In this situation, I would be mad as hell and I’d want some apologies, a free ticket or two, and a little humility from the airlines. I’m not really the suing type, so the lawsuit for $2 million is right out (although I don’t imagine that the plaintiff will actually receive anything like that in the settlement that is sure to follow--and after the lawyer takes his cut, the final number is bound to be relatively conservative).

But remind me to never fly JetBlue.

Mutlu says the can-finement happened Feb. 23, when he was a standby passenger for a flight from San Diego to New York.

He was told the flight was full, but a stewardess told him that he could take her assigned seat and that she would sit in the “jump seat,” said his lawyer, Zafer Akin.

Mutlu was issued a boarding pass and took Seat 2E, but got a rude awakening as he dozed off about 90 minutes into the red-eye flight, he claims.

The pilot called him to the front and “advised the plaintiff that he would have to give his seat up” to the flight attendant, the suit says.

The pilot told him the “flight attendant wanted to be more comfortable and that the ‘jump seat’ was not comfortable for her.”

A stunned Mutlu asked whether that meant he was supposed to sit in the jump seat for the rest of the five-hour flight, but the pilot told him that would be against regulations, Akin said.

The pilot told him to “hang out” in the bathroom,” the suit says, adding the stewardess took Mutlu’s seat, “closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

I’m also guessing that being seated in the bathroom, with no safety gear and no seat buckle is as against regulations as if Mutlu had been allowed to sit in the jump seat.

Now, once you read the whole thing, maybe we could talk about the appalling writing from the NY Post…

Read the rest. If you dare...

Here’s the sequence of events: First, six months ago I bought the MacHeist Bundle II which included Pixelmator. A week or so ago, I bought the MacUpdate Bundle which included Parallels. A few days ago, a freelance client of mine sent a pair of .rdp files to give me access to their servers for a little work that I’m doing for them. All these things came together to create this post.

Which caused a problem.

Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Client for Mac OS X isn’t a particularly good product, as far as I’m concerned, but I couldn’t find another client that might actually open one of those .rdp files. So, last night I tried to find a way to get those things open while doing all of the work on my MacBook--and I’m sure that you geeks can see where this is going.

The MacHeist and MacUpdate bundles proved a fairly cheap way for me to try new software--and I like the idea of supporting shareware developers who put together good software. I bought the MU bundle without ever intending to use the flagship product, Parallels, because I didn’t imagine that I needed to run Windows inside my MacBook--besides which, I have no idea where my Win XP system disk is and I’m afraid it’s somewhere in a big box o’ abandoned technology in the storage unit. Which isn’t particularly helpful at 1:30 in the morning. But the more I struggled to find a Macintosh based solution, the more I started to think that there might be a Linux based solution to my problem.

Hence the quick installation of Parallels last night and a nearly as quick download of NimbleX, a tiny, fast Linux distribution that ran beautifully in Parallels after I spent a good three minutes setting up the virtual machine. What I couldn’t do was figure out how to install NimbleX (which was designed to be run from a USB device or CD) on the virtual hard drive that I had created. For that matter, it wouldn’t even recognize the existence of that virtual drive, wouldn’t save downloaded files, and was clunky to get around when it came to trying to figure out how to install and use its .mo module files in hopes of getting a terminal services client that would open the .rdp files. NimbleX, which ran quick as hell and impressed me with its small footprint, didn’t get me where I wanted to go.

On older computers, I’m betting that something like NimbleX would be appreciated, though.

A much longer download (about 700 megs to NimbleX’s 200 megs) got me the latest Ubuntu distribution. Ubuntu also required about a 3 gig virtual drive compared to the 500 megs I gave to NimbleX. Ubuntu, though, installed like a dream and gave me a much happier path to full screen virtual computing in Parallels than NimbleX had managed. Although it isn’t as polished as I had expected, it’s also much easier to get around and familiarize with than the smaller distro. Even better, it’s build-in Terminal Services Client offered to open up my .rdp files (with just a little nudge).

But it didn’t bring in the encrypted password. Damnit. So it opens with all of the details filled out (and looks, for all the world, like a really nice client), but I don’t have the super secret password to actually get in and do my work. As I said: damnit.

