Cory Maye is a man on death row because he protected his family. He was convicted of killing a police officer who was implementing a no-knock raid on his house.

The problem is, there is a lot of dispute as to just how the police conducted the raid, and if Cory should be in prison for firing his handgun when someone broke down his bedroom door at a strange hour, while he was protecting his 18 month old daughter.

Other sites are going crazy with this case, but please take a look at what seems to be the currently most accurate representation of the facts and the rumours on this case over at TheAgitator.com.

For some reason I still get a ton of searches for this essay. It’s not mine of course, but since Kim’s original site is offline, I thought I’d repost it, because it is just as true as it always has been.

Update: Read this at Kim’s new site

The Pussification of the Western Male

By: Kim du Toit
November 5, 2003 02:24am

We have become a nation of women.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. There was a time when men put their signatures to a document, knowing full well that this single act would result in their execution if captured, and in the forfeiture of their property to the State. Their wives and children would be turned out by the soldiers, and their farms and businesses most probably given to someone who didn’t sign the document.

There was a time when men went to their certain death, with expressions like You all can go to hell. I’m going to Texas. (Davy Crockett, to the House of Representatives, before going to the Alamo.)

There was a time when men went to war, sometimes against their own families, so that other men could be free. And there was a time when men went to war because we recognized evil when we saw it, and knew that it had to be stamped out.

There was even a time when a President of the United States threatened to punch a man in the face and kick him in the balls, because the man had the temerity to say bad things about the President’s daughter’s singing.

We’re not like that anymore.

(more…)

I have 5 different instant messenger programs running on my desktop right now.

• MSN Messenger
• AOL Instant Messenger
• Yahoo! Instant Messenger
• Microsoft Communicator
• Lotus Sametime Connect

All that connectivity, and no one to talk to.  Harrumph…

Truth to power and all that rot.  You gotta love this, when someone with common sense in reality come out and says what needs to be said.  I’m just waiting for the special interests to come out and try to spin her as an inauthentic Iraqi because her name is Betty.

Anybody who doesn’t appreciate what America has done and President Bush, let them go to hell“ Iraqi Citizen, voter Betty Dawisha

Watch the video!

On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,
Must the youngest open the oldest hills
Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.
There fire shall fly from the raven boy,
And the silver eyes that see the wind,
And the light shall have the harp of gold.

By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,
On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;
Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,
Yet singing the golden harp shall guide
To break their sleep and bid them ride.

When light from the lost land shall return,
Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,
And where the midsummer tree grows tall
By Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.

Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,
ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod.

This title: New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Strange new object found at edge of Solar System is much more ominous sounding than the actual story is. First thing you think of is the alien mother ship preparing for the invasion. But no, its just another minor planet…

A large object has been found beyond Pluto travelling in an orbit tilted by 47 degrees to most other bodies in the solar system. Astronomers are at a loss to explain why the object’s orbit is so off-kilter while being almost circular.Researchers led by Lynne Allen at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, first spotted the object in observations made with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in December 2004. Since October 2005, they have made follow-up observations that have revealed the object’s perplexing path.

I do so hate when the title of an article is a lot more interesting than the actual story. Of course, the one cool thing is that they named the new object “Buffy” after the famous vampire slayer…

C’mon, I know everyone has a favorite.  Which 70’s scifi show was the best?

If you have any better answers, let me know and I’ll add the choices!

I’m talking about the practice of hotlinking. This is where people use images off of your website directly into their pages, instead of copying your image to their server.

In effect, every page that loads from their site gets its pictures from yours. They get free bytes from your service, without the end user having to be bothered with ever seeing your site.

It’s an annoying practice. If I didn’t have my own server hosting my site, I might be tight on how much bandwidth I have available each month. And if I went over, I’d have to pay because someone else couldn’t be bothered with just putting the image on their own page.

I don’t mind when you put a hyperlink around the image itself to point back to the source site of the image. That’s cool and I like that. But it doesn’t hardly ever happen.

