Just say no to EA


You know, every time I start thinking EA might’ve done the right thing and I’m considering taking them off my shitlist, they do something so completely boneheaded you have to wonder if all their people have sold their souls to the devil.

This time, instead of f***ing their employees, they’re f***ing their customers. That’s not really new to EA, but the way they’re doing it this time is pretty incredible.

Battlefield 2142, a new shooter game from EA, is accompanied by a piece of spyware that scans your PC for your browsing activity and “other computing habits”, whatever the hell that means, and then send all that data to EA. You can not play the game without installing that piece of software on your computer.

-TPP

The Banker to the Poor wins 2006 Nobel Peace Prize

That prize couldn’t have gone to a more deserving person.

Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh is the founder of Grameen Bank, a bank that’s pioneered using microloans in 3rd world countries to rid the world of poverty. It’s been a phenomenal success in every way, including financially.

You can read more about him and his bank from his excellent autobiographical book Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty.

-TPP

The Gizmondo story

Wired has an excellent article about the rise and fall of Stefan Eriksson, a one-time organized crime boss in Uppsala, Sweden.

Mr. Eriksson was first convicted of a crime when he was 19. He tried robbing an armored van. He continued progressing on his criminal career until 1993 when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fraud and trying to spread counterfeit currency in Sweden. He got out at 2000 and disappeared for a year or two.

He joined Gizmondo, a manufacturer of a portable video gaming device, with some of his fellow criminals soon after his release from prison. His compensation in this startup that had no revenue was almost $3M in 2004. Interesting way to run a startup. Not surprisingly Gizmondo filed for bankruptcy soon after it became apparent their portable gaming device would never be able to compete with the Nintendo DS and Sony Playstation Portable. The creditors’ accounting people are now wondering how did this company manage to spend nearly $400M USD in three years while generating little or no revenue. One can only assume the several luxury cars and over-the-top compensation of the company directors has something to do with it.

The downfall of Mr. Eriksson begun when he crashed his (stolen) Enzo Ferrari in Malibu last February. The police thinks he was driving the Enzo at more than 160mph at the time of the crash. Some estimates even say the speed of the vehicle might’ve been as high as 190mph. Mr. Eriksson first tried lying about who was driving the vehicle. He told the police at the accident scene a man named Dietrich had been driving and he had fled to the surrounding hills. Too bad the driver’s side airbag in the car had Mr. Eriksson’s blood on it. That’s not the only thing his blood revealed…his blood alcohol level was .09. The legal limit in California is .08.

That would’ve made the accident pretty routine, although expensive and high speed, DUI, but that’s not all that happened on that highway. Soon after the accident two vehicles stopped and two people stepped out. They flashed some official looking badges and identified themselves to the police as DHS officials and demanded they speak with Mr. Eriksson immediately. The following morning, a motorist who had stopped to help found out that a revolver had found itself under the front seat of his car. Apparently Mr. Eriksson’s associate who had come to the accident scene had dumped the gun under the seat while borrowing his cellphone.

The police investigation that followed soon found out that most of the Eriksson’s associates, incl. the two “DHS officials” were members of a police force for a local bus company, which owned not a fleet of buses, but one bus. Everyone was puzzled as to why a bus company operating a single bus would need a police force. It turns out Mr. Eriksson had made a business arrangement with the owner of the bus company. In exchange of installing free security equipment in the bus company’s premises, the owner of the bus company agreed to hire Mr. Eriksson and his former crime buddies as his police force. California state law allows bus companies to operate their own security forces and gives them some of the same powers than regular police forces have. Specifically it is easier for the members of such security forces to acquire guns, which is apparently why Mr. Eriksson and his buddies were attracted to the idea of becoming police officers. Several guns were confiscated from his and his associates’ homes. Some of the people involved are now charged with impersonating police officers.

As if that wasn’t quite enough, it turns out the Enzo Mr. Eriksson crashed wasn’t owned by him, but a bank in United Kingdom, which leased it to him. Mr. Eriksson had smuggled the Enzo, along with a second Enzo and a McLaren SLR, to United States when he moved there. His leasing agreement prohibited that, and additionally he had stopped making car payments, so all cars techincally belonged to the banks. One of the cars was, in fact, had already been reported as stolen by the bank financing it.

