No Steenkin' Slow News Day Here, I Tell You

This is gonna be a two-parter: the first will be the usual weird news, but then I'm gonna talk about a woman who is my personal hero right now, and her travails with a commercial entity never far from my hate locker, the RIAA.
But first:

75,000 Toyota Priuses are being called in for repairs because of a software bug. I mean it. Aren't you glad you drive an old clunker with no computer control, like me? You don't? Oooooo. Sucks to be you, when you car turns itself off in the middle of the freeway because of a software fault.
Heh.
No, seriously, that can happen, apparently:

Sixty-eight incidents of Prius warning lights flashing without cause or engines shutting down have been reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Toyota spokeswoman added. NHTSA has not asked for a recall, but has told Toyota to notify owners. The automaker is doing that through letters.

Now, the good news is that since the Prius has two engines, the gas one and an electric one, so far drivers have been able to get their car to the side of the road safely. However, coming as this does in the middle of the latest advertising blitz from Toyota, this is at least a minor pothole in the road, so to speak, for them. Especially as the new ads loudly tout the Prius and the hybrid-drive cars by Toyota as the solution to air pollution, asking "What if the air were clean again? Toyota is doing it with hybrid engine technologies." Which begs the question, how is it better to have a non-polluting car that doesn't work, than a polluting one that does?

Oddly enough, the interesting part of this article is right near the end. Like, down near the bottom, where after ranting about how using cops as a taxi service for legislators is bad (duh!) they admit that the one Tennessee State Representative who had a broken foot, Henri Brooks, (who rode with a cop because, apparently, a taxi wasn't good enough) stayed for two weeks in the state capitol in an apartment paid for by the Black Caucus.
Why is that interesting?
Well, to me it seems like the State Rep's ample salary could manage a hotel room.
Failing that, there ARE guest accommodations made available at every state capitol I ever heard of for the legislators.
However, this representative - and I use the term loosely - stayed in town long enough to make a crucial legislative session, voting on a bill which directly concerned the issues favored by the Black Caucus - in an apartment paid for by the group lobbying for his vote on the bill.
YAAAAAAAAY CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT!! Way to go, Tennessee.

Anyone remember the scene in "Total Recall" when Arnold goes through the security scanner that represents him as a skeleton and reveals his hidden weapon? Well, Farran Systems remembers it quite well, thanks.

The scanner uses 3mm microwaves to scan people as they walk through a booth. Its sensors detect thermal energy emitted by the body as well as microwaves being reflected from objects.

Clothes become transparent, but denser objects, such as plastic explosives or other weapons, show up clearly against the background thermal image of the body. Everyday items like door keys and money will also be clearly visible as will liquids and non metallic items.

That means that people hoping to smuggle weapons onto planes using non-ferrous materials will soon be out of luck. Maybe we can catch the next batch of guys before they scream "Allahla! It's a BOMB!" Oh, here's the Tadar homepage.

The writing is on the wall for sperm donors, at least in Sweden; a man who donated sperm so that two lesbians could have a child is being held responsible for child support, now that the two women have separated. There's only really one thing I can say to that: bear in mind that having seen that happen, you will just have to look a lot farther to try to find another man willing to take that kind of risk. Hey lesbians: welcome to the club; you, too, now have The One Jackass Who Screws It Up For Everybody Else.

In case you, like millions of others, believe that The Evil Insurance Companies Are Out To Screw You, Just Not Mine, guess what: you're wrong. The insurance companies don't give a rat's ass about you, or anything other than their bottom line. You want to know how I know this? I'll tell. you. Look at what Farmer's is doing to try to get out of paying this woman's insurance claim.
The really bad part is that they might get away with it; state law in Washington says that it's technically not an accident if the person responsible intended to cause the crash. Of course, on none of the occasions when law enforcement personnel have talked to the responsible driver has he mentioned the victim; chances are he doesn't even know she got hurt. However, apparently, that's enough to keep Farmer's from having to open up their wallet.
Let's be clear: this woman pays monthly for two MILLION dollars of coverage - her premiums have to be sky-high - and now that she's in an accident, and horribly injured, her insurance company is refusing to pay because they say the other guy did it on purpose.
I personally feel that the people at Farmer's who are responsible for this SNAFU ought to have their legs run over, and be beaten into a nine-day coma so they can see how they like it, but then, I believe in justice.
Vote with your wallet; don't buy from Farmer's until they pay Ms. Adams' claim.

Of course, it doesn't seem to matter where in the US you live these days; Ohio's not any smarter than Washington or Tennessee, apparently. I know, because they ARRESTED a woman for A DOLLAR of owed CITY taxes. No, I mean it; they really did!
And then, actually had the gall to act as though this was the Right Thing To Do:

Loveland City Manager Fred Enderle said the amount Combs owes isn't the real issue.

