RANT: The Mouse screws Sam’s; it should be entertaining

Monday, October 9, 2006

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0610target.html

Target joins Wal-Mart in expressing iTunes concerns
By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor

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October 9, 2006 – U.S. retail giant Target has joined rival Wal-Mart in expressing concern regarding the adverse effect digital movie sales could have on the DVD business. Like Wal-Mart, Target is less than pleased that Apple’s wholesale price for new movies from Disney is several dollars less than the wholesale price charged to Target for DVDs, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

***AND***

The Journal also discloses that shortly after Apple launched movie sales at the iTunes Store, Wal-Mart sent a top executive to Hollywood to express its displeasure over the development. The retail leader is known for using its massive clout to bring suppliers in line with its wishes.

**End Quote***

Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation? What will WalMart do? I bet it will be a doozey.


TECH: Free DIKW being given away

Monday, October 9, 2006

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/10/07/freetechbookscom/

FreeTechBooks.com Posted Oct 7th 2006 4:35PM by Ryan Carter

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Looking for some great free books, or some stored knowledge in the form of e-books, lecture notes, programming texts? FreeTechBooks.com has you covered. All books are legally free and available for online viewing or download. There is a lot of great stuff here, and the only “catch” is that the texts are bound by their own terms, which isn’t a problem in my book. Most of the titles are in the computer science or related areas like operating systems, programming, logic and systems analysis and design. There is enough stuff here to keep you busy for a weekend, or several weekends depending on how many programming languages and texts you are interested in.

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I like free!


WRITING: Ambition and success thru writing?

Monday, October 9, 2006

http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20061009GetPublishedtoGetAhead.html

Get Published To Get Ahead
Gerry McGovern
Expert Author
Published: 2006-10-09

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If you are ambitious, you must publish the important things you do today. Publishing is about visibility. It’s about getting your name in front of those who matter to you. If you do something great and don’t create a record of what you did, did you really do it? As far as the Web is concerned, you didn’t, and the Web is becoming the global memory. So you’ve got to get it down – get it recorded.

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Not very likely for fowgs!


GUNS: The “liberal media” lives in a fantasy land where law do “stuff”

Monday, October 9, 2006

From: agunnut08824
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 9:08 AM
To: Associate Editor Karen Hunter
(who handles concerns about the accuracy and fairness of news coverage)
c/o readerep [AT] courant [DOT] com
Subject: US unwilling to ban guns despite plague of school shootings AFP via Yahoo! News – Sat, Oct 07, 2006

Dear Ms. Hunter,

With all due respect to all the so called Liberals in the media, I respectfully submit that you are living in Fantasy Land. I’m a “gun nut”; I blog https://reinkefj.wordpress.com/tag/guns/ about it. May I point out some “facts of life”? (I’m not going to drag everything from my blog here. I’ll just hit the high points.)

(1) “Gun free schools zones” are an invitation to nut jobs, terrorists, and criminals to enter, in complete safety, and have minutes, days, and possible hours to act. This particularly dumb law creates what the military would call a “target rich environment with zero opposition”. Does anyone think that a Principal, Teacher, or Custodian can’t be trusted to protect their students? And if they are crazy, what prevents them from bringing a gun to school and killing people? A law? please don’t make me cry.

(2) Now I am not saying arm every one in the school! Although that’s not a bad idea. I’m just saying repeal the “gun free school zones” law. (Isn’t is Orwellian to use the word law to cover the Law of Gravity and anything produce be a Legislature anywhere? Go ahead an defy the Law of Gravity. You can’t do it. That’s a law.) If you can make a “law” like gravity, where a gun wouldn’t operate inside a school zone, then you would have something.

(3) “Victim Disarmament” laws, comically called “Gun Control” laws (IMHO “gun control” is being able to hit what you aim at.), is one of the steps on the way to tyranny and genocide. The dead old white guys knew that and enshrined in our Constitution a recognition of the natural right of self-defense. When we ignore the wisdom of the ages, we do so at our peril. Can’t happen here? Japanese Internment and Halliburton’s contract to build illegal immigrant detention centers and the suspension of habeas corpus for “enemy combatants”. Yeah, right!

