a few examples:

Every now and then Bill does something good.

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State senators voted Monday to force schools to ask parents whether their children are in this country legally.

Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said Arizona taxpayers are entitled to know how many children are being educated who have no legal right to be here. He said asking for documentation when a child is enrolled is no different from asking for proof of vaccinations or that a youngster actually lives in the school district.

[..]

But Pearce did not dispute a contention by foes that simply asking about legal status might keep some parents from enrolling their children, even if the youngsters were born in this country. And he said that doesn’t bother him one bit.

“The laws are intended to make people fearful,” Pearce said.

So first they disadvantage these kids, then when the kids grow up, they can complain about how the minorities are so undereducated and “dumb”, which obliges them to take the worst jobs at the worst pay, and then everybody can complain how the “minorities don’t want to better themselves” and on and on and on in an endless circle. The circle of hate.

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Tony Blair made an electrifying return to UK domestic politics today, skewering the Conservative leadership for inconsistency and indecision while praising Gordon Brown for his “experience, judgement and boldness”.

Does he realize how popular he is?

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The idea is to fight the current Android fragmentation, where there are still phones being sold with OS 1.5, 1.6, and 2.0, and with no upgrades to the current 2.1 in sight, that future versions of the OS will have all major apps and components upgradeable via the Android Market. Chris Ziegler writes:

Put simply, Google’s been iterating the core far faster than most of its partners have been able to keep up.

Google has been iterating quickly, but the problem is that carriers aren’t interested in any updates at all for phones they’ve already sold. The carriers have learned nothing from the iPhone, or, maybe they just don’t care about Android as a platform.

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Today, the jury in the District Court of Utah trial between SCO Group and Novell issued a verdict.

Novell is very pleased with the jury’s decision confirming Novell’s ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux. Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on the intellectual property front.

This decision is good news for Novell, for Linux, and for the open source community.

[..]

“This is a significant victory for Novell and, I think, a tremendous victory for the open-source community,” said Novell attorney Sterling Brennan. He added that while there are still a few issues to be decided in the case and SCO has a right to appeal, “This verdict largely brings an end to this.”

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Canadian police investigate dozens of allegations against psychiatrist nicknamed for use of electricity to ‘cure’ gay soldiers.

A leading Canadian psychiatrist who kept accusations of gross human rights abuses in apartheid-era South Africa hidden has been charged in Calgary with sexually abusing a male patient and is being investigated over dozens of other allegations.

Is anybody really surprised?

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This is how the newest firmware update is described on the official PlayStation blog: “The next system software update for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) system will be released on April 1, 2010 (JST), and will disable the ‘Install Other OS’ feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009,” a Sony rep wrote. “This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update.

“In addition, disabling the ‘Other OS’ feature will help ensure that PS3 owners will continue to have access to the broad range of gaming and entertainment content from SCE and its content partners on a more secure system.”

It’s pointed out that this update is strictly voluntary, although if you don’t download the new firmware you won’t be able to connect to the PlayStation Network, play any games online, play any games or Blu-ray movies that “require” the new firmware, play any files kept on a media server, or download any future updates. To put it simply, if you don’t grab the update, the system will become useless to you as a gaming or media machine.

The ability to run Linux was never available on the second-generation PS3 Slim hardware, but the problem is that now the option won’t be available in hardware that could previously install Linux. There is no reason for this, other than Sony decided it was no longer safe. While it’s hard to argue that running Linux was a major selling point of the system, we’ve heard from many people who enjoyed the feature. Now, to continue using their system as a gaming machine, they need to give up a feature that was advertised as part of the hardware they bought.

Sony was already on my blacklist, but the next right they claim… well, check the title of this post.

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Tomorrow the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral argument in a case that has gotten very little media coverage, on whether a private person protected by a restraining order may bring a criminal contempt action to enforce the order. The petitioner pled guilty to beating the respondent, on the condition that he not be prosecuted for a second beating inflicted after she obtained a restraining order. The respondent brought her own criminal action for contempt for the second beating, and the petitioner received more jail time. He asserts, however, that he has a due process right to be prosecuted by the government, rather than a private person.

Usually, criminal actions are brought by the government This case raises the question of whether private persons can be empowered to bring their own criminal actions, as well as practical concerns about how otherwise restraining orders can be enforced.

Go read the discussion at the link…. this is a subtle one..

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Karl Rove, the former chief of staff to President George W. Bush, held a discussion Monday night in Beverly Hills, California to promote his new book, “Courage and Consequences.” But the 100 or so people who showed up for the event, perhaps unsurprisingly, weren’t all fans of the polarizing strategist.

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The future of our industry now looks totally different than the past. It looks like a sheet of paper, and it’s called the iPad. It’s not about typing or clicking; it’s about touching. It’s not about text, or even animation, it’s about video. It’s not about a local disk, or even a desktop, it’s about the cloud. It’s not about pulling information; it’s about push. It’s not about repurposing old software, it’s about writing everything from scratch (because you want to take advantage of the awesome potential of the new computers and the new cloud—and because you have to reach this pinnacle). Finally, the industry is fun again.