"Whether it's $1 they owe us or $1,000, it's not fair to the rest of the public to not pursue that person," he said. "There is some expense involved, but it goes back to the principle. We have laws. The laws have to be complied with. At what cost do you stop enforcing the law?"

I'd say, at the point when you can get the person to pay the fine by walking up to them and asking for their freakin' pocket change. But that's just me, I guess.

Good news for any of you who are foul-mouthed and twitchy: they've located a gene linked to Tourette's Syndrome, a CNS malady often mis-represented in movies by people who swear a lot.
In fact this disease causes sufferers to have both verbal and physical spasms, which are uncontrollable and I'm guessing more than a tad unpleasant for them.
In any event, they appear to have located a gene linked to the syndrome, which bodes well for future therapies. While it's not likely to prove to be the one and only gene involved, at least it's a step in the right direction.

Don't You Wish You Had This Guy Around Presents: Weston, Florida roofer Marty Davis. While roofing the
Broege home, he heard calls for help from inside, climbed down, and went to Wiebke Broege's side, just in time to deliver her baby.
That's right.
Wait'll they get THAT contractor's bill.
But seriously, apparently he did a great job, and had enough time to be worried about getting roofing tar on their floors. Good thing he was there; Ms. Broege would have been in serious trouble otherwise, as the labor was so swift that Davis had delivered the baby before paramedics arrived.
Good job, Mr. Davis. Seriously. You'd be My Hero this week if the job wasn't already filled. (more on that later.)

Proving that Okies JUST HAVE TO do everything worse than anyone else, apparently someone has already figured out how to beat the Oklahoma Lottery, despite the fact that it's only 24 hours old.
Amazing.

Newsflash: Dark Matter may not actually exist after all. Physicists are surprised, Einstein isn't, and William of Occam is laughing his head off. (Occam is most famous for "Occam's Razor," which states that the simplest explanation which fits the facts is most likely correct.) Apparently, he was right.
Gee, you think?

For once, a community is glad for a motorcycle gang. Well, ok, it might be a bit hard to call the American Legion Riders a "gang." But the town of Chelsea, Kansas was awfully glad the VFW members' motorcycle "club" was around on Tuesday.
See, a bunch of REALLY SMART people, really NICE people, people with NO COMMON FRIGGING HUMAN DECENCY, from the Westboro Baptist Church decided to protest A FUNERAL for a soldier killed overseas, because they believe U.S. soldiers are dying because it's "God's punishment for protecting homosexuals."
Because the VFW is basically not down with that happy crap, over 100 members of the American Legion Riders surrounded the protesters and drowned them out by revving their motorcycle engines, and blocking them away from the funeral.
Veterans of Foreign Wars, I salute you twice: for your service overseas, and your continuing service at home.
Hey, religious fanatics: there's a time and place for everything. Leave those poor people to bury their son in peace.

Oh, and let me just say: if you intend to embarrass your wife publicly by asking for a divorce on a huge roadside banner, it's best to make sure she doesn't also own a marker and a bedsheet.
Dumbass.


And now, on to the main event:

A 41 year old disabled woman in Oregon is the latest victim of the RIAA's terror campaign against their customers. Business as usual, right?
Wrong.
Sadly for them, this time they seem to have made any number of huge, damaging mistakes, leaving them open for criminal prosecution under Oregon's RICO statutes.
That's right, the anti-mafia laws.
Here's why:

RIAA Debt Collection center agents phoned Ms. Andersen and accused her of illegally stealing copyrighted "gangster rap" music online. The phone agents also admitted that their affliates had secretly obtained information off of her personal PC. Ms. Andersen claims to have never downloaded music online and appears to be quite repulsed by this RIAA extortion act. She has counter-sued the RIAA on numerous charges and has demanded a trial by jury.

And what's really cool is that because it's a counter-suit, it's automatically entitled to a jury trial. See, the RIAA's tactic thus far has been to scare the hell out of people with threats and then get them to settle out of court, rather than going to trial at all. But this time, because of the way they dealt with her, she's got them coming and going; either they did in fact hack her computer, in which case they are guilty of computer crimes and subject to criminal prosecution, or they didn't hack her, in which case they are in violation of the RICO laws - and federal anti-fraud laws, violation of which is a felony.
Whoooooo.
What does this mean? Well, at a minimum, it means she will get to take her case to trial, and since it's a counter-suit, the only way the RIAA can get it to go away short of the courtroom is to dismiss their claims against her, which lets her (maybe) get away with downloading "gangsta rap" for free.
I will be watching to see how this plays out, especially since she seems to have a very competent lawyer, who has the case sewn up several different ways; according to the complaint, there's no way the RIAA can deny any individual part of the complaint without admitting that they did in fact commit an illegal act.
Nasty.
More info can be found at Recording Industry Vs. The People.