As a result Mr. Eriksson is now looking at seven felony and two misdemeanor charges.

Fascinating story of high life, crime and video games.

-TPP

You probably didn’t know Mark Foley was a Democrat

So Fox News reports on the Mark Foley scandal, and runs a ticker underneath stating Mark Foley is D-FL.

Malicious mudslinging or a revelation of the subconscious of Fox News producers? Who knows.

They claim that it was a honest mistake, of course. But how on earth could you make a mistake about that? It’s IMPOSSIBLE to not know he’s a Republican.

-TPP

Torture good, online poker bad

The US Congress passes a bill that requires financial institutions to monitor and block financial transactions to and from online gambling businesses. The bill also requires ISPs to respond to “takedown notices” from the US Government to remove any links to online gambling businesses from websites hosted with them.

The bill was passed as a rider in the Safe Port Act of 2006.

Rider bills are so much fun.

Online gambling phobition will be enacted as soon as George W. Bush signs the Safe Port Act of 2006. Let’s see how “creatively” this prohibition gets circumvented.

-TPP

Lou Dobbs delivers a sermon

Keep religion out of politics, Lou Dobbs writes. I couldn’t agree more.

Mr. Dobbs’ sermon on immigration (does he ever talk about anything else?) begins so well. How could he be so right and so wrong at the same time, though?

He’s talking about churches’ involvement in politics, and offers examples of various churches embracing illegal immigrants. He’s, on purpose, I think, politicizing an issue that has nothing to with politics. Churches have always throughout history taken care of immigrants, refugees and other humanitarian causes.

However much Lou Dobbs wishes he could just dump all these illegal aliens on the other side of the border (there’s only one border he’s talking about…), there are good reasons why churches across the US are using their powers to protect some of the illegal aliens from further harm. It’s got nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with humanitarian aid.

Keep the politics out of religion, I say.

-TPP

There’s nothing like the USCIS bureucracy

In roughly 4 months I will be forever done with the USCIS (unless I apply for US citizenship). That will be one of the happiest days of my life. No longer will I have to worry that some paperpushing assmaggot loses my paperwork (been there, done that), sends me the wrong forms causing undue delays in processing (been there, done that) or simply pushes me around just for the hell of it (been there, done that).

What little trouble I’ve had with this Government office is nothing compared to the problems Mohammad Sarfaraz Hussain has had with the USCIS. Mohammad is unfortunately Pakistani, so his paperwork is probably flagged to be strip searched every time it changes hands at the USCIS. He came into the US when he was 8 years old, 13 years ago. He’s as American as they come.

He’s being deported, again, despite a judge having already once dismissed his deportation case in 2003. I guess the USCIS gets to try deporting people multiple times. Remember, non-citizens have no rights.

Since he’s unable to stay in the country without getting deported, he’s now applying for asylum because he fears if he gets deported to Pakistan, he will become a target of the anti-americanism in the country. Pretty ingenius. Let’s see if the USCIS wants to kill him or not.

Update: Mohammad got his asylum despite heavy opposition from DHS/USCIS.

-TPP

Charge Nancy Grace with murder

Melinda Duckett, a mother of a missing two-year-old, was interviewed by Nancy Grace, one of the attack hounds pretending to be TV journalists. Within 24 hours of the interview Melinda Duckett committed suicide. In the interview Ms. Grace came inches short of actually accusing her of killing her baby. In her usual style Ms. Grace was presuming her interviewee was guilty, just because Ms. Grace thought she was.

Melinda Duckett might’ve very well killed her baby, who knows. However, when an interviewer knows her interviewee has a history of suicide attempts and is already distressed, would it be wise to push as hard as Ms. Grace did?

It probably wouldn’t, but then Ms. Grace never has cared for anything other than her ratings, so it doesn’t really come as a great surprise to me she would recklessly endanger the life of Melinda Duckett.

I suppose she thinks she did a great service to the mankind for what she did. I’m sure she also thinks the guilty deserve anything they got coming to them. Too bad Melinda Duckett wasn’t found guilty by anyone else than Ms. Grace at this point.

Take Nancy Grace off the air, and arrest her for murdering Melinda Duckett.

Update: Melinda Duckett’s family is sueing CNN and Nancy Grace

-TPP