CMoore.com

Man shoots lawyer as L.A. TV crews watch

… and they say that trusts & estate lawyers never face any danger

Study finds cronyism in Iraq, Afghanistan contracts

"Most of the companies that won contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan were political players," said Charles Lewis, the center's executive director. "Those companies contributed more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush — more than $500,000 — than to any other politician over the last dozen years. These two wars in two years and their aftermaths have brought out the Beltway Bandit companies in full force, and there is a stench of political favoritism and cronyism surrounding the contracting process in both Iraq and Afghanistan."

Maybe I should make a "no shit" category?

Err War – The Army buries its mistakes

"Two pieces of evidence shine all too glaringly: 1) an official, unclassified, and highly critical report on the U.S. Army's inefficient-to-shoddy intelligence practices in Iraq and Afghanistan, written by the Center for Army Lessons Learned in Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.; and 2) the removal of this report from the center's Web site, after the Washington Post published a story summarizing its contents.

The report and its suppression make clear that, in pre-war training, combat deployment, and after-action assessments, the Army hierarchy in the field and the political hierarchy in Washington devote woefully scant resources to analysis of what they're doing?and that they hold the analysts themselves in contempt, sometimes lethally so."

Because information bad. Need not question. No think. Just do.

Microsoft wants to buy Google

Well, $51B can be pretty enticing. I think Google's still aiming for a mixed traditional and dutch auction IPO. The Google guys rule. I'm not sure what their growth curve can be from here on out (hint: froogle, then bidoogle), but their IPO is going to make people rock like it's 1999.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be talking about MS wanting to buy Google. Yeah, whatever. Ain't gonna happen. Probably.

Jonny Greenwood: So long to Jonny guitar

The "first" solo Radiohead project (since Thom's guest appearances don't count, I guess).

Microsoft fires worker over weblog

Typical Appletista enthusiast posts photos from work on personal weblog. Is surprised when he is fired. Oh yeah, he worked at MS.

The reasons given for firing are totally bogus, but those are the joys of employment at will, yo. You can be fired for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all. If his page hadn't gotten /.'d I'm sure nothing would have happened.

SCO introduces 'resume download' feature

SCO is now in violation of the GPL. Every hacker, every organization, everyone with an interest in the code needs to send these asshats a cease and desist letter immediately. Alternatively, it's about time for the FSF to file an injunction, don't you think?

The actions of SCO are, of course, in no way funded by the $50M cash infusion that Microsoft gave them. At all.

Escalator Chews Up, Swallows Woman

"A Scots holidaymaker died in agony yesterday when an escalator opened up and crushed her. University professor Sally Baldwin, 62, screamed as the cogs of the metal walkway sucked her in to a gaping hole… An Italian train driver may lose both his legs after he was dragged in to the machinery while trying to save Sally."

Processing at the Speed of Light

I still don't think optical computing will beat out nano-scale computing (leading to quantum processors), but hey, I've been known to be wrong before.

'Well, You Try To Reconstruct Iraq,' Says U.S. Defensive Dept.

"WASHINGTON, DC?Responding to recent criticism of reconstruction efforts in Iraq, the U.S. Defensive Department released a statement to the public Monday suggesting that perhaps they could do better, since they're obviously so smart."

Ahhhh, the Onion. Best fucking news source on the planet.

Bartolo Colon is Officially Insane

Ticking timebomb mediocrity turns down a 3-year $33M deal from the White Sox. Apparently, he doesn't realize the market shifted dramatically last year. If he gets a better deal than that, I'll be completely surprised. Shocked, even.

I'd take Millwood over him in a heartbeat.

SCO is Full of Shit

Take it from me, their argument is absolute, unadulterated crapola with no foundation in law or even reasoned debate.

Or don't take it from me, check out the comments from some noted legal scholars (what's linked in the thread). Among them, Eben Moglen calls their claim "rubbish."

Oh, what's their claim? That the GPL is unconstitutional and unenforceable and void and/or voidable.

Their "argument" is mind-boggling in its stupidity and willfully ignorant audacity. Of course, SCO is totally not funded by MS, and that $50M had nothing to do with funding this sort of ridiculous FUD bullshit. At all. No, really.

FTC Promotes Patent Reform

Finally a governmental criticism of the current patent policy. Key reqs are procedural as well as substantive.

The systemic problems are not going to go away until the PTO is properly funded, however. Examiners have from 8 to 25 hours, on average, to review, search for prior art, communicate with the lawyers, and write their decisions. That's a crazy short period of time.

E-Vote Software Leaked Online

… again. Binaries this time, rather than source code.

Gawd our governments are being amazingly clueless about this shit. How long until the first election is stolen because of some whacktastic crackers? If one hasn't already been stolen, that is…

Superfund Undermined

Because the environment will, you know, just take care of our fuckups all on its own.