So in the end, I decided to write a post and take a screen cap of the entire thing running inside my Macintosh. So, hitting the command for a screen cap (Command-Shift-3), up popped Snapz Pro X (a brilliant title from one of my favorite small developers, Ambrosia Software, that came in the MacUpdate bundle) to give me a variety of options for the screen cap that I wanted to take to illustrate the post. Nifty. I set the options and took the picture. Once the picture was done, I decided that I wanted to edit out the IP address and other information from the Terminal Services Client to protect the security of my client.

I could open it in Photoshop since I have a legal copy running on this machine, but it seemed a bit much to open up the big app for such a little job. Enter Pixelmator.

Pixelmator is missing many of the features that I need as a guy who deals with preparing press files on a daily basis. It doesn’t have all of the features that I need especially in terms of its color handling. But for something like this, it loads so much faster and does have a wide variety of great tools that it’s worth having on my hard drive just for the small jobs.

All of which got me here (see below), but didn’t get me where I wanted to go.

All of which thrills me.  I don’t mind paying for software, but I love having so many reasonably priced (and often free) options for some of the things that I do. Not every job requires the huge titles that sell for hundreds of dollars--and, in fact, some of them get done better with leaner, more focused tools.

To help the cause, I plan to petition MacDonalds to bring back the McDLT in the double-wide, non-biodegradable, ozone depleting styrofoam container. I aim to keep the hot side hot and the cold side cold.

People who know me in the real world--and my penchant for dropping the f-bomb with appalling regularity--will be shocked by this.

Of course, I consider the blog to be polite company--which means little to no cussing.

Of course, now I have this urge to write the most obscene post ever. Gosh dangit.

...Not enough Jeff. I say that less often than I say, “Too much Dan, not enough Jeff,” but probably neither of them as often as I simply say to myself, “Hey, where the hell is Jeff?”

Seriously, the site just isn’t the same without Jeff, and, frankly, not even half as interesting.

I was responding to a couple comments by a few folks on Kate’s site and my comment doesn’t seem to have gone through. I post it here because I worked too damned hard to let it disappear.

The original post was in reference to Riccardo Gino Ferrante’s arrest for peeping in a Tulsa Target. You can check out the post and those links for more details.

This reply is actually for you and for Jeff.

That the judge has decided location is the governing factor in determining privacy is completely, well, disorienting.

Really? You don’t think that your expectations of privacy in, say, your own home are different than, say, at a football stadium during a game? I would say that location has much to do with expectations of privacy.

If I walk around naked in my own home, I have a reasonable expectation that no one is going take and broadcast pictures of my fat ass to the world. If I walk around naked at the stadium during a football game, I’d expect the ridicule that I’ll be receiving and my guess is that you would do the same. If so, then your expectations of reasonable levels of privacy are changed by location.

Now, in this case, it would be reasonable to expect that it would not be legal for someone to bypass your privacy protecting clothing (a skirt or dress or whatever it is that you happen to be wearing) to nab pictures of your undies. That expectation would be changed if, say, you’re Ms. B. Spears and you’re getting out of a car sans underwear, wouldn’t it?

Which leads me to believe that we all have a sort of sliding scale of expectations of privacy that hinge both on place and on the actions of the individual in trying to protect their privacy. What protection the law provides in Oklahoma, though, is still something that I don’t understand.

A slightly longer article that I read had this snippet:

[The] language of the statute “does not presently contemplate” Ferrante’s conduct and that “it is not the province of this Court to enlarge its scope.”

The statute offers examples of where a person would reasonably expect such privacy, including locker rooms, dressing rooms, restrooms and any place of residence, the majority opinion noted.

And then, someone quoted the actual statute in Rachel Lucas’s post on the subject:

“Every person who hides, waits or otherwise loiters in the vicinity of any private dwelling house, apartment building, any other place of residence, or in the vicinity of any locker room, dressing room, restroom or any other place where a person has a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy, with the unlawful and willful intent to watch, gaze, or look upon any person in a clandestine manner”

I’d say that’s either a bad law or a bad law to have tried to shoehorn this offense into. Can you safely define underneath the skirt as a place in the context of the other places listed here? I think that’s a tough stretch, although my inclination would have been to say “yes.” Going back to the Britney Spears thought, though, is her skirt a “place” where she can reasonably expect privacy?

My points: First, that it might not be as bad a decision as it looks like at first blush and other states should look at their own statutes to see what loopholes like this exist so that they can close them. Second, that the judges didn’t decide that people inside Wal-Mart or Target had a different expectations of privacy than a person “on the sidewalk three steps outside their front door.” The post misleads a little bit especially inasmuch as this decision only effects people in Oklahoma--other state laws will differ. It has nothing to do with Target, really, and even less to do with Wal-Mart, although the post makes it seem as if it does.

