. What was that last part? Medicinal marijuana may actually have a use? What will GW do now? Probably declare the people that did this study as connected to Al Queda.

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Drug Compnies Pay For Study Results

2006-05-27T10:58:00.000-04:00

There are so many studies, polls, surveys, etc. that come out every week. They tell us this percentage of this or this percentage of that is how poeple think. Drug studies are supposed to tell us what is safe and what isn't, yada yada yada. However, did you ever stop to think where the money comes from for all of those studies?

If you were to track down the source of the money for each of those polls, surveys or studies, you would see the results are very often in favor of whoever funded the study. If the republican party funds a study, you can bet the results are going to favor republicans. The same goes if democrats fund a study, survey, or poll.

A recent study done here at Things That Just Piss Me Off proves that 75% of Americans make up 3/4 of the population here in the US.

Those who are getting the money to perform the study know they may not be funded again if the study does not come out in favor of the people who paid for the study. So even if the funder of a study does not outright tell the people doing the study to manipulate the results in their favor, those doing the study will do it anyway to ensure their future income from the same source.

Drug Companies Fund Drug Studies

Drug companies fund a growing number of the studies in leading psychiatric journals, and drugs fare much better in these company-funded studies than in trials done independently or by competitors, researchers reported.

According to a report in USA Today about 57 percent of published studies were paid for by drug companies in 2002, compared with 25 percent in 1992, says psychiatrist Igor Galynker of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.

There were favorable outcomes for a medication in about:

Eight out of 10 studies paid for by the company that makes the drug.
Five out of 10 studies done with no industry support.
Three out of 10 studies done by competitors of the firm making the drug.
The findings don't prove the companies are knowingly biasing studies, says co-author Robert Kelly Jr., also with Beth Israel. The report didn't look at the evidence for bias in design of the studies.

Now you can say that is all just a coincidence if you want to. Go back and sit on the couch with your remote. This doesn't affect you. For those whose brain has not yet been melted, this should show you to never take any study, survey, or poll seriously without first tracking down who paid for it.

That is not always easy either. All these big companies have to do is set up and fund a foundation somewhere, then let that foundation fund the study. Then it all seems to be on the up and up. For me, all the studies, surveys, and polls I see are not to be trusted. Researching is a business like anything else. If they do not produce a product their customers like they will lose business. It's that simple.

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Tobacco Madness

2006-05-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, some of you are old enough to remember the movie "Reefer Madness" that exaggerated the effects of smoking marijuana. It was intended to scare the public into avoiding it but lied about the topic to do so. Now we have "Tobacco Madness". No one denies that smoking is harmful, but this story is ridiculous.

One Cigarette Can Spark Addiction

Trying just one cigarette may not be so harmless for non-smokers after all, Reuters reports.

Scientists have discovered that a single cigarette has a "sleeper effect" that can increase a person's vulnerability for three years or more to becoming a regular smoker.

"We know that progression from experimenting with one cigarette to being a smoker can take several years," said Jennifer Fidler of University College London.

"But for the first time we've shown that there may be a period of dormancy between trying cigarettes and becoming a regular smoker - a 'sleeper effect' or vulnerability to nicotine addition," she added.

Fidler and her team analyzed the impact of smoking a single cigarette on more than 2,000 children, ages 11 to 16, over five years.

Of the 260 children, who by age 11 had tried one cigarette, 18 percent were regular smokers by the time they reached 14. But only 7 percent of 11-year-olds who had never smoked had taken up the habit three years later.

Anyone who is more likely to try something is more likely to do it later. I'll bet you that those who have tried bungee jumping just one time are more likely to try bungeee jumping again later than those who never tried bungee jumping at all. I can put that study out right away. Can a brother get a grant?

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Pentagon Punishes Veterans Again

2006-05-26T20:02:00.000-04:00

Influential lawmakers are moving to block for at least a year the Defense Department's plan to raise TRICARE fees, co-payments and deductibles for military retirees under age 65 and their family members.

Defense officials had hoped to begin to phase in the higher rates, the average fee increases for under-65 retirees would be 115 percent, as early as October, 2006.

Enrollment fees for TRICARE Prime would triple for retired officers, double for senior enlisted and rise by 41 percent for retired enlisted in grades E-6 and below.

Deductibles for TRICARE Standard also would rise sharply for under-65 retirees and, for the first time, Standard users among them also would pay an annual enrollment fee.

So much for this administration "supporting our troops" as they so often like to say.

TRICARE retail pharmacy co-payments too would increase under the plan. To learn more, read article "Higher TRICARE Fees for Retirees Run Aground" by Tom Philpott.

Click here to let your senators know how you feel!

source: Military.com

AT&T and the NSA Wiretapping

2006-05-26T19:54:00.000-04:00

The archived statemaents Mark Klein made in the case about AT&T and the NSA working together to spy on American citizens can be found by clicking here.

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Vint Cerf Answers Questions! Or Did He?

2006-05-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

Click here to view my questions and others to Vint Cerf and you be the judge of whether he answered us or not

While you are there read my article on Google AdNonSense

I end up pissed off about ICANN and domain name issues so much I decided to give the topic its own blog.

Let's Talk ABout ICANN

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Self Centered People

2006-05-23T15:14:00.000-04:00

When did people in the US become so self-centered. I mean we all are to a certain degree. We tend to put our own interests at the top of our priorities. But that's not what I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about people that don't even seem to realize that other people even have any priorities besides fulfilling their priorities.

You see it every day. People who stop in front of you to talk with someone even though there is a line of cars waiting on them. Their priority right now is to talk to whoever they are talking to and the fact thaty all the cars behind them have places to go makes no difference whatsoever.

People in line at the fast food restaurant that stand there talking while they are going through the line, then get to the cashier and look up at the menu and say . . . "uh, what do I want, let me see." They could have been deciding that all along while they were in line and they wouldn't be holding up the people behind them, but that isn't important to them.

The convenience of others has no consequence to these people. The whole world revolves around them and everything and everyone is just there to do their bidding if they get noticed at all.

These are the same people that if you ask them to do anything the first concern they have is "What's in it for me?" "What do I get out of it?" "I don't do anything for free!" Yet they are also the same people unwilling to pay others to do the things they ask or will be as late as possible paying others for the services they do perform. The only thing that was important is that they got what they wanted and your needs are not important.

People who cut in line or rush in to take a parking place or people who turn left at the light even though those going straight had the right away all belong in this category of asshole.

This "me me me, my name is jimmy so gimme gimme gimme" attitude seems to be like a disease that is spreading in epidemic proportion. Forget the bird flu, lets get rid of the "Me Flu".

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New Blog All About ICANN

2006-05-22T20:53:00.000-04:00

Okay, there are a lot of things that just piss me off, but ICANN is taking up too much space on my blog, so I have created an entire blog devoted to the things about ICANN that just piss me off. The address is http://ICANN.ThingsThatJustPissMeOff.com

If you want a blog about something that just pisses you off, I'll host you for free! No adsense ads, nothing, just free. Go to Start Your Own Blog Free! Anything.ThingsThatJustPissMeOff.com

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XXX VS US DoC

2006-05-21T17:45:00.000-04:00

Well, did you all think this issues would go away? Of course the Us Government influenced ICANN's decision to block the XXX TLD. No I don't say allegedly. It's too obvious for me to be shy about calling a spade a spade.

Now, don't misunderstand this article. I am not a supporter of the XXX TLD. For one thing it will do absolutely nothing to control or inhibit porn on the Internet. Porn websites will still be placed on every TLD there is and with dot XXX they would just have a whole other TLD to build websites on.

It won't increase or decrease the amount of porn on the Internet. The christian right was saying, "It would add legitimacy to the porn industry. They are wrong. The supreme court of the United States of America already did that.

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As a christian I hate being associated with "the christian right" who seek to influence our government to legislate morality.

As a christian it is my duty to teach people what is right and what is wrong. It's up to each individual whether or not they wish to live a moral life and follow Jesus Christ. Christ said he wants followers to come to him willingly.

Did he lobby the jews to pass laws accepting his word as law? No. He taught people and demonstrated through his own actions what it means to live right. He hoped they would follow his example.

So, back to the domain/TLD XXX. It's not an issue about porn since as I said before it will not affect porn in any way. It's an issue about the freedom to create new TLDs without government interference, without special interest groups deciding what is right or wrong, and without ICANN blocking my rights to start a business, even if that business is selling domain names and managing a TLD.

ICANN refusing individuals or companies the right to start a new TLD is restraint of trade and illegal.

Click here to learn more about what actually happened with the whole XXX TLD mess.

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You Will Watch My Advertisement! Now Mister!

2006-05-19T20:56:00.000-04:00

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Okay, one of the latest patents from Phillips is really gonna piss people off! Using the technology built into TVs meant to create broadcast flags, Phillips says it can force viewers to watch commercials even if they don't want to.

If implemented, a commercial would come on, you would try to flip over to some other channel and the remote won't work and neither will the buttons on the TV itself. (Yes they really do still put buttons on some TVs that you can use to change channels, but you have to get out of the chair).

This technology would even prevent you from recording a show, then fast forward through the commercials on the recording.

The idea is to keep you from channel surfing during commercials and advertisers will adopt it quickly to make sure you watch the drivel they spout every five minutes during your favorite show.

The Rest of The Story

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Welcome New Blog to the Blogroll - Intelligence Warzone

2006-05-18T16:33:00.000-04:00

I've added some new links to my blogroll on the right, check them out. Don't forget to check out the Intelligence Warzone and Who Let The Blog Out?

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Vint Cerf Answers Questions Including My Own

2006-05-18T15:50:00.000-04:00

Vint Cerf, inventer of email, head of ICANN, and Google's "Internet Evangelist" agreed to answer questions on a public website, Circle ID, and I was there with a ton of them. Many of them are questions or topics I have posted here often.

I am reposting the questions I asked him, his answers, and my responses here and will add a link where you can see all the other questions and comments.

Q5: Since ICANN is supposed to foster competition, how does restricting the number of TLDs help do that?—by Chris McElroy

Vint Cerf: It depends on what you interpret useful competition to be.

No, it seems to be what the ICANN BoD considers useful competition to be and that is not part of ICANN’s responsibility nor is it their area of expertise.

There are costs associated with the implementation of new TLDs and these costs are manifest in various ways (ICANN cost of operation,

Which is already covered in the part of the domain name registration fees ICANN gets.

potential costs to trademark holders,

Again, not an area of ICANN’s mission statement or MOU with the DoC.

impact on the root operation, costs to the supporting organizations considering new TLDs and so on).

There shouldn’t be much cost in considering the applications since you should not be trying to determine financial capability, but only technical ability.

The idea that increasing the number of TLDs is absolutely beneficial seems to me open to some debate (see also responses to earlier questions).

Stifling competition by deciding who is allowed to compete is absolutely not beneficial to anyone and does not foster competition as ICANN is mandated to do. It is not ICANN’s job to determine if my business plan is viable or not. Increasing the number of TLDs does not threaten the stability of the Internet and does foster more competition in the domain name market. ICANN’s refusal to do so is blocking legitimate trade.

* * *

Q6: Do you consider it fair and competitive to allow current companies who monopolize most of the good, short one word domain names, to have an advantage over every other business or individual user who has to choose 3-4 word domain names to compete with?—by Chris McElroy

Vint Cerf: I assume you mean by this, second level labels within a given TLD?

Well, yes I do Vint.

Registrations in the existing TLDs have been essentially open and roughly speaking first come, first served, discounting some sunrise processes introduced with some new TLDs.

Let’s don’t discount that Vint. The sunrise periods where one TM holder gets to monopolize a specific string opf letters in every TLD is part of allowing them to monopolize namespace.

Your thesis seems to be that short domain names are somehow more competitive than longer ones, or ones that are hierarchical in structure.

Vint I understand you are an engineer. But if you do not understand how short one-word domain names are far superior to longer 4 word domain names, then you should not be part of an organization that makes decisions about domain names. I’m considered somewhat of a domain name expert, but I could be a total newby and know the value of a one-word domain name over a four-word domain name.

Given the way in which most products and services are found on the net (through search, not through domain name guessing), I am not sure I buy the competition argument I believe you are implicitly making.

I am implicitly making the assertion that one-word domain names have a huge advantage over longer multi-word domain names. If you don’t buy it again, “Internet Evangelist” is a strong title for someone who doesn’t understand this basic concept of SEO. Remembering a domain name is an integral part of maintaining a customer base Vint. You know this. Denying it only means you don’t wish to address the issue that there is an actual shortage of good domain names and that there is a need for more TLDs.

Q7: What about future generations of users and future businesses that are not even on the web yet? How long will their domain names have to be since ICANN has limited namespace to a few generic sounding TLDs, com, net, org, biz, and info and how does that foster competition?—by Chris McElroy

Vint Cerf: Please see my previous answer above. ICANN has not said it will not authorize additional TLDs but what is lacking is the basis for their authorization. That’s what the PDP process is intended to help create.

