The whole Prop 8 vote etc is long since old news, but I had not seen this video before yesterday and thought I would share it. I have to say I agree with just about everything Keith Olbermann says.

I see no problem at all with allowing same sex couples to marry – trying to prevent this, and take away their rights is a joke. What difference does it make to me, or any other straight couple out there if two women, or two men decide to get married? None. It does not impact my life one bit in any way shape or form.  I am certain that in my life time this is something that we will look back at and wonder why it was ever disallowed, just like inter-racial marriages – its hard to believe that a black person could not marry a white person only 40 some-odd years ago.

Lets move in the right direction and give everyone the same rights once and for all.

Now I want to start off by saying that I am not trying to pick on Americans, but it seems that the majority of the stupid lawsuits out there come from the states. Not all, but I have to say, I can’t remember the last time I heard of some ridiculous suit being filed in Canada (or elsewhere for that matter).

The latest stupid suit is from New York, where Dalton Chiscolm is suing Bank of America for 1,784 Billion Trillion dollars. To put that into perspective, that number looks like this:

$17,840,000,000,000,200,164,000

According to world bank, in 2008 the GDP was an estimated $60. Trillion, or:

$40,800,000,000,000

As you can see, that is significantly less… Even if he has a valid case, I am not sure how he figures he could be entitled to more money than has ever existed on planet earth – a number .more than 500 million times the GDP of only a few years ago. I am sure this suit is likely for publicity or attention – perhaps his mother never hugged him as a child or something and he is lonely, I don’t know.

If you ask me, people who file suit over ridiculous things, or for ridiculous amounts, should be locked away forever. It’s just a huge waste of tax payer dollars. (But I guess it did give me something to write about)

If you were given two options which would you pick:

1. Get shot with a hand gun
2. Get shot with a taser

If you like me, you’d probably pick the tazer, granted, neither would be much fun. With the options of bullet ripping through my body, with an end result most likely being death, compared to being electrocuted with the end result most likely being life – I pick taser!.

I am so entirely sick of people complaining about the use of tasers – its all over the news these days, but tasers are a good thing. Look at all the criminals who have been stopped dead in their tracks with a taser, who otherwise would have been shot and likely killed… hmm… criminals killed, perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing?

When an officer is in danger, and he tazes someone to stop the attack, he gets criticized over its use. Now, what are the alternatives… He could do nothing and let the criminal attack and maybe kill him, or he could fire a bullet in his ass.

Hello people! Tasers, while they have their risks etc, are far more human than shooting someone.

The next time you hear about someone being tazed and want to complain, ask yourself, what if that were a bullet.

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P.S. I am not sure if it is “taSer” or “taZer”. Pretty sure its taSer, although I see it being used both ways. Which version do you use?

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Recently my wife, daughter, and I went camping at a local provincial campground. On the last evening of our stay, a branch fell from an obviously dead tree, and dented the roof of our car.

The damage to the car is around $270 – the deductible, $300 – So certainly there is nothing my insurance company can do.

I, as the victim, want the park to pay for the damage.

Now I realize that in the majority of cases, it would be considered an act of nature, and I would not have a leg to stand on – its just my tough luck. In this case, I feel it is different – I feel like there is some negligance involoved.

If a branch fell from a healthy tree, with or without wind, then so be it – its probably not preventable, but in this case, the branch that fell was dried up and dead, and fell from a dried up and dead tree – on a day with zero wind! To me this was 100% preventable. The tree was also located immediately along side the campsite, in plain view, its not like it was well hidden in the woods.

(Also, the park assigns you a spot, you dont get to choose your spot – so what is a person supposed to do if they are assigned a spot with a dead tree? refuse the spot, lose your reservation fee, and go home? Perhaps…)

Every year the provincial parks apparantly have arbourists evaluate the park and remove and handle “problem trees”. They missed this one – its obvious from the photos, that something should have been done to this tree.

I called the company that manages the provincial park, and they deny any responsibility to my claim and basically brushed me off. I honestly don’t think I will get any where, but needed to vent a little. Please vote and let me know your opinion.

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So you have decided that its time to have lunch. You head over to the local McDonalds and order up some McNuggets. You give the cashier your money, she gives you your change, then she notifies you that they are sold out of nuggets.

Now in most cases, you would do one of two things: Either change your order, pay the difference, and carry on, OR get a full refund, and get something to eat elsewhere.

Well, for a Florida woman, Latresesa Goodman, when she asked for her money back, the manager at the McDonalds refused, and it resulted in not one, not two, but three 911 calls.

