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A Stake Through The Heart

June 12th, 2010 · corporations, linux

SCO vs. Novell - Plaintiff

Groklaw has the story. Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED. What follows is a complete wrapup of the long standing case of SCO vs. Novell regarding intellectual property rights to Linux code. SCO has been maintaining that Linux users owe them licensing fees. They say that Linux is based on UNIX code that they, SCO own. See the Groklaw story for complete details of the ruling.

Could SCO appeal? Not too likely since SCO is in bankruptcy and they would have to get permission of the bankruptcy judge to spend any more money on this case. So it seems that a stake has been driven through the heart of this particular vampire.

In reporting this story Yahoo! Finance headlined SCO to Sponsor Next Season of “The Biggest Loser”. Their story is by John Paczkowski The author says this case may finally be over See the Yahoo! Finance article for their details

A good overall view, though dated may be found Wikipedia article on SCO-Linux_controversies One of the strangest parts of this melodrama was when SCO announced that they would not be suing its own customers. Good to know, huh?

 

Photo Credit: http://taliesinttlg.blogspot.com

Posted by The GNUinator

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Ike Skelton says he’s open to Defense Cuts

June 9th, 2010 · US House, markey, politics

Ike Skelton [D-MO]

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), a longtime advocate of a strong military with a robust budget, is considering a few ways to help Defense Secretary Robert Gates save some cash.

Beginning with a speech a stone’s throw from President Eisenhower’s boyhood home, Gates recommended the Pentagon begin finding ways to cut its own budget in order to save key programs and forces from the crippling cuts seen in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

With rising deficits, plans to draw down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and a changing mood on Capitol Hill, even defense spending stalwarts such as Skelton are looking for places to trim.

Read the rest of this story at Politico byline Jen DiMascio.

Interesting story but DiMascio points out that Skelton remains supportive of a second engine for the F35 Joint Strike fighter.

My translation: We’re open to defense cuts. We’re going to do it next time. Recall that Congresswoman Betsy Markey voted to strip funds for this second engine that Defense Secretary Gates says is not needed.

 

Photo Credit: Politico

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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Book of the Week

June 7th, 2010 · books nonfiction, politics

The Insanity Offense

The Insanity Offense

The Insanity Offense: How America’s Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens by E. Fuller Torrey. The book was featured on Book TV

Torrey has written frequently on this topic. The book opens with a description of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS). This is a state law in California which had the effect of vastly reducing the patient population in state mental hospitals. The author says that LPS came from an unholy alliance of liberal activists concerned with folks being railroaded into mental hospitals against their will and conservative activists who believed that there is no such thing as mental illness.

Ronald Reagan as governor of California promised that mentally ill patients would be moved from state hospitals to community based treatment facilities. Funds were never provided so that this could happen. Instead, many mentally ill patients became homeless where they then became a huge problem for local police departments.

Torrey continues in this vein documenting what he calls the effect of LPS in California and similar ideas in other states. He recounts examples of mentally ill people who killed because they heard voices telling them to. These cases sound like the plot line of a Criminal Minds television show.

One of the most spectacular examples recounted is the Virginia Tech shooter. Torrey says that privacy laws prevent information sharing so that mentally ill people may go out and buy firearms which make their rampages just that much more deadly.

For public policy the question is who should be allowed to purchase firearms. Of course, if you believe there is no such thing as mental illness then anyone should be allowed to acquire weapons. I think this is an extreme position. Is the country destined to suffer more and more mass shootings by mentally ill people who exercised their Second Amendment rights? This is why “The Insanity Offense” is book of the week.

 

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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Boxer Campaign Starts Early

June 6th, 2010 · US Senate, politics

Barbara Boxer [D-CA]

California primary voters go to the polls on Tuesday, June 8 to pick their party’s candidates. Republicans will choose Carly Fiorina, Tom Campbell, or Chuck DeVore. for their US Senate candidate. Late polling suggests that Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, will be the nominee to run against incumbant Senator Barbara Boxer.

The following is from an L.A. Times story by Seema Mehta. Money and Anger Dominate California’s … Contests

Pushing forward

Near Sacramento, a confident Fiorina rallied her troops in the Senate race, thanking them for bypassing the beautiful weather to call voters on her behalf.

“With your help, we’ll be having a hell of a party on Tuesday night,” she said, flashing two thumbs up to about 30 volunteers gathered at a recreation center in Gold River.

Speaking to reporters, she criticized Boxer’s positions on national security, terrorism and immigration. “Her policies are part of what’s driving this state into bankruptcy,” Fiorina said.

Fierce battles ahead

With their lineup unofficially set, top-of-the-ticket Democrats and their allies in organized labor were also gearing up Saturday for a bruising general election battle against opponents with unprecedented amounts of personal money to spend.

With the battles brewing, “Boxer and Brown both realize they have real contests and are not going to wait,” according to Jack Pitney a Claremont McKenna College government professor and former national GOP official.

“For all practical purposes, the general election campaign has already started,” said Dan Schnur, head of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “It doesn’t look like many people on either side are going to be taking summer vacations.”

Boxer proved that Saturday. After touring a new $13.5-million aircraft rescue and firefighting facility at Los Angeles International Airport that was funded mostly by federal stimulus money, the senator lashed out at Fiorina. She let fly a host of criticisms: Fiorina laid off tens of thousands of workers and shipped jobs overseas as head of Hewlett-Packard; she failed to vote for much of her life; she opposes abortion rights and supports offshore drilling – the opposite of most Californians’ views – and would allow people on the no-fly terrorism watch list to purchase handguns. See our previous article about Carly’s failure to vote.