But people have been hotlinking a lot of my images in the past few months. So, I finally did something about it. And it’s funny. What is great is that the original image is cached on their workstation typically, so they’ll never see anything weird about what the picture actually looks like to an end user.

But the first person to load the site clean, well, they’ll get a different image than the one they expected. Warning: this image is funny but a little bit dirty. Thankfully, I couldn’t find the original image I was planning on using.

Gennie is also having the same problem, but with audio files, which eat up quite a bit more…

It’s all over.  Stanley Tookie Williams is dead.

This is a good thing.

If you doubt that it is a good thing, go here.

Thanks to Ranten N’ Raven.

Getting closer….

The California Supreme Court has rejected a late appeal to reopen the case of condemned Crips gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams, leaving his fate in the hands of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday.

Williams, 51, is slated be executed at 12:01 a.m. (0801 GMT) on Tuesday for murdering four people in two 1979 robberies around Los Angeles. His supporters had hoped the anti-gang books for children he wrote in prison would help him win clemency from Schwarzenegger, but they now appear dispirited that the celebrity governor has waited until the last day to announce his decision.

Arnie is just waiting to make sure all the cops are in place before all the “inspired” people are going to riot.
Because only 332 people have ever read these magical books which have apparently changed the world.
From BlackNews.com

The argument for commutation of Tookie’s sentence centers on all the good work he has done since going to prison. The series of children’s books he has written and his work to stop gang violence is proof of his redemption. His death, they say, will only serve to rob those youth currently in gangs or considering joining gangs, of hope. Witness that his supporters do not claim that Tookie is innocent of his crimes. They are not seeking that Williams be released, only that his sentence be commuted. Williams, however, has never admitted guilt. That little inconsistency suggests the great “inspirator” is not only an unrepentant murderer, but a liar as well.

The portrayal of Williams as some pied piper of peace for the gang community also holds very little water. A quick review of Book Scan shows the Tookie series of books have hardly been blockbusters. His top seller, “Gangs and Violence” has sold 330 books. Another book “Gangs and Wanting to Belong” sold exactly two copies. No one is reading his books, least of all his two sons, one of whom is serving time in San Quentin. The other was just arrested on charges of aggravated rape. Poor book sales are not reason to send someone to the execution chamber, but then Williams was not convicted of lackluster book sales. He was found guilty of shooting four innocent people in cold blood, a fact his supporters continue to forget.

Wait a minute, he’s a Nobel prize nominee! He joins such luminaries as:

Mussolini (1935, by a French law professor, and by the law faculty at a German university);
Stalin (1948, by a Czech professor)(also, 1945 by a former Norweign foreign minister, although the minister only wrote that Stalin was qualified for the prize, and did not formally nominate him);
Kaiser Wilhelm II (1911, by the President of UC Berkeley; 1917, by a German professor and by a Turkish law faculty);
Hitler (1939, by a member of the Swedish parliament, although the nomination was withdrawn before the Committee considered it);
Alfred Ploetz (the founder of racial hygiene in Germany; 1936 by a Norwegian parliamentarian, for warning that war would harm biological reproduction);
Neville Chamberlin (somewhat plausibly in 1926 for his role in the Locarno Pact; less so in 1939, with 9 nominations for his role in the Munich Agreement).

Update!! Schwartzenegger gives us an early Christmas present!

SAN FRANCISCO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, the founder of the murderous Crips gang who awaited execution early Tuesday in a case that stirred debate over capital punishment and the possibility of redemption on death row. Williams, 51, is set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison after midnight for murdering four people in two 1979 holdups.

Linked to the Conservative Cat (Ping Party), NIF (The Incredible Machine), Basil’s Blog (Breakfast is served), Right Wing Nation (Monday’s OTBs), third world county (Monday’s Featured Blog), Jo’s Cafe (Monday’s Specials), and Those Bastards.

