Their aren’t words to express how I feel about
a parent not teaching their child(S) better.

A 12-year-old boy has been arrested for allegedly raping two 8-year-old boys from his Shelby Farms-area neighborhood. He was charged with two counts of rape of a child.

Reportedly, a third 8-year-old boy came forward with a similar claim on Friday, a day after the 12-year-old’s arrest, though additional charges have not been filed.

The grandmother of one victim said the the incident occurred in late May, shortly after school recessed for summer break. The boys were swimming with the 12-year-old in his backyard pool when he allegedly raped them and threatened to kill them and their families if they told anyone.

Three weeks later, the boys told a friend’s older brother. He then told the victims’ families.

Since then, a bustling neighborhood where children spent their days playing together outside has become much quieter, the grandmother said.

“There were kids out everywhere, all the time,” she said. “But for the past month, I kid you not, there hasn’t been a kid outside playing.”

The boy is the second juvenile to be charged with rape of a child in the Memphis area in less than two months. In May, a 12-year-old Germantown boy was accused of raping a 9-year-old boy from his neighborhood in a nearby woods.

He pleaded “no contest” to the charges in June and was ordered to attend counseling by Shelby County Juvenile Court.

About 100 juveniles were charged with a sex crime in Shelby County in 2010, perhaps the most notable involving Memphis’ youngest known rapists, a 7-year-old and 9-year-old boy.

In August, the two were accused of using an object to rape a 2-year-old neighbor.

In April, after receiving specialized treatment in state custody, the younger boy was released to his parents while the 9-year-old was ordered to undergo further treatment.

The age of the offenders keeps them from being listed on Tennessee’s recently established juvenile sex offender registry.

Offenders age 14-18 who have been convicted of rape, rape of a child, aggravated rape of a child, aggravated sexual battery or attempt of any of the aforementioned offenses are placed on the private registry, which is only available to law enforcement and court officials.

a few questions

• What the hell are parent’s teaching their kids these days? are they teaching them that rape’s a good thing?
• Why were the parents not supervising their children swimming?
• To be honest with you, I’d have charged this kid as an adult and made an example out of him.

I’m thoroughly disgusted.

As posted
earlier this morning.
We had a husband who’s wife sliced off his penis, then threw it in a garbage disposal.
Now, we find out the victum is
recovering
from surgery.

A man whose penis whose was cut off, allegedly by his wife, was recovering after surgery, officials said.

The 51-year-old victim, whose name was not released, was rushed late Monday to UC Irvine Medical Center, where he underwent emergency surgery on Tuesday, officials said.

The hospital listed him in good condition following the surgery but declined to release any further details.

Reached by phone by the Orange County Register, he said only: “This is a private matter.”

Garden Grove police allege that the victim’s wife laced his dinner with drugs and then cut off his penis with a 10-inch kitchen knife.

After officers arrived at the couple’s Garden Grove home, Catherine Kieu Becker, 48, allegedly made a spontaneous statement to police that her husband “deserved it.”

Police said they did not have a motive in the Monday evening attack, though court records showed that the couple — who have been married for 1 1/2 years — had begun divorce proceedings in May. The records showed that the couple have no children and suggested that the husband initiated the divorce.

“On the surface, we have nothing more than the divorce proceeding,” said Lt. Jeff Nightengale of the Garden Grove Police Department. “We don’t have any strong motive leading to this level of violence.”

Officers arrived at the couple’s home in the 14000 block of Flower Street after Becker called 911 about 9 p.m. Monday, and they found a bleeding man tied to a bed, according to police.

Officials said Becker, 48, told police she had drugged her husband’s dinner to make him sleepy, tied him to the bed and then cut off his penis, which she tossed into the garbage disposal.

Becker was arrested on suspicion of aggravated mayhem, false imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon, administering a drug with intent to commit a felony, poisoning and spousal abuse.

The severe nature of the crime led detectives to classify it as aggravated mayhem, an offense punishable by a sentence of up to life in prison, Nightengale said.

“You’re not just depriving a person of a member or portion of their body or disfiguring them,” he said. “You’re doing something that’s so egregious we’re not sure what’s going to happen, if they’re going to be able to reattach this or repair this person after such a violent attack.”

Becker is being held on $1-million bail.

I don’t have words, and I hope this individual gets life, for committing such a grevus act against her husband.

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

throughout today, it came to light that
SW Cast
had been shut down by
Sound exchange
but their’s a lot of wining that this is not valid.
Firstly, have the
original
post that sparked this

> SWCast shut down >

Posted on April 19, 2011 by David Oxenford

SoundExchange Claims Credit for Shutting Down Webcaster Who Was Not Paying Royalties

SoundExchange claims on its website that webcaster SWCast.net was shut down when SoundExchange complained to its ISP that the service was not paying royalties for the use of the music played by the site. SWCast was an aggregator of webcast channels created by other individuals, who paid the company – allegedly for the streaming and for the royalties that were due for that streaming. According to the SoundExchange press release, the webcaster was shut down when SoundExchange “sent a letter requesting that the hosting ISP disable access to the SWCast site.” SoundExchange’s statement says that, despite repeated attempts to engage the webcaster, SWCast neither paid royalties nor filed reports of use for the songs streamed by the service, leading to SoundExchange’s action. As far as we know, this is the first time that SoundExchange has taken such an action.

How did this work? While we have not seen the letter that SoundExchange sent to the ISP, we can assume that it alleged that SWCast was infringing on copyrighted materials by not paying the required royalties. ISPs have a safe harbor under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, protecting them from liability for the infringement of users of their services, if the ISP does not encourage the infringement, registers an agent with the Copyright Office, and agrees to take down infringing content when properly notified by a copyright holder (see our post here). We can only assume that SoundExchange or the copyright holders themselves notified the ISP that the material streamed by this webcaster was infringing as no royalties were being paid and, to protect itself, the ISP blocked access to the site.

Does this action reflect a new aggressiveness on the part of SoundExchange? We have noted before that, from time to time, there seems to be a flurry of collection activity by SoundExchange. We have heard from several streaming companies that they have recently received notices from SoundExchange inquiring about various compliance issues. SoundExchange has been staffing up, and they have an attorney on staff whose principal job is enforcement. Perhaps, with a new President, and with the last webcasting royalty proceeding done but for the appeals, this is a time when SoundExchange feels comfortable enough to act to ensure compliance with its royalty requirements.

We’ve summarized the Internet radio royalty rates recently, and reminded webcasters not to forget their minimum fee payments and yearly election requirements. If you are streaming, this might be a good time to check your royalty compliance to make sure that you are doing all that is expected by SoundExchange. They may be watching!

so I headed over to the linked in portion of the sound exchange website, and found
this
here’s that article, as well.

Public notice of disabling of access to SWcast services
April 18th
In recent days, SoundExchange requested that access to Internet radio service SWCast.net be disabled by the hosting ISP in accordance with the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the ISP’s terms of service.

While regrettable, this step was necessary given SWCast’s repeated claims that it is a “provider of blanket music licensing and enhancement services” for online radio stations. SWCast collected monthly fees from webcasters using its service, in exchange for (it claimed) satisfying all of the reporting and royalty obligations of its webcaster clients. Among the obligations specifically listed on its site are those reporting obligations and royalties paid to rights-holders by webcasters through SoundExchange.

SWCast, however, does not provide the promised services. Specifically, and despite its claims, SWCast has failed to abide by its obligations under the statutory license, did not pay anything to SoundExchange for years, and, as of the date of this letter, has not even attempted to make any payment to SoundExchange for any period after 2005. SWCast has also never provided the reports of use that are clearly required by the statutory license.

SoundExchange repeatedly reached out to SWCast to seek its compliance, to no avail. Accordingly, SoundExchange sent a letter requesting that the hosting ISP disable access to the SWCast site. Individual webcasters who had been using SWCast’s services are free to rely on the statutory license going forward, either by submitting the necessary materials and payments to SoundExchange directly, or relying on a different third party service to submit such materials and payments on their behalf. Learn more about SoundExchange’s Licensing 101.

Thousands of webcasters have been able to thrive and to provide valuable services to their listeners while operating legally under the statutory license. It’s unfair for SWCast or anyone else to use artists’ work without compensating them, and it’s unfair to the webcasters who believed they were abiding by the law.

We’re sorry that SWCast chose not to comply with the law, and we hope SWCast fans will find another (legal) provider by which to enjoy the tracks we all love. Meanwhile, we’ll be holding down the fort here, making sure that artists and copyright holders see returns on their hard work, and have the means to continue creating new music.

If you have any questions, please review www.soundexchange.com or feel free to contact our licensing and enforcement department at 202.559.0555 or L&E@soundexchange.com.

so as a member of staff on both
JJRN
and
Mojo Radio
and a concerned listener, I contacted the phone number listed, and spoke with Mandi Nash of the licensing and enforcement department.
I determined, during that conversation that what I was reading was true and accurate, and as further proof, she sent me what all stations were receiving upon request.

________________________________

From: Mandi Nash [mailto:anash@SOUNDEXCHANGE.COM]
Sent: Monday, April 25, 2011 3:43 PM
To: shane@shaned.net
Subject: Notice of Violation of Terms of Statutory License by SWCast

Re: Notice of Violation of Terms of Statutory License by SWCast

Dear Sir or Madam:

This is a courtesy notice provided to you by SoundExchange regarding the current compliance status of your webcasting station. As you may know, SoundExchange, Inc. is the non-profit entity designated by the Copyright Royalty Board to collect royalties owed under the statutory license for the public performance of sound recordings via certain noninteractive digital audio transmissions (e.g., “webcasting”) and the making of certain ephemeral phonorecords. See 17 U.S.C. §§ 112(e), 114; 37 C.F.R. Parts 370, 380 (the “Statutory License”). SoundExchange, in turn, distributes the royalties it collects to the performing artists and copyright owners of such sound recordings.

