Ok. I'm back from trade expo land, sadly burdened with a stuffed chameleon (a corporate mascot... why would a German company choose that for a mascot?) and several CDs of demo software, but sadly unburdened with promo t-shirts or hats. In my absence, it appears that there have been some key developments regarding some of my favorite pet issues:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger did indeed decide to run for governor of California (see "I'll be back" quoth the Governator)... in an election derby for which 527 people have requested the paperwork required to run. Man, if you thought that the 2000 Presidential Election was a debacle, hold on tight and lay in stores of dehydrated food, guns, and whisky... this is going to be a rough ride.
- A few chickens hatched by the corporate madness of SCO Inc. over the Linux operating system (see when a member of the family goes psycho) showed signs of coming home to roost with separate lawsuits against SCO by IBM and Red Hat. Charges made at SCO in the two suits include: false advertising, deceptive trade practices, unfair competition, trade libel, tortious interference, patent infringement, and illegal revocation of IBM's Unix license. Plus, both essentially argued that SCO doesn't have a case because SCO published Linux themselves for years under a binding open source license that stated they would not sue over copyright issues.
- Maher "Mike" Hawash pled guilty to charges that he attempted to go to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in their fight against United States forces (see something smells fishy, and it's not my tuchis). While his apparent guilt is an interesting development, I still think that it does not excuse the Ashcroft Justice Department's handling of the case. It seems fairly clear that they let him rot in jail for a month without seeing a judge in order to have time to put together their legal case. Last time I checked, citizens of the United States had a right to due process and a speedy trial (even guilty ones).
It's proving to be a scary world out there right now. It kind of makes me want to run away and hide for a while. Or at least live in uninteresting times.
said drgeek
on 2003-08-08 at 12:38 p.m.
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