Looks like the beginning of the end for SCO... According to CBR Online:
SCO Group Inc's attempt to change its legal case against IBM Corp for the third time has been denied by the judge, who has also set the two companies a deadline to present their respective evidence "with specifity".
Both companies have been set an interim deadline of October 28 to submit their evidence, with a final deadline of December 22, a date that will loom large for the open source community, which has consistently denied SCO's claims that Linux contains its copyrighted code.
"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], `Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage
Last Sunday was (according to the local parish priest) Aboriginal Sunday. Among other inane observations he included references to the "real land owners", "innocent spirituality" and "depth of religious understanding". Now I am not an anthropologist but I somehow suspect that a lot of that is wrong. Firstly, the people who were present when the British first settled this continent did not "own land" - personal ownership did not exist - that does not excuse the British colonisation - it just makes a mockery of this "real land owners" claim. Secondly, this "innocent" culture was extremely sexist and violent (check out Coonardoo). Mind you, I am not really complaining about the aboriginal culture, nor am I complaining about the revisionist attempts to sugar-coat the bl**dy realities of a primitive nomadic life in the Australian bush. What I am complaining about is the over emphasis of a minority group and the cost of the majority. If we have an "Aboriginal Sunday", why don't we have a "descendants of convicts" Sunday? How about a "British migrant" Sunday? A "displaced persons from WWII" Sunday?
The question really becomes one about the definition of who is an Australian? Who is an Australian?
The answer is easy. It was penned by The Seekers in the 1960s and it would make a decent anthem....
I Am Australian
I came from the dream-time,
From the dusty red-soil plains.
I am the ancient heart,
The keeper of the flame.
I stood upon the rocky shores,
I watched the tall ships come,
For forty thousand years I've been
The first Australian.
I came upon the prison ship,
Bowed down by iron chains,
I fought the land, endured the lash,
And waited for the rains.
I'm a settler, I'm a farmer's wife
On a dry and barren run,
A convict, then a free man,
I became Australian.
I'm the daughter of a digger
Who sought the mother lode.
The girl became a woman
On the long and dusty road.
I'm a child of the Depression,
I saw the good times come,
I'm a bushie, I'm a battler,
I am Australian.
We are one, but we are many,
And from all the lands on earth we come.
We'll share a dream and sing with one voice,
"I am, you are, we are Australian"
I'm a teller of stories,
I'm a singer of songs,
I am Albert Namatjira
And I paint the ghostly gums.
I'm Clancy on his horse,
I'm Ned Kelly on the run,
I'm the one who waltzed Matilda,
I am Australian.
I'm the hot wind from the desert,
I'm the black soil of the plains,
I'm the mountains and the valleys,
I'm the drought and flooding rains.
I am the rock, I am the sky,
The rivers when they run,
The spirit of this great land,
I am Australian.
We are one, but we are many,
And from all the lands on earth we come.
We'll share a dream and sing with one voice,
"I am, you are, we are Australian."
"I am, you are, we are Australian."
Why not drop the continual and nauseating rewrite of history. What was done by the British to the Aboriginals may have been wrong but it was not done by current Australians (of non-aboriginal descent) to current Australians (of aboriginal descent). Harping on a past and trying to promote guilt is not going to make things better in the future... What matters is what we do to each other now.
There's one consolation about matrimony. When you look around you can always see somebody who did worse.
-- Warren H. Goldsmith
[I have to tell you that this story from CynicalCyn explains a whole lot of stuff that has always confused men ...]
This is dedicated to women everywhere who have ever had to deal with a public "restroom" (rest??? you've got to be kidding!!). It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked question about why women go to public toilets in pairs. It's so the other woman can hold the door and hand you Kleenex under the door. My mother was a fanatic about public bathrooms. When I was a little girl, she'd take me into the stall, teach me to wad up toilet paper and wipe the seat. Then, she'd carefully lay strips of toilet paper to cover the seat. Finally, she'd instruct, "Never, NEVER sit on a public toilet seat”. Then she'd demonstrate "The Stance," which consisted of balancing over the toilet in a sitting position without actually letting any of your flesh make contact with the toilet seat. By this time, I'd have wet down my leg and we'd have to go home to change my clothes. That was a long time ago. Now, in my more mature years, "The Stance" is excruciatingly difficult to maintain, especially when one's bladder is full. When you have to go in a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women that makes you think there's a half-price sale of something in there. So, you wait and smile politely at all the other ladies, who are also crossing their legs and smiling politely. You get closer and check for feet under the stall doors. Every one is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter. The dispenser for the new-fangled "seat covers" (invented by someone's Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your purse on the door hook if there was one but there isn't - so you carefully but quickly hang it around your neck (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume "The Stance." Ahhhh, relief. More relief. But then your thighs begin to shake. You'd love to sit down but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold "The Stance" as your thighs experience a quake that would register an eight on the Richter scale. To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice saying, "Honey, if you would have tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!" Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your purse. That would have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It is still smaller than your thumbnail. Someone pushes open your stall door because the latch doesn't work. The door hits your purse, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet. "Occupied!" you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle, and sliding down, directly onto the insidious toilet seat. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew. You're certain that her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, "frankly, dear, you just don't KNOW what kind of diseases you could get." By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, sending up a stream of water akin to a fountain that suddenly sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged off to China. At that point, you give up. You're soaked by the splashing water. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket, then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks. You can't figure out how to operate the taps with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past a line of women, still waiting, cross-legged and, at this point, no longer able to smile politely. One kind soul at the very end of the line points out that you are trailing a piece of toilet paper on your shoe as long as the Mississippi River! (Where was it when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it the woman's hand and tell her warmly, "Here, you just might need this." As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has since entered, used and exited the men's restroom and read “War and Peace” while waiting for you. Annoyed, he asks, "What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?"
Ritchie's Rules:
(1) Everything has some value -- if you use the right currency.
(2) Paint splashes last longer than the paint job.
(3) Search and ye shall find -- but make sure it was lost.
When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him.
Step number 3 is of particular importance. If you leave the guy alive out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay your generosity of spirit by suing you for causing his subsequent paraplegia and seek to force you to support him for the rest of his rotten life. In court he will plead that he was depressed because society had failed him, and that he was looking for Mother Teresa for comfort and to offer his services to the poor. In that lawsuit, you will lose. If, on the other hand, you kill him, the most that you can expect is that a relative will bring a wrongful death action. You will have two advantages: first, there be only your story; forget Mother Teresa. Second, even if you lose, how much could the bum's life be worth anyway? A Lot less than 50 years worth of paralysis. Don't play George Bush and Saddam Hussein. Finish the job.
-- G. Gordon Liddy's Forbes column on personal security