We write to you regarding your webcasting service that has been made available through SWCast.net (“SWCast”). SWCast purports to be an Internet radio service for small webcasters and a “provider of blanket music licensing and enhancement services” for online radio stations. As part of its services, SWCast offers a so-called “Joint Performance Licensing Program” (“JPL Program”). Through the JPL program, SWCast offers, for a fee, to satisfy all of the reporting and royalty obligations of its webcaster clients whose streaming it hosts and manages (the “Webcaster Clients”). Among the obligations specifically listed are those reporting obligations and royalties paid to rights-holders by webcasters through SoundExchange. SWCast promises to provide “small U.S. Webcasters with the licensing coverage, expertise, and peace of mind they need,” in exchange for monthly payments from its Webcaster Clients.

SWCast, however, does not provide the promised services. Specifically, and despite its claims, SWCast has completely failed to abide by its obligations under the statutory license, did not pay anything to SoundExchange for years, and, as of the date of this letter, has not even attempted to make any payment to SoundExchange for any period after 2005. SWCast has also never provided the reports of use that are clearly required by the statutory license.

SoundExchange has tried for months to rectify this unacceptable situation with SWCast, to no avail. Accordingly, on March 28, 2011, SoundExchange sent a letter to the Internet service provider for SWCast.net informing the ISP that SWCast.net had failed to comply with the terms of the statutory license, was engaging and/or assisting in infringing activity and had violated the ISP’s terms of service. The letter requested that the ISP disable access to the SWCast.net site, in accordance with the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the ISP’s terms of service.

We are writing to you to inform you of SWCast’s failure to comply with the terms of the statutory license. If you wish to rely on the statutory license for your webcasting service going forward, you may decide to submit royalty payments, statements of account and reports of use directly to SoundExchange, or you may decide to rely on a different third party to submit such materials and payments to SoundExchange on your behalf. Please let us know by May 6, 2011 how you intend to proceed. If you wish to submit materials and payments directly to SoundExchange, you may use the rates, forms and other information provided on SoundExchange’s web site at www.soundexchange.com/service-provider/how-do-i-pay/ . Please note that SoundExchange does not endorse any particular third-party service and that – should a third-party service fail to meet its obligations on your behalf going forward – you remain ultimately responsible for your own service’s compliance with the terms of the statutory license.

If you have any questions, please review our web site at www.soundexchange.com or feel free to contact our licensing and enforcement department at 202.559.0555 or L&E@soundexchange.com.

* * *

This letter does not constitute a waiver of our members’ right to recover damages incurred by virtue of any unlicensed transmissions or reproductions of copyrighted sound recordings, and such rights as well as claims for other relief are expressly retained. Also, please be advised that SoundExchange does not make any determination as to whether a service is in fact eligible to use the Statutory License. Instead, the applicable authorization for such services to publicly perform sound recordings derives from federal law, and eligibility for such activity is thus a matter of law. Accordingly, SoundExchange’s acceptance of notices of use, payments, statements of account, or reports of use does not express or imply any acknowledgment that a service is in fact eligible for or otherwise in compliance with the requirements of the Statutory License. If you have questions about whether your service is eligible for the Statutory License, you should consult your own legal counsel for advice.

Regards,

Brad Prendergast
Counsel
SoundExchange, Inc.
1121 Fourteenth St. NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005
Tel: 202-559-0550
Fax: 202-640-5883
email: bprendergast@soundexchange.com

In other words, SW cast is dead. and you’ll need to find an alternate licensing source before may 6, 2011.
Feel free to comment as either a station owner, a listener, or what have you. It’ll be interesting to see your views.

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

the ontario provincial police
raided
a home, only to realize it
wasn’t the right address.
Their were 20 officers, and they couldn’t get the right address?
I can understand the man’s frustration, seriously.
Welcome to our police force, ontario.

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

so a restaurant has this nasty habbit of
confusing
drinks.
This time, a milk shake, and an alcoholic beverage.

Brooklynn Morris, 4, was served an alcoholic mudslide at a Chicago Chili’s restaurant, her mother says. (Credit: CBS)
CHICAGO (CBS) – An Applebee’s in the Detroit suburb of Madison Heights, Mich., made headlines after a 15-month-old boy was mistakenly served margarita mix and alcohol in his sippy cup instead of apple juice.
An Olive Garden in Lakeland, Fla., also made headlines recently for serving a 2-year-old alcoholic sangria rather than orange juice.
As CBS 2’s Susanna Song reports, Tyree Davis said she was having dinner with her daughter at a Chili’s at 1750 W. 119th St. in the Morgan Park neighborhood around 5:30 p.m. Sunday, when her daughter’s chocolate shake got swapped with a mudslide alcoholic beverage, which contains vodka.
Davis said her daughter, Brooklynn Morris, 4, was later diagnosed with an alcohol overdose.

Brooklynn drank from the cocktail three or four times, and told her mother it didn’t taste good.

Davis said she tried it herself, and that is when she realized it was an alcoholic drink.

She called police, who responded to the restaurant and told her to take her daughter to the emergency room, because the girl was dozing off.

A doctor at Metro South Medical Center in Blue Island diagnosed Brooklynn with overdose of alcohol ingestion.

“I don’t want it to ever happen again … to any child, because I know this just happened last week to someone, and I heard about it, and it’s crazy that it just happened to us yesterday,” Davis said.

“You know, they need to be more, I don’t know, aware of what they’re doing. I know you’re busy, I know things are going on. I know it’s crowded, and it was crowded. But you served my child an alcoholic beverage. That’s not good.”

Davis said her daughter vomited when she got home last night, but when CBS 2 stopped by Monday morning, Brooklynn was sleeping.

Chili’s Restaurant and its media representatives have yet to respond to the incident.

Davis said she was told by a manager Sunday night that someone would be calling her within 24 hours, but she said she has not heard back from anyone either.

This isn’t the first such innsodent of this as sseen in the above article, and methinks it’s time for some serious retraining.

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

we all as humans have rights, weather your american, canadian, british, japanese, chinese, whoever you are, you have basic rights. But now, these rights extend to
mother nature
The linked article states

What does the new Bolivian law mean? It means that tics that suck the blood, the choking sulphur pits of volcanic vents, the indestructible cockroach, the arid desert wastes and the bleak frigid spaces of the planet’s poles — everything from the locusts that despoil, to the great mountain ranges, the earth and all that is in it, are to have … rights. (About the other planets, Morales is silent.)

I can’t find words. I’m staring at this article on in my browser window while I compose this in my e-mail client, going, seriously? your fucking kidding me.
related: the reaction from
james
when I told him that was, just a repeated utterance of

buh?

and that’s probably what you all are thinking, as well.

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

As posted
previously
a colorado child died after drowning in the bathtub, while his mother was on
facebook
Well now, the mother has been
sentanced
Here’s that article in it’s entirety.

A northern Colorado woman who was playing a game on Facebook while her 13-month-old child drowned in a full bathtub was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison.

Shannon Johnson was playing a game on Facebook while her 13-month-old son drowned in a full bathtub. She was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison. (Weld County (Colo.) Sheriff/Greeley Tribune/Associated Press)
Shannon Johnson, 34, of Fort Lupton, cried as District Judge Thomas Quammen told her he didn’t think she was a bad person or that she killed her son on purpose, the Greeley Tribune reported.

But, he added, that doesn’t mean her action wasn’t criminal.

“You left this little boy in a bathtub so you could entertain yourself on the computer by playing games,” Quammen said. “And you left that 13-month-old human being, little Joseph, incredibly for those reasons.”

Johnson pleaded guilty in March to negligently causing the death of her child. The charge carried a sentencing range of four to 12 years, but it also left open the possibility she could receive community service or probation. Authorities rejected both of those options, saying they didn’t want to play down the seriousness of her crime.

According to court documents, Johnson put her son in the tub for his bath a little after 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 20. She then left him unsupervised in a bathtub full of water as she went to another room to share videos, check status updates and play Café World on Facebook. Johnson told deputies that Joseph had grown independent and wanted to be left alone in the tub.

When she returned to the bathroom, said she found Joseph sideways and face-down in the tub.

Johnson called 911 to say Joseph wasn’t breathing. Paramedics were able to revive the toddler but he was pronounced dead at a Denver hospital.

She was also sentenced to five years of mandatory parole following her incarceration.

‘Independent baby,’ mother said
According to the affidavit, Johnson told police the boy “wanted to be left alone” and was a very “independent baby.”

She also told police she knew what it was like to be told “no,” and she did not want her baby to be told “no.”

The affidavit says she also did not want him to be known as a “mama’s boy.”

Johnson told police she gave the boy a bath every day — sometimes twice a day. She said that on the day Joseph died, the water level might have been higher than usual.

Johnson told police she had been leaving Joseph in the bathtub alone for weeks.

She also told authorities that her son had a seizure at his grandmother’s house a month earlier and had been given anti-seizure medication in case it happened again. Doctors didn’t diagnose the cause of the seizure and there were no other occurrences, Johnson said.

The investigation into the boy’s death was delayed while investigators waited for the final autopsy report. That report came back Jan. 3. It said the baby died of anoxic brain injury, cardiac arrest and drowning, according to the arrest affidavit. Johnson was arrested days later.

She was also sentenced to five years of mandatory parole following her incarceration.

Weld County undersheriff Margie Martinez told KMGH-TV in Denver that Johnson’s mother said she had warned her daughter of the danger of leaving the toddler unattended in water just days before he drowned.

“She told her she wouldn’t do it anymore,” Martinez said.

Their aren’t words. See my previous post, my comments their, fit here to.

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

So as I posted
yesterday
I’m dealing with more financial problems and could write a friggen book about it.
Now, we see the ontario government has decided that
causing even more upheavel
is the order of the day.