“This is the clearest choice in the nation,” Boxer said. “She is so out of step with California voters.”

mailto: seema.mehta@latimes.com

Times staff writers Robin Abcarian, Cathleen Decker, Shane Goldmacher and Maeve Reston contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

 

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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House Keeps Second F35 Engine

June 6th, 2010 · US House, markey, politics

Joint Strike Fighter

F35 Joint Strike Fighter

The US House of Representatives voted 193 to 231 on a motion to strip funding from the Defense Authorization Bill of 2010 for a second F35 Joint Strike Fighter engine that the Defense Department does not want. Since the motion failed funds for a second engine stay in the defense bill. The rollcall vote on the motion may be found here

Congresswoman Helen Elizabeth “Betsy” Markey [D-CO4th] voted to strip the funds. 135 other Democrats voted to strip the funds along with 57 Republicans. House members voting to retain funds for a second engine included 115 Democrats and 116 Republicans.

After the vote Markey was critical of her colleagues for being hypocritical on budget deficits. See the story in the Fort Collins Coloradoan This story also ran on the ColoradoPols Blog

Photo Credit:KCBY TV Coos Bay / North Bend, OR

 

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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Markey Votes with most Dems on DADT

May 31st, 2010 · US House, fort collins, markey, politics

Betsy Markey, CO 4th District Rep.

Most Democrats voted with the House leadership Thursday evening as the House passed the Patrick Kennedy amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill of 2010.

I got the news live on The Rachel Madow Show But how did my congressperson, Betsy Markey, vote? A rollcall of the vote can be found here

Turns out that Markey voted with that other Congressman Markey, the one from Mass., she voted yes. By voting yes she proved once again that she is no Marilyn Musgrave. In case you do not remember, Marilyn, when she was our congressperson campaigned for a federal constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. Imagine how she would have voted on the question to repeal DADT.

In researching this story I went to a favorite source, ColoradoPols They didn’t have any details of interest until the next day when they had a story headlined Colorado Delegation Casts Party Line Vote. I will let you find the specific reference on that site. About the same time, i.e. the next day after the vote, Politico had a credible story House Votes to Repeal ‘don’t ask’

Speaking of Politico, they had an interesting story in mid May about five Democrats, Markey among them, whose flip from no to yes provided the margin of victory for House passage of Health Care Reform. The other four Democrats are Alan Boyd, John Boccieri, Scott Murphy, and Suzanne Kosmas. All five have been targeted by the GOP.

Now that I have the actual rollcall on DADT I decided to see if any of these ‘targeted’ reperesentatives voted no on the Partick Murphy amendment. The answer is that all five voted with the House majority. The one no vote that leaps out at you is Rep. Ike Skelton [D-MO] who is House Armed Services Committee chairman. Republicans voting yes include Ron Paul of TX, no surprise, the newest House member Djou of HI, and Cao of LA along with two others.

 

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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Are We Alone – Debated

May 30th, 2010 · boinc

SETI Telescope

Public Debate: “Are We Alone?” Watch the Video

SETI@home Chief Scientist Dan Werthimer participated in an exciting public debate with planet-hunter and skeptic Geoff Marcy on April 30, 2010 on campus of the University of California at Berkeley. The topic: “Are We Alone?” covered the range of issues related to the search for extraterrestrial life. Watch the video transcript here.

 

Posted by The GNUinator

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Leading Candidate Failed to Vote

May 30th, 2010 · politics

Fired Hewlett-Packard CEO

Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina, leading candidate for the GOP nomination for US Senate in California explained to Sharon Ito of News 10, Sacramento, that it was wrong of her not to vote. See the interview here

Magellan Strategies Has Fiorina leading Tom Campbell 44% to 21% with Chuck DeVore in third place at 14%. The survey was conducted on or about May 25. See the Magellan story along with downloads and crosstabs here.

The California Primary election comes up on June 8.

Bottom line: Failure to vote does not seem to be a disqualifying factor in order to win GOP nomination in California this election cycle.

Photo Credit: News 10 Sacramento

 

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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Slackware 13.1 Released

May 26th, 2010 · linux

get slackware

Get Slack

Patrick Volkerding has announced the release of Slackware Linux 13.1: “Yes, it’s that time again! After many months of development and careful testing, we are proud to announce the release of Slackware version 13.1. Slackware 13.1 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you’ll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.6.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 4.4.3, a recent stable release of the new 4.4.x series of the award-winning KDE desktop environment. We continue to make use of HAL and udev, which allow the system administrator to grant use of various hardware devices according to users’ group membership.”

To see a review of Slackware 13.1 click here

 

Posted by The GNUinator

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Open Letter to Rachel Maddow

November 23rd, 2009 · politics, rachel maddow show

MSNBC Hostess Rachel

MSNBC Hostess Rachel

George H. W. ‘Poppy’ Bush says that you and Keith Olbermann have not been feeling well. He said that you two had gone to the veterinarian. Rachel, please do not hang out at animal hospitals. There are all kinds of diseases you could catch there.

For example, Dogma is known to be widespread and very contagious.

Please, I watch your show every night. I worry that if you hang out with vets, you could become sick puppies.

 

Posted by Gypsy Chief

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