(4) The world is dangerous place. There are two legged ne’er-do-wells and four legged predators out there. A gun is just a tool. A very powerful tool, but still a tool. It makes women equal to men. It make strong thugs very compliant. Quite frankly, I trust my fellow humans here in the USA to be responsible and smart enough to distinguish between kids in school and crazed milkmen. The police are merely the distillation of society’s desire for peace. they can’t be everywhere. And really depend upon the good people to back them up (i.e., NOLA).

(5) Wishing for peace doesn’t make it happen. Protecting school kids requires us to be smart. (I’m not a fan of government schools in the first place, but that’s another matter for another day.) We don’t make banks gun free zones. Aren’t kids as important or valuable as money? And “gun control” will never work. Criminals don’t obey legislative laws. If the government can’t keep weapons, drugs, and cell phones out of its prisons, then why do you think they can keep these things out of the country.

No, you don’t “reduce the number of these tragedies” by “making it harder for people to get guns”. Criminals have no problem getting the guns they want to do bad things. If you truly want to reduce the number of these tragedies, then you make guns easier to get. When the ordinary person can defend themselves, then criminals will seek other employment. Actually wide spread concealed carry is ideal because then the criminals have to guess.

All right, I’ll quote from my blog, because I think I made the point best:

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There are other benefits of an armed society. The value of concealed carry is that you don’t have to carry to receive a benefit. If a criminal has 100 potential victims, then he has to pick one. If out of that hundred people ten are packing, then the criminal has a 10% chance of facing an armed victim. “Hmmm” says the criminal who should I pick? The gay guy. Ever hear of the Pink Pistols? The thin spindly blond woman. Agggg, that’s Paxton Quigley and she’s describing what a center of mass is to me with a laser assist sight. I know. says out hypothetical criminal, the squat little brownish guy with the big mustache, looks like an mexican arab. Ohhh, good day Mr. Massad Ayoob. Yes sir, I’d be happy to put my hands up. See the unarmed sheep are protected when we “salt” the flock with a few armed sheep. The criminal has to guess. Sometimes they will guess wrong … dead criminal! Don’t have to worry about recidivism then. There’s reason why burglars choose unoccupied houses. And remember that TV show that ask hardened criminals what they feared most? Not the cops, the courts, or jail. It was an armed potential victim!

***End Quote***

Events like the school shootings are terrible, but they are the direct result of legislative stupidity.

Hope this helps change your mind,
F. J. Reinke

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http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/
editorials/hc-guns.artoct04,0,4527041.
story?coll=hc-headlines-editorials

http://tinyurl.com/tkx7o

School Killings, Gun Control
October 4 2006

A horrifying rampage at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa. – the third incident of a fatal shooting at a school in less than a week – has sparked nationwide debate about the vulnerability of our schools. But where is the talk of gun control?

On Monday, a milk-truck driver with three guns pushed his way into the one-room Pennsylvania schoolhouse, ordered the boys and adults to leave, then barricaded himself inside. He fired on a dozen girls, killing three before turning the gun on himself. Two girls injured in the shooting died Tuesday.

In Colorado on Wednesday, a drifter with a gun broke into a school and, after a standoff, killed a teenage girl and himself. In Wisconsin on Friday, a 15-year-old student fatally shot his principal.

The incidents have provoked a dialogue about the safety of schools. Early this week, the Bush administration announced a plan for a conference involving education and law enforcement experts to discuss the nature of the problem and ways the federal government can help communities prevent violence and deal with its aftermath.

Maybe there are ways we can better protect our schools and children from such attacks. In the Pennsylvania shooting, officials speculate the gunman may have chosen the school because it was the closest one accessible and had little security.

But we can’t build walls around all our schools or shroud them in barbed wire. It’s also true that even the best gun-control laws won’t put a stop to these terrible and senseless deaths. By making it harder for people to get guns, however, maybe we can at least reduce the number of these tragedies.

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