I’m guessing that I violated some rule about the html that can be placed in her comments. Sorry about that.

Apparently, years back a murder confession from the turn of the century (1899 not 1999) was found on the back of a piece of window molding, and the confession had been sitting neglected in an evidence room until recently.

“To whoever may happen to find the confession, I, John W. Spicer of the City of Fountain, State of Colorado, being about to shuffle off this mortal act to make this my full confession in the hope that when I am gone it may be found and at last clear up the darkest mystery that ever embraced one in human murder.”

Spicer wrote that he clubbed John J. Sebastian “four miles north of this city and two miles east of the foot of Cheyenne Mountain,” which puts the crime scene somewhere on today’s Fort Carson, Martin said. Sebastian’s body was not found.

Now the confession is going to be hanging at the Fountain Valley Historical Society Museum, which I’ll need to visit.

Nope, it’s not an important thing, but I remain fascinated by how these threads connect us to a past that we rarely even think about--and that the past isn’t really as far away as we imagine. The man who wrote the confession of a murder committed in 1893 died in Florida in the 1940’s.

Cool story. A bit more here.

Update: Kindly linked by our buddy Trench over at CrimeNe.ws.

I’m serious: I don’t know how to do it.

I can’t claim that he was a great man or even a good man--I honestly don’t know much about the man. I don’t know his politics, his religion (or lack thereof), what he was like on a personal level, or even if he liked to kick puppies. But he helped me improperly misspend some good portion of my youth on AD&D, he was wildly creative, and if not for him I might not truly understand what Bender meant when he said “It’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social.”

And I don’t even mean that in a bad way. I loved wasting time with my friends on AD&D.

The sad news is that Gary Gygax has passed away at age 69--which isn’t young, isn’t old, and certainly seems too soon.

If not for his contributions, video games and geek culture would probably look much different than it does today. Beyond jokes about “d20s” and “saving throws,” D&D’s systems and mythos have spawned many excellent games, including Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment.

Rest in peace.

Read the rest.

Update: And, damnit, I’m not the only one.

Update: This is equal parts amazingly wrong and ridiculously appropriate. As is Robert’s comment on this post.

Another Update: Michelle Malkin, too? Who would have guessed? Ed Driscoll, has a few words and so does Wizbang.

Now, for something more important. Andy alerts us all to the kind of credit card fraud that often goes undetected--it’s something that you should definitely take a look at if you’ve seen a charge from PicturesJungle.com (and a few other sites that he tags as being a little suspicious).

I know I’m going to be going through my own card statements (especially the Chase card statements).

It was a post with links to Steve Green, Michael Totten, and some creative fiction. It was a post with a shout out to Publicola, who, sadly, doesn’t blog anymore. It was a post with a warning to watch tonight for updated info on the Mini Blogger Bash.

And then it went away.

Damnit.

I need a do-over.

I wish I had either a big, spinach stuffed crust pizza from Eduardo’s. Or maybe a sloppy, Italian beef sandwich from Portillo’s.

Sadly, here in Denver, there isn’t a damned place that I know of that makes a decent Italian beef and, while I can get a decent pizza--even a stuffed crust pizza--it isn’t Eduardo’s.

Darn.

I blame global warming.

If I understand it correctly, a man accused of sexually assaulting and killing an model in the UK is offering up a very strange defense:

• I didn’t kill her, I just found her after the initial assault--in her driveway, in a pool of blood, having been stabbed seven times.
• Instead of calling for help or finding out if she was still alive, he looked on this battered woman and found himself overcome with lust.
• So, he had sex with her before realizing that she was already dead.
• Because that makes things better. Somehow.

First, this is the least believable defense I’ve ever heard--Mark Dixie is admitting to raping Sally Anne Bowman, who had been viciously assaulted, because he didn’t realize that she was deceased and he couldn’t control his sexual urges. Am I missing something?

Apparently Mr. Dixie thinks that explanation sounds plausible and (somewhat) reasonable. I think it sounds so seriously screwed up that no reasonable society could possibly accept the idea of you remaining free to rape and brutalize women ever again--the only two options available are life imprisonment with no chance of parole or death. A man who would rape a presumably unconscious woman as she bled to death (the most charitable reading of his defense in that it assumes that he thought she was unconscious instead of dead) can never, ever be trusted in civilized society again.