I believe the process was created to again complicate and slow down the process of creating or approving new TLDs. I saw your previous answer above that also did not address the real issue that there is a shortage of good commercially viable domain names due to ICANN restricting namespace. ICANN approved dot aero and dot museum and now dot mobi and dot tel, none of which address ther need for commercially viable TLDs. None of which can compete with a dot com. Competing TLDs have been applied for and consistantly turned down by ICANN. The introduction of these insequential TLDs is a thinly veiled attempt to give the appearance of ICANN approving more TLDs for businesses to use on the web.

* * *

Q8: Why should a trademark automatically assure one company a domain name when several businesses have the same mark? And why does ICANN not solve that problem by creating categorical TLDs that correspond to trademark categories? Then apple.computers could be as protected as apple.records—by Chris McElroy

Vint Cerf: For gTLDs one would need a universal categorization system and the trademark community does not, to my knowledge, have one. There are categories for each national trademark system but as far as I am aware, these have not been homologated. You are correct that trademarks are not unique and that has been part of the “collision” with the domain name system.

WIPO is the organization responsible for international compliance with trademarks. I’m sure someone there could give you a list of classes. Then they could easily be added to the DNS as TLDs. Then TM holders would ONLY be entitled to a domain name if the domain name matched their mark AND the TLD matched the class the trademark was registered for. This would reduce TM conflicts by 99%. Ahhh, but then the corporations that have influence would not be able to control namespace the way ICANN currently helps them do.

* * *

Q9: Where in ICANN’s bylaws does it say that ICANN has the right to review my business plan before deciding to let me run a TLD? What if my business plan is a secret? Why does it take $50,000 to review an application? And why haven’t the application fees ever been refunded to applicants who were turned down?—by Chris McElroy

Vint Cerf: Part of ICANN’s responsibility is to attempt to assure the stability of the domain name system

Technically assure the stability of the Internet, yes.

and that has been interpreted as trying to assure that operators of TLDs are equipped to run their TLDs in a sustainable way.

Is there a place in ICANN’s MOU or even Mission Statement that shows that ICANN is responsible for the financial stability of every company that manages a TLD? No? I thought not.

That’s out of interest for the registrants.

Again, buyer beware. It is not ICANN’s job to guarantee registrants of domain names that the registrar is financially stable.

The process of evaluation allows for confidentiality of submitted materials.

And I’m sure none of those business plans were ever discussed outside of the Boardroom with anyone. Kind of a “Trust Me” policy hunh?

Also, since ICANN is reviewing and in a very few cases accepting and approving a particular business plan in regards to running a TLD that would make ICANN liable if me registrar goes out of business.

By putting ICANN in the position of reviewing business plans and finances it increases it’s own liability in this litigious society. “Also Named” is a good term for lawsuits. ICANN need to stick to technical issues and stay out of political, social, and financial policy making.

ICANN contracts for outside reviews of TLD proposals so there are out of pocket costs. In the last sTLD cycle, ICANN undertook to analyze costs and to rebate unused fees, if memory serves. I would note that there are out of pocket costs even if bids are not accepted so refunds in that case are problematic.

It’s taken 6 years to review this? But thank you Vint for addressing the questions anyway. What I should have asked is if ICANN is ever going to reactivate the General Assembly and hold elections for Board Memebers as promised. So many questions so little time

The Rest of the Questions, Answers and Comments.

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Politicians Use Teens to get Votes

2006-05-15T09:42:00.000-04:00

Politicians were and are never worried about child abuse, child sexual exploitation, and Internet safety, until it comes to getting votes. How many times have you heard a politician running for office that says, "I promise to find more missing children"? or "I pledge to reduce the number of children who are abused by 90%"?

You don't here those as campaign slogans. You know why? Because voters don't care about those issues as much as the economy, the war in Iraq, unemployment, or illegal immigration. Thats right. Thats exactly what I said. American voters care more about many other issues over the welfare of children.

I have never seen any survey that asked voters what their top issues are for an election that including missing and abducted children, child abuse, or online sexual predators.

But now with the popularity of myspace.com and with inflated figures from the NCMEC, that they cannot prove or verify, that one out of five children is approached online by a sexual predator, it has now become a political issue and politicians are rushing to capitalize on it.

Of course there are teenagers who are solicited for sex online. It does happen and needs to be dealt with. The police have and are dealing with it. One in Five cannot be proven even though the NCMEC insists on using that figure.

Basically a long time back someone did a survey with a question like "Has anyone talked to you in a sexual manner online?" and one in five said yes. However, they were not asked if it was other teenagers talking to them that way or adults.

They left that out on purpose because funding comes from places who want numbers that show there is a problem. Having the actual details might not get them as much money.

Now, . . .

MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are the potential targets for a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users.

Fitzpatrick and fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on Wednesday endorsed new legislation (click here for PDF) that would cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.

That's a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google's Orkut.com. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo's instant-messaging features, and Microsoft's Xbox 360, which permits in-game chat.

Fitzpatrick's bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA

More like Dopey. Censorship is not the answer. Education is. I mean educating parents not just the teens. Be a real parent. Quit using the computer to babysit your children. Parents these days are "too busy" to be parents. They first used television as a babysitter and now it's computers and they want laws passed that make it a better babysitter.Hey let's take away their cellphones too. And we can put a lock on the house phone, lock them in their rooms, slide food under the door, and they will be safe and we won't have to spend too much time making sure they are safe.

Schools are no better than the parents. Of all the money they get, they spend very little out of every dollar on actual students where they could be hiring people that can educate students about Internet safety.

Any real parent has already learned that forbidding teenagers to do anything is making certain that they WILL do it. Censoring these websites won't work anymore than prohibition worked on adults. These teens know far more about the Internet than their parents and certainly more than teachers whose last days in school was when the TRS80 was the hot new computer.

They will get around whatever system that is put in place and do it more because you are trying to forbid them than any other reason. The idiot republicans behind this law are desperate to retain voters that are tired of the bush-neo-con-almightier-than-thou-crowd and they think that banning teenagers from myspace will do it for them.

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The actual proposed law that would block social networking websites.
borrowed quotes from; News.com

Webmaster Advice

2006-05-13T16:07:00.000-04:00

Okay, this really pisses me off. You go to a webmaster forum and you see someone puts their website up to be reviewed by other webmasters. Then 2 or 3 webmasters start criticizing the website and talking about all the flaws.

Then you look in the webmasters sigline for their own websites and find out they have a couple of adsense monetized webpages with 0 page rank and no traffic.

What makes some of these guys think that buying an adsense website on Ebay qualifies them to criticize anyone else's website?

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Google Sued Over Child Porn

2006-05-08T08:50:00.000-04:00

"Google has made child pornography an "obscenely profitable and integral part" of its business and must be stopped, a new lawsuit claims.

Jeffrey Toback and Child Porn Lawsuit
Jeffrey Toback, a Democratic representative in New York's Nassau County Legislature, charged in a complaint filed Thursday that Google has been taking in billions of dollars by allowing child pornography and "other obscene content" operators to advertise their sites through sponsored links, which are tailored to a user's search terms and automatically accompany search results. The suit was filed in the New York Supreme Court."

Legislator Toback has also proposed a law to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products in Nassau County from 18 to 19. Called TOBACCO 19, the law would make it more difficult for younger teenagers to “pass” for the legal age, adding a substantial obstacle to their purchasing tobacco products. Yes, let's punish legal adults because some minors look older than they should.

Among other allegations, the complaint evoked the politically volatile topic of the search engine's dealings in China.

"Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."

And exactly what does Google's china business have to do with child porn. I think Legislator Toback has a hard time staying focused.

A Google representative said Friday that the company prohibits child pornography in its products and removes all such content whenever the company finds or is made aware of it. "We also report it to the appropriate law enforcement officials and fully cooperate with the law enforcement community to combat child pornography," spokesman Steve Langdon said in an e-mail.

Langdon pointed to the content policy for Google's AdWords sponsored links service, which broadly prohibits "promotion of child pornography or other non-consensual material." Langdon also noted that Google offers a filtering tool called SafeSearch that aims to block offensive content in search results.

Which is what they should do. All companies that provide search and other access to online material should make some attempt to make sure they are not facilitating any illegal activity including child pornography.

The suit was filed by the White Plains, N.Y.-based firm of Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz. Other recent lawsuits filed by the firm have sought at least $10 million for alleged sex discrimination against Atlantic City, N.J., casino cocktail waitresses and $600 million from the maker of an ephedra-based dietary supplement claimed to cause the death of a Baltimore Orioles pitcher.

Toback, the politician backing the action, describes himself in his biography on Nassau County's Web site as a "quality of life guy" who has focused on legislation promoting open space and recreational areas. He has also co-sponsored a law designed to protect teenagers from tanning beds and has planned this year to pursue a ban of toy guns in the area.

Legislator Toback also co-sponsored a law to protect Nassau teens from the harmful effects of indoor tanning devices that requires anyone under the age of 18 who wishes to use a tanning facility to have signed, written consent from his or her parent.

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RIAA after Colleges now

2006-05-05T20:34:00.000-04:00

Well at least they are going after people who are doing file sharing that are older than 13 now.

As part of the entertainment industry’s efforts to address the ongoing theft of music and movies online by college students, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) today announced a systematic program to identify and curtail campus Local Area Network (“LAN”) piracy at universities across the country. As part of this new program, the RIAA and MPAA today sent letters to 40 university presidents in 25 states alerting them of LAN piracy problems on their campuses and encouraging immediate action to stop and prevent theft by such means.

Yes, we must all spend money to add software to networks, just because the RIAA says so.

We cannot ignore the growing misuse of campus LAN systems or the toll this means of theft is taking on our industry. As we prioritize our focus on campus LAN piracy in the coming year, we hope administrators will take this opportunity to fully evaluate their systems and take action to stop theft by all means.”

Achtung! Ve must protect our product. Ve Vill begin torture of anyone who shares files Vith Von another!

SEE WHAT FILE SHARING HAS DONE TO THIS POOR RAPPER?!

In letters sent today, the RIAA and MPAA notified 40 university presidents of information indicating campus LAN piracy problems on their campuses. The universities receiving these letters are located in the following 25 states: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Washington, DC.

Ve vill no longer tolerate this. These states must now stop this activitiy or ve vill be forced to invade your states!

Lawsuits and filtering clearly aren't enough to stop college students from swapping music files. As if coercive university Napster taxes aren't bad enough, it is likely that RIAA tactics will continue to become more invasive as they search for new ways to force fans to pay up. It's not out of the quesiton that RIAA may try to get Congress to mandate use of filtering technologies at universities. Given the current climate in Washington, it's not far-fetched to imagine our elected representatives threatening to cut federal funding for universities that refuse to install filters.

Ve vill cut your . . . vunding off. Ve have vays of making you cooperate.

The Article

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Why ICANN gets captured by Special Interests

2006-05-04T19:51:00.000-04:00

Now, this is a great example of how the whole ICANN process has been captured by poeple who have only their own interests in mind.

Michael Mann owns grassroots.org, but ALSO owns buy domains. He is in the domain name speculation business. He registers some dot org domains then sells them at a profit to charities that need them. Granted, he also gives the use of some of them away on his hosting to organizations. However, his business is buying and selling domain names.

Now The Public Interest Registry (PIR) the registry service provider for .org domains, today announced the appointment of seven new Worldwide Advisory Council members and a new representative from the ICANN Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) to fill expiring term open seats.

Michal Mann is filling one of those seats. Funny how they announce that. "Michael Mann of Grassroots.org", not "Michael Mann of BuyDomains.com."

The Rest of The Story

Registrant:
BuyDomains Holdings, Inc.
7831 Woodmont Ave Ste 347
Bethesda, MD 20814-3007
US

Domain Name: BUYDOMAINS.COM

Registrant Name Michael Mann
Registrant Street1 7831 Woodmont Ave Ste 338
Registrant City Bethesda
Registrant State/Province MD
Registrant Postal Code 20814-3007
Registrant Country US
Registrant Phone +1.2404657100
Registrant FAX +1.2404657100
Registrant Email ndomains@grassroots.org

It's not illegal to buy and sell domain names. But for the PIR to make it look like they put him on there because he is so charitable and has only pure motives is a joke. Again, if they had said Michael Mann of BuyDomains.com it might have been a tad more honest and upfront. But that isn't something the PIR or ICANN does often anyway. Transparency isn't their strong suit.

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FDA Working for the Pharmaceutical Companies to ban Ephedra

2006-05-03T22:31:00.000-04:00

You know, it really pisses me off when our government agencies that are supposed to protect consumers begin to represent the industry they are supposed to police.

The FCC does it. They favor big media conglomerates to monopolize the news by allowing them to buy out other news organizations. The rules were in place so that "free press" would actually mean something. Instead allowing these buyouts means there will be a much smaller number of people controlling the news you hear. But thats another topic for another day.

The SEC does it. They allow corporations and wallstreet to cheat investors, consumers, and taxpayers out of money, then change the law so that what the corporations did wasn't illegal after all. But thats another topic for another day.