It’s open trackback day… So work on your masterpiece of blogdom, and then link and trackback to this page.
While it may not help your TTLB score, I’ll generally hit all the sites, and permanently link in the blogroll if you have good stuff.
That is all…

A U.S. Marine squad was marching north of Basra when they came upon an Iraqi terrorist, badly injured and unconscious. On the opposite side of the road was an American Marine in similar but less serious state.

The Marine was conscious and alert and as first aid was given to both men, the squad leader asked the injured Marine what had happened.

The Marine reported, I was heavily armed and moving north along the highway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent. We saw each other and immediately took cover in the ditches along the road.

I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein is a miserable, lowlife dirtbag, and he yelled back that Senator Ted Kennedy is a good-for-nothing, fat, left wing liberal drunk. So I said that Osama Bin Ladin dresses and acts like a frigid, mean spirited woman!

He retaliated by yelling, Oh yeah? Well so does Hillary Clinton!

Check the punchline here…

So I just left the grocery store.  It’s kinda hard to express how many people are completely non-functional in a grocery store without a cell phone stuck in their ear, asking someone which can of cream of mushroom soup to get.  How did anyone ever eat before?

But surely, the MOST pathetic person in there was this big guy, looked like a linebacker.

“But honey, it says to get chopped pecans, and the bag says they’re chopped pecans, but the pieces look too big.  And the ones in the other bag labeled crushed pecans are too small.  What do I do?”

He turned to glare at me at that point, mostly because I was laughing so hard AT him.

I so wanted to take a bag of chopped pecans, take a can of soup, and show him how to make the pieces smaller.  But that would just embarass him now wouldn’t it?

OK, I just upgraded this site to the Wordpress 2.0 RC1 code.
It seems pretty slick so far. See anything weird, just lemme know.

OK, here’s my take so far. The admin stuff is very nice. The upgrade went perfectly. The only issues I’ve seen:

• Every time you hit the login page as an admin, it makes you log in. It used to immediately pass you through to the admin site if you were already logged in.
• You can’t see anywhere in an edited post which sites you already tracked back to.
• The bookmarklet thing is no where to be found.
• I did have to edit one plugin, because of user levels not being used. Funny part was, the plugin didn’t even use the info it was pulling from the database.

So if you were thinking of upgrading, I’d hold off a bit more on your production stuff. They have a few open bug tickets, but its looking pretty damn nice.

OK, its time to teach EVERYONE how to drive. 10 simple rules.

1. Hang up the cell phone. It makes you drive like a bitch.
2. Keep right except to pass means… if you are not actively passing someone to the right of you, YOU ARE IN THE WRONG LANE. An exception is for people turning left, but this does not mean you get in the left lane 14 miles before your turn. And if you are so proud of yourself that you are doing the speed limit in the left lane, that only means you are obeying ONE of the rules of the road, not all of them. So you are still wrong.
3. Hang up the cell phone. It makes you drive like a bitch.
4. If in the next couple hundred yards you will not be in the same exact lane you are currently in, this means you need to have a turn signal on. Moving from one lane to another, merging into traffic, making turns all fall under this rule.
5. Hang up the cell phone. It makes you drive like a bitch.
6. The big triangle sign marked YIELD means this: if you can pull into traffic without any other car being affected by slowing down or moving out of the way, then you may proceed. If you are going to be cutting off another driver who has the right away by pulling in front of them, then you screwed up.
7. Hang up the cell phone. It makes you drive like a bitch.
8. If you feel the need to read the newspaper, smack your kids, or apply makeup while driving, then you need to go home, get your title, drive back to the car dealer, and turn it all in. You’re too stupid to be allowed to drive.
9. Hang up the cell phone. It makes you drive like a bitch.
10. Oh yeah… if you’re talking on a cell phone, then you are driving like a bitch. You aren’t paying attention to where the other cars are. And for some dumbass reason, this usually makes you break rules 2, 4, and 6 constantly. You need to follow the same advice given in rule #8.