Of course, it’s much easier to believe that he’s lying and that he’s a brutal, murdering, rapist and the need to keep him locked up is even more obvious.

His barrister makes things worse by adding this to the “defense”:

Commenting on the charge of murdering Miss Bowman, Anthony Glass QC, defending, said: “It is, you may think, a very unattractive defence.

“He did not know she was dead until intercourse was concluded.

“Even though you may think his conduct is disgusting, he allowed his lust to get the better of him.”

I know it’s just a title, but I’m still guessing that the Queen would not be amused with the Queen’s Counsel in this instance…

Read the rest.

Read this--it would be difficult to condense it all into a few sentences or paragraphs with the time I have available to me right now.

A combination of the requirements of Federal sentencing guidelines, a lawyer who doesn’t seem to have done everything that I could have for his client, a judge who was unaware of a sentencing rule that would have allowed a lighter sentence, and a very bad decision on his own part conspired to deliver something other than justice to Sgt. Patrick Lett. While it’s impossible to avoid the fact that his legal problems are of his own design--delivering crack cocaine for his cousin in exchange for car repairs--it’s also impossible for me to avoid the conclusion that our justice system is letting him down.

Some of the guilty people who go before the courts deserve a little bit of mercy along with their punishment. Given his spotless previous record, his service to the country, the kind of people who came to speak on his behalf, and the judge’s own expressed desire to be able to give him a lesser sentence, it seems obvious that Lett is one of the people who deserves a second chance. Instead, he’s been lashed around by the courts, has probably ruined his career, and may well lose years of his life to prison--a fate I don’t believe he deserves.

Here’s hoping the Supreme Court sees fit to give Sgt. Lett a second chance; that would be justice for a man who served his country well, who admitted his error, and who had no history of legal transgressions.

In response to a late night, one car accident that took the lives of three idiots, the sister of one of the deceased had this to say:

“The thing that really makes me feel much better about this is they died doing what they loved to do — they were drinking, they were going fast and they were together,” Lorie Flaherty said. “It gives me comfort, it does, to know those three things.”

She was glad that her brother was killed drinking and driving.

What an idiot. What a foolish little girl. What a short-sighted ass.

The only thing that makes me happy is that they didn’t take anyone with them. The only redeeming factor in this is that three young people who thought it was a good idea to drink and drive--going well over 100mph in an area that I’ve heard is a 35mph zone, although, since I’m not familiar with the area, I couldn’t say with authority--have removed themselves permanently from the road. I feel safer.

Amber Dawn Kowalski was a twenty-three year old mother who cared for her year-old child and father who had Alzheimer’s. It’s good to know that Lorie Flaherty is happy that Kowalski died in such a phenomenally useless way. I’m comforted.

These three kids died dumb. Aside from safer roads, there is absolutely no good that comes from a tragedy like this--and don’t dare call it an accident. There was no accident in the decision-making that lead to this ending. Calling it a good thing and raising a glass is just a way to make something horrible even worse.

Stupid children.

Read the Rest...

Normally, I put up “we’re number one” posts because it cracks me up to see how search results get people to this site (and how disappointed they might be when they show up). You’re lucky I don’t torture you with some of the more disgusting search results, actually--lately, most of my search results are coming from people looking for pictures of seriously disturbing sexual practices or a desire to see Steve Green on the cover of Playgirl.

Today I got a search result that I kind of liked: “the shame of the ‘prosperity gospel.’” And, for once, the results are actually appropriate.

I hope they enjoyed the read.

Search Google for American Idol Meth Woman, and you’ll be heading for ResurrectionSong. Because, we’re number one, baby!

I expect the drug rehab comment spammers to notice soon.

My parents would be so proud.

Door-to-door network services salesman must be one of the worst jobs in the world. Especially when I’m the guy you meet when you come in the door.

I’m polite, I’m cordial, and every word is a carefully plotted stonewall. Every path leads to “no.” Frankly, I’ve been on that date before and it’s not fun. I realize that I usher them out the door and leave them with nothing to show for their short walk from the office next door, and I almost feel some sympathy.