The FDA is supposed to protect us from the Pharmaceutical Industry. According to their mission statement;

The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. The FDA is also responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medicines and foods more effective, safer, and more affordable; and helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health.

Yet, the FDA has allowed prescription drug prices to soar in this country. So much for that affordable part. They have backed the pharmaceutical companies efforts to bar consumers from getting their prescription drugs from other countries where it can be purchased cheaper. So much for protecting the consumer from higher prices.

They have allowed the pharmaceutical companies to advertise drugs on TV using misleading information to consumers. So much for the protecting the public health part. What happens is this. The rules the FDA uses to police those TV ads states the pharmaceutical company has 30 days AFTER the FDA notifies them to pull down the ad. That means the pharmaceutical companies can run any ad they want, say whatever they want, as long as they only plan to run the ad for 30 days. There is absolutely no penalty given to the pharmaceutical companies for placing the misleading ad in the first place. As I said, so much for protecting the public health.

Now in regards to Ephedra. It is a natural supplement not produced by the labs of the major pharmaceutical companies that run the FDA. Under recent amendments to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the agency has to act product-by-product and the legal burden is now on the FDA to show that a marketed product is unsafe, rather than on the company to gain FDA approval by showing that the product is safe before it is marketed.

That law applies to natural products such as ephedra or ma huang or herbal tea, st. johns wart, etc. The FDA must show that the drug is unsafe before banning it. The importers of these natural remedies do not have to prove they are safe. The burden of proof is on the FDA. Now in that mission statement above it says, "helping the public get the accurate, science-based information."

Yet, the FDA has not proven that ephedra is unsafe in the recommended dosages listed on the products that were sold over the counter. What has been proven is that ephedra was very effective at promoting weight loss and giving users more energy without any adverse side effects.

This means a lot of it was being sold, cutting into the profits of the pharmaceutical companies. The FDA can't allow those pharmaceutical comapnies to lose money to natural remedies.

The case they used was that of Steve Belcher, the baseball player

He was well known so his death made a great rallyiung point for banning ephedra. A medical examiner said probably Bechler's use of a supplement containing ephedrine, contributed to the cause of death. A bottle of that supplement was found in Bechler's locker.

But when they used his case to get rid of the evil ephedra that was cutting into the major pharmaceutical comapnies bottom line, they forgot to mention that these other factors contributed to Steve belcher's death.

* a history of borderline high blood pressure

* liver abnormalities detected two years ago but not diagnosed

* warm, humid weather during the workout

* he was on a diet and hadn't eaten much food the previous two days

* apparent use of Xenadrine RFA-1 an over-the-counter drug that contains ephedrine

* an apparent overdose of Xenadrine, using 150% of the recommended dosage

* reporting to spring training at 249 pounds, 10 pounds above his listed weight

* reporting to spring training out of shape, was pulled from conditioning drills

* did not participate regularly in team workouts, during the offseason

It was all these factors combined, apparently that contributed to Steve's death, not just the use of an over the counter, dietary supplement. Cytodyne Technologies, which makes Xenadrine, said in a statement "Physicians warn that many adverse events related to ephedra are due to people taking more than the recommended dosages.

Xenadrine has been the subject of numerous clinical trials on people, which have conclusively demonstrated that the product is safe and effective when used as directed."

Then it became political and the actual facts didn't matter much. Recntly a federal judge in Utah ruled that the FDA had not proven that ephedra at the recommended dosage was unsafe and ordered them to no longer confiscate shipments of the supplement.

The FDA is appealing, but did not ask the judge to stay the ruling until the appeal could be heard, which is the normal legal practice. Instead the FDA has chosen to simply ignore the judges ruling altogether and have continued to illegally confiscate the shipments. They have even done so in that same judge's jurisdiction.

It seems the FDA feels that any ruling against them by even a federal judge means nothing. Their loyalty to big pharmaceutical companies is all that matters. They have lost one lawsuit over ephedra and now are headed back to court being sued by yet another company.

When they lost the first lawsuit that said they couldn't confiscate ephedra shipments, they interpreted it as they couldn't stop that one company from shipping ephedra but were still free to do so to all other companies.

Their legal team has decided that each comapny must sue them individually. What a moronic idea. Ever hear of precedent? Ever hear of don't piss off a federal judge in HER own jurisdiction? Can't wait for the judge to hear this latest lawsuit.

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Home Owners Hire Half of Illegal Immigrants

2006-05-03T13:22:00.000-04:00

Everyone keeps saying, "Illegal Immigrants do the jobs Americans won't do." Thats the catch phrase of all those who think we should grant citizenship to all illegal immigrants. Some of them even believe that.

The facts are different. First of all, if you granted them all citizenship, it is unfair to all those from all other countries who came here, filled out all the forms, stood in the lines, paid out the money, went to classes, and waited for legal US Citizen status.

You would instead be rewarding illegal behavior. Never been a good idea that started with granting favors to people who break the law.

Secondly, the only big winners in the whole illegal immigrant issue are the big corporation and the rich who want cheap labor and refuse to pay a living wage, pay into social security which needs the money, and pay employment taxes as well as health care.

The illegals get treated like garbage by these employers. No health care or workman's compensation. They pay them less money than they would pay anyone else. They work them longer hours with no overtime. They work them in unsafe conditions. They can do all of this because illegals can't complain about not being treated fairly by employers.

Allowing illegal immigrants to come here and work is not doing them any favors. If they went through the process to become citizens then they would have the rights that all American citizens have. Minimum wage would apply. Workman's compensation would be mandatory. Employment taxes would be paid and that eases the burden on legitimate employers. Social Security would be paid into for each of these workers, which is not only good for them, it's good for social security that bush claims is going broke.

And now, statistics show that The number one employers of day laborers, many of whom are illegal immigrants, are homeowners -- not construction contractors, not professional landscapers, not those jobs that no American will do.

Forty-nine percent of day labor employers are homeowners, according to 2,660 laborers interviewed for the study. Contractors were second, at 43 percent. The study also found that three quarters of day laborers were illegal immigrants and most were from Latin America.

Homeowners like the men who call themselves "jornaleros" because they make up a flexible labor pool with no red tape and no overhead. And they'll do backbreaking jobs much cheaper than regular contractors.

Dodging red tape like taxes and social security and health care and safety rules.

Don't believe the hype. Click Here for the Rest of The Story

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Domain Name Registration and Parking for Profit

2006-05-02T11:17:00.000-04:00

Google Inc., which runs the largest ad network on the Internet, is making millions of dollars a year by filling otherwise unused Web sites with ads. In many instances, these ad-filled pages appear when users mistype an Internet address, such as "BistBuy.com."

But according to the google terms of service, you can't use typo domain names in the google adsense program.

This new form of advertising is turning into a booming business that some say is cluttering the Internet and could be violating trademark rules. It also has sparked a speculative frenzy of investment in domain names, pushing the value of some beyond the $1 million mark.

Psst . . . Wanna Buy Some Domains?

Google specifically bars Web addresses that infringe on trademarks from using its ad network, but a review of placeholder Web sites that result from misspelled domain names of well-known companies found that many of the ads on those pages come directly from Google.

Hmmm. You can't do that! Bad doggie! We'll do it though.

Google is defending its business practices, saying that it removes participating sites from its ad network if a trademark owner complains that those sites are confusingly similar -- even though close misspellings don't necessarily prove that a legal infringement has occurred. "Unless it is confusing to somebody, trademark law doesn't apply," said Rose Hagan, Google's chief trademark lawyer.

Ahhhh, so making a business out of violating trademark law is okay as long as you pull it down when someone sends a cease and desist order?

The Silicon Valley search giant is the largest but not the only ad network showing ads on placeholder Web pages. Yahoo and Australian firm Dark Blue Sea run similar services.

This form of online advertising relies on "type-in traffic": users who type the information they're looking for directly into the Web browser's address bar instead of using a search engine to scour the Web. Industry analysts estimate that 15 percent of all Web traffic originates this way.

That has created a demand for a practice known as domain parking, which involves owners of a domain name "parking" that name with a firm that creates placeholder pages and then inviting Google or other Internet ad networks to fill them with ads. When Web surfers arrive at those sites and click on those ads, Google and Yahoo get paid by advertisers for that click and share their revenue with the owners of the domain names.

Type-in traffic is nothing new. This is more like depending on TYPO-IN Traffic.

Opinion is divided on these type of ad pages. Some say they are nothing more than frustrating junk pages. Others, including those who speculate on potential traffic of a specific domain name, say they help people find information related to what they're looking for.

"We want those pages to function as alternatives to search engines," said Matthew Bentley, chief strategy officer for Sedo, a large parking service that manages more than 1 million unused addresses placed with the Google ad network.

The parked ad pages are mostly unattractive, but Sedo, Google and Yahoo have all said that they are working to improve them by adding more information. The parking service usually handles the creation of the ad sites.

Okay, now that is just bs. They don't plan to add more information as long as people are clicking the ads. They will continue to condone the behavior if it makes them money.

Advertisers are the ones who lose here initially because the quality of the traffic they are getting is going to be terrible. Then all of those with legitimate websites that utilize adsense and yahoo publisher will suffer next because of all the trash pages driving advertisers away from the program altogether.

Adsense and yahoo publisher were good ideas until greed took over. Calling sedo a legitimate business is just a joke.

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Former MySpace.com Owners Buy Enom.com

2006-05-02T10:43:00.000-04:00

Leading Domain Name Registrar eNom, Inc. Purchased by Group Led by Former MySpace.com Chairman Richard Rosenblatt; Paul Stahura Named President and COO of Demand Media, Inc.

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 2006-- eNom, Inc. (www.enom.com), one of the world's largest Internet domain name registrars, announced that it has been acquired by Demand Media, Inc., a new company headed by former MySpace.com chairman, and former CEO of Intermix Media, Richard Rosenblatt. Los Angeles-based Demand Media will broaden eNom's offerings by developing proprietary content tools and technologies, as well as new online advertising opportunities for eNom's clients.

Hmmm. What kind of new advertising opportunities?

With the acquisition, Paul Stahura, eNom founder and CEO, becomes president and chief operating officer of Demand Media. Terms of the private sale were not disclosed.

That's good for Paul. What about us Resellers?

"For eNom's valued network of resellers and retail customers, the acquisition represents no changes to existing relationships," assured Stahura. "We will continue to offer domain name and related services under the eNom brand, which is one of the strongest in the domain-name business. eNom's resellers can be confident that the company will continue to build and enhance its infrastructure, enabling eNom to offer an even more robust suite of services."

Okay. We'll see soon enough I guess. Gonna give us prices that can compete with GoDaddy?

"Media companies and advertising networks are now recognizing the central role a domain name plays in bringing users to Internet properties," added Stahura. "The added capital from Demand Media will accelerate our commitment to grow our business as an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar and provider of high-quality value added services."

I sure hope this is a good thing.

Demand Media, Inc's Chairman and CEO Richard Rosenblatt, described by the Wall Street Journal as a "serial Internet entrepreneur," ran MySpace.com's parent company, Intermix Media Inc., and negotiated its sale to News Corp. for more than $650 million last year. Richard was also the founding investor and vice-chairman of Great Domains, as well as Chairman and CEO of iMALL, Inc. In addition to eNom, Inc., Demand Media, Inc. also purchased San Francisco-based eHow Inc., which provides niche content for websites.

Hmmm. The fact that he helped start GreatDomains.com worries me a lot.

That is the website where you paid $75 for a domain name appraisal and no matter how bad your domain name was, they appraised it for thousands of dollars so you would go out and register more domain names and come back to have them appraised for thousands of dollars too.

They once displayed a domain name they appraised on their front page. MostWanteds.com in which wanteds isn't even a word and said it was worth $75,000.

About eNom

eNom is an ICANN accredited company offering world-class Internet domain name services at competitive prices. In business since 1997, eNom specializes in domain name registration and related services, and is the #1 reseller registrar, according to Name Intelligence(R), with the largest and most active distribution network in the domain industry. eNom currently ranks as the third largest domain name registrar worldwide.

I've been loyal to enom for a long time. Now I will have to wait to see how many changes these guys are going to make. I'll wait and see before I fill out that form at GoDaddy though.

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Why AT&T will be able to control downloads

2006-05-01T10:11:00.000-04:00

Right now congress is working on passing a law to allow the big telecoms like AT&T to charge companies more money to offer downloads. They want to create a two-tiered Internet.

They will be allowed to do so and the law will be passed because AT&T and the others have been cooperating and doing favors for the bush administration.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 28 — The government asked a federal judge here Friday to dismiss a civil liberties lawsuit against the AT&T Corporation because of a possibility that military and state secrets would otherwise be disclosed.

The lawsuit, accusing the company of illegally collaborating with the National Security Agency in a vast surveillance program, was filed in February by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.

The class-action suit, which seeks an end to the collaboration it alleges, is based in part on the testimony of Mark Klein, a retired technician for the company who says Internet data passing through an AT&T switching center in San Francisco is being diverted to a secret room. There, Mr. Klein says, the security agency has installed powerful computers to eavesdrop without warrants on the digital data and forward the information to an undisclosed place.