Carey Lynn Asselstine, who brought daughter Natalie to Queen’s Park on Tuesday, expressed disappointment the Ontario budget did not include new money to address rising child-care fees.

RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR
Laurie Monsebraaten
Social Justice Reporter
For Toronto welfare recipient Tracy Mead, the one per cent increase in social assistance announced in Tuesday’s provincial budget was a “slap in the face.”

“They say they are giving us a raise, but it’s not. It is barely keeping up with the cost of living,” says the 45-year-old woman who was forced to give up her overnight security job three years ago due to ill health.

About 550,000 Ontarians on social assistance, including about 260,000 on Ontario Works and 290,000 on the Ontario Disability Support Program are expected to receive the increase next fall, according to the budget.

The meagre increase amounts to an extra $6 for Mead who now gets the maximum $592 a month on Ontario Works. A single person on the Ontario Disability Support Program who currently receives up to $1,053 per month will get an additional $11.

Mead is one of thousands of Ontarians who have been urging Queen’s Park to “put food in the budget” by introducing a $100 monthly healthy food supplement for people on welfare.

The lack of new measures to help the 1.3 million Ontarians living in poverty was “disappointing,” for anti-poverty activist and former welfare recipient Mike Creek.

However, he said activists are grateful the province earlier this month reversed its 2010 budget decision to scrap the Special Diet Allowance of up to $250 per month for people on welfare with food-related health issues.

Low- to moderate-income families and single people will get help to better manage household budgets through a consolidation of three quarterly tax credits into a single monthly benefit, the budget said.

The new Ontario Trillium Benefit, worth about $2.4 billion annually, combines the Ontario Sales Tax Credit, the Ontario Energy and Property Tax Credit and the Northern Energy Credit.

A Remarkable Book from Wiley-Finance

---

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The new monthly benefit will take effect in July 2012.

Eligibility for the credits remains the same, but it will “smooth out the bumpy quarterly payments” into a single monthly benefit to be delivered by cheque or bank deposit, said a provincial official.

For example, a single parent with one child and a net income of $20,000, paying $629 per month in rent, would see eight payments totalling $936 annually converted to a monthly benefit of $78.

A senior couple with a net household income of $35,000, paying $1,200 per month in rent, would receive $82 per month under the scheme.

Social policy expert John Stapleton praised the new monthly payments as “the beginning of a core base benefit outside the welfare system for single people.”

About 530,000 low-income families with children under 18 already receive the monthly Ontario Child Benefit, worth up to $92 per month, per child.

Child care advocates were disappointed the budget did not include new money to address rising fees, service cuts and daycare closings as a result of chronic underfunding and the introduction of full-day kindergarten.

“There is a limit to how much a young family can afford to pay for child care,” said new mother Carey Lynn Asselstine, who brought her 4-month-old daughter Natalie to Queen’s Park Tuesday.

Asselstine, who will return to work in September, will be paying $60 a day or $15,000 annually for licensed child care.

“We want a high quality program, but my husband and I question whether we could ever afford to have a second child,” she said.

Now you people wonder why I want a job and the fuck off the government checks?
1% increase…. that’s maybe $10 if your lucky, and that’s pushing it.

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

so
amazon.
has launched this great knew service that allows it’s customer to store their music on their services for playing on multiple devices.
I took a look at it, and like the idea, a tad inaccessible, but what you gonna do, right?
Well now, amazon’s facing possible
legal
action because they don’t have the proper licensing.
small note to the record labels.
Your gonna be ass wholes, I’ll stick to my torrents, thanks.
Amazon’s already licensing enough content from you people, they shouldn’t have to buy more because they had the brains to put together a service that allows their customers to, oh my god, take their music with them on whatever device they happen to have hanging arouned.

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

I see this on a daily bases.
Parents think that parenting’s fun, get their asses knocked up then do stupid shit.
This one,
decides
to report one thing to medical personell, but then it’s prooven wrong, hi the boy suffering from

second- and third-degree burns over 40 percent of his body, and his injuries are considered life-threatening

and you still plead not guilty?
For serious?
I’m still of the mind set, you want to parent, you need to be ualified.
Wait, slight problem with that, we give idiots drivers licenses to, so that wouldn’t help.
Shit, I tried, k?

Mirrored from shane and krista's rantings and musings..

I won’t reidderate my view on bandwidth caps.
this person over here, known as my roommate, does it quite well
for me.
while covering the crtc’s ruling and simarily blasting the hell outta of it, for what that’s worth.
Now, the federal government has simarily told the CRTC, either you recynd your ruling or we’ll
do it for you

it’s their choice.
Here’s that article, minus all the sighted advertisement shit.

CRTC will rescind ‘unlimited use’ Internet decision – or Ottawa will overturn it
STEVEN CHASE
OTTAWA— From Thursday’s Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Feb. 02, 2011 10:17PM EST
Last updated Wednesday, Feb. 02, 2011 10:59PM EST
The Harper government will overturn the CRTC’s decision that effectively ends “unlimited use” Internet plans if the regulator doesn’t rescind the decision itself.
Industry Minister Tony Clement made the surprise announcement late Wednesday night via his closely-followed Twitter account.
He confirmed reports by The Globe and Mail and other media that the Tories were prepared to take this step.
“True. CRTC must go back to drawing board,” he tweeted after being asked if it was true the government would act “if the CRTC does not back down.”

Given this ultimatum from the Tories, the options facing the independent regulator are to reconsider the ruling of its own volition or see the cabinet use its power to reverse it.

The Harper government has taken a keen interest in the CRTC ruling that’s sparked a massive consumer backlash and caught the attention of all political parties in Ottawa.

Mr. Harper has personally intervened on the file to signal his displeasure this week.

If the Harper government is forced to act, it would mean that independent Internet service providers would not be forced to switch to per-byte billing from “unlimited access” accounts.

It would also not prevent the big Internet providers from continuing to use metered billing as they have for years.

But the fact that smaller providers could offer unlimited accounts has likely acted as a competitive check on the market and helped keep prices from rising.

Earlier Wednesday night, Mr. Clement turned up the heat on CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein on the eve of the regulator’s Commons committee grilling over the decision.

The minister used his closely followed Twitter account to broadcast his unease about the ruling, raising the stakes for Mr. von Finckenstein’s appearance Thursday.

The regulatory chief has been called on the carpet before MPs to explain the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruling.

Mr. Clement, who only this week announced his government is probing whether to overturn the decision, late Wednesday served notice that he will be closely scrutinizing the comments of Mr. von Finckenstein, the very regulator whose decision he’s now second-guessing. The CRTC is independent but cabinet has the power to amend or rescind its rulings.

Using his Twitter instant messaging account – followed by more than 8,300 people, including journalists and many in political circles – Mr. Clement hammered home how skeptical he is of the CRTC decision concerning what Internet providers call “usage-based billing.”

“I’m looking forward to the CRTC chairman’s appearance before the House Industry Committee … to explain his support for the UBB decision,” the Industry Minister said via Twitter.

To drive home his point, Mr. Clement quickly added: “I remain very concerned by the UBB decision of the CRTC and look forward to my review being completed ASAP.”

Mr. Clement is the most avid Twitter user in the federal cabinet, having posted more than 2,500 messages. He’s shown a knack for careful tweeting that avoids missteps. While he discusses music and his personal life, his political-themed messages are normally worded to make a point rather than repeat blandishments.

Mr. Clement and the Harper cabinet have overturned the CRTC before, of course, by striking down the regulator’s ruling that Globalive, which now operates Wind Mobile, couldn’t launch service in the regulated sector because of foreign financial backing.

A CRTC official said this week the agency has received thousands of complaints about its decision, which allows large Internet providers such as BCE Inc.’s Bell Canada to charge smaller providers who lease space on their networks on a per-byte, or usage, basis.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself took the unusual step of intervening in the controversy, putting more heft behind Mr. Clement’s move to review the CRTC ruling – a strong sign of the Conservatives’ displeasure with the regulator’s decision.

It’s an unwelcome development for major Internet providers, which have fought for years for the CRTC ruling that effectively ends “unlimited” Internet download plans.

The Conservatives said the probe of the ruling will be finished by or before March 1.

While the Conservatives insist they have not yet decided what to do, the government is sounding very sympathetic to CRTC critics who say the verdict will hurt Internet commerce and consumers.

“We want to ensure that the Internet is available for consumers, small businesses, innovators and creators. That is what we are all about,” Mr. Clement told the Commons Wednesday.

needless to say, the CRTC’s been told, your choice, but either way, this will get reversed, either voluntarily or forcefully.
This is one thing I don’t mind eyeballing, and have been eyeballing since my last
primus
bill showed up wherein this was mentioned.
working off that, while I was putting the above together, we have
this
from
OpenMedia

The CRTC’s Usage-based billing rules will be reviewed by the CRTC, or overturned by the government.

We’re not at the finish line yet, but this is a massive win for all 330,000 of us who signed the Stop The Meter petition.

What we do not know:
1. Will the CRTC review all of it’s UBB decisions pertaining to Indie ISPs or just those pertaining to the specific billing rules?
2. Will UBB be suspended until the CRTC finishes it’s review?
3. Will the CRTC actually do a complete reversal in the end, or will they try to save face by doing a half-measured response (giving the Indie ISPs a better deal on UBB, but not removing it’s imposition)

What we do know:
1. From what the Globe reports, major telecom companies (Bell, Shaw, Rogers, Videotron), will still be allowed to impose UBB on their retail customers
2. They will now face more competition from indie ISPs who will, to some degree, be able to decide on their own pricing.