Goodman was furious that the McDonalds would not return her money (and rightfully so) but withholding McNuggets is a far cry from an emergency, and definitely not worthy of a 911 call.

The police finally arrived at the McDonalds and Goodman certainly didn’t get what she wanted – instead she was arrested for misuse of 911.

According to TMZ, McDonalds ultimately sent her a full refund and an apology as well as a certificate for free meal. They noted that the customer should have received a refund, and regret what has happened.

Now I agree that McDonalds was in the wrong, but Goodman certainly should not have called 911. It got me thinking, what would I do? Well, if management refused to refund my money, I am not entirely sure what I would do. Perhaps a letter to the paper and a phone call to McDonalds head office to launch a formal complaint – I doubt I would call 911. Maybe I’d even take them on Judge Judy, although that would be more humiliating, and not worth the $5 return.

A recording of all three 911 calls can be heard here.

So you have decided to live a life of crime – stealing cars, mugging people, armed robbery, and all that bad stuff. Whats the best way to escape being busted by the police? Well, you may think it’s turning yourself into a Goat, but the police are onto that trick – at least in Nigeria.

When I read this story I was sure it was direct from the presses over at the Onion, but after seeing it at Reuters and Yahoo News, I suspect ths story is true – sorta.

You can read the full story over at Yahoo News, but the jist of it is that a group of vigilantes hauled a goat into a police station in Nigeria claiming it was an armed robber who turned himself into a goat to escape arrest after attempting to steal a Mazda 323.

Apparently this goat is still in police custody – yet another reason I am glad to be Canadian.

DNA is a scary thing. Law enforcement and the legal system use’s it for proving just about everything. On one hand it’s an amazing tool in identifying criminals, but it is not foolproof.

Recently my wife and I were watching the Discovery channel and they were talking about people who are “Chimeras”. You can research the details of this yourself, but in essence it is someone who is born with two different sets of DNA caused by the fusing of twins at the very early stages of pregnancy.

The two sets of DNA can be found just about anywhere. In one example a woman’s gallbladder had separate DNA from the rest of her body.

The show went on to discuss the case of one woman who was having her kids taken away from her by the courts. They claimed that they were not her kids, and DNA testing proved that they were not a match, but in fact, they were actually her kids.

After a lengthy court battle and several DNA tests, they ultimately found her to be a chimera, and as such, the DNA they could test, blood, hair, etc, was not a match for her kids, but that there was DNA hidden within her that was a match.

DNA, which seems like concrete evidence, has its holes, and our legal system relying so heavily on it to prove cases is scary – If you are actually innocent, but DNA tests somehow come up showing you as guilty, how on earth can you fight that?

I signed up for this a few months back, and thought, more people need to know about it.

Recently us Canadians followed suit with the States and setup a National Do Not Call List. Now, often I get annoyed when we simply follow in the footsteps of our southern friends, BUT in this case, the idea is great, I love it.

Canadians can register here. You only need to give your phone number, no other personal information is asked.

Americans can register and find more information on their system here.

If you find that after 31 days of submitting your number, you are still getting annoying telemarketing calls, you can file an official complaint here.

You will need:

1. The telephone number at which you received the telemarketing call
2. The telephone number and/or name of the telemarketer
3. Whether the complaint relates to a fax, residential or business number
4. The date of the telemarketing call.

Keep in mind that those companies that you have existing business with, charities, newspapers, political organizations, and telephone surveyors, are exempt and still may call you.

Lets put an end to telemarketing – be sure to register your number, and if you still get calls after 31 days, file a complaint.

Employees are suing for unpaid overtime resulting from a lengthy boot time of Windows Vista according to The Register.

A number of lawsuits have resulted against major US companies, but primarily call centers are the worst offenders. It seems that employees use time-keeping systems in their PC’s and can not official clock in for work until their computer has fully booted – in some cases taking as long as 15 minutes. The same time lag is also present when employees shut down their machines at the end of they day, accounting for a total of around 2 hours a week of unpaid time.

Total damages could run into millions of dollars – probably would have been cheaper just to install more ram or faster CPU’s in the first place.

Now, I have Vista, and while there are glitches that annoy me, the boot up time is not anywhere near 15 minutes. At times, when it seems to be taking forever, the lag is usually about 2 minutes max, so I am not sure what’s up with these vastly underpowered machines that are taking 15 minutes – regardless, these employees really should be paid for their time, even if it is waiting for the computer.

My question is, how much work time is wasted each week by Vista users circumnavigating glitches in the OS?