Linked To: Wizbang, Stop the ACLU, Samantha Burns, Mudville, and Point Five. Because the world needs to know.

Second place at Riding Sun’s caption contest…

Fiendishly clever. I like it.

Kickass. Go see the picture that won me such accolades!

About a year ago, I posted a cookie recipe called Grandmom Lucy’s Orange Crispies. They’re good!

I’ve decided this is going to become a small tradition for the holiday season… so today, I’m posting the recipe for Chocolate Crinkles!

These are tasty too… but are going to require some prep time. As you’ll see in the recipe, refrigeration time is required. I’d recommend chilling the dough overnight. (Otherwise, it tends to stick to your fingers.)

OK…

Ingredients:
0.5 cup Shortening
1.67 cups Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla
2 oz Unsweetened Chocolate, melted
2 Large Eggs
2 cup Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
0.5 tsp Salt
0.33 cup Milk
Confectioner’s Sugar

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a larger bowl, thoroughly cream shortening, sugar, and vanilla.
Beat in the eggs, then the melted chocolate.
Stir in the dry ingredients alternately with the milk.
Chill the mixture for a minimum of 3 hours (overnight is recommended).

Pre-heat oven to 350°.
Form dough into 1 balls, and roll in the Confectioner’s Sugar.
Place powdered balls on a greased cookie sheet 2 “ 3 inches apart.
Bake for 15 minutes.
Cool slightly before removing from the pan.

So I’m locked in the back room… browsing through my web filter logs.  Officially, I’m looking for users who abuse our internet service.  Personally, I’m looking for cool, new sites to visit.

Then the phone rings… I’ve been at this for about an hour, so I could use a break.  Picking it up, I’m greeted by Marcy.  Marcy is a member of our Facilities team… and a pretty cool lady.  Plus, she also has alot of control over my budget.  I try to help her out whenever I can.

Marcy tells me that a partner (whom I’ll name Albert Nutjob) is visiting our site today. She made a few points very clear…

• Albert is a very important member of our IT enterprise infrastructure management team.  (A group populated mostly by Wannabes.)
• Albert is visiting our site today, and has setup shop in one of our conference rooms.
• Albert is having network connectivity issues.
• Albert has visited our site previously, and has had similar issues in the past.
• Albert has opened a Help Desk ticket, but no one has called him yet.
• Albert isn’t very happy.
• Albert should be given immediate service.

OK.  I’ve personally never heard of Mr. Nutjob.  However, Marcy thinks it’s important, so I roll over to the conference room.  When I walk into the conference room, I can already see the problem from 20 feet away.  However, not wanting to make Mr. Albert "IT Exec Type" Nutjob feel foolish, I decide to make a show of troubleshooting the problem.  At least, I did… until he started giving me sh|t.  The second I entered the room, Mr. Nutjob launched into a verbal assault that I found quite distasteful.  I won’t quote the specific words spoken.  However, he pointed out that…

• Albert says he has had connectivity issues at this site before.
• Albert says this is unacceptable.
• Albert says he never has issues at his home site.
• Albert says our network is sad, and needs to be re-engineered.
• Albert compares our technical staff to a group of untrained apes.
• Albert is an a$$h0l3.

I push the little [Uplink] button on the desktop switch he’s plugged into.

"Try it now, Chief…", I say with a touch of sarcasm.

His network connectivity has magically sprung to life.

I respectfully ask him if there is anything else he requires. Then, I inform him that I’ll be sure to update his Help Desk ticket. That way he’ll be able to reference back to it should the problem ever arise again.

• Albert is feeling embarrassed.
• Albert is hating life.
• Anarchy has the giggles.

On The Corner…

During the last such gathering, Inuit representatives complained about the effect climate change was having on their ancient way of life in that their snowmobiles kept dropping through the ice.

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.

Found this over at Silent Running. I love it when our neighbors and friends in New Zealand know American quotes better than we do.

“Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermind the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exild, or hanged.”

Who said it???

Why, no one other than… (more…)