The bush administration will pay them back now by giving them the two-tiered Internet system and will protect them from any lawsuits brought up by the favors they are doing.

The Rest of The Story
In a related story, see how the government is also requiring ISPs to retain your information.

More things that just piss me off

Lies Sex and Videotape

2006-05-01T09:18:00.000-04:00

Well, okay, without bill clinton in office, maybe not sex, but lies and videotape are still here.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department said Friday.

Wait a minute.

Bush when asked about renewal of the patriot act said ""Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year," Bush said. "The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule. Our law enforcement needs this vital legislation to protect our citizens--you need to renew the Patriot Act."

Protect us by spying on us without the need for a warrant?

Many portions of the Patriot Act have no expiration date. One part makes it much easier for police to learn the identities of a target's e-mail correspondents and Web pages visited; another permits police to learn information about an Internet subscriber, such as credit card or bank account numbers and temporarily assigned network addresses, without seeking a judge's approval first. The section that permits "sneak and peek" warrants, which authorize surreptitious searches of homes and businesses, also does not expire.

Where is that "This is only temporary" bit that bush used to get the patriot act passed in the first place?

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

Now we see why he didn't feel the need to obey the requirements and disclose how it is being used. And on yet another website bush says . . .

"Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

Hmmm, let's scroll back up to today's news again . . .

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department said Friday.

So . . . Nothing has changed? It still requires a warrant?

because "we care about the constitution"?

Today's news doesn't seem to agree with that.
The Rest of The Story

More things that just piss me off

Whois or not to whois - That is the question

2006-05-01T09:02:00.000-04:00

ICANN will soon be deciding whether or not you have to enter your information into the whois database when you own a domain name.

Privacy advocates say that people should not have to enter their contact information because of spammers and other privacy issues.

Other's like law enforcement say they need the whois information to find out who owns a website that is committing fraud as in the fraudulent red cross donation websites that cropped up after hurricane katrina.

Personally, I believe that we have some expectation of privacy as citizens of the US, however, I do not believe it is a good idea to not require information in the whois for a domain name. I use that information all the time before I decide to buy something from someone. I want to know who I am dealing with.

I believe that consumer protection outweighs privacy in this instance.

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Falwell, Fallwell

2006-05-01T08:09:00.000-04:00

Legal Briefs (Gay)
Supreme Court won’t hear Falwell’s appeal against gay man
Friday, April 28, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 17 declined to accept Rev. Jerry Falwell’s appeal of a case that sought to shut down a website with a similar name but opposite views. Falwell claimed that a gay New York man improperly draws people to a site by using a common misspelling of the minister’s name as the site’s domain name. A federal judge sided with Falwell, who runs a Virginia-based ministries, on grounds that Christopher Lamparello’s domain name was nearly identical to the trademark bearing Falwell’s name and could confuse web surfers. Last year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and said Lamparello was free to operate his "gripe site" about Falwell’s views on gays at www.fallwell.com. Lamparello "clearly created his website intending only to provide a forum to criticize ideas, not to steal customers," the court said. The Jerry Falwell Ministries site is www.falwell.com.

You are allowed to create parodies and opposing view websites on similar domain names. Freedom of speech allows for that.

Lamparello says Falwell is wrong for preaching that gay people are sinners who can change their sexual orientation. Three years ago, an Illinois man surrendered the domain names jerryfalwell.com and jerryfallwell.com after Falwell threatened to sue for trademark infringement.

Romans: 1:26 and 27 "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

So about the part where he says Falwell is wrong, well only if you think the bible is wrong.

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Record Companies Rip Off Musicians? Say it ain't so!

2006-04-29T08:50:00.000-04:00

The suit, filed at a federal court in Manhattan, claims Sony has failed to live up to a contract requiring that it pay its musicians half of the net revenue it receives from licensing songs to download services like iTunes and Napster.

Sony has been paying the aging rockers less than that amount, in part because their record deals predate the existence of legal music sales over the Internet.

According to the suit, the record company is treating digital downloads like traditional record sales, rather than licensed music, triggering a different royalty deal.

Under that old rubrik, the record company deducts fees for the kind of extra costs they used to incur when records were pressed on vinyl, including packaging charges, restocking costs and losses due to breakage.

ANd here they go saying they are out to protect the interests of those very same musicians when they go after file sharing. However, as long as THEY own the file sharing, as in the case of Napster, then it's ok to rip the musicians off.

The Rest of The Story

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Republicans Self Destruct

2006-04-29T08:45:00.000-04:00

President Bush's no-longer-secret surveillance program employing the National Security Agency came under a two-pronged attack this week on both political and legal fronts.

First, a key Republican senator said Thursday that he was contemplating pulling the plug on the NSA spying program by cutting funding--unless, that is, the Bush administration comes clean on how the program works and whether it complies with privacy rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

"When you're withholding funds, here you're talking about real authority," Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol. Specter said he met with Bush on Wednesday but was unable to find common ground.

Second, on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in the northern district of California set two hearing dates over the next two months for a lawsuit that seeks to prove that AT&T illegally cooperated with the NSA and violated federal wiretapping laws in doing so. One date is May 17 and the other is June 21.

Republicans VS republicans, the way it oughta be.The Rest of The Story

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Phishers New Way of Getting Your Information

2006-04-29T08:07:00.000-04:00

It seems that phishing is getting more sophisticated.

In a new twist on phishing, fraudsters are sending out e-mail that attempt to trick people into sharing personal information over the phone. The caller is connected to a voice response system that is made to sound exactly like the bank's own system, The phone system identifies itself to the target as the financial institution and prompts them to enter account number and PIN.

The Rest of The Story

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Walmart Intimidation

2006-04-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

For up to two years Wal-mart lobbyists have successfully waged a war against a fair viewpoint on Wikipedia's Wal-mart page[1]. Although the Wal-mart page was originally highly critical of Wal-mart, it has slowly shifted to a very positive perspective. Although Wikipedia maintains a 'Neutral Point of View' (NPOV) policy[2], the Wal-mart page is highly biased. Additionally, all criticism has, contrary to policy, practice, and the general opinion of those concerned, been moved to a Debates Over Wal-mart section[3]. Even that page has noticeable resistance to negative points of view about Wal-mart.

My query into Wal-mart and Wikipedia started on Friday, April 14. I went to the page to find information on Wal-mart's union issues in Quebec, which had been a large issue in the media here. I found just one small entry on a timeline, saying '2004: Wal-Mart employees in JonquiÃ¨re, Quebec, Canada vote in favour of becoming the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America. Five months later, Wal-Mart announces that it would close the store, citing poor sales.' The corresponding page, Debates over Wal-mart, has no mention of the issue, or even Quebec at all. I found it very curios that such an important and popular issue was barely discussed.

The Rest of The Story

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Telephone Companies Desperate for Control

2006-04-29T07:42:00.000-04:00

With the advent of VOIP threatening traditional long distance and as more and more people get away from traditional land based lines to VOIP and cell phones, the telecom giants like AT&T are scrambling to figure out where they are going to get their money from.

In one bill, they are trying to create a two-tiered Internet where they can restrict your downloads from companies that do not pay them extra money.

Tech Giants' Internet Battles Web titans like Google and Yahoo! are battling some of the smartest lobbyists in the business. And they've just lost a big one on Capitol Hill.

A host of tech outfits, from Google to Intel, suffered a setback in a battle over access to the Internet on Apr. 26. At issue is whether telcos like AT&T and cable operators such as Comcast, which maintain the country's vast broadband networks, can favor one provider's Web traffic over another's. A measure that would bar the practice was shot down by a Congressional committee.

Of course it was shot down by a committee of senators who have been paid off by the telecom companies. A look into each of those who voted the bill down shows a lot of support from the telecom industry through campaign bribes, I mean contributions.

The Internet should not be restricted by the telephone comapnies. They already charge us for access to the Internet and now they want to control what we download, which music we listen to, and which videos we watch. Those companies willing or able to pay them will be able to distribute music and video. Those that cannot or will not pay their toll will not be able to. That is just wrong on so many levels.

If the above information does not convince you that the phone companies are out to tax every aspect of the Internet, read this.

More things that just piss me off

Very Interesting Article - A Must Read!

2006-04-28T05:19:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm having a little trouble remembering what I was going to post about here, but . . . uh . . . something about technology I think. Click the girl's picture and maybe the information will be there.

Things that just piss me off . . . and other stuff.

Visit these new blogs!

Miami Homeless Blog
Real Estate Blog
Empires Fall

Musicians Oppose RIAA, DRM, and Major Record Companies

2006-04-28T04:53:00.000-04:00

For too long major record labels and the RIAA cheated musicians out of their money. In the 50s and before between payola and the way they cheated musicians qualified the major record labels as organized crime.

Then years later with new technology and the ability to share music in different ways, they come out and say they are the benevolent ones who are protecting the artists from the evil file sharers. They begin suing 12-year-olds to prove it.

They claim to speak for the artists. Ooops, Canadien artists have spoken up for themselves and it isn't what the RIAA, the major record labels, and their lawyers wanted to hear.

CMCC Members: Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Andrew Cash and Bob Wiseman (Co-founder Blue Rodeo) all form a coalition against the copyright lawsuits and DRM.

Click the billboard to see what the canadian musicians have to say about the copyright infringement issue

More things that just piss me off

America's Most Gullible People

2006-04-26T21:09:00.000-04:00

This is a perfect example of how stupid the public can be at times. I hope you are one of the smart ones, but so many people watch TV and believe everything they see.

Border Patrol catch one of "America's Most Wanted"

Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

Among 16 undocumented immigrants stopped Monday near the Zaragoza Bridge was one of “America's Most Wanted,” a woman wanted in Illinois for allegedly being part of a lottery scam that targeted elderly Latinos in Illinois.

The case was featured on a segment of the television show “America's Most Wanted” that aired last month.

Wow! Sounds like that America's Most Wanted TV Show is doing great things!

Maria Gomez, 49, is “one of three suspected con artists who tricked the elderly into giving them money to cash fake lottery tickets in Illinois,” Border Patrol officials said in a written release.

Gomez has an active warrant for her arrest on charges of theft by deception over $10,000 by the Wheaton, Ill., police, officials said.

Border Patrol officials said Gomez had previously been arrested for a similar scam in Hialeah, Fla.

The high-profile arrest occurred Monday evening when Border Patrol agents witnessed a group of people crossing the river four miles from the Zaragoza Bridge.

Agents identified Gomez during a routine fingerprint exam through the IDENT/IAFIS criminal database. Gomez was turned over to the El Paso Police Department and will be detained in El Paso until her extradition to Wheaton, officials said.

So . . . you mean that they didn't actually recognize her from the show, America's Most Wanted, but would have caught her anyway due to a routine fingerprint check? Yet America's Most Wanted still gets the credit?

So if I can post every single wanted fugitive in America on my website, and if any of them get caught, even if no one has actually seen my website, and my website had nothing at all to do with the capture, I can still claim credit for it? Cool!

Why? Why are people so gullible? Ask this guy. He wrote the story.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.

Most Wanted Blog
More things that just piss me off

Congress Letting the RIAA and Software Companies Write the Law again

2006-04-25T10:35:00.000-04:00

Because of the complexities of copyright and other intellectual property issues and the inability of our politicians to even pass the FCAT test, they are allowing the companies to write the laws themselves. Yes, those big corporations like Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, and others will look out after our best interests, don't you worry one little bit. These multinational corporations have your best interests at heart . . . Trust Me.

For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.

The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith, a Texas Republican, is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.

And that support comes in the form of campaign contributions don't you know?
Rep. Lamar Smith stopped to smile for the camera though.

"The bill as a whole does a lot of good things," said Keith Kupferschmid, vice president for intellectual property and enforcement at the Software and Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C. "It gives the (Justice Department) the ability to do things to combat IP crime that they now can't presently do."

Of course, the SIIA's board of directors includes Symantec, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Intuit and Red Hat, so you can trust their opinion completely.

During a speech in November, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endorsed the idea and said at the time that he would send Congress draft legislation. Such changes are necessary because new technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities."

As all funds from anything illegal always are, well as long as bush and associates are in office. "it's all for the children!" "It's to help fight terrorism!" "It's so we can keep you safe!" are the lines this administration feeds us every day. Have you been fed your lines today?

The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

Wait! There's more!

But one of the more controversial sections may be the changes to the DMCA. Under current law, Section 1201 of the law generally prohibits distributing or trafficking in any software or hardware that can be used to bypass copy-protection devices. (That section already has been used against a Princeton computer science professor, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and a toner cartridge remanufacturer.)

Smith's measure would expand those civil and criminal restrictions. Instead of merely targeting distribution, the new language says nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else.

"It's one degree more likely that mere communication about the means of accomplishing a hack would be subject to penalties," said Peter Jaszi, who teaches copyright law at American University and is critical of attempts to expand it.

Even the current wording of the DMCA has alarmed security researchers. Ed Felten, the Princeton professor, told the Copyright Office last month that he and a colleague were the first to uncover the so-called "rootkit" on some Sony BMG Music Entertainment CDs--but delayed publishing their findings for fear of being sued under the DMCA. A report prepared by critics of the DMCA says it quashes free speech and chokes innovation.