In short, this is an amazing and unprecedented victory for innovators, entrepreneurs and Canadians of all stripes…. But we are NOT at the finish line. There is nothing that big telecom would like more than to change the channel on this debate. Lets take a minute to pat ourselves on the back, but not this victory act as veil on the work that still needs to be done. Bi

The next round will likely be with the CRTC. We have momentum behind us, we have the government and major opposition parties behind us, we have over 330,000 of us who have taken a firm stand in favour of an accessible open Internet. If we keep the momentum going we can stop the meter, and fix the structural problems in our communications system.

Big telecom lobbyists are waiting to back to business as usual; the backroom meetings, the captured regulator, the uninformed citizenry. Lets not go back there – this has been too fun.

We’re just about there – please keep raising awareness amongst your friends, family and networks – let continue to grow our community of supporters:

To further the point, please submit the following form.
If the below form doesn’t work, go over
here
and fill it out.

Thanks for your continued support and let’s here your comments.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

The things I find while waiting for files to save.
A 5-year-old says he
found
a gun in his father’s car on the way to school.

The young boy, who has since been suspended for an undetermined amount of time, told police that he found the gun in his stepfather’s vehicle on the way to school that morning.

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion this is true?
Oh, that’s right, because in today’s society parent’s don’t give a shit, at all.

Superintendent Tom Townsend says he is unaware if the child realizes the severity of the situation and ultimately, places blame on the child’s parent.

Well hey, he’s only 5, he was curious, and probably wanted to show it to all his friends. Placing blame on the parents, damn straight.
That’s exactly where it belongs.

“As a father that’s raised three kids, I’m responsible for what my 5 year old accesses. So, yes, I think he’s a victim of neglect.”

As a godfather, babysitter, and father to a child that isn’t mine biologically, I *was* responsible for that child(s) actions when that child is/was in my care. so I see where the superintendant’s coming from.

Police say that if the boy’s story proves to be true, the parent could face neglect charges as well as culpable negligence for improperly storing a firearm within the reach of a child.

I’m not doubting the validity of the child’s story, I’m currently wishing the parents jailed for such a stupid action.
The what if’s come to mind, what if the gun had gone off, what if their had been a bullit in the actual chamber… so many possibilities that just, even to me, are extremely scary.
Innocents could have been killed by this parents neglect.
Yes the child was wrong for picking up an unknown object, should he have been suspended? yes, I believe he should have been, just so he knows that what he did was wrong.
Should the parents be held accountable for the unsafe storage of a firearm around a child? Your fucking right they should be.
Taking this a step further, should the child be removed from the home, if it’s determined the parents are irresponsible with firearms? Yes, he should. Why? because it’s an unsafe environment for the child.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

I’m not surprised that miley cirus was
voted
worst celebrity influence of
2010
I’m not surprised.

Miley Cyrus has been voted the worst celebrity influence of 2010.

The 18-year-old singer-and-actress topped the poll for the second year in a row on AOL’s JSYK.com (Just So You Know) — a website targeting nine to 15 year olds — taking 58 per cent of the 99,000 votes.

Although no reasons have been given for Miley receiving the dubious honour, she had a controversial 2010 after video footage showing the ‘Last Song’ star inhaling smoke from a bong — a filtration device usually used for smoking cannabis — was posted on the internet.

Visitors to the website slammed her for her “poor” choices with one user called Leanne saying: “Just because it is legal, doesn’t mean it’s good for you! Like beer, and smoking cigerettes … Those ARE LEGAL but people die from them every day. She’s just not making the right choice.”

Chelsea12Chel wrote: “Really girlfriend you are setting a really BAD example for your fans. They looked up 2 u. And I wanted they 2 look up 2 u, because you are awesome and a really preaty girl. But now I am going to have 2 set down and think about them looking up 2 u. (sic)”

Miley beat off competition from Demi Lovato and Lindsay Lohan, who both entered rehab last year, ‘Teen Mom’ star Amber Portwood, Kanye West and ‘Gossip Girl’ star Chace Crawford who was arrested for possession of marijuana.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

I thought I’d seen it all until
this

WASHINGTON – US coffee chain Starbucks on Wednesday began allowing customers in its US stores to keep their cash and credit cards in their wallets and pay for their drinks with mobile phones.

Starbucks said the mobile payment system, which has been tested in selected cities since last year, was being expanded to the nearly 6,800 Starbucks around the country and the more than 1,000 Starbucks located in Target stores.

While Japanese shoppers have been able to pay by mobile phone for years for certain purchases, the practice is still in its infancy in the United States.

The Seattle, Washington-based Starbucks said its mobile payment program will be the largest in the country.

Starbucks said owners of a Blackberry smartphone, an iPhone or an iPod Touch who have downloaded the free Starbucks Card mobile application can buy drinks by waving their mobile phone at a scanner at the cash register.

The scanner reads an on-screen barcode and debits the purchase from the Starbucks Card, which can be reloaded with funds using a credit card or with PayPal.

“Starbucks anticipates mobile payment will be a draw for customers looking to experience the speed, ease and convenience of paying with their mobile phone,” the company said in a statement.

Google last month unveiled a new mobile phone, the “Nexus S,” powered by its Android software, that allows for another form of mobile payment.

The Nexus S is equipped with a near field communication (NFC) chip that turns the device into a virtual wallet, allowing users to “tap and pay” for financial transactions.

NFC chips store personal data that can be transmitted to readers, say at a shop checkout stand, by tapping a handset on a pad.

Reading that makes me wonder how accessible that app would be ont he iphone with voiceover.
related: aughta check that out while I’m down their. methinks.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

The only thing I can say is it’s time to
reevaluated
your practices, methinks.

LONDON, Ont. – A vicious attack on a woman went on for at least half-an-hour — and it was loud enough to be heard by tenants living on the floor below.

The woman lay in her own blood for more than five hours Tuesday evening, severely beaten, until her roommate came home to find her and called 911.

Now, shaken neighbours wonder why it took police nearly six hours to respond to a call for help. They also hope the assailant is located soon.

“Five hours seems like a long time for the police to get here,” said one friend of the woman.

The victim, believed to be in her late 40s or early 50s, lives on the second floor of a four-storey walk-up.

Police refuse to release her age because they say the detail could identify her and hurt their investigation. Investigators also won’t say whether the woman was sexually assaulted.

But they said she remains in critical condition in hospital.

Police got an initial call from the apartment building at 6:25 p.m. Tuesday, said the building superintendent who placed the first 911 call.

“I told them I had a tenant complaining about loud noises coming from the unit above him. He could hear someone in there but when he went to the door, no one answered. I told (police) we’ve had problems with that tenant before and they said they’d send someone out,” he said.

“I understood they were sending someone right away.”

Another neighbour said the banging went on for about half an hour, loud enough to be heard through the cement floors to the apartment below.

But police didn’t show up until after 11 p.m., when the woman’s roommate returned home and found her unconscious on the floor.

Police first told the media they responded at 11:28 p.m. when they were called about a woman with serious injuries, but they didn’t mention the 6:25 p.m. call.

When questioned about the time lag, Deputy Chief Brent Shea released a prepared statement.

When the first 911 call came in, he said, it was logged as a “Code 3″ call — one that isn’t urgent.

“The London police service confirms that the initial call … was received at 6:26 p.m.,” Shea’s statement said.

“At (that) time information was received from a third party in the building advising of noise coming from a unit. There was no indication from the caller that the occupant was in distress and as a result the call was classified as a non-urgent call and placed in the dispatch queue in order of priority.”

Officers were on their way to the apartment building at 8 p.m. but were redirected to a higher-priority call while en-route, Shea said. The call, now almost two hours old, was again placed in the queue.

“A further 911 call was received at 11:20 p.m. from a caller who entered the unit. Upon notification of the urgency, officers were immediately dispatched,” Shea said.

Witnesses say the woman was taken out on a stretcher, her normally blondish-grey hair dark with blood.

“I’m terrified. Being a woman, I fear for my safety. I’m getting out of here,” said neighbour Janet Gray, who returned home from work early Wednesday morning to find police officers scouring the building for clues.

“I know she led a bit of a (sordid) lifestyle, but I don’t care who you are or what kind of lifestyle you lead, no one deserves to be hurt the way she was,” Gray said. “I’m terrified. My kids saw them take her out, covered in blood.”

Gray and her neighbours said they hope the person responsible for the attack is arrested quickly.

“It takes a real piece of work, for lack of a better word, to do that to a person, especially a woman. That’s no kind of man,” Gray said.

Based on the information they had from the initial caller at 6:25 p.m., police protocol for logging the call as a “Code 3″ were followed, said police spokesperson Const. Dennis Rivest.

Code 2 calls require officers to respond “fairly quickly” but without sirens and lights, and Code 1 calls, the highest priority like car crashes or robberies, require lights and sirens, Rivest said.

Police are still looking for a suspect and remained at the apartment late yesterday afternoon.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

Yet again, I’m reminded why my information on facebook is never kept up to date.
even if a
delay
by facebook to share contact information prevent it from happening, you won’t see me keeping that information up to date, hell no.

Facebook announced on its developer blog on Friday it would begin granting developers access to home addresses and mobile numbers, but the social network followed up with another post on Tuesday saying the move had been put on hold.Photograph by: Justin Sullivan, Getty ImagesFacebook, in its latest privacy flap, on Tuesday delayed a plan to share home addresses and cellphone numbers of its members with outside developers of applications.

Facebook announced on its developer blog on Friday it would begin granting developers access to home addresses and mobile numbers, but the social network followed up with another post on Tuesday saying the move had been put on hold.

“Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data,” said Douglas Purdy, director of developer relations at Facebook.

“We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so,” Purdy said.

“We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready,” he said.

“We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks.”

The change announced Friday would have allowed Facebook members to share their home address and mobile numbers with external websites and third-party developers of applications.

