As a result, Silver Lake and other investors including Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board CPPIB, will together hold 56 percent of Skype and eBay will retain 30 percent.

via eBay Inc. and Silver Lake Investor Group Settle Skype Litigation with Joltid Limited – Yahoo! Finance – Mozilla Firefox.

Why on earth is the Canada Pension Plan investing in Skype? Idiots.

I’ll be camping for the next little while. So the posting rate will stay the same.

The CBC is reporting that Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian stranded in Sudan is deemed a security risk, denied a passport.

I do not believe a government is just that can decide to restrict the ability of a citizen to return home.

Word of the day: Disgusted.

I have finished with Howling Fjord, > 105 quests done. On to the Borean Tundra but I think I will hit Azjol’Nerub first to ding 74.

The Poetry of Sarah Palin. – By Hart Seely – Slate Magazine
her intensely personal verses, spoken poems that drill into the vagaries of modern life as if they were oil deposits beneath a government-protected tundra

Science/AAAS | Multimedia: International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge 2008.

I work in a research organization attached to a cardiac hospital. Just another building. But as I walked back from the cafeteria today I saw a little old lady in front of me and I realized that odds are her husband is here with heart problems. There are a lot of very sick people near by and most of the people I see in the halls are likely to be very worried. No earth-shattering revelation there but it will be harder in the future to ignore all of these people, just wander by them as if they were industrial decor.

In Johnson County. Perhaps waiting outside while she does this thing, for us, but more importantly for her. I don’t need to be there while it happens, she can do that on her own. I should be there as she walks out the door though, so the first thing she hears is me telling her how happy and grateful I am, and being there. Just being there.

Because they are our neighbours and the things they do affect me. Because my plastic scum of a Prime Minister enjoys parroting their failed memes and paradigms, 5 years after even *they* begin to realize that maybe these options aren’t such good ideas after all. Because the Declaration of Independance and the Bill of Rights are great documents and great ideals and it is painful to watch them being pissed on by short-sighted power-hungry ass-holes who stand against everything that they say they stand for.

Senate Joins House in Caving to White House Immunity Demands | Electronic Frontier Foundation
“We thank those senators who courageously opposed telecom immunity and vow to them, and to the American people, that the fight for accountability over the president’s illegal surveillance is not over,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. “Even though Congress has failed to protect the privacy of Americans and uphold the rule of law, we will not abandon our defense of liberty. We will fight this unconstitutional grant of immunity in the courtroom and in the Congress, requesting repeal of the immunity in the next session, while seeking justice from the Judiciary. Nor can the lawless officials who approved this massive violation of Americans’ rights rest easy, for we will file a new suit against the government and challenge warrantless wiretapping, past, present and future.”

Here’s hoping that the EFF and ACLU can smack some sense into enough judges to get this tragedy of a law thrown out.