The SIIA's Kupferschmid, though, downplayed concerns about the expansion of the DMCA. "We really see this provision as far as any changes to the DMCA go as merely a housekeeping provision, not really a substantive change whatsoever," he said. "They're really to just make the definition of trafficking consistent throughout the DMCA and other provisions within copyright law uniform."

The SIIA's board of directors includes Symantec, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Intuit and Red Hat.

Trust Us . . . This won't hurt a bit.

Jessica Litman, who teaches copyright law at Wayne State University, views the DMCA expansion as more than just a minor change. "If Sony had decided to stand on its rights and either McAfee or Norton Antivirus had tried to remove the rootkit from my hard drive, we'd all be violating this expanded definition," Litman said.

The proposed law scheduled to be introduced by Rep. Smith also does the following:

• Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating "advanced tools of forensic science to investigate" copyright crimes.

• Amends existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

In other news:
McNealy steps down as Sun CEO
Rambus wins in patent case
At Maker Faire, time to tinker
News.com Extra: Radio feeds the content beast
Video: Engineer touts his 100-mpg hybrid
• Boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.

• Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be "destroyed" or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.

• Says copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements.

Jason Schultz, a staff attorney at the digital-rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the recording industry would be delighted to have the right to impound records. In a piracy lawsuit, "they want server logs," Schultz said. "They want to know every single person who's ever downloaded (certain files)--their IP addresses, everything."

So use it and get these republicrooks out of office soon!

CNET News.com's Anne Broache contributed to this report.

More things that just piss me off

It's only laws - ignore them if they don't fit

2006-04-24T18:53:00.000-04:00

The newly created Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council is charged with sharing information aimed at protecting the nation's infrastructure, cybercomponents included. Michael Chertoff, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary, cited security reasons when he signed off on exempting the council from the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FACA.

I agree 100% that there needs to be some meetings here that are not made immediately public, but why is it that every time the bush administration thinks a law is hindering national security, they just ignore it instead of going through the process of changing the law?

GW Bush has fostered an atmosphere of "we will follow whichever laws we want and ignore any we don't like." No need to use the democratic process, bush just gets to decide what is or isn't a good law. That would be what a King believes, not a president.

Bush reviewing laws he doesn't like.

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Bush - "I Invented The IPOD"

2006-04-24T18:42:00.000-04:00

"The government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry and signal compression. They did so for one reason: It turned out that those were the key ingredients for the development of the iPod."

Well, George, Al invented the Internet and it's still bigger than your ipod!

More comments on Bush's iPod invention.

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The bush dance

2006-04-24T16:57:00.000-04:00

Lets see, both of these statements are by the same GW Bush in the same story, in the same speech.

""Massive deportation of the people here is not going to work," Bush said as a Congress divided over immigration returned from a two-week recess. "It's just not going to work."

Then he said . . .

"it's important to enforce border laws that are on the books and boasted that 6 million immigrants have been captured and turned back since he took office."

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Blogs.pn

It's Legal if we get a Percentage

2006-04-22T14:53:00.000-04:00

It's amazing at how many illegal things you can do as long as the right people make money on it.

Take pyramid schemes for example. They are illegal. However, if you can run a pyramid scheme that can make a lot of money, it's ok. Why? Because the maximum fine the government can give out on that is one million dollars each year. So if your pyramid scheme makes 10 million per year, you simply give the government their 10% cut and keep going. A certain door to door vacuum cleaner company does business this way and has for years.

Now sending out spam is also illegal, but AOL and some others want to have a paid email system that will send unwanted emails to it's users, as long as they get paid.

In other words we will filter out all spam, except those that pay us. Then it's not spam, it's paid email access. So all you successful spammers who are actually making money rejoice, just pay AOL their cut on the spam and you are now legitimate.

Esther Dyson is an advocate for paid email, but then this is the same Esther Dyson that, when associated with ICANN, ignored what individual users wanted as far as the Internet is concerned in favor of what the big corporations wanted.

Esther follows the money. If Esther is for paid email, then she will be making money from the spam. Count on it. She has a plan.

The Rest of The Story

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Bush Hires Civil Liberties Guru?

2006-04-22T11:57:00.000-04:00

Now, this is good. GW Bush appointing a Civil Liberties Protection Officer. Now we can all breath easier. Oh, GW will still abuse civil liberties, he just has someone appointed now to say he isn't doing it. I thought that was what Karl and Dick and ANdrew did.

The Rest of The Story

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Bush's No White Child Left Behind Act

2006-04-18T22:17:00.000-04:00

It seems that there are loopholes in the law or no child left behind act that allow schools not to include test scores by many minorities so that the average test score will look higher than it actually is.

Since minorities have historically scored lower than white children on tests, the schools are leaving out minority children's test scores so they can continue to get the funding they want.

Yeah, why should teachers have to improve and teach minority children to do better when they can just ignore the test scores that say they need more help?

The Rest of The Story

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Intellectual Property Owners after more Domain Names

2006-04-18T21:13:00.000-04:00

It never ceases to amaze me at how far intellectual property owners will go to obtain more domain names. The arrogance of the IP community is absolutely ridiculous. I'm going to quote from a story here and comment on it.

THE number of "bad faith" domain-name registrations raises concerns that trademarks are increasingly being infringed online, the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property has found. Bad-faith registrations are where a party deliberately and unlawfully sets out to benefit by registering a domain containing another party's business name and associated trademarks.

Exactly. The domain name must have been registered with the INTENT of infringing on someone's trademarked name. Simply registering the name is NOT an infringement. It must be used in the same type of commerce as the holder of the trademark is engaged in.

The present process of domain-name registration does not require the registrar to check whether the same or similar domain names are already listed. The same situation applies to the registration of company names and business names. "There is a public misconception that registrars check for existing prior rights, such as registered trademarks, when registering a domain name," ACIP says in a report.

Registrars have no reason to check the domain names against registered trademarks because nowhere in your trademark application does it guarantee you will also get the domain name that corresponds to your trademark.

IP interests constantly make the mistake of equating domain names with trademarks and feel that trademark holders should not only get the domain name that EXACTLY matches their trademark, but that they should also get all domain names that sound a even a little bit similar to their trademark.

What the IP interests like to ignore is that owning a trademark does not mean you own the word or phrase you applied for. It means you are allowed to use that word or phrase to do commerce in a specific class, such as publications, the sale of clothing goods, etc. Trademarks are specific in this regard, so if someone else wants to use the same name or phrase to sell something else, they can also get a mark and do so.

Therefore, no trademark holder owns the name or phrase exclusively and domain names are not in any specific class, so trademark holders have no reasonable assumption to ownership of any domain name. When ICANN gets a clue and starts allowing new TLDs that reflect specific classes, trademark holders will have protection on the Internet.

They deserve no protection in current generic TLDs like dot com, which stands for commerce, which is not a class you can register a mark for. If they had dot publications or dot pub, then someone who owned a trademarked word or phrase to do business as a publication would have reasonable rights to the domain name in that TLD that exactly matches the srting of letters they registered as their trademark.

ACIP recommends mandatory searching of trademarks to ensure there is no conflict prior to registration; amending the Trade Marks Act to give registered business and company name owners protection against identical and confusingly similar registrations; and a single business name system to replace the state-based one used at present.

Of course, they are the advisory council that represents the interests of trademark holders who wish to have more rights with domain names in relationship to their trademarks than they would ever have offline.

* Clothing maker and retailer Supre operates more than 100 stores across Australia and New Zealand.

It first registered the name Supre as a trademark in 1990; it also owns the domain name supre.au.com.

In 2000, another party registered a business name that was very similar to Supre's trademark in Western Australia; and further registered a confusingly similar domain name in 2001. The business name was cancelled in 2003.

In 2004, Supre's lawyers lodged a complaint with the domain authority, claiming the other name should be transferred to them because it was "confusingly similar" to their brand. The other party did not respond, and the panel transferred the domain to Supre.

There is one of the rubs. They don't want just domains that match their trademarks, they want all similar domain names as well. Trademarks are specific to the string of letters you are granted a mark for. They do not guarantee you no one will ever start any kind of business anywhere with a name that is similar to yours. This is simply large companies with IP lawyers who believe it is their inherent right to have anything they want and to have it their own way.

A domain name is akin to a phone number. You do not own a domain name anymore than you own your phone number. They are both services you must pay for periodically. A doimain name was created to represent the string of numbers, which is your real internet address. It was created because it would be easier to remember than the numbers to your website.

Can supre sue me if my phone number, using the letters associated with each number, spelled supre? what about phone numbers thta spelled a word that was similar to supre? See how ridiculous their assumption is? But through cybersquatting laws and the ability to slant the news through advertising dollars, big corporations and their lawyers have many people convinced that they have rights they do not have.

If one of these corporations goes after your domain name and you feel they are wrong, fight them. If you do not have the money or the time to fight them, transfer the name to me. I'll fight them.

The author, Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic has been involved in domain names since 1995. He has bought and sold more than 500 domain names, has helped to fight off corporations who tried to reverse hijack domain names from people, and has helped to represent individual users and owners of domain names through participation in the DNSO, the General Assembly, and currently on the GNSO mailing list.

More Things That Just Piss Me Off

.tel or Dot Tel or Dot Anything

2006-04-17T10:12:00.000-04:00

This is just so ridiculous, it defies the imagination.

ICANN, the body responsible for creating top-level domains, is reportedly considering a new one. Conceived as a way to easily manage contact information in an age where many people have numerous contact numbers, the proposed .tel TLD would allow individuals and companies to keep all of their contact information in an easily accessible location. Companies would get companyname.tel while individuals would be able to register firstnamelastname.tel.

Go to their company website and click "contact us". That might be a way to get the contact info you are looking for. If it's an individual, they may already have a dot name, another ICANN smokescreen invented to keep them from having to create real new commercially viable TLDs.

Those with .tel sites could then keep them updated with all their myriad contact information, including address, phone numbers (e.g., home, work, cellular, Skype), fax numbers, and instant messaging handles. Those who wish to remain anonymous could happily ignore the new TLD and continue to keep their contact info restricted to those they want to have it.

A whole TLD for people and companies to put their contact page from their existing website. Next ICANN will create dot about for the about us page.

ICANN has been on a new TLD streak lately. Most recently, ICANN opened up public registration for the European Union-specific .eu TLD, resulting in a rush to register domain names with the new suffix. Other TLDs approved since 2000 include .info, .biz, . jobs, .travel, and even .mobi for handheld devices. ICANN has also mulled over the creation of a .xxx TLD for adult sites, but that has yet to materialize due to concerns on the part of some countries which believe it would result in more pornography on the Internet. New child-centric legislation proposed last month in the US would call on ICANN to revive .xxx.

dot eu was viable as a ccTLD, nothing more. dot info was one of the only three sensible choices ICANN has ever made. dot biz was a poor excuse for a commercially viable TLD and it infringed on the rights of the dot biz that had already been created by someone else.

dot jobs is commercially viable and it is the second choice ICANN made in regards to TLDs that might make sense. dot travel is the third one. It represents an industry. We need more TLDs that reflect commercial categories.

dot mobi is just a joke. You can make any website available to mobile devices and they are building devices to handle viewing websites. The industry is handling that in a technical manner and are not going to restrict mobile devices to only be able to surf to dot mobi websites.

They didn't mention two of ICANN's proudest moments, the creation of dot aero and dot museum. Yeah, those are commercially viable and a real threat to dot com. We need TLDs created that can compete with dot com domains. ICANN is doing everything they can to keep from creating any TLD that can do that.

And dot xxx is the biggest joke of all. First of all, porn is legal. They currently have dot com, net, and even org websites. That industry has spent millions promoting those domain names. They are not going to abandon all of their link popularity and current traffic to move to a dot xxx domain name. They may buy some dot xxx names to compliment their current business, but they aren't going to just move because people say they should.

You cannot force them to move without offering them reimbursement for the business they will lose as a result. Who pays for that? ICANN? The US Government? What about all of the companies in porn that are not in the US? You can't just pass a US law and expect every country to abide by it. Ain't gonna happen.

source; arstechnica.com

by Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic
More things that just piss me off
Blogs.pn

Bush in 2008

2006-04-15T13:13:00.000-04:00

I can't wait until 2008 when we get to do this with GW Bush. Click Here

Statue of Liberty and Immigration

2006-04-15T12:46:00.000-04:00

Found this on a website. Kind of sums up many people's thoughts on the illegal immigration issue.

"There's a sign on the Statue Of Liberty that says, "Give me your tired your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" It welcomed my forefathers to this country and, unless yours came across the Bering Straights, it welcomed them too. It is representative of my country and as long as it's there I'm standing right beside it with my arms wide open saying, "Welcome .... as long as you're not trying to sneak in... come on in ..... you'll be safe here ....you'll be free here ..... and we're sincerely glad to have you. Incidentally, when you get here, you will learn my language, respect my government, pay your own way, follow the same rules that I do, and not criticize or discriminate against any of the other races or religions here .... or .... I'll do my best to kick your sorry ass back to where you came from.""