A Facebook user would have had to explicitly choose to share the data before it could be accessed by an application or website, and home addresses and mobile numbers of friends could not be shared.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at computer security firm Sophos, was among those expressing concern about Facebook’s initial move.

“I realize that Facebook users will only have their personal information accessed if they ‘allow’ the app to do so, but there are just too many attacks happening on a daily basis which trick users into doing precisely this,” Cluley said in a blog post.

“Now, shady app developers will find it easier than ever before to gather even more personal information from users,” he said. “You can imagine, for instance, that bad guys could set up a rogue app that collects cellphone numbers.

“The ability to access users’ home addresses will also open up more opportunities for identity theft, combined with the other data that can already be extracted from Facebook users’ profiles,” Cluley said.

Facebook is the world’s most popular social network with nearly 600 million users, but it has been dogged by complaints about privacy protection.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

$90000 would be nifty to have, unless you get
ordered
to pay it back, plus interest.

TORONTO – An Ontario Superior Court Justice has ordered a Port Perry, Ont., man to repay the Toronto-Dominion Bank $90,000 in cash given to him in error by a Stouffville, Ont., branch five years ago.

Two low-ranking bank employees were later fired because of the mistake, made after William Zaparanuik came on Oct. 18, 2005 to pick up a pre-arranged $10,000 he wanted to pay for a used truck.

Staff quickly noticed they had given Zaparanuik $100,000 _ 10 bundles of $100 bills stuffed in a black bag _ $90,000 more than he came for.

But, by that time the sheet metal contractor had left.

The branch’s manager, William McKinney, and a teller drove to Zaparanuik’s work site and asked for the money back.

But he refused, claiming he only received $10,000.

The bank sued.

The branch manager testified that when he arrived at Zaparanuik’s work site, the contractor told him that if he was paid too much money, it was the bank’s fault.

“Mr. McKinney told the defendant that that was not how it worked, and that the defendant would be responsible for the extra money,” wrote Justice Peter Lauwers.

Zaparanuik denied any such conversation took place, testifying that the bank manager was not specific about the problem.

The judge did not believe Zaparanuik.

“His first response, that it was the bank’s mistake and the bank’s fault, shows how Mr. Zaparanuik decided to play the situation,” the judge wrote.

“He made the wrong choice.”

The contractor knew he had been paid $100,000 in error, Lauwers ruled. “He saw it as an opportunity.”

n honest person would have produced all the evidence for the bank immediately, Lauwers wrote. “Instead, he disposed of or destroyed that evidence.”

Lauwers granted Toronto-Dominion Bank $90,000, plus interest.

Acting on the bank’s complaint, police charged him with theft over $5,000, but the Crown later withdrew the charge. It cost him $25,774.85 in legal fees to defend the criminal charge.

guess he won’t be getting that truck now.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

It seems that fairweather is
suing
target over it’s name.

Toronto-based retail chain Fairweather Ltd. has filed a $250-million lawsuit against Target Corporation in federal court, days after the U.S. discount giant announced plans to expand north of the border.

According to documents filed Monday, Fairweather is also requesting an injunction to keep the American firm from using the name Target in Canada, claiming that its expansion north would cause Fairweather to lose customers, devalue the “Target Apparel” name and lose control of its reputation and trademark.

It’s also seeking to have the U.S. retailer surrender ownership of targetapparel.com, which sends users to Target’s American website.

Fairweather has owned the Canadian rights to that name for a decade in Canada, court documents state, and has operated a clothing store with the name “Target Apparel” in Toronto since 2005. It also recently opened retail stores under the name “Target Apparel” in Sudbury, Ont. and Nanaimo, B.C.

The American Target chain announced Thursday that it is paying the Hudson’s Bay Company $1.83 billion to acquire up to 220 Zellers stores from the 279 that are currently open across Canada.

Speculation has been rife the company was considering a move north of the border for some time, but the U.S. company only confirmed its international expansion plans in June of last year.

It had been stymied by the hunt for suitable locations, and most recently, the economic slowdown. Now it will have to contend with a multimillion-dollar copyright dispute.

Target filed a challenge with Canada’s trademark office in July in which it claimed that Fairweather’s owner, International Clothiers, hasn’t been using the Target name.

The Canadian retailer has until the end of February to prove that it has used the name over the past three years, or that it intends to use it, to retain ownership.

Fairweather has not commented on the legal action.

Target spokesperson Jessica Carlson said she could not comment on the pending legal proceedings, but said her company plans to use the same name and logo.

“There really is nothing that prevents Target from using the Target name and branding elements in Canada the same way we do in the United States,” she told The Canadian Press.

In 2005, Fairweather lost ownership of the Target trademark temporarily. The American retailer sought to have it cancelled, which Industry Canada did. But it was restored later, following a ruling by The Federal Court of Appeal.

Target said last week that its Canadian expansion deal won’t mean an immediate end to the Zellers brand, but is rather the first step in opening between 100 and 150 of its own stores here by 2014.

The Minneapolis-based company expects to spend approximately $1 billion to remodel and reopen the existing Zellers stores under its own brand. The company also says it will have hired up to 20,000 people once its stores are operational.

Target’s more than 1,700 stores across the U.S. have long been a favourite of shoppers on the hunt for what the retailer has dubbed “discount-chic.” But it remains to be seen how Target will stack up in Canada.

it’ll be interesting to see the outcome of this.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

catching up on RSS feeds, we have a woman
convicted
of slaughtering her daughter.
The article is vague, but it begs the question, why the hell did you have kids?
Stories like this make me want to kill people like her with a fork.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

So while this child was in the
bath
the mother was on
facebook

.DENVER – An American mother who told police her 13-month-old son drowned in the bathtub while she was playing a game on Facebook was charged Friday with child abuse resulting in death.

Shannon Johnson, 34, of Colorado was advised of the charge against her via a video hookup from the jail where she is being held on a $100,000 bond, said Jennifer Finch, spokeswoman for the Weld County District Attorney’s Office.

Johnson requested a public defender during the brief hearing and another hearing was set for later in the month, Finch said.

Under questioning by police after the boy died at a Denver-area hospital last September, Johnson admitted she placed the baby in the bathtub and went into another room to play the Facebook game “Cafe World.”

She also checked in with friends and watched videos on the site while the boy bathed alone, according to an affidavit filed in the case.

When she didn’t hear any sounds from the boy after 10 minutes, she found him slumped over face down in the bathwater making “gurgling” sounds, according to the affidavit. Johnson then called 911, and the boy was airlifted to the hospital where he was pronounced dead from drowning.

When police arrived at Johnson’s home they found a laptop opened to Facebook.

Johnson told police that she frequently left the boy unattended in the bathtub because he was “independent,” he liked to be left alone, and she didn’t want him to be a “mama’s boy,” according to the affidavit.

Police also questioned the boy’s grandmother, who said he suffered a seizure while she was baby-sitting him a month before he died. She told police she warned her daughter about leaving her grandson alone in the tub after the seizure.

When police asked Johnson about the wisdom of leaving a young child with a history of seizures alone in water, Johnson admitted that “it was so stupid.”

She faces up to 48 years in prison if convicted.

Please convict this bitch,. ok?

Mirrored from shane's rants.

Their are times when I ask myself, does the justice system, really do their jobs?
Not after reading
This

Before he was sentenced for sexually abusing five girls, day care worker Joseph M. Calabrese was interviewed by a probation officer who prepared a report for the judge.

During the conversation, Calabrese, 24, discounted the impact the abuse had on the girls, the probation officer reported. One of the girls, she quoted him as saying, “picked me out.” The other girls, he said, didn’t object to having sexual contact with him and were “OK with it.”
But one of the girls, now a teenager, faced Calabrese in court Friday as he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, telling him that his abuse of her and her sister in their home had devastated them.
“I want my sister’s innocence back,” she said. “The day you can give that back, you will be forgiven in my eyes.”

Calabrese pleaded guilty in October to abusing the girls, ages five to 12, over a four-year period that ended last year when one of the girls came forward.
Three were abused at Generations day care centers in Irondequoit, Fairport and Rochester, where Calabrese worked. Two were abused in their Penfield home, where Calabrese was babysitting them after he befriended their family.
Assistant District Attorney Sara Van Strydonck said Calabrese’s words to the probation officer weren’t unusual.

“A lot of times offenders will minimize their conduct,” she said. “That’s always shocking, but it’s certainly nothing I haven’t heard before.”
Calabrese’s lawyer, Meredith Lamb, said Calabrese accepted responsibility to avoid putting the girls through a trial.

“My client offers no excuses today but begs for forgiveness from everyone who has suffered as a result of his poor judgment,” she said.
Calabrese chose not to speak when given the chance.

“She said what I wanted to say,” he said, referring to his lawyer.

Calabrese pleaded guilty to single counts of first- and second-degree course of sexual conduct against a child and three counts of first-degree sexual abuse. All of the charges are felonies.
He also faced a more-serious charge of predatory sexual assault against a child, which could have resulted in a life prison term.

But the prosecution allowed him to plead guilty to the other charges, with the consent of the girls’ families, to avoid a trial.
Citing tearful statements by the mothers of two of the girls and the grandmother of another before the sentencing, state Supreme Court Justice Joseph D. Valentino said Calabrese’s actions affected more than the girls.
“It wasn’t just the children you preyed upon, but their entire families were victimized,” he said.

So all this stupid twit gets is 15 years? I think he should have gotten life.
I hate people like him, for the record

Mirrored from shane's rants.

I was utterly appalled to read a story while browsing the news this morning that TMobile in the UK is
cutting
their data plans expinentially.

“T-Mobile in the UK has revealed a new fair use policy, cutting caps from 1GB and 3GB to 500MB, saying mobile browsing doesn’t include videos or large downloads. ‘If you want to download, stream and watch video clips, save that stuff for your home broadband,’ the company said.

