From CNN.com:

Broadcaster Kelly Tilghman has apologized. Tiger Woods has accepted it. But the Rev. Al Sharpton says it isn’t good enough.

[Sharpton said] “Lynching is not murder in general. It is not assault in general. It is a specific racial term that this woman should be held accountable for”

Really? Racial? Ok Al… let’s look the word up in a dictionary (you know… the place where words are actually defined).

To inflict punishment upon, especially death, without the forms of law, as when a mob captures and hangs a suspected person.

Hmmm…. that sounds a lot like what Nick Faldo said leading up the Kelly’s comment: “To take Tiger on, well yeah, they should just gang up [emphasis mine] for a while…”

Mr. Sharpton, you are a bigger boob and media whore than I ever thought you were, and are lacking in basic education. It’s like when David Howard was forced out of his job for using the word niggardly because people like you thought it was somehow racist without looking the word up in the dictionary (it means stingy, just in case you think I meant something else. See [[PC Sucks!]].).

Words mean what they mean, not what we think they mean. Kelly Tilghman used a word, in a joking manner, suggesting that the only way the young guns on the PGA tour could compete with [[Tiger]] is to kill him. [[Tiger]] knew it was a joke, Nick Faldo knew is was joke, and everyone listening knew it was a joke. Nobody that heard it made any kind of racial connection, or considered it to be a racist remark. Hell, if I had to guess, I bet [[Tiger]] got a big grin on his face and thought to himself, “that’s right guys, I OWN you.”

I think it’s racist of you, Al, to go looking for racism and to persecute people for no damn reason. Remember the Duke lacrosse case? I still haven’t heard you apologize to those poor (white) kids whose lives you ruined. By this definition of racism:

discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race

you are one of the most racist people around.

Please, Al, don’t go away mad, just go away. You are not needed anymore (if you ever were).

From CNN.com:

Iran has denounced video and audio recording released by the United States of the two nations’ confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz as “fabricated”, according to statements carried by state-run television station.

God I hope we didn’t do that. Can you say Gulf of Tonkin? Can the neocons really be that ignorant of history? Or is that a stupid question?

From Boston Globe — Front Page:

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Senator Hillary Clinton of New York scored a narrow but impressive comeback victory in New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary yesterday, as the Granite State again salvaged a troubled Clinton campaign and rejuvenated the former first lady’s bid to return to the White House.

Congrats to HIllary for her victory (although I really don’t want her to win). My guy Obama came in a close second. Will that be enough to sway minority voters in southern states to vote for him? I hope so.

From Casino Facts:

R.I. aims to beat Mass. to draw in casino battle

The Cape Cod Times has some of the best coverage on the casino issue. This article reports

Rhode Island is looking to beat Massachusetts to the punch with as many as two resort casinos.

This will be done by turning Twin Rivers and Newport Grand into full blown casino resorts. Twin Rivers is run by our friends Kerzner and Wolman who are trying to drop a social nuke on Middleboro by backing the Mashpee Wampanoag casino. The article has this ironic tidbit:

Kerzner and Wolman contributed almost $3 million to a 2006 campaign against a proposed Narragansett tribe and Harrah’s Entertainment resort casino in Rhode Island. The campaign, called Save Our State, highlighted the social ills of gambling. The ballot question was defeated by 63 percent of voters

Someone must have some copies of this anti-casino campaign. Pure slime.

THIS is the kind of crap I was talking about! So, the main casino proponents for the Middleboro casino, fought a casino in Rhode Island by citing the social problems that would happen because of a casino? Are you f*@!ing kidding me? This fact alone should call into question the trustworthiness of these jack asses.

Again, to re-iterate:

• Casinos: Not necessarily bad
• Corruption: Extremely bad

Governor Patrick, do not trust these people. They’re filling your head with lies just to get what they want. Your administration is already being regarded as the worst in recent memory… this will just seal the deal.

From Slashdot:

The Financial Times reports that ” Paramount is poised to drop its support of HD DVD after Warner Brothers’ recent backing of Sony’s Blu-ray technology, in a move that will sound the death knell of HD DVD and bring the home entertainment format war to a definitive end.” According to the Times, Warner Brother’s recent defection to Blu-Ray allowed Paramount to terminate their exclusive relationship with HD DVD. Universal Studios remains the only major studio to exclusively support the HD DVD format, though rumors have surfaced that their contract may also contain a termination provision similar to that exercised by Paramount.

This is great news. This is kind of the reverse of the beta vs. VHS result… Blue Ray is the better technology. Once HD DVD is dead, the players for Blue Ray will come down in price, and then maybe I can afford to get one [[:-)]].

From Slashdot:

The Beer Brewing Bender Project is finally completed. This is a fan built, full sized Bender from Futurama featuring a 6502 CPU powered brain to make him speak triggered by a prop remote control straight out of the show. Inside his body is a beer fermenter used to brew up a batch of real Benderbrau beer!