Last week I gave presentations to more than 60 CIOs in various meetings throughout America’s heartland. My message to them: We are moving from Cloud 1 to Cloud 2, and the iPad is the accelerator. Many of them haven’t even made it to Cloud 1—some are still on mainframes. They are working on MVS/CICS, or Lotus Notes, and they have never heard of Cocoa, or even that there is now HTML 5. This is unacceptable. The next generation is here. The iPad that shows us what now is really possible—and that we all need to go faster. Unfortunately, some CIOs would rather retire than go faster.

(except that some software should remain on cloud 1 or mainframes…)

Just leave it to marketing to think that all a homeless person needs to get out of the gutter is a better sign.

and don’t get me started on his use of the word “bum”, and his entire “ha ha if this homeless guy was just smart like me” attitude

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One by one, as I predicted, the pathetic excuses of Joseph Ratzinger’s apologists evaporate before our eyes.

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Just days after President Obama signed the new health care law, insurance companies are already arguing that, at least for now, they do not have to provide one of the benefits that the president calls a centerpiece of the law: coverage for certain children with pre-existing conditions.

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The Daily Caller‘s Jonathan Strong has basically won the morning with a story about RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s lavish lifestyle on the road. Strong reports that Steele “once raised the possibility of using party money to buy a private jet for his travel,” and has run up some substantial tabs at some of our nation’s nicest hotels. But if you ask me, he sort of buried the lede… probably strategically! Because look what awaits you in paragraph six:

Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

Oh, wow, awesome.

[Quote:]

The man who actually spent the money has been identified as Erik Brown, a Republican consultant. And the RNC maintains that Steele had no involvement whatsoever.

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The C++ Standard Committee has been hard at work defining the next version of the language. Here’s a provisional list of changes to be included

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The District’s 5-cent bag tax generated about $150,000 during the month of January to help clean up the Anacostia River, even though residents have dramatically scaled back their use of disposable bags, according a report city officials issued Monday.

In its first assessment of how the new law is working, the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue estimates that city food and grocery establishments issued about 3.3 million bags in January, which suggests a remarkable decrease. Prior to the bag tax taking effect Jan 1, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer had estimated that about 22.5 million bags were being issued per month in 2009.

Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), sponsor of the bag tax bill, said the new figures show that city residents are adapting to the law far more quickly than he or other city officials had expected.

“While it’s difficult to project the annual results based on just the first month’s experience, the report shows that residents are making great strides in reducing disposable bag use,” Wells said.

Do you remember your econ 101 lessons? You know, those about price and demand?

Yes? Well, now read this.

First, the headline:

“Demand For Apple iPad May Be Higher Than Expected”

Fine so far, except, the article goes on to say that “Apple’s major hurdle to selling the iPad is probably price”

So, what is it? Demand is higher than expected, or the price is too high?

But wait! It gets better:

Apple may have to quickly cut prices the way that it did with the iPhone to keep consumer interest in the iPad high..

followed quickly by:

One of the ironies about Apple products is that high prices seem to make them more attractive than their competition

So, what is Apple to do? Lower the price to make it more attractive? Raise the price to make it more attractive?

I don’t mind people being skeptical about Apple products that haven’t been released yet, but this is ridiculous…

[Quote:]

Sure, you’ve heard that the Discovery channel’s parent company will give Sarah Palin a show on The Learning Channel, but did you know that Levi’s pitching an Alaska-based reality show called “Levi Johnston’s Last Frontier?” Meanwhile, Bristol is going to appear on ABC Family as herself.

[Quote:]

How can you tell the difference between a real report about online vulnerabilities and someone who is trying to scare you about the security of the internet because they have an agenda, such as landing lucrative, secret contracts from the government?

Here’s a simple test: Count the number of times they use the adjective “cyber.” Nobody uses the word “cyber” anymore, except people trying to scare you and trying to make the internet seem scary or foreign. (Think, for instance, of the term “cyberbullying,” which is somehow much more crazy and new and in need of legislation than “online bullying.”)

[Quote:]

On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he’s a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say “he may be the Antichrist.”

My goodness, where did they get the sample?

[Quote:]

Let me start by apologizing to anyone who went to see “Battlefield Earth.”

It wasn’t as I intended — promise. No one sets out to make a train wreck. Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.

[Quote:]

The government is now drawing up plans to amend the Postal Services Act to allow tax inspectors to intercept and open people’s mail before it is delivered. Given the state’s ambitions to collect all communications data this is hardly surprising, but we must ask ourselves how many more rights are seized by government and its agencies before Britain becomes the GDR’s most obvious European imitator.

Currently postal workers have the right to intercept suspicious letters and packages and pass them to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and then at an agreed moment the item is opened in front of the addressee. The change in the law will mean that HMRC will be able to open whatever it likes without the addressee being present or being made aware of the interception.

As usual, the government and HMRC public relations people underplay the wide-ranging and dangerous nature of this proposal by insisting that the new measure is simply designed to deal with the problem of tobacco smuggling. But the change, disclosed in a document published with the budget, means that HMRC will be able to trawl through private mail pretty much at will.