In other words TMobile, at least in the UK, has decided to revert to the 1990′s.
Welcome to a step backwards, much?
It gets better.

Any user that goes over the new limit won’t be charged, but will be blocked from downloading or streaming for the rest of the month.”

why! this is the 1st I’ve heard of a provider *ctting* you off for exceeding your limitations.
Another thing, that needs to be answered, are you still gonna charge your customers the same prices? for a plan who’s issentially had it’s nuts chopped off by this?
TMobile UK, get your head outta your ass and get the hell back into the 21st century or get the hell outta the way.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

Over my years of attending the W. Ross Macdonald school, we always had fire drills on a monthly bases, sometimes planned, sometimes caused by some stupid deaf blind twerp pulling the alarm.
I could tell stories about those deaf blind people pulling the fire alarm, but that’s not what this post is about.
back to the main topic of this post.
I never thought I’d see the day where the school firesystem would actually
serve
a purpose other than be a toy for the deaf blind
But last sunday, it turned out that it
did
Here’s the article in it’s entirety

BRANTFORD (BCN) – Damage caused by a weekend fire at the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind has been pegged at between $400,000 and $450,000.

Brantford fire prevention officer Darren Zettler said the blaze damaged two second-floor classrooms and a preparatory room.

A monitored alarm system alerted fire crews to the blaze at 4:51 a.m. on Sunday. With the exception of security personnel, the Brant Avenue school was empty at the time of the fire.

Zettler said the fire is believed to have started in a preparatory room that adjoins two classrooms. Most of the damage is located in the preparatory room, but smoke damage spread to the classrooms, he said.

Potential causes of the fire have been narrowed down to an electrical failure, overloaded power bar or someone unintentionally leaving an appliance on.

“We are leaning toward the first, but haven’t made a final determination yet,” Zettler said.

we here at the blog will be following this story, as it develops, and we thank
Carin Headrick
for tossing this initial link at us.
related: I feel like blaming some teacher for leaving an appliance on, why, because most of them, would be that stupid. at least, the ones that I hated, in my day

Mirrored from shane's rants.

So yesterday everyone and their mother was wining about
facebook shutting down
but sadly, it’s
not
so please do be shutting your mouth and do your research before you wine.
More proof that the claim was
false
can be found right
over here
so in short, please get your facts straight before believing things like
this
thanks for coming out to play, though.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

We start out today… with yet another clue.
This is what… the 2nd day in a row?
Doing the morning cruise through RSS feeds, we find a mother that got charged for an amber alert, why? because the mother decided to use her kid as
insurance
so a man would return her car.
Then she claimed the child was abducted, oh yeah, this is just brilliant.
Have the article in full.

The Elmira mother charged after the city’s first use of the Amber Alert system used her 3-year-old son as “insurance” when she loaned an acquaintance her car, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Stephanie A. Davila, 33, of South Walnut Street, was also accused of lying to police as they were looking for her son, Jacob Ryan Rubin Davila.
Law enforcement officials said the mother loaned her car to a man she didn’t know well and made him take the boy so he would return the vehicle.
The boy, who was reported missing Tuesday night, was found unharmed Wednesday morning at a motel room in Henrietta, a suburb of Rochester.
Stephanie Davila and the man accused of taking Jacob Davila, Quentin M. Singletary, 26, of Rochester, were both charged Wednesday with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. They are scheduled to appear at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Elmira City Court.
“Right now, I feel we’ve got appropriate charges filed,” Chemung County District Attorney Weeden Wetmore said Thursday, adding that he’d spoken in detail with Capt. Joe Kain, commander of the Elmira Detective Bureau, about the investigation.
The misdemeanor complaint against Stephanie Davila accuses her of misleading police as they looked for her son.
“When the patrol originally went over there, she flat-out told us it was an abduction of her child against her wishes,” Kain said.
That information led police to issue an Amber Alert, saying that Jacob Davila had been abducted, Kain said.
“It wasn’t until we interviewed some of her other kids, and some of the information was able to be obtained to find out that she actually did give him (Singletary) consent to take her car and one of her children,” Kain said.
Another charge may be coming: Wetmore said he may charge Singletary with unlawful imprisonment, but Davila’s actions the night Jacob Davila went missing might stand in the way.
“(Davila) insisted that (Singletary) take her son when he took the car, as insurance that he would return the car,” Wetmore said, adding that that was the reason for her charge.

“He never intended to kidnap (Jacob), or anything. He just took the kid and went to do his business in Rochester,” Wetmore said.

Wetmore said he charged Singletary with endangering “because he had the kid legitimately, but for whatever reason he decided to go off to Rochester.”
Wetmore said he didn’t know why Singletary went to Rochester with Jacob Davila, and said Stephanie Davila also didn’t know.
“She didn’t want to know what his business was,” Wetmore said.
“According to her, she thought he was just going to a local Burger King. She let her son go off.”
Kain said there is no evidence Singletary’s trip to Rochester was related to drug trafficking.
He said there may have been some drug paraphernalia in the motel room in Henrietta where deputies found the boy, but Singletary and Jacob Davila had only been in that room for a few minutes. He said they stayed in a different room at the motel.
When deputies found Jacob Davila, they questioned Singletary, one man and two women.
Kain said the three other adults whom deputies found in the room “knew nothing about Quentin Singletary … abducting a kid or anything like that. They knew (Jacob) as his girl’s baby, so they never questioned anything about it. He just kind of hung out up there with them.”
Though the three other adults in the motel room may have thought the boy belonged to Singletary’s girlfriend, Kain said he didn’t know whether he and Stephanie Davila actually had a romantic relationship.
He said the two met about two weeks ago and had seen each other a few times since then.
“Quentin didn’t even know the boy’s name,” Kain said. “If he had to think for a while, it would come to him. … (Davila) doesn’t know him; he doesn’t know nothing about her.
“That’s his lifestyle, just come and go and do his own thing. He’s not accountable to anybody …,” Kain said.
Kain said Singletary has a criminal history but didn’t elaborate except to say that Singletary had never been arrested in Elmira.
Police said they fielded perhaps thousands of calls after issuing the Amber Alert. Kain said two of those callers provided information that helped locate Jacob Davila. He said he planned to talk to both.
“They did an outstanding job and it helped us out immensely, so I’d like to commend them in whatever way I can,” Kain said.
“It’s nice when people step up and do the right thing, especially when it’s a good cause: the protecting and the saving of a little kid.”

So in short, the man in question, Kain, isn’t being charged, unless I’m missing something, and the mother is.
Please do be taking the rest of her kids to, ok?
Related: I hate stupid people, stop failing, please? thanks.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

wel, their are people that just don’t like snow.
This
driver
didn’t, and greyhound passengers aren’t very
happy
about it, and with good reason.

Angry Greyhound passengers are considering a lawsuit after claiming they were abandoned for 14 hours in northern Ontario.

More than 100 people were on the bus when it stopped at a gas station in White River on Sunday morning, reported The Toronto Star.

Those on the bus were told by the driver to sit tight, because it was snowing out.

He then checked into a nearby motel, allegedly leaving them to fend for themselves.

They were forced to wait until 5 p.m. the following day, with little information about about what was happening, passengers said.

The company said they are investigating.

so in other words, the driver was too goddamn lazy to do his/her job.
Please, do be firing this driver. thanks.
related: I’ll still travel on greyhound for the soul purpose of it won’t kill my wallet.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

so waking up, I’m going through RSS feeds.
A captain who was thirsty overturned a
cup of coffee
causing an emergency landing in Toronto.

It turns out a spilled cup of coffee is what caused a United Airlines flight bound for Frankfurt, Germany, to make an emergency landing at Pearson International Airport earlier this week.

Flight 940 with 241 passengers on board was en route from Chicago when the pilot experienced problems with the plane’s communication equipment.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration informed Transport Canada that the problem occurred after the pilot in command overturned a cup of coffee on the aircraft’s radio system.

United Airlines spokesperson Rahsaan Johnson said the captain and crew felt it was safer to land in Toronto rather than continue the flight with broken radio signals.

Another plane took the disappointed passengers back to Chicago where they were able to board another flight to Germany. They were provided with lodging and meals.

lesson learned here? no coffee on the flight deck.
The stupid, it hurts.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

people always ask me, why won’t you buy a mac.
My simple answer, I’m happy with what I’ve got.
If I want to play in the mac environment I’ll crank it up in a VM.
Well, I’ve found another reason.
Reading RSS feeds, we see that an apple
service provider is
suing
a customer for complaining online.

An Apple authorized Service Provider called System Graph is suing a customer who complained online about poor service from them. The customer Dimitrios Papadimitriadis took his iMac to them because he was seeing gray spots on his LED panel.

The Greek company System Graph recommended a full interior cleaning of the iMac and performed the service for Dimitrios. He then got his iMac back and noticed moisture behind the screen and that it still did not work properly and took it back to the repair center. System Graph then told him that they needed to keep his iMac to replace the LED screen and he would be without it for another week.

Dimitrios was now angry and demanded that his iMac be replaced pursuant to Article 540 of the Civil Code and section 5 of Act 2251. System Graph refused saying they were not the original retailer that he purchased the iMac from.

Dimitros has posted the entire story on a forum (Google Translated) and is now being sued by System Graph for 200,000 euros which is approximately $267,000 USD for slandering their good name. He has already gotten a large amount of support on both twitter and the forum.

What I don’t understand is what the company System Graph expects to get out of this suit. They will not be clearing their name by suing a customer, and what will Apple think if one of their Authorized Service Provider is suing an Apple customer. With the explosion of this news all over the web it will undoubtedly bring more attention to the company than they ever wanted.

if that’s the level of service we get from authorized apple dealers? Thanks, but no thanks apple, I’ll stick with windows, even though it does suck.
I’d rather avoid getting sued, when I file a valid complaint.
Apple, time to clean house, k? get rid of that service provider and i *might* consider switching, unlikely, but it had to be said.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

and here, we go again.
TSA, seriously
agaain

The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.

