Final Protective Fire

Monday, June 27, 2005

Paul Winchell passed away at 82. I remember as a kid watching his puppet show on television. And I was astonished years ago to learn that he held a patent on an artificial heart design. A wonderful man who enriched my generation's childhood and may enrich my generation's health. We'll miss you Mr. Winchell.

Robin 9:13 PM

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Thursday, June 23, 2005

While I'm currently very interested in issues regarding Open Source software and its licensing, I've not been commenting on that here. However, I've been spending a lot of time reading on Pamela Jones' Groklaw site about the SCO suits against IBM and others.
Recently there was a bizarre lawsuit by a strange individual named Wallace against the Free Software Foundation alleging that the Gnu Public License is an unlawful restraint of trade. Absolutely hilarious pro se style of complaint.
Well, the nuts seem to be coming out of the woodwork. This is a PDF of a complaint by someone named Jeff Merkey.
The context of this suit seem to be that PJ reported on Groklaw about some weird suit between Jeff Merkey and Novell over a sexual harrassment charge and termination of Merkey. I won't try to explain the peyote. Any attorney who has worked litigation will tell you that there is nothing worse that pro se litigants. They can't do anything competently, so you can't actually get a handle on the case and the courts bend over backwards to tolerate their incompetence. Merkey's complaint is hilarious. Evidently from reading it, he copied from some older complaint in some other case that he doesn't actually understand because he is citing completely inappropriate statutes and can't even get the jurisdictional amount for a diversity suit right.

Robin 9:16 PM

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Saturday, June 18, 2005

It turns out that Amnesty International actually had the gall to ask an actual survivor of the Soviet Gulags to defend their outrageous statements. He refused.

Robin 12:13 PM

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Kent does a great job of explaining why the nonsense about vaccines and autism is dangerous junk science.

Robin 11:43 AM

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Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Jim Paine is keeping us all up to date on the Ward Churchill fiasco. He was nice enough to add this blog to his links without any begging by me. I was touched.
Well, touched in an emotional way, not in a Michael Jackson way.

Robin 6:38 PM

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Monday, June 13, 2005

I have the Michael Jackson verdict ...
I don't care.

Robin 2:55 PM

The Bush administration is running what is probably the most humane prisoner camp in history in Guantanamo Bay and Amnesty International claims its a "gulag".
Meanwhile, Tony Blair's government is actually writing reports that recommend that young children be marked for their supposed criminal tendencies and "proposes parenting classes and, in the worst cases, putting more children who are not 'under control' into intensive foster care instead of care homes."
I don't think I recognize the British anymore. Who took over their country?

Robin 12:19 AM

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Sunday, June 12, 2005

I've been using R.J Rummel's website based on his book for sometime, but I did not realize until Dave Schuler linked to it on Winds of Change that he had a blog. I've added it to the top of the list at left.

Robin 9:57 PM

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Over at NRO, Peter Kirsanow puts paid to Howard Dean's bigoted ravings.

Robin 9:14 PM

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Thursday, June 09, 2005

A neat story about a black lab that rushed to intervene when a pit bull attacked some neighborhood children.

Robin 12:37 AM

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

I've been "tagged" on a book chain blog by Kent. I'll admit that I normally don't do this kind of thing, but its true, I humor Kent more than I should. I'm tempted to omit the trash SF reading just to make myself look more intellectual ... ok, that won't be too convincing I know. Kent tagged me probably because he knows I read as much history as he does and he's trying to suck more reading subjects from me. I read whatever I buy almost immediately therefore the last books read list would be a repeat, so I listed under last books read books I've recently pulled out of the library and read. As for the five books that mean the most to me, that's going to be a hard one as I don't know that I've done a lot of thinking on that topic. But I'll come up with something even if I decide to revise it later. By the way, I buy a lot from used bookstores so some of these may be out of print.
Last books purchased:

Shadowmarch by Tad Williams

The Punic Wars by Adrian Goldsworthy

The Structure of Aikido by Gaku Homma

Open Source Licensing by Lawrence Rosen

An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson

Last books read:

Interstellar Patrol II by Christopher Anvil

His Excellancy George Washington by Joseph Ellis

Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918, World War I and Its Violent Climax by Joseph Persico

The Green and The Gray by Timothy Zahn

General Patton : A Soldier's Life by Stanley Hirshson

Five Books that mean the most to me:

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin

Death By Government by R.J. Rummel

History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill

Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson

By now you've figured out that I either read non-fiction ( a lot! ) or fantasy/science fiction. I don't read much in the way of literature. The five books that mean the most to me category would rotate through a score or more of books depending on the mood you found me in. Titles just swirl around in my head. In F/SF, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card; the Memory, Sorrow, Thorn series by Tad Williams ( which I prefer to Tolkien ); and I have a lot of fondness for titles from my youth like the Heinlein juveniles that formed a lot of my early world-and self-view and E.E. "Doc" Smith. A collection of Gene Fowler's old hunting stories from his Parting Shots column.
I'll just have to risk the appearance of pretence. Now who should I tag? I figure Steve Verdon, as I'm sick of reading about Kevin Drum ...
UPDATED - I notice I forgot to mention how many books I own. I've not counted lately, but when we last moved interstate I counted approx. 1100 volumes. I've pared that down a bit in the last couple of years but I've not done a new count, so I'd guess 800+ today.

Robin 10:05 PM

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Monday, June 06, 2005

The second part of the Rocky Mountain News series on Ward Churchill focuses on Churchill's oft-repeated claim that in 1837 the US Army deliberately infected natives in North Dakota with smallpox. The article shows that Churchill is misrepresenting the sources he cites.
Of course, Churchill is completely incompetent to perform any original research on this topic - misrepresenting the work of others is his only tool.

Robin 9:59 AM

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Catblogging: Someone puked a hairball in my shoes this morning. No photos will be provided.

Robin 8:32 AM

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Saturday, June 04, 2005

Today, Rocky Mountain News begins a five part series on their investigation of the academic work and claims of CU's Ward Churchill. While not as funny as the Huffington's Toast explanation of Churchill's response, it is devastating. You don't want to miss this complete takedown of the fraud. Anyone who takes this man seriously is completely deluded.
Personally, it is my opinion that Ward Churchill should be reinstated as chair of the CU Ethnic Studies department. Nothing else would more accurately represent the academic fraud and left-wing moonbat looniness that is "ethnic studies". Churchill's juvenile screed about the World Trade Center terrorism should be engraved in a steel plate and screwed to the front of the building so that every one of CU's professors has to see it when they enter each day.
Plenty more information and discussion at Pirate Ballerina.

Robin 10:02 AM

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