Another one;

"There's this word - "illegal" - which I understand to mean, well, illegal. If something is illegal you can't do it. Excuse me, but what's the deal with government benefits for illegal immigrants? I don't like it when somebody walks in my house, uninvited, and says, "I'm here, take care of me."

source; Johnnie McCoy

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Taxing the Internet

2006-04-15T10:43:00.000-04:00

Here they come. We know the US and state governments want to tax the Internet so bad they can taste it, so now they are going after music downloads.

Does my state tax digital downloads?

Our politicians should have to take a test before they run for office to make sure their IQ isn't one more than a rock, and one less than a tree.

If they tax companies on the Internet, the companies will move their operations offshore to avoid paying them.

Pretty simple concept to understand. Look at the online gambling industry. However our astute politicians do not grasp this concept.

For many politicians and for many American citizens, the US seems like it is the whole world. It isn't. Laws we pass here about the Internet mean absolutely nothing to people in other countries. Those laws mean nothing to the governments of those other countries.

If we pose a tax on businesses on the web, some other countries will seize that opportunity to invite those companies to move to their country to do business. Those governments will give these businesses a great deal and these businesses will be employing people in that country instead of this one.

The rest of the story.

by Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic
More things that just piss me off

ICANN Considers Dot Tel?

2006-04-14T18:16:00.000-04:00

ICANN will do anything it can to keep any real viable commercial-use TLDs from coming out that will compete with their friends in big business.

According to a story I just read;

"To help people manage all their contact information online, the Internet's key oversight agency is considering a ``.tel'' domain name. If approved, the domain could be available this year.

As proposed, individuals could use a ``.tel'' Web site to provide the latest contact information and perhaps even let friends initiate a call or send a text message directly from the site. Businesses could use a ``.tel'' site to determine customers' locations and route them automatically to the correct call center.

Its proponents also envision ``.tel'' as a place from which the various people-finding services on the Internet could pull the latest contact information as individuals move about. Now, data typically come from third-party sources like phone listings, which may be old or incomplete, particularly if an entire household is listed under one name."

You can already do all of those things with a myriad of software applications and you can do it from websites on ANY TLD. This is just like saying that you should only stream video from websites that end in dot tv.

ICANN will approve this one though because there is no chance for it to be any competition to those with dot com domain names. ICANN is stifling competition at every turn through it's process of choosing which TLDs it will approve or disapprove.

Just like dot museum and dot aero, this TLD, dot tel is a sham to make people think ICANN is approving new TLDs like they are being asked to do.

What we need are viable commercial alternatives like dot lawyer, dot doctor, dot medical, dot auto, dot realestate, dot construction, dot design, and others that reflect real business categories. That would increase competition on the web and that is good for everyone.

Not only is promoting competition good for everyone, it is one of the prime directives of ICANN's Memorandum of Understanding. Many on ICANN's Board of Directors cater to big business who wants to maintain the advantage they have in owning premium domain names. They want opportunity, then they want to shut the door on anyone coming after them.

Until people start hammering ICANN about creating more commercial-use TLDs, they will continue to hand over the Internet to the big multinational corporations. Their board is just a bunch of puppets with Vint Cerf being the lead puppet.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off
Blogs.pn

Software Update Frauds

2006-04-14T10:04:00.000-04:00

This really pisses me off. Software companies are constantly putting out new versions, supposedly to improve them and make them better for us. In some cases that is true. However in most cases it isn't.

Let's start with Microsoft first. They don't sell you software, they lease it to you. Why don't they just call it a lease? You HAVE to update with them or lose necessary functions, patches, and support. If you have to pay them again every year, it's no longer a sale, it's a lease.

Microsoft has deadlines to put out their new versions of windows. They release them as close to that deadline as possible even if the code isn't finished. Then they put out patches. In other words they are still writing the program they just sold/leased to you as a completed work. That is about as close to fraud as you can get, but I'm sure it isn't due to some slick fine print legalistic disclaimer somewhere in the terms of service no one ever reads.

Other companies do this as well. And what really gets to me is that many times the update is a much worse product then the predecessor. It's more of a downgrade. But they need to make money so they come out with a new version whether you need it or not.

Then some of them move all of the buttons and functions in the program. There was a learning curve to be able to use the software in the first place, now thanks to their wonderful update, you have to learn it all over again.

Then they want to force you to give them more money. I bought RealPlayer G2 when they told me that it was the greatest thing since sliced video. They promised support and updates. Then they came out with their new version of realplayer. Not only did they not provide anymore support or updates for G2, they disabled it's ability to play the files they said it would play when I purchased it.

I don't care if they sue me for saying this. That is fraud. Real Fraud. They should trademark that term. Get RealFraud now!

I personally will never download even the free version opf realplayer that also installs the spyware and aol messenger, whether you want it or not, on my computer. If I go to a website that only has video you can see with realplayer, I just go somewhere else to buy what I need.

What ever happened to simple software? You needed to perform a specific function on your computer and you or someone wrote a program that just did that one little function. The software wasn't bulky or buggy.

Now every program wants to perform everything all at once. Your photo-editing program wants to be an html editor. Your html editor wants to be your ftp client. Your word processor wants to be your graphics program and email client all at the same time. Windows wants to do it all.

Give me simple, small, and complete programs any day over these bulky, bug filled, overpriced software “solutions”.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

AT&T and the NSA Wiretapping

2006-04-14T09:16:00.000-04:00

Well, now, if you wondered exactly how some of the NSA wiretapping was done and how some corporations gain government favors, here is an interesting post for you.

Many large corporations need the cooperation of the US government to keep out of anti-trust trouble, to gain lucrative government contracts, to get licensing for specific ventures, etc. But just how does one go about getting those special favors from the government>

Cellphone companies needed airwaves that were controlled by the US military. The US military declined. Then cellphone companies decided that the US government idea of tracking people through their cellphones was a great idea. The US military decided that they could let the cellphone companies have the airwaves they were seeking and now the US government can track you through your cellphone to know where you are within 60 to 100 feet. Coincidence?

Microsoft lost an anti-trust suit. They were ordered to split the company into 5 seperate companies. Never happened. What did Microsoft give the government? What exactly is in the new Vista source code?

Now we have documents leaked out of AT&T that allegedly show that they have been helping the NSA wiretaps. What did AT&T get in return? Will they win the lawsuit forcing Google, Ebay, and others to pay them more money because they are using more bandwidth than my blog? Where will that stop? Will we all have to pay bandwidth charges to AT&T over and above the charges for the Internet Service we already pay for? Will AT&T win the lawsuits to allow them to charge everyone for VOIP services?

Read more about AT&T and the documents here.

More things that just piss me off

Microsoft Writes Privacy Law?

2006-04-12T09:39:00.000-04:00

This is a great example about how software companies are controlling all laws related to software. In Oklahoma, they wanted to pass a law about spyware. So what do they do? They outsource the writing of that law to Microsoft.

Microsoft wrote the law that bans some companies from installing spyware on your computer, but also wrote in that a select few companies, ones that Microsoft approves of, can go ahead and look around inside your computer without your knowledge.

That’s like allowing collection agencies to write the laws on how collection agencies can collect debts from people. Its like allowing Wallstreet stock brokers to write the laws that have to do with Insider Trading and corporate accounting.

Our government is so ignorant when it comes to technology and so much of their campaign money comes from these software companies that there is no way we will ever get a fair law concerning software manufacturers.

The rest of the story

More things that just piss me off

Walmart Designing Your Computer Games

2006-04-12T09:10:00.000-04:00

In a great example about how major corporations use their power, Walmart now controls which pc games will be developed and how they will be designed.

"Do you buy your electronic games at Wal-Mart? Never mind, doesn't matter. The retail games you buy at GameStop or Best Buy or online are the games Wal-Mart has decided you can buy.

Publisher sales reps inform Wal-Mart buyers of games in development; the games' subjects, titles, artwork and packaging are vetted and sometimes vetoed by Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart tells a top-end publisher it won't carry a certain game, the publisher kills that game. In short, every triple-A game sold at retail in North America is managed start to finish, top to bottom, with the publisher's gaze fixed squarely on Wal-Mart, and no other."

I understand business. I understand they want to meet the needs of their biggest buyers.

However, when a company gets as big as Walmart, they gain the ability to influence creativity or stifle it, whichever they please. The potential to abuse that power is there. If we suddenly get a Walmart CEO that believes we should not be playing games with girls who are heroes for example, can basically decide that no new games will be produced where females are heroes.

What if we get a Walmart CEO that secretly doesn't like black people? Or what if he decides that all violence in games is bad? or sexual content? It's not whether you agree with any of those things or not. Do you want the head of Walmart sensoring what games you can or cannot play?

Do you think I'm exaggerating here? Read on;

"Tom Gilleland, with the indie developer BeachWare (which has sold casino games through Wal-Mart), says, "Wal-Mart is working from a very strong position that enables them to dictate the content of their software product line.

They also have a very complicated situation in terms of public image, so they avoid controversial products. Thus, because of the company's influence, nowadays it is practically impossible to market a game that contains nudity. "We're not going to carry any software with any vulgarity or nudity - we're just not going to do it," Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams told Reuters in October 2002."

Now, I can understand Walmart choosing to not sell a game that has nudity in it. That is their choice and they have the right to choose. But again here we have a corporation who can decide what "vulgarity" is for us?

"Developers have produced "special Wal-Mart editions" of some games, such as Duke Nukem 3D and Blood, that delete the two principal bugaboos, nudity and excessive gore. Other developers just sanitize their games across the board. As a Ritual Entertainment developer remarked in an online chat promoting their Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 game (2000), "There's not much nudity other than statues. Wal-Mart is picky about that. When you have to decide between feeding your family or putting nudity in the game, you choose food."

Still think I'm exaggerating here?

The Rest of the Story.

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Apple Against Freedom of Speech

2006-04-11T10:47:00.000-04:00

Blogs are media just as much as television, radio, or newspapers and magazines. it's a fact. But as bloggers we have a battle ahead oif us to maintain the same rights those other forms of media enjoy, such as protection of sources and freedom of speech.

Click the title of this post and you will see one of the latest attacks on bloggers by the corporate world.

More things that just piss me off

Government Help for the Phishing Industry

2006-04-11T08:41:00.000-04:00

In yet another example of government inefficiency and lack of technical understanding, a Florida County, (Broward), is making a lot of personal data available to the public through their website.

This article tells all the details.

"The Social Security numbers, driver's license information and bank account details belonging to potentially millions of current and former residents in Florida's Broward County are available to anyone on the Internet because sensitive information has not been redacted from public records being posted on the county’s Web site.

A county official said the information available on the Web is in full compliance with state statutes that require counties to post public documents on the Internet."

Ahhhh, I see. It's okay to put all that personal information out there. It's our fault because we want public records to be public. The government can't be bothered with filtering out the personal data before posting the public data.

"Sue Baldwin, director of the Broward Count Records Division, said the county is aware of Hogman’s concerns but said that her office is in compliance with state laws requiring all state recorders to maintain a Web site for official records."

Okay, since they are in compliance with state law, everything is okay now. Wouldn't want to go above and beyond the call of duty or anything. Wouldn't want to go ahead and use any common sense. Do the very minimum you have to in order to comply with the law. Anything beyond that would be like . . . wow . . . having to think and stuff.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

ICANN Continues to Lie to the Public about New TLDs

2006-04-11T07:14:00.000-04:00

ICANN claims that it is concerned with the stability of the Internet. The ICANN Board of Directors falls back on that statement every time new TLDs are brough up. They say they need to have the long drawn out process they currently have for creating new TLDs for the sake of the Internet and it's users.

They say too many TLDs could somehow damage the Internet. There are other roots with hundreds of TLDs that work just fine, like the Pacific Root or the The Atlantic Root

So that theory is just a bunch of bs and a smokescreen to keep the public believing that the reason they don't create more TLDs is for stability. This keeps the control of the Internet in the hands of a few corporations like Verisign who was recently granted a monopoly for the .com registry by this same ICANN Board of Directors.

Let's talk about what is really needed to be able to run a TLD. Let's look back to how it was done before ICANN took over.

In this article, the questions are being asked to the operators of dot UG for Uganda.

"What did the registration then entail and what were the requirements?

I was part of the global network of pioneers known to each other in an informal way through a network of IT experts.

We applied first to Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), filled in a form but we were required to demonstrate that we were competent and can access the Internet, which entailed having access to electronic mail everyday. They needed a permanent administrative and technical contact."

So that was and IS all that is really necessary to begin a new TLD. ICANN wants you to submit your business plan for their approval when they are not even business experts. They want all kinds of technical requirements that are not necessary and that only a few large corporations can provide. That way they keep the ability to create a new TLD out of the hands of small business and the little guy.

"So you did not pay any money?

No, not at all. The Internet was created, based and managed by the Private Sector. It involved creativity, flexibility and most importantly a spirit of community service that is why it was created for community service."