He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.

Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff’s deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.

At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot’s gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A follow-up letter from the sheriff’s department said the CCW permit would be reevaluated following the outcome of the federal investigation.

The YouTube videos, posted Nov. 28, show what the pilot calls the irony of flight crews being forced to go through TSA screening while ground crew who service the aircraft are able to access secure areas simply by swiping a card.

“As you can see, airport security is kind of a farce. It’s only smoke and mirrors so you people believe there is actually something going on here,” the pilot narrates.

Video shot in the cockpit shows a medieval-looking rescue ax available on the flight deck after the pilots have gone through the metal detectors. “I would say a two-foot crash ax looks a lot more formidable than a box cutter,” the pilot remarked.

A letter from the TSA dated Dec. 6 informed the pilot that “an administrative review into your deputation status as a Federal Flight Deck Officer has been initiated.”

According to the letter, the review was directly related to the discovery by TSA staff of the YouTube videos. “The content and subject of these videos may have violated regulations concerning disclosure of sensitive security information,” the letter said.

The pilot’s attorney, Don Werno of Santa Ana, said he believed the federal government sent six people to the house to send a message.

“And the message was you’ve angered us by telling the truth and by showing America that there are major security problems despite the fact that we’ve spent billions of dollars allegedly to improve airline safety,” Werno said.

The pilot said he is not in trouble with his airline, but a supervisor asked him to remove public access to the YouTube videos.

He does, however, face potential civil penalties from the TSA. He said he would likely go public when it becomes clear what the government plans to do with him.
He still hasn’t gone public, but further research indicates he did resign as an FFDO. from this article we have:

The pilot said he had resigned his position as an FFDO and was told by a TSA representative the resignation would result in the case being closed. The pilot’s attorney, Don Werno, said he was waiting for formal written confirmation.

In my opinion, why should he have to resign his job, because he showed flaws in a security system? it doesn’t make sense.
from the same article we have this

Current regulations require flight crews to pass through a TSA checkpoint, while ground crews can gain access to the same aircraft simply by swiping a card at an unmanned door.

“How effective is security when everybody on board is screened and everybody on the ground isn’t?” the pilot asked.

How safe do I feel now knowing that?
Should the ground crew not go through *the exact* same screening everyone else does?
I stand behind my previous claims, I’ll stay with greyhound, at least, until such time, as stuff like this is put in place for ground transportation.
Then I may just stop traveling crossboarder all together.
TSA, kindly, die.

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Mirrored from shane's rants.

Their are times in my life, when I am thankful to not actually live in ma, this time, especially in brooklynn, ma.
the words of the constitution according to schoolboard officials in the above named city are
contrivertial
yeah. that’s right.
to quote the article

A public school in Brookline, Massachusetts is bringing back the Pledge of Allegiance. Except now, in a move that suggests the recitation and its words are controversial, the school is requiring parents to sign a permission slip so their kids can participate.

According to the article, it’s supposedly a constitutional mandate, but I’m not american so I wouldn’t know.
and this parent, has it right.

“It’s uncomfortable. The pledge is a promise, and I’ve always taught my kids to think very carefully before making any promise. It’s not a decision I want to make for them,” parent Judi Puritz Cook, who has two sons at Devotion School, told the Brookline Tab.

your an american citizen, is the pledge not how you got your freedoms?
Am I missing something?
Please, give your thoughts and comments.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

so cruising through rss feeds, brings me to a question.
Are people in this day in age, really, that hard up for money?
This
woman
must be, as she’s suing google for strreetview photos…. of…. that’s right, her underwear!
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Your gonna sue because the google car photographed your underwear on the clothesline?
You also lost your job?
I wouldn’t wanna work for your former boss.
oh, and you had to move?
Guess your landlord sucks, yeah?
The things people will do for money these days.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

Me and my rss scrolling catching up on the past day’s worth of feeds since the 19th, brought me to this
article
regarding an $80-million lawsuit that Jo-Anne Blair is filing against both the housing company and the property management company of the building on 200 welsley street.
As you may or may not know, some 1500+ people were ripped from their homes back in september when a massive 6 alarm blaze ripped through this downtown highrise.
I personally know one person that’s been effected in this building, but you, my dear readers, may no many, many more.
What brought this to my attention was the article that
680 news
referenced.
That national post article is linked
here
and quoted below in it’s entirety.
My comments and thoughts will follow the article.

Wellesley fire victim files $80-million lawsuit

Aaron Lynett/National Post
Jo-Anne Blair stands outside of her fire-damaged building at 200 Wellesley Street East in Toronto, Friday evening, November 12, 2010. Blair has filed a class action lawsuit against Toronto Community Housing over the fire.
December 18, 2010 – 10:00 am

Jo-Anne Blair has a hard time sleeping at night. She constantly checks to see that her smoke alarm is working. The wail of a fire truck sends her into a fit of panic and she smells things burning even when nothing is.

It has been nearly three months since a fire ripped through a high-rise building on Wellesley Street and forced some 1,500 people to flee their homes. Most have been able to return, but not Ms. Blair, who lived across the hall from the purported epicentre of the blaze. She was marooned on her balcony for six hours before firefighters gave her a thumbs-up through the sliding door and escorted her out through water that came up past their ankles.

A week later, Toronto Community Housing had relocated her to a townhouse near Main and Danforth, where she’s had to “beg, borrow and steal to get some furniture to sit on.” Grateful for her share of the donations collected from across the city, she longs to return home.“You can sit at your table in the morning and can have your coffee. You go to bed at night and you have your own pillow,” said Ms. Blair, a former bookkeeper who lived at 200 Wellesley since 1984. “When you get up in the morning, do you look at your children’s pictures [or] your personals that belong to you?”

She is spearheading a lawsuit against Toronto Community Housing Corporation, which owns the complex, and Greenwin Property Management, which looked after it, alleging they breached their duty of care. She is suing both parties for $80-million, with the intent that the proceedings are certified as a class-action.

Ashley Hutcheson for National Post
.In a statement of claim filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Ms. Blair alleges that she, “on several occasions,” alerted Greenwin to the potential fire hazard caused by a neighbour’s “hoarding” of stacks of paper and other material.

Fire officials initially said a lot of combustible material in a unit on the 24th floor appeared to be fuelling the flames, but the cause remains unknown. The Office of the Ontario Fire Marshall is investigating.
“Notwithstanding these warnings, Greenwin failed to make any, or did make inadequate attempts, if any, to remedy the problem,” according to the statement of claim. It alleges the defendants failed to keep the building up to fire, or safety codes (her fire alarm did not go off) and didn’t help occupants obtain adequate shelter, food or medicine in the aftermath of the crisis.

“It’s not about being uncaring, because I don’t think TCHC is uncaring. I think they care, they’re in the social housing business,” said Brian Shell, Ms. Blair’s lawyer. “I think it’s about the inability to effectively reach out to the community at a moment of high stress and tension. It may be an issue of expertise, or it may be just an issue of lack of creativity. Too many things going on. They are focused on how to figure out how to dry off the building, but they’ve forgotten they have hundreds of people spread out across the city.”

A spokesman for Greenwin said it was “prudent” not to comment on a matter that is before the courts. Mitzie Hunter, chief administrator for the housing authority, similarly would not discuss allegations made in the suit.

She said TCH has done everything in its power to help.

“We’ve provided alternative housing, food vouchers, transit passes. Immediately following, there was assistance through the Canadian Red Cross, the Salvation Army, all of the agencies throughout the city. So we certainly want to ensure that tenants have the support they need,” said Ms. Hunter. Toronto public health has been on scene, she said, there is an onsite information desk, a 24-hour hotline and frequent newsletter updates.

In recent weeks, TCH has also offered tenants a voluntary compensation package, while admitting no liability. Tenants who live in a bachelor apartment are eligible to receive $3,300; a two bedroom gets $5,300, plus additional amounts for each occupant for the unit. They have until Jan. 21 to sign up for a cheque. In exchange, tenants give up their right to participate in the class-action suit, which lawyers say is unlikely to be certified before the Jan. 21 deadline.

“We’ve offered to help on a compassionate basis so that tenants can return to their normal lives as soon as possible,” said Ms. Hunter, who noted that former Chief Justice of Ontario Roy McMurtry, Senior Counsel for TCH solicitors Gowlings, has endorsed the plan over what could be an otherwise lengthy legal battle.

Ms. Blair may very well be reliving the day for much longer.

“To this day I will never ever be placed in another apartment. I don’t trust anybody with anything. I’m constantly having nightmares like I’m trapped and I can’t get out.”

I can understand the stress, the heartache, and the sense of loss that accompanies such a tragidy.
What I can’t understand is, why this individual feels that on top of the already high stress levels on both the tennants, and the management/property management companies, does she think she needs to file a lawsuit?
Reading the article above, and having been following this since the morning of the fire in question, I feel that everyone that can do something, has done all they can, and will continue to provide as much aid, and help as needed to bring all the tennants back to their homes.
We may never know what started this fire, or who’s responsible for it, but ladies and gentlemen, common sense should prevale in this troubling time, and instead of suing people, find ways to survive, and allow the company(s) to get back to the job of bringing you back to your home, or relocate you to another home.
TCHC, and it’s partners are doing everything in their power to get everyone back, and lawsuits like this, only slow the process.
I welcome your comments.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

their comes a time, wherein the three letters WTF, barely scratch the surface.
This holds true when reading about
the adult who decided to fake autistic behavior
in order to become sexually aroused when
babysitters changed his diapers.
in summary, the individual in question admitted to conning babysitters by posing as autistic so they’d take care of him.

