Fool’s News

Last night, I was surfing the web and came across a blog entry disussing http://www.writely.com.  I had not heard of  Writely.com previously so I checked it out.  It is a Google product/service.

It is basically an online word processor, with most of the common features you would expect from a word processor.  It’s pretty neat.  You can write your document and save it online for future access from any computer.

The concept is kind of neat, but I kept thinking about how I could use it.  It wouldn’t help me much.  In light of the travelling I do, the most beneficial service would be internet access on trains and planes.

For you Blogger users, you can write your posts with Writely.com and automatically post it to your Blogger blog (of course, Blogger is also a Google company).

So, I like the concept of Writely.com and thinks it’s pretty cool, but I’m still not sure how useful on a daily basis it would be.  Check it out.

Mainland China has opened its first halfway house for Internet addicts, offering shell-shocked teenagers counselling, books — and the use of computers.

The shelter can hold four minors for one-night stays and help bridge gaps between children and parents, the Shanghai Daily said.

“None of the teenagers are forced to come here,” the newspaper quoted Wang Hui, the house’s chief social worker, as saying.

“We wander around in nearby Internet bars at night and bring them to the halfway house if the teen agrees.”

Computer and online gaming has exploded in China in recent years, with an estimated 14 million people taking part.

According to this article, comedian Jackie Mason, has filed a $2 million lawsuit against Jews for Jesus for distributing pamphlets featuring an image of Mason next to the words “Jackie Mason … A Jew for Jesus!?” with information inside that outlines the similarities between Jews and Christians.

“The pamphlet uses my name, my likeness, my ‘shtick’ (if you will), and my very act, which is derived from my personality, to attract attention and converts,” Mason said in an affidavit.

Susan Perlman, a spokeswoman for Jews for Jesus, said the pamphlet was “good-natured.”

“Shame on him for getting so upset about this,” she said Friday.

Oh Ms. Perlman!  Shame on him?!?!  Seriously.  How can you come to such a conclusion in light of Jews for Jesus’s own recent lawsuit?  (See here, too.)  Jews for Jesus sued to secure the blog site http://jewsforjesus.blogspot.com, which was apparently inactive until the lawsuit was filed. The suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in New York in 2005, sought to force Google to give Jews for Jesus control of the site as well as unspecified monetary damages.

This case recently settled, whereby Jews for Jesus did get control of http://jewsforjesus.blogspot.com/.  [Perhaps the former user of http://jewsforjesus.blogspot.com/ will register a form of "sucks" URL such as http://jewsforjesussucks.blogspot.com/ or http://ihatejewsforjesus.blogspot.com/ and continue to exercise his/her/its First Amendment rights.]

So, Ms. Perlman, I say to you:  “Shame on you for getting so upset about” someone criticizing your organization.  Hypocrite!

More links:

»  Another link
»  Original complaint

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against Centaur Entertainment, Inc. Centaur has produced dance music CDs, including CDs showcasing DJs appearing at popular LGBT events such as the annual Winter Party Festival in Miami’s South Beach.
The suit cites trademark infringement, unfair competition, false representation, fraud and violation of related federal and state laws, among other claims.

Over the last 13 years, the Winter Party has generated nearly $1.5 million in grants to Miami-Dade organizations serving the LGBT community. The Task Force claims since it assumed responsibility for the event and the Miami Recognition Dinner, more than $300,000 has been donated to the Dade Community Foundation to re-grant to local LGBT organizations.

According to the lawsuit, in 2006 Centaur obtained a trademark registration for “Winter Party” for its own benefit by making false representations to the United States Trademark Office. Since then, the Task Force says Centaur has refused to yield the Winter Party trademark and has threatened the Task Force and its more recently licensed producer of the annual CD.

Standard & Poor’s, a division of McGraw Hill, has filed a lawsuit against Pascale Hall, the owner and operator of Standard & Pours Coffee & Stocks, a 3-year-old coffee shop and live music venue in South Dallas, Texas.

In the lawsuit:

the McGraw-Hill subsidiary demands that Pascale Hall, Standard & Pours’ owner, pay S&P three times the revenue their company lost due to confusion over the names and three times her company’s profits — all because her shop’s similar name has damaged S&P’s “impeccable” reputation for “accuracy, reliability and integrity.”

In a statement, Standard & Poor’s stated:

We appreciate Ms. Hall’s predicament, but we must make every effort to ensure that our valuable brand is not diluted or misused.

A spokesman declined to elaborate on the release, which repeated the claim that Hall has profited from the Standard & Poors name.

As of yesterday, the Three Year’s of Hell blog is no more.  Anthony has finished law school and, “like that…he is gone.”

It was a pleasure to read his thoughts even when I didn’t agree with him.  Despite my absence from writing for a which, I still did manage to read a few blogs, including Anthony’s.

And with that, I wish him a fond farewell and best of luck with his future endeavors.  You can read some of the projects he’s considering here.

Apparently the so-called “morning after” pill, trademark:  Plan-B, will become available over-the-counter.  However, women will have to prove that they are over 18 years old.

I’ll say it again:  I agree.

 Astronomers in Prague, Czech Republic have decided today that Pluto is not a planet, after having been so for 76 years.  Pluto has been a planet since its discovery in 1930.

Now, after apparently intense debate, Pluto will be known as a “dwarf” planet.  In some ways, this makes me wonder about the arrogance of human kind.  As the expression goes, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…well, you know….

Heaven forbid our definition of what is a planet is wrong.  No.  That couldn’t be.  No.  It must be that Pluto is no longer a planet since our definition is infallible.

So, did the universe just get a little smaller?

Cook County prosecutors say a 29-year-old man traveling with his mother desperately didn’t want her to know he’d packed a sexual aid for their trip to Turkey. So he told security it was a bomb, officials said.

Madin Azad Amin was stopped by officials on Aug. 16 after guards found an object in his baggage that resembled a grenade, prosecutors said.

When officers asked him to identify it, Amin said it was a bomb, said Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Lorraine Scaduto.

He later told officials he’d lied about the item because his mother was nearby and he didn’t want her to hear that it was part of a penis pump, Scaduto said.

He’s been charged with felony disorderly conduct, said Andrew Conklin, a spokesman with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

Amin faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

Note:  The source article’s title is “No, That’s Not a Penis Pump, Mom.  Really”