texas polygamists get their kids back

Texas seizure of polygamist-sect kids thrown out

In a ruling that could torpedo the case against the West Texas polygamist sect, a state appeals court Thursday said authorities had no right to seize more than 440 children in a raid on the splinter group's compound last month.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

Good. If we allow one group of people to make up and enforce rules based on their version of an imaginary sky daddy, then we have to let them all, even when children are involved. It sucks, but this is the world that religious lunatics have created, and we have to be consistent.

bioshock is quite possibly the worst game ever made

I finally trudged my way through that awful piece of shit called Bioshock. Jesus what a horrible fucking game. I swear I've never been so bored playing a videogame before. Probably the first time I've actually completed something that I didn't enjoy *at all*. Shoulda been a movie. As a game, it's completely broken. And the ending... holy shit the ending was fucking terrible. I tortured myself playing that game for 20 hours for a 30 second cut scene?

Bioshock developers, would you kindly, kill yourselves.

the great progressive state of west virginia

I wont name names, but I know people (IRL) who use these exact arguments. And no, not ironically.

disqus

Trying out a new commenting system. Disqus.

pre-judge

Here's my random, completely unoriginal thought of the day:

When does prejudice become simply judgmental? Probably not very often. Prejudice : making a decision before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case or event. How often do I really have *all* of the relevant facts before I pass judgment? Probably not very often. I assume too much, too quickly. Republicans still suck, however.

freedom is dead

Michigan Senate OKs ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces

Look, I'm all for banning smoking in restaurants and even most bars, but these laws go too far. Perhaps a better solution than banning smoking everywhere outright would be to offer tax incentives to establishments which choose to disallow smoking. Call me crazy, but I think people should be allowed to run a business that caters smokers. Businesses like these which have been hurt, in part or wholly, by smoking bans. Nanny laws suck.

the death of message boards, and soon facebook

Reposted from TGF.

Back in the day, and even now on occasion, people would post news stories on message boards to start a conversation. With the proliferation of better RSS readers and blogs, everyone pretty much gets stories at the same time now. So if someone were to post a story, everyone else would be like "Yeah, saw that." Basically the situation we have now.

Then gReader added sharing, so I could see the stories my friends were interested in. Now the shares can have comments, so I can see the story they read, and why they shared it, then I can respond with a note of my own. You don't even need to be subscribed to a feed to share either; you can post anything.

I honestly think Google is trying to take down FaceBook from the opposite direction. Expect big things from the Google Shared Items page customization options in the future. Ninjas are just the beginning. I wouldn't be surprised to see some Digg style voting at some point either.