An Oklahoma City man seeking sexual stimulation acted severely autistic and wore diapers to con baby sitters into caring for him, police reported.

Are you that hard up for sex? for serious?
the charges range from one fellany count of sexual battery to 7 missdemeener counts of outraging public decency.
Their aren’t words to describe my feelings right now.
Their are lifestyles that incorperate these things, adult babies, etc. because yes, in my times of bordum I’ve read about it, go use google, their’s loads of information about those lifestyles, and groups of people that are into this, but kindly, quit stocking babysitters just to get your sexual jolly’s.
Find a partner that you can spend your life with, and be happy, and that excepts you for who you are, and that sorta thing, and don’t use places like
craigslist
to get a boner.
this one needs to be locked up. perminantly .

Mirrored from shane's rants.

I read
this
earlier today on
james
blog.
Then I ran across
this
story that in it’s summary stated

Yahoo will not shut down Delicious and instead is trying to sell it to another company. At least, that’s what Yahoo wrote on the Delicious blog Friday, a day after reports circulated that it planned to shut down the social bookmarking pioneer.

so I did some digging, and followed this link to a
blog post
and I give it to you in it’s entirety.

Many of you have read the news stories about Delicious that began appearing yesterday. We’re genuinely sorry to have these stories appear with so little context for our loyal users. While we can’t answer each of your questions individually, we wanted to address what we can at this stage and we promise to keep you posted as future plans get finalized.

Is Delicious being shut down? And should I be worried about my data?

- No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.

What is Yahoo! going to do with Delicious?

- We’re actively thinking about the future of Delicious and we believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service and our users. We’re in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now. And we’ll share our plans with you as soon as we can.

What if I want to get my bookmarks out of Delicious right away?

- As noted above, there’s no reason to panic. We are maintaining Delicious and encourage you to keep using it. That said, we have export options if you so choose. Additionally, many services provide the ability to import Delicious links and tags.

We can only imagine how upsetting the news coverage over the past 24 hours has been to many of you. Speaking for our team, we were very disappointed by the way that this appeared in the press. We’ll let you know more as things develop.

it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the coming weeks and month’s.

Mirrored from shane's rants.

I’ve been unleashed on the world of RSS feeds. Can you tell?
this news item
that I read, I looked at it and went, um, someone’s made of money, and really bored.
To summarize, the referenced article talks about the worlds largest leggo ship, spanning an impressive 23 feet long.
I had a lot of leggo as a child, but that much leggo? no, not really.
I want that much leggo, that would make for some awsome times.
Yes I’m still a child at heart.
get over it.
grins.

Mirrored from shane's rants!.

so, again, we find
this
while bouncing through the RSS feeds.
For your reading pleasure I shove the article in it’s entirety at your faces, see below the article for my comments.

Don’t look now, but the Toronto Maple Leafs are first in the Eastern Conference and are enjoying the view from atop the overall league standings.

Yes, the team that finished 29th in the NHL last season are off to a start nobody believed could happen.

Toronto has stormed out of the gate with three straight victories, erasing memories of last season’s horrendous start. Let’s not forget, it took the Leafs 15 games before they notched win number three last year.

To add fire to the early-season hopes, the last time the Leafs started the season 3-0 in 1999-2000, they ended up winning the Northeast Division title.

And a win on Friday night in New York against the Rangers would certainly give Leaf fans pause to think back to the good old days of the 1993-94 season, when the Maple Leafs went unbeaten in their first four games en route to 10 consecutive victories.

So what gives?

A lot of things have had to come together for this surprise start, including luck, which anyone will tell you is a big part of the game.

First is goaltending.

By this time last year, Vesa Toskala had earned the right to steal former Canadiens goalie Andre Racicot’s dubious nickname, “Red Light Racicot.” Last season, Toskala was certainly deserving of the “red light” moniker as opposing players lit the lamp behind him with ease.

In contrast, veteran J.S. Giguere has solidified Toronto’s goaltending. And just as important, he has taken the pressure off back-up Jonas Gustavsson, which is allowing the young goaltender to learn the ropes at his own pace.

Next on the list is scoring.

In the 4-3 triumph over Pittsburgh on Wednesday, 10 different Leafs found their way onto the score sheet. A year ago, that would have never happened. Back then, scoring by committee was more theory than reality.

The Maple Leafs are getting goals from summer pick-ups like Kris Versteeg and Clarke MacArthur. MacArthur in particular has been a revelation on the second line. He, along with Nikolai Kulemin and Mikhail Grabovski, gives the Leafs solid secondary scoring, something the team was sorely lacking last season.

Special teams are also doing what they’re supposed to do — put the puck in and keep the puck out.

Toronto’s penalty killers, among the worst in the NHL last season, are grouped in with the best at this early point of the season. Through their 3-0 start, the penalty killing success rate currently sits at an impressive 90 per cent.

Last and by no means least is what you don’t see on the scoreboard or in black and white in the standings.

When it became apparent that something was horribly wrong with his team, general manager Brian Burke dealt with the so-called “Blue and White disease” — the lackadaisical approach to winning that infected previous Leaf teams.

You won’t find this malady in the Mayo Clinic’s list of deadly illnesses but what Burke has done is chase away the players who cared more about playing for themselves than they did about doing what it takes to win.

Having guys who care about winning is perhaps the most important dynamic that’s changed in the Maple Leafs dressing room from this time last year. It has certainly shown in the added hustle, shot-blocking, and determination that’s been injected by muckers like Tim Brent and Mike Brown. And the attitude change has given the paying public reason to believe that Ron Wilson hasn’t lost it as an NHL head coach who can motivate his troops.

As for the future, Burke made a move that bodes well for Toronto as he plots how to make the playoffs. By sending defenceman Jeff Finger to the minors, Burke cleared about $4.73 million in much-needed cap space. The GM is now in a better position to acquire a scorer than he was when his team began the season.

So will the Leafs’ success last?

No, but it doesn’t matter.

The fact the Leafs are 3-0 is a welcomed surprise, and gives long-suffering Leaf fans some much needed hope.

“Everyone keeps bringing up last year,” defenceman Dion Phaneuf said after beating Pittsburgh. “Well, it doesn’t really matter right now. We’re focused on this group and this year.”

Enjoy the ride, while it lasts.

Frankly, reading that, yes, their is some hope, but as said
here
it’s early in the season and things can, and will, change.
Their has been a lot of better plays happening, better penalty killing, just overall *better* teamwork, then last year, will this bring them to the top and into the stanly cup finals? who knows. For now we’re on top, but can we stay in the right spot to make the finals.
We’ll most deffinitly find out as the season progresses.
that’s it, for now.

Mirrored from shane's rants!.

The following text is taken from the printer friendly version of

this article

Mississippi school sued after prom cancelled over lesbian couple

March 12, 2010

Shelia Byrd

JACKSON-An 18-year-old lesbian student who wanted to take her girlfriend to her senior prom is asking a federal judge to force her Mississippi school district reinstate the dance it cancelled rather than let the couple attend.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen, who said she faced some unhappy classmates after the Itawamba County School District said it wouldn’t host the April 2 prom.

“Somebody said, ‘Thanks for ruining my senior year.’” McMillen said of her reluctant return Thursday to Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton.

The lawsuit seeks a court order for the school to hold the prom. It also asks that McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend, who also is a student at the school, and wear the tuxedo.

The district’s decision Wednesday came after the ACLU demanded that officials change a policy banning same-sex prom dates because it said it violated students’ rights. The ACLU said the district violated McMillen’s free expression rights by not letting her wear a tux.

McMillen said she never expected the district to respond the way it did.

“A lot of people said that was going to happen, but I said, they had already spent too much money on the prom” to cancel it, she said.

McMillen said she didn’t want to go back to Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton the morning after the decision, but her father told her she needed to face her classmates.

“My daddy told me that I needed to show them that I’m still proud of who I am,” McMillen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “The fact that this will help people later on, that’s what’s helping me to go on.”

The school board statement said it wouldn’t host the event “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events” but didn’t mention McMillen. District officials didn’t return calls seeking comment Thursday.

At least one supporter has offered to help McMillen and her classmates hold an alternate prom.

New Orleans hotel owner Sean Cummings told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson he was so disappointed with the school board’s decision he offered to transport the students in buses to the city and host a free prom at one of his properties.

“New Orleans, we’re a joyful culture and a creative culture here and, if the school doesn’t change its mind, we’d be delighted to offer them a prom in New Orleans,” he told the newspaper. “Concluding your high school experience should be a joyful one. One shouldn’t conclude that experience with all their friends on a negative note.”

Same-sex prom dates and cross-dressing are new issues for many high schools around the country, said Daryl Presgraves, a spokesman for GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a Washington-based advocacy group.

“A lot of schools actually react rather than do the research and find out what the rights of these students are,” said Presgraves.

In 2002, a gay student sued his school district in Toronto to allow him to attend a prom with his boyfriend. A judge later forced the district to allow the couple to attend and stopped the district from cancelling the prom.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said a bill he’s introduced in Congress would make it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian school students. He said at least 10 states have such laws, and his bill is modeled after those.

“This situation with the prom is a perfect example of why we need to protect students from discrimination. In this case it’s a prom. It other cases, it’s getting beaten up or killed,” Polis said.

The school district had said it hoped a privately sponsored prom could be held.

Southside Baptist Church Pastor Bobby Crenshaw said he’s seen the South portrayed as “backwards” on Web sites discussing the issue, “but a lot more people here have biblically based values.”

Itawamba County is a rural area of about 23,000 people in north Mississippi near the Alabama state line. It’s near Pontotoc County, Miss., where more than a decade ago school officials were sued in federal court over their practice of student-led intercom prayer and Bible classes.

It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this.

Mirrored from shane's rants!.