This looks like an outstanding setup, and the builder had WAY too much time on his hands [[:-)]]

From Slashdot:

Domains May Disappear writes “Chris Howard has an interesting commentary at Apple Matters on recent trends in OS market share that says that while OS X has seen continual growth, from 4.21% in Jan 2006 to 7.31% in December 2007 at the same time, Linux’s percentage has risen from only 0.29% to 0.63%. The reasons? ‘Apple has Microsoft Office, Linux doesn’t; Apple has Adobe Creative Suite, Linux doesn’t; Apple has easily accessed and easy to use service and support, Linux doesn’t; Apple is driven by someone who has some understanding of end-user needs, Linux is not,’ says Howard. ‘Early in the decade it seemed that if you wanted a Windows alternative, Linux was it. Nowadays, an Apple Mac is undoubtedly the alternative and, with its resurgence and its Intel base, a very viable one.'”

I figured this would be the case. Linux should forget about the desktop and concentrate on the enterprise. If we can squeeze Microsoft from both sides, maybe it’ll stop doing the evil that it does and realize that its customers come first.

The results in Iowa have sure made things interesting, haven’t they? Senator Barak Obama may have just entered the perfect storm that could lead to his election in the fall. How you ask?

• If Huckabee goes on to win in New Hampshire, he’ll have tremendous momentum heading into North Carolina
• If Huckabee can win there also, that might just be the tipping point that gets him the nomination
• If he gets the nomination, the Republicans are doomed. The country has had enough of right wing religious extremism.
• If at the same time, Obama can hold on and get the Democratic nomination, he’ll then be in a position to win

I’d love to have the chance to vote for the first African American President. We’ll see how things shake out.

This is one of the big issues hitting the state these days so I thought I might weigh in.

It’s all about freedom

In our civil, secular society, the purpose of laws is to ensure that the freedom of individuals is maximized. It is not, in my opinion, to enforce various ideas of what is moral or immoral. As long as the law allows a superset of what your particular moral code is, you have nothing to complain about. If you want to do drugs, engage in wierd sexual fantasies, or gamble, it’s really none of my concern… that is, until you get so wrapped up in the behavior that you start taking away others’ rights to ownership or freedom (for instance, by committing robery or murder, or kidnapping). At that point, your actions have crossed the line, and are illegal. But gambling, in and of itself, is neither a good, nor a bad, it simply is. And as such, it should be legal.

If you think that means that I think there should be casinos in MA, think again. I think they should be allowed to exist, not made to exist through back channel dealings that override the freedom (there’s that word again) of communities to decide whether or not they want one. This is the problem I have with what’s going on in Massachusettes right now.

If you want the truth

Go take a look at CasinoFacts.org. I know the maintainer and primary contributor. He’s a personal friend, and I can vouch for his integrity and honesty. The way that the state, the federal government, and the Wampanoag tribe are trying to force his community to accept a casino is just plain wrong. The town’s board of selectmen entered into an agreement with the tribe without the approval of the citizens of the town. The deal that got the tribe the land on which they want to build has corruption written all over it. There’s even a question as to whether or not the tribe has any ancestral claims to the area (if you look it up, they don’t). The state is seeing dollar signs, but hasn’t really thought out the total cost of ownership.

These attempts by the state and tribe to force a community to accept something they don’t want is tantamount to community rape.

Governor Patrick… are you listening?

Ok. Here’s the way this should play out, at least as far as I’m concerned. Sign a law that allows for the existence of casinos, but requires the approval of any community that abutt the proposed location with a 2/3 majority of the citizens voting to allow the casino. Each community can negotiate whatever deal they want with the tribes (or any other private firm that want’s to make the investment), as can the state.

If someone wants to build a casino, and they can strike a winning deal with all affected parties, then it has my blessing.

From Slashdot:

OOXML is nothing more than the preferences of Microsoft Office. Whenever Word changes, OOXML will change. And if you are a user or competitor of Word, you will be the last one to hear about these changes. The coding of Office 14 a.k.a. Office 2009 is well underway. Beta releases are expected in early 2008. But are file format changes needed to accommodate the new features being discussed in Ecma? No. Are they being discussed in ISO? No. Are they being discussed anywhere publicly? No. By owning the ‘standard’ and developing it in secret, in an Ecma rubber-stamp process, Microsoft rigs the system so they can author an ISO standard with which they are effortlessly compatible, while at the same time ensuring that their products maintain an insurmountable head start in implementing these same standards. Is this how an open standard is developed?

This is exactly why OpenDoc needs to survive and OOXML needs to die a horrible death. To allow Microsoft to completely control this format in secret and still call it a standard is an insult to standards everywhere.