So, to help out the door-to-door sales folks who ignore our “no soliciting” notice at the door, I have a few bits of advice:

1. If you really have a service that I want, call first and make an appointment. That will save us both time and effort because I’m just as good at “no” over the phone as I am in person, but you can share the dance from the comfort of your own office. Which is nice for you.
2. Don’t try to insult me into buying something. One of the strangest D2D crew that came in--and they almost always travel in pairs--was selling memberships to a paintball joint. I politely told him that, no, I wasn’t interested and neither was anyone else in the office.

   “But it’s fun,” he said.

   “Sorry, we’re still not interested.”

   “What?” If it were another age, I would have said that he looked scandalized by this personal affront. “You don’t like to have fun?”

   I’ll leave you to imagine my response. Whatever you come up with is probably nicer than what I actually said. If I had even the tiniest urge to find out about the product, that moment would have killed it.

3. Don’t try to bully me or harass me into giving you more time. I’m more stubborn than you are and the more you push me, the less likely I am to care about whatever it is you’re selling. And I don’t need your service--if I did, I would have called you. Perhaps some people respond to that kind of tactic, but I’m not one of them. Recognize that fact.
4. No, I’m not giving you anyone else’s card, phone number, or name. I don’t care how many times you ask or how many times you suggest that I’m not the guy who can make the decision, you aren’t getting past me unless you have a services that interests me. See, that’s the key: you can’t make me want a business service that I don’t need. I save my impulse buys for my private life and if you haven’t got me in the first few sentences, you aren’t going to get me at all.
5. That sign on the door that says “no solicitors” is there for a reason; we expect you to respect it.
6. Take a hint and move along.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

I believe this is the last of the house band entries--which is good. Pretty soon we can go back to talking about the incredible displays of world class pandering going on in the presidential election.

But, first, we have Wheels selection of an enviro-death metal band, TUSK, and their new release Enough to Know Better. Welcome this pond scum (with lovely cover art) to the mix.

If I’ve missed anyone, I’ll post them in updates to this entry.

Update: Two more creative spirits.

Good buddy Craig (who has a new blog--mind your blogrolls) gives us a clown faced camel. Which is cool. The Fellows new album, Live Devoted to Pleasure, might not be quite as cool as the cover.

Joan gives us one of my favorite covers with Quiet Lies You’re Comfortable With It. Beautiful picture.

More Updates:

Left Off Colfax, who reminds me that I missed him in the first round (sorry), brings us Murphy’s Herd’s release, Instincts will be Strengthened.

Stranger, Roberta X, brings us the requisite cheesecake with Walter Marks’ There is Time Enough.

Stranger II, Tam, has Old Settler’s Association and Mile in His Moccasins. It’s odd that the moccasins in question might well be housed on a rhinoceros. But who am I to judge?

Stranger II, Part II, all dramatic and stuff.

Doug Sundseth sends his entry into the house band contest (Co-ResurrectionSong House Band, in fact): Alice König’s newest release, ...But Hard to Swallow. Thoughtless frat boys have made the album the year’s big party disk, mistaking the lesbian folk/pop for a sly comment about heterosexual oral sex. Unsurprisingly, a record number of returns have been reported by Amazon and other online vendors.

Doug can expand upon that later.

But at ResurrectionSong, we love lesbians. Which is nice for everyone and explains why we’ve invited Alice König to be the opening band for Pormestarin tytär.

Other house bands competing in the contest:

Absentee Colorado blogger Dorkafork gives us Fan Palm with Fly to Catch a Trout. There’s only a little cheating going on.

Andy’s brilliant African American National Biography Project with Sucked into Jet Engines. Wonderful.

Bob, who regularly comments here, gives us The Oval with Boils in Another’s Pot. Which might actually be my favorite cover. Except my own, of course.

Blogonomicon’s band Battle of Dalrigh with Again be the Same. Nicely done.

Fighting for Liberty’s band Unbundled Network with They Hurry Past It. That’s a great photo.

Jed, who really wants to win, gives us two bands: 76 with It Used to Be and Robin Byrd with That is Never Satisfied.

And, getting back to the previously posted Nathan’s entry, Hoplite and their new album ...Of Looking at Things. Somehow appropriate to the gentleman.

Go back through the last couple posts to see the ones you might have mixed. Frankly, my fingers are tired.

Nice work, everyone. I’m impressed with the creativity on display--and maybe even more impressed by the quality of some of those Flickr photos that we came up with. And everyone remember to thank Shannon for infecting us with this meme. Thanks, Shannon!