Thursday, January 19, 2012

Okay Back Open Again

 Everybody can read here again, they have backed off on the SOPA for now

Working Overtime
I had to work a twelver at the Salt Mines because of the Civil War Correspondent mentioned last summer having leg and foot problems that went from bad to worse. Now it's crutches and then his gf stepped on a nail or something and had to get it removed. Meanwhile I worked my job and covered half of his.

This doesn't leave much time.

He was mumbling that I didn't get his Virginia pics up yet. The trouble was partly not understanding pictures, since I have not acquired a proper camera yet, and partly being overwhelmed at trying to explain actions of 1861 at the same time.

At the time when that happened I was having a hard time running the computer in the 96 degree heat since it kept overheating, and photos make that problem worse.We have snow now and so it is just inertia now holding it back, but the fact it's Robert E. Lee's Birthday has raised my awareness.

Site Closures, PIPA, SOPA, NDAA
The site closures worked; over 7,000 good websites are said to have joined in, and something like 30 Senators changed their minds Wednesday alone.

Plenty more where that came from.

Also the President made some encouraging noises, so SOPA from the House and PIPA from the Senate have taken a big step back.They should, since they would give absurdly too much power to the wrong people in the wrong way, supposedly to protect copyright holders. I write my own articles and have spoken disparagingly of pirates a couple times, but don't want this.

Counting also that time when the president called Kanye West a "Jackass" after the music awards that one time we now have a clock that has been right twice, thus proving up the old adage about broken clocks.

Don't want to be too specific there since the NDAA signed while everyone partied on New Years' Eve is still out there. Dr Paul has introduced legislation today in the House to get rid of the threatening provision of that, although the 93-7 thing makes for an uphill fight on that one. Amazingly one of my Senators was in the 7. I am still looking for the other time he was right about something, and there may be something, I just haven't noticed it, that was Senator Durbin.

Among the other 40,000 new laws we got for New Years' there was one good one I noticed, that is that in Illinois now Hunters can now harvest road kill legally, although you'd still have to show your hunting license papers are up to date with the Sheriff of Nottingham.

In another hour I and the Nemesis should have our Ron Paul bumper stickers attached, I to the smart car and he to the pickup truck.They arrived today.

Yesterday the five pounds of Ethiopian Yergacheffe coffee arrived, so I can set aside that nasty generic stuff for a while.

Just got my 100th Win in Chess yesterday too, it was the Nemesis, who finally fell to my two Queen Checkmate after 93 grueling moves. I don't think I had beat him since April so it was very good. Our record now stands at me 16, and him 27 wins out of 43 games, so I am chipping away at his lead. Against all the rest of the world I'm in the 70.5 percentile, and with 122 losses, and three draws, the 100 wins makes for 22 under .500, but now only 11 are because of the Nemesis, and 11 the rest of the world combined.

93 moves is quite a few moves for chess, it is usually over in 20-40, but I dragged him down, and so the 100th Win was even more special for being a win over him. He is on my team against the rest of the world, the Capone Outfit out of Chicago, but our in-team sparring partner matches are some of the toughest we do, for practice.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Closed Today for SOPA Protest

We are closed today in solidarity with the SOPA protest along with other great sites from the erstwhile Internet.

If you don't know what that is, try wikipedia.com for the Cliff's Notes explanation. They are already closed, but do have an explanation posted in the English language section. Google.com has announced they will not close their entire search engine today, but will alter the search page in solidarity.

If you do know what that is, and you'd like to help, educational commentary is free and does not take very long.

On the other hand, if you know what it is and don't want to help, then continue merrily about your way.

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This site will reopen for Robert E. Lee's Birthday. The closure is expected to last but one day at this time.