Yet ICANN makes you put up a $50,000 deposit to even apply for running a new TLD. They have yet to return the deposits to several companies that they refused to grant new TLDs to in the last round of TLD creation a few years back. Again, they know only large corporations can risk $50,000 just as an application fee that may not even be returned if you are rejected.

ICANN was created to be a technical body. They were not created to make policy. They were not created to hand the Internet over to a handful of corporations.

All of the stuff you hear from ICANN about the "process" of creating new TLDs is total BS. For years it was done as simple as filling out a form and showing you were technically capable of running it.

That is all that should be required now.

by Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic
More things that just piss me off

Webmaster Whiners and Google Page Rank

2006-04-10T10:47:00.000-04:00

There was a recent update from Google where the page ranks of many websites changed. Some of my websites did very well in the last shakeup, but who knows what will happen next time Google decides to change the way it figures your page rank?

But I cruise around on many of the webmaster forums and read the posts from all the whiners. Some claim they got a low page rank because somebody must have hacked google. Some say google made a mistake. Others say that google is having problems and that this update was just bogus.

Get real. If you don't have the page rank you think you deserve, you blame google? Google does not promise to be consistant with PR. Google doesn't promise if you do this or do that, you will get the PR you think you deserve. Google doesn't even promise to index your website at all and doesn't have to if they don't feel like it.

Do you really believe not indexing your website or granting you the PR you think you deserve is going to make a big difference to everyone in the world who uses the Internet? Do you think if your website wasn't given good PR or indexed by Google, that their stock prices might fall?

Check your egos at the door. Work hard at building the best websites you can. Provide quality content to people who surf the web. Don't use popups and other garbage like disabled back clicks and exit consoles that you know annoys people.

In the long run your website will do well is you just focus on quality content. All search engines love good content. That never changes. Everything else you try like metatags, alt tags, link farms, trading links with everyone you can, and all of the other SEO guru tricks don't work for you in the long run.

Are you here to stay? Then quit trying to manipulate the PR and search results with all of the cute tricks and scripts. Write or provide quality content. In the end, you will be the winner and all the gurus will still be whining.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off
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Justice - A Matter of Perspective

2006-04-10T10:29:00.000-04:00

jus·tice ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jsts)
n.
The quality of being just; fairness.

The principle of moral rightness; equity.
Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness.

The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.

Law. The administration and procedure of law.

Conformity to truth, fact, or sound reason: The overcharged customer was angry, and with justice.

Idiom:
do justice to
To treat adequately, fairly, or with full appreciation: The subject is so complex that I cannot do justice to it in a brief survey.

Main Entry: jus·tice
Pronunciation: 'j&s-t&s
Function: noun
Etymology: Old French, from Latin justitia, from justus just
1 a : the quality of being just, impartial, or fair b : the principle or ideal of just dealing; also : conformity to the principle or ideal of just dealing

2 a : the administration of law ; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to law or equity b : fair, just, or impartial legal process

3 : JUDGE; especially : a judge of an appellate court or court of last resort (as a supreme court)

Source: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

justice

n 1: the quality of being just or fair [syn: justness] [ant: injustice] 2: the administration of law; the act of determining rights and assigning rewards or punishments; "justice deferred is justice denied" [syn: judicature] 3: a public official authorized to decide questions bought before a court of justice [syn: judge, jurist, magistrate] 4: the United States federal department responsible for enforcing federal laws (including the enforcement of all civil rights legislation); created in 1870 [syn: Department of Justice, Justice Department, Justice, DoJ]

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

justice

is rendering to every one that which is his due. It has been distinguished from
equity in this respect, that while justice means merely the doing what positive
law demands, equity means the doing of what is fair and right in every separate
case.

Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

Justice means different things to different sides. Let's take the illegal immigration issue that many protests are scheduled over today.

An article on ABC's Website talks about the upcoming protests;

"If groups that advocate changing immigration law to create a path for the nearly 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States to become U.S. citizens get their way, today could be the biggest day of coordinated protests in the country's history.

They're calling it the National Day of Action for Immigration Justice."

To the illegal immigrants, justice means they should get amnesty and be granted citizenship just because they are here and working anyway.

To others, justice is punishing people for ANY crime they commit, including crossing the border illegally.

Some don't really think they should be punished, but they certainly do not think granting them citizenship as a bonus for crossing the border illegally can be considered justice.

Others, who have gone through the legal process of becoming a US Citizen certainly don't believe allowing others to get citizenship given to them is justice. After all, they had to spend all that money and time becoming a citizen, so what gives the illegals who cross the border more rights than they had?

Last, but not least, we have the politicians who believe justice is when they get votes because they say what people want to hear about the issue.

What is your version of justice in regards to the immigration issue?

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

Web Hosting - Buy 1 Year - Get 1 Year Free

2006-04-07T11:24:00.000-04:00

People who read my blog often know I do not put much emphasis on advertising anything. I took down the google adsense stuff because it was just cheesy and I don't blog to make money. I blog because I like to blog.

However, when my hosting company offers a deal like this, I feel like sharing it. They are offering a free domain name, plus an extra year of hosting for signing up for one year of hosting at less than $100.

Anyone who thinks that is not a good deal, doesn't know anything about hosting. And before you ask, yes that link is my affiliate link and I make a commission if you sign up with powweb.

However, I've been an affiliate with them a long time and never posted about it. This is a good deal. It's only good until May 1st. I host all of my websites with Powweb. So I recommend them from personal experience.

by Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic
More things that just piss me off

You still don't have a blog?

2006-04-07T10:02:00.000-04:00

Blogging is something everyone has heard about, but most still don't believe they have any need for a blog. They don't feel like posting, they don't like to write, they don't have the time to write a post each day, are all some of the excuses that I hear when I suggest starting a blog to people.

The fastest growing sector of the Internet is blogging. If you feel your company can ignore the hottest method of getting traffic on the web, then you haven't got a clue.

Many people do not understand the power of the blogs. In this article, I will try to explain to you why, if you have not already started a blog, you should.

First, some of the reasons you might need a blog. Personally, I recommend you have no less than two blogs. I'll tell you why later in the article.

If you are an individual and new to the web, but want your own website, then a blog is the easiest way to do that. While you learn about putting up your own website, you could be blogging and getting traffic.

Then when you put your website up, you can send that traffic to your new website. You can also use a lot of your blogposts you made as content for your new website.

If you own a company, whether online only, offline only, or both, you can benefit greatly from blogging.

1. You can use the blog to talk to and make announcements to your employees.

2. You can use the blog to update your customers about new offers and announcements.

3. You can use your blog to create a buzz about your website, your company, or new projects.

4. You can use your blog to help push more traffic to your website.

Those are just some of the reasons your company should have a blog. I'll add one more. Blogs have been responsible for taking down Trent Lott for his indescretions, 60 minutes for their false reports, John Kerry for his stories about his Vietnam war record, and the blogs have taken on mainstream media and won several times.

If simple bloggers can take down these powerful people, what do you think a few bloggers could do to your business if there was ever a scandal or even a simple misunderstanding?

By having your own blog, you get to tell your side of the story. By having your own blog, you are putting out so much positive information about your company, that anyone trying to put out negative information would have a hard time getting it found in the search engines.

Someone searching for your company name would find all you have written. If a negative comment or two is also found, it doesn't seem so important. Without your own blog, they would search your company and likely only find the negative stuff the blogger/s wrote about you.

So, it is simple self-defense to have your own blog, besides all the positive aspects of doing so.

Now, how should I set up my blog? Why should I have two blogs or more? How can I have a blog if I don't have time to post to it everyday? And Why should I post to it daily? Those are the next questions I will answer for you.

How should I set up my blog? and why should I have two or more blogs?

You can set up your blog inside your own website, or you can set your blog up outside of your website as a whole other identity.

A blog inside your own website is of course completely identified with your company. By posting to it regularly, you are adding new content all the time. Search engines love websites where the content is updated constantly and consistantly.

You benefit from more frequent crawls by the search engines due to all that new content you keep adding every day.

A blog outside of your website can be set up for free at someplace like blogger.com, but even if you do that, I still recommend you purchase a domain name for it. (By clicking that link, you can register a domain name and have the money go to a missing children's organization)

A blog outside of your main website creates another related website that links to your main website. It will get crawled regularly because of the updated content you add daily, just like the one inside your website would. This is new traffic that you can push toward your main website. People that have not or might not have ever found your website will find your blog. Everyone can use more traffic.

Another benefit is that it is an easy way for your company to basically have two websites. If I have two locations and you only have one, my chances of getting search engine placement, PR, and traffic are twice that of your chances.

You can do both. The blog inside your own website will add new content to your website and give you those benefits, while you still get the benefits of the outside blog. Make sure you don't just post the same post in both blogs. That will not help you. They must be distinctly different.

One idea is to use the inside blog for updating your customers about new projects and products you offer and use the outside blog to help you create a buzz about your company, service, or products to the general public. You can probably think of other ways to make the two blogs different that work better for you.

How can I have a blog if I don't have time to post to it everyday?

It's called the autoblog. You email several blogs that have content that is related to your products or services and ask if you can post their RSS Feed daily in your blog. Those that wish to syndicate their content will agree.

They are already posting to their blogs daily. If not, don't ask for their feed. By installing the autoblog software, you log in once per day, press a button, it pulls all the posts from those feeds you got permission to use and posts them into your blog.

I don't recommend that is all you do. You should post to your own blog as much as you possibly can. However, by having those extra feeds, you can keep it updated daily even when you don't have time to post. You are also adding even more relative content everyday that people will want to read and it will keep your readers coming back for more.

The autoblogger includes links to the authors website and leaves all of his or her credits and links intact, so it benefits them as well. You get content, they get link popularity and maybe some traffic too. To get this installed for you, email me at missingkids@gmail.com.

Why should I post to my blog every day?

There are millions of blogs. However, many of them have simply been abandoned after only a few posts, many update about once per month or per week. Those who update every day get crawled more often by the search engines and there are many blog search websites that only include blogs that are updated regularly.

So if you are going to set up a blog, you need to post to it every single day. If you cannot do that, install the autoblogger. That way you will still update your blog daily. It takes me about 5 minutes a day to update the autoblog I own on another website.

If you have any questions, need consultation about setting up your own blog or autoblog, email me at missingkids@gmail.com

by Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic
Article Content Provider .com

Spyware Distributor Sued by Elliot Spitzer

2006-04-07T09:44:00.000-04:00

It's about time someone started going after companies who think that it is okay for them to use your computer, your memory, your bandwidth, and anything else they want without your permission.

Companies who install spyware, malware, badware, or anything else on your computer that you did not ask for or that they used deceptive practices to get you to agree to are no better than the kids who distribute viruses and worms for malicious purposes.

You can read the entire article here.

More things that just piss me off

Visa's Keeping Microsoft and Others from hiring more Foreign Labor

2006-04-05T15:57:00.000-04:00

This is probably the saddest post I have ever had to write. Microsoft and other companies including entertainment companies are complaining to congress about the slow visa process in certain countries.

The entertainment company in the article said that 75% of their venues were hiring foriegn entertainers and now only 60% do.

Microsoft and other companies complain that they can't hire their foriegn workers in a timely manner due to this slow processing.

Many in congress are sympathizing with them about the slow visa process and saying that something should be done.

Gosh, you mean that because of the slow visa process in some countries means these people have to hire more Americans?

That is just totally unacceptable! These companies should be able to hire foreigners and not be bothered about that whole homeland security and visa thing! It's interfering with their bottom line by golly! Having to pay more money to hire Americans vs all the money they can save by hiring foriegners is just wrong!

Now don't you just feel sorry for microsoft and those entertainment companies dammit?

by Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic
More things that just piss me off

XXX TLD BS

2006-04-04T07:19:00.000-04:00

There is a company. This company wants to run a new TLD and make the big bucks selling domain names. The new TLD they want is .XXX.

Bush and religious organizations are against it. They say it will give legitimacy to the porn industry.

Florida's ICM Registry, which hopes to run the domain, argues that the "responsible online adult entertainment industry" will flock to the new address, making it easier for internet users who do not want to see porn to avoid it.

"Several governments are emphatically opposed from a public policy perspective to the introduction of .xxx," says Malaysian bureaucrat and ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee chair Sharil Tarmizi.

Want to know the real deal? Read on;

1. It will not protect children from porn or porn spam. There will still be porn on other TLDs like com, net, and org. Those who don't care who sees their porn are not going to do the responsible thing as suggested above.

2. Porn is not illegal. Therefore, they are legal business entities. They cannot be forced to move all of their websites to dot xxx.

3. Sex.com and other domain names are worth millions of dollars. These companies have spent millions of dollars to advertise and brand their names just like mainstream companies do.

4. They have spent years building up link popularity and traffic to their domain names.

5. Is the government or ICANN going to reimburse them all that money the domain names, branding, and traffic is worth? If not, and they force them to move to dot xxx, how long do you think it will be before they sue the government and ICANN for that money?

You may not like porn, but until it is illegal, their businesses get the same rights under the law that any other business gets. Your opinion does not make them illegal.

I am not defending them on a moral basis. We are a nation of laws though and those laws are to be applied equally. You cannot say, I don't like porn, they are bad people, and they should all have to go where we tell them. This is not only illegal, it's a childish point of view at best.

All this is about a company wanting to make some money selling domain names. They will make a big hype about how valuable these new domain names will be because all porn will be moved there.

Speculators will rush in and buy up tons of domain names believing the hype. The actual move will never happen. Those established porn websites will be in the same place they have always been, but maybe they will have a few additional domain names in dot xxx as they speculate or protect their IP interests.

The bottom line is this. If you are anti-porn, of you think too much trashy content is being offered on the web, why aren't you producing a ton of good content on the web to counteract it?

Many like to complain about the web's content, but most, including churches are ignoring the fact they can reach millions of people through the web. They are not blogging every day and putting up websites about the "good" things they consider to be good. They are not working as hard to put good content on the web as the porn industry is working to put more porn on the web.

Put your money where your mouth is. How many websites with good content for children have you built or funded? Are you going to just whine about it or are you going to take back the Internet by providing enough good content that it someday will outweigh the bad content out there?

If you are not doing anything about it, then shut up.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

Professor Dufus Speaks

2006-04-03T07:31:00.000-04:00

This is the level of education that most business professors have in regards to the Internet. Click here to read about the NEW .com land rush this professor has discovered.

"The very cool thing is that you don't have to have a business or even a Web presence to stake your claim to a dot.com name. That can come later, as long as you beat your competition to the name."

Except that proves you have no legitimate interest in the domain name and a business with a similar name can take it away from you if they want to.

"The Internet truly is the next superhighway of commerce and there is no better place to be than in Fairbanks if you want to get in on the ground floor."

The ground floor? Next superhighway? Where has this professor been for the last 12 years? This guy is teaching business?

"According to a study done in 2002-03 by Dr. Ping Lan, associate professor of business administration at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Management, the opportunities for ground floor e-commerce in Alaska are exciting."

In Alaska? The Internet is worldwide, so e-commerce is not constrained to any one territory or region. Yet another professor teaching business that doesn't get it?

"I got mine and my wife got hers by going to www.godaddy.com and trying combinations until we found appropriate domain names available. We then reserved them for five years with automatic renewals."

There is one born every minute. GoDaddy will be so proud of you!

"There is a new land grab going on today. If you're in business, or you are thinking about business and not staking your claim right now--this afternoon--within the next 10 minutes, then prosperity may pass you by, just as the automobile zipped by buggy whip makers."

Right now! This minute! New land grab! This professor really knows his stuff! Did godaddy pay you to write this?

This is just one example of how students are learning about the Internet in college and on graduating, they suddenly put up websites and call themselves Internet Gurus and Webmasters.

The professors that taught them didn't have a clue so they don't have a clue. If a professor who has never made one dollar on the Internet through a website that he built, then how can he teach anyone else to do it?

Then if you search jobs for webmasters at monster.com or jobs.com, etc. every company requires that precious college degree plus you must know how to use front page to build websites with. Only those who don't know anything about html would use frontpage. If I've insulted you . . . uh . . . who cares.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

It's Mine! - You Can't Play With It!

2006-03-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

From Slashdot "siddesu wrote to mention an article on CNN Money about the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court patent suit involving eBay. We've previously mentioned the case. The SCOTUS will hear opening arguments on Wednesday, March 29th. From the article: "Lawyers for eBay and small e-commerce company MercExchange will square off over whether eBay should be barred from using its popular 'Buy it Now' feature, which infringes on two MercExchange patents. The case is being closely watched to see if the high court will scale back the right of patent holders to get an injunction barring infringers from using their technologies. Software companies complain they can be held for ransom by owners of questionable patents while drugmakers oppose any weakening of patent rights, which they say would chill their investment in new medicines."

The US Patent and Trademark Office has created this whole mess. Granting patents and trademarks on almost anything is not what was intended for such an agency.

Giving a patent on the words, "Buy It Now"? Give me a break. They allowed the word entrepreneur to be trademarked, Santa Claus, Spring Water, and even the word Sex for use in certain educational materials and believe it or not, the word Sex is trademarked for the category of refrigerator magnets.

The USPTO has to stop granting trademarks and patents on everything that anyone wants and needs to start letting intelligent people actually read these applications before stamping them approved. We can put monkeys in their place and teach them to stamp documents if they aren't going to read them anyway. Or . . . has that already happened?

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

Bush's Idea of Creating a Democracy

2006-03-28T12:09:00.000-05:00

From the Ny Times - "KABUL, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 28 — The justice minister announced Tuesday that a jailed Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity has been released.

The man, Abdul Rahman, who had been accused of apostasy for abandoning Islam, had been in custody for weeks but had not been formally charged."

This is a perfect example of what forcing muslim countries into democracy will be like. They have no clue what true democracy is nor did they ask us to give it to them.

More things that just piss me off

IRAQ didn't have WMDs and Ties to Al queda?

2006-03-28T12:02:00.000-05:00

From the NY Times - "WASHINGTON, March 27 — American intelligence agencies and presidential commissions long ago concluded that Saddam Hussein had no unconventional weapons and no substantive ties to Al Qaeda before the 2003 invasion."

The reason I find this paragraph funny, is because if you go to right-wing blogs like redstate.org and say this, they will ban you from posting as being anti-bush. They will deny the truth of this statement and there are a lot of Americans out there who still think that WMDs were found, that saddam hussein was close to al queda, and that saddam helped plan 9-11.

Why should they bother with facts when they have a president and vice president that will tell them whatever they want to hear?

More things that just piss me off

Bloggers Are Now Part Of The Media Officially

2006-03-28T11:52:00.000-05:00

According to new laws the FEC considers blogs the same as television, radio, or newspaper, as far as political campaigns are concerned. They have decided that campaign financing laws that are meant for mainstream media apply to blogs as well.

As a blogger, I like the new law and appreciate the recognition of blogging as legitimate media.

I'm going to study it more before I comment on whether I think it's good for political campaign financing reform.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

Legalizing Illegal Immigrants

2006-03-28T11:16:00.000-05:00

"WASHINGTON, March 27 — With Republicans deeply divided, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Monday to legalize the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants and ultimately to grant them citizenship, provided that they hold jobs, pass criminal background checks, learn English and pay fines and back taxes."

That was from the Ny Times. Now IF all of those requirements are in a bill that move illegal immigrants toward citizenship, I'm all for it. But look for them to water it down as it passes into law.

"The panel also voted to create a vast temporary worker program that would allow roughly 400,000 foreigners to come to the United States to work each year and would put them on a path to citizenship as well"

That one is where the problem is. Why go for citizenship where they will have to pay taxes, have background checks, etc., when through this program they can come here much as they always have, without having to do any of those things.

Being an American Citizen is a privilege. It does not matter where you come from. You are welcome here, IF you are willing to do so legally, either through visas or applying for citizenship.

There are no other options that need to be created for specific people just because they will not do it the way it was designed.

If enough people rob banks do we need to come up with a guest robber program at the local banks?

This is a country of laws. If you break the law you are a criminal. It does not matter whether you agree that it is a good law or not. These are Illegal Immigrants, not "visiting workers" or "impoverished people we need to feel sorry for" or any other term you want to apply.

They do not respect the laws of this country that says they must get a visa or apply for citizenship, so what makes anyone think they will respect any other laws in this country?

I was pulled over for speeding in Mexico one time, The first thing the cop said, "You do not respect the laws here in Mexico". How ironic.

I'm all for people from any country becoming citizens of this country. I cannot be convinced that there should be some way around the law and that people should not have to become a citizen in order to enjoy the freedoms and benefits many of our citizens have fought and died for.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

Pot Calling The Kettle Black

2006-03-28T11:04:00.000-05:00

In the beginning, there was the Jobs. He had an Apple. The apple in the garden of computerland was beautiful.

Then along came the Gates, who saw how beautiful was the apple and plucked it for his own.

Now the Linux saw that the Gates was chrging too much money for the beautiful apple he stole and decided to create another fruit even more beautiful and offer it to people as an alternative to the apple that Gates had.

Now the Gates, through his minion, the Ballmer, is upset and wants to sue the Linux, saying the new fruit is similar to his apple which really had belonged to the Jobs in the first place.

Click here to read the article about Ballmer talking of Microsoft suing Linux is you are really really bored.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

Domain Name Communism

2006-03-28T10:36:00.000-05:00

Okay, if you want to read the article, Click here.

Dot AU, the australian TLD, is deciding whether or not monetizing domain names is a legitimate use of a domain name.

WIPO, the world intellectual property organization, with the blessing of ICANN, internet corporation for assigned names and numbers, gets to decide whether you have a "legitimate interest" in a domain name if some corporation wants your name.

Who are these people? What planet do they come from? Who decided they should tell everyone what is or is not a legitimate use of a domain name? It's perfectly legitimate for me to register a domain name just because I want to own a domain name.

I am not required to build a website on it. I might just want to tell all my friends, "LOOK! I own a domain name!"

Maybe I want to become a domain name collector! We could trade them like baseball cards!

A domain name is simply a string of letters that represents the actual address of a website, IF you chose to build one there. The normal address is numerical, currently with four sections called IPV4, like 255.255.255.255.

While that one would be easy to remember, one like 216.9.873.301 might not be. You wouldn't want everyone to have to remember the numbers to get to your website, thats why they created domain names to point at those numbers. Easier to remember.

Also, you don't actually OWN a domain name nor do you own the IP numerical address. You register it and it is provided as a service to you, much like a phone number and the service they provide.

The registry for your domain name makes sure people "connect" with your website just as the phone company makes sure people "connect" when they call you on the telephone.

Do you see people trying to see if you have legitimate use of your phone number?

Your phone has letters that also correspond to the numbers on the dial or touchpad. If my phone number was 305-372-3673, it could also mean 305-372-FORD. So does Ford Motor Company sue me for my telephone number?

That would be ridiculous wouldn't it? It's no different than being sued for your domain name.

Cybersquatting should only be defined as registering a domain name that exactly matches a compnay name with a nefarious purpose, such as, you only registered the name with the intent of selling it to the company for a profit, you only registered it because they are a competitor and you don't want them to be able to have their name, if you registered it with the intent to fool consumers into thinking you are that company, or if you plan to profit from that traffic by sending the users who go there to a competitor of that company.

Thats my opinion. You may not have the same opinion as me because I have it first. I will sue any of you reading this if you attempt to have the same opinion as me.

When I grow up I want to be just like the people at ICANN and WIPO.

by Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic
More things that just piss me off

Redstate.org run by 5th Graders

2006-03-25T09:37:00.000-05:00

Just another example. I find this so laughable. Redstate.org is definitely run by 12-year-olds. Everytime someone disagrees with them, thomas or another staff member or a member of their butt-kissing corps threatens to ban them.

I'm not going to play with you anymore! Reminds me of like 5th grade.

Read through the comments, you'll see exactly what I mean.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

NCMEC - Public Perception

2006-03-25T08:58:00.000-05:00

The NCMEC certainly has great public relations experts working for them. They should be ashamed of the way they use a topic like missing children to enhance their image and fundraising efforts though.

Read the following story;

"Missing-children cases tied to hurricanes now closed

NEW ORLEANS - The largest child-recovery effort in U.S. history is complete after more than six months, and 5,192 children who were missing after hurricanes Katrina and Rita have been reunited with family members, officials said Tuesday.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children worked with the FBI, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Postal Service, Red Cross and other agencies to find the thousands of children separated from their parents or guardians when Hurricane Katrina hit Aug. 29 and Hurricane Rita hit just a few weeks later.

Of the more than 5,000 children, all but 12 were found alive. Most were found living with other relatives, family friends or other adults, a spokesman for the center said.

The last displaced child, 4-year-old Cortez Stewart, was reunited with her mother and five siblings in Houston on March 16."

I guess if you are not involved in finding missing children, it might be difficult to understand why this pisses me off. I will try to explain a little.

First, the law that created the NCMEC stated they were to take the funding that created them and distribute funds to smaller orgs that help find missing children.

They do not do that. Although they get around 40 million a year in funding, 30 million of which are taxpayer dollars, they don't fund any effort that doesn't have their name on it. I believe they are afraid someone who is really do something will take a bite out of their funding from the government.

Their PR people are the best. They spend over 800,000 dollars per year, enough to fund some smaller organizations, just on public relations.

They get stories like the above circulated with the appearance that there was children missing all over New Orleans waiting for the NCMEC to sweep in and rescue them.

Here is the real scoop. One federal agency, FEMA, screwed up the disaster effort in many ways, one of which was not doing some type of documentation about who they bussed where. They did not do this, so another federally funded organization swoops in and figures out where all the children were bussed to and which relative they were with.

The children were not missing in the classic sense. They were bussed somewhere, with one of their relatives or caretakers, and FEMA didn't know where. NCMEC to the rescue! Funding assured! That should have been the headline.

by Chris McElroy
More things that just piss me off

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