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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Judge: Microsoft Banned from Selling Word in the US
August 12th, 2009 | by Pete Cashmore

Welcome to the world of surprising patent lawsuits. A Texas judge ruled Tuesday that Microsoft cannot sell Word – yes, Microsoft Word, the cornerstone of Microsoft Office – in the United States.

Toronto-based i4i Inc won an injunction against Microsoft regarding the company’s XML patents. In the words of i4i, the injunction “prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML”. Microsoft has been given 60 days to comply, reports Seattle PI.

The injunction reads:

Microsoft Corporation is hereby permanently enjoined from performing the following actions with Microsoft Word 2003, Microsoft Word 2007, and Microsoft Word products not more than colorably different from Microsoft Word 2003 or Microsoft Word 2007 (collectively “Infringing and Future Word Products”) during the term of U.S. Patent No. 5,787,449:

1. selling, offering to sell, and/or importing in or into the United States any
Infringing and Future Word Products that have the capability of opening a .XML,
.DOCX, or .DOCM file (“an XML file”) containing custom XML;

2. using any Infringing and Future Word Products to open an XML file
containing custom XML;

3. instructing or encouraging anyone to use any Infringing and Future Word
Products to open an XML file containing custom XML;

4. providing support or assistance to anyone that describes how to use any infringing and Future Word Products to open an XML file containing custom XML;

and

5. testing, demonstrating, or marketing the ability of the Infringing and Future
Word Products to open an XML file containing custom XML.

This injunction does not apply to any of the above actions wherein the Infringing and Future Word Products open an XML file as plain text.

Needless to say, Microsoft won’t pull Word off the market. The company has said it plans to appeal, and i4i actually sells XML products for Word, making that company reliant on the ecosystem. An agreement will be reached: probably one involving Microsoft signing a big check.

[Frothy Afterbirth]

Woman to marry fairground ride

A 33-year-old church organist from Pennsylvania is planning to marry a magic carpet fairground ride.

Amy Wolfe claims to have objectum sexuality, a condition that makes sufferers attracted to inanimate objects.

She has been 'courting' the attraction, an 80ft gondola ride called 1001 Nachts, for a decade. According to the Daily Telegraph, Wolfe travels 160 miles to visit the attraction up to 10 times every year. It is estimated she has taken approximately 3,000 rides since first visiting the theme park at the age of 13.

"I love him as much as women love their husbands and know we'll be together forever," she said. "I was instantly attracted to him sexually and mentally.

"I wasn't freaked out, as it just felt so natural, but I didn't tell anyone about it because I knew it wasn't 'normal' to have feelings for a fairground ride."

Wolfe sleeps with a picture of the ride on her ceiling. She also carries its spare nuts and bolts around in a bid to feel closer to the machinery.

"I'm not hurting anyone and I can't help it," she added. "It's a part of who I am."

After the wedding she plans to change her name to Amy Weber, in honour of the manufacturer of the attraction.

[Predator24]

[Predator24]

[Five Inch Taint]

The red bow tie. The form-fitting gray suit. The white loafers. Oh, and that laugh. Pee-wee Herman is back and his creator, Paul Reubens, is overjoyed ? and more than a little nervous too.

"'?ve put part of him away for a long time, but part of him has always been here with me,? the soft-spoken actor said from his home in L.A. "I think it will be like riding a bike ? which is not a bad analogy for Pee-wee, by the way."

But he added: "I have some fear that he won?t be funny after all this time. I don?t want to ruin it."

After a hiatus of close to 20 years, Reubens announced Monday that he would be playing Pee-wee in a new stage show at the Music Box @ Fonda in Hollywood, with tickets going on sale today. The production, titled "The Pee-wee Herman Show" and set to run Nov. 19-29, is a reimagined version of the actor?s original theatrical show of the same name that began at the Groundlings Theatre in 1981. It played at the Roxy in L.A. for five months in the early ?80s and helped bring Pee-wee national recognition, including an HBO special and the 1985 film "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," directed by Tim Burton.

The show will feature the same story line as the original: Pee-wee, a nerdy man-child with a colorful menagerie of anthropomorphic friends, is granted a wish to learn to fly but gives the wish away, much to his eventual regret. Reubens said he has revised parts of the story to include new songs as well as characters from his popular CBS television series, "Pee-wee?s Playhouse."

In one notable change, a character played on stage by the late comic actor Phil Hartman has been replaced with another character. "I didn't want to be looking at someone else playing Phil's part," Reubens said.

Among the characters familiar from the TV series that will appear on stage will be Pee-wee's talking chair, Chairry, and his friend Pterri the pterodactyl.

"It has a lot of new material and a lot of old material," Reubens said. "I felt that doing this show so many years later and having the TV show in between " people are going to ask, "Where's the talking chair?" So I've added characters from the TV series to the show."

"Pee-wee's Playhouse" aired on CBS in 1986-91 and helped broaden Pee-wee?s appeal among children. (The character also appeared in "Big Top Pee-wee," the poorly received 1988 follow-up to "Pee-wee's Big Adventure.")

Though it's ambiguous as to whom the new stage show will be geared, Pee-wee's enduring cult status is part of the reason that producers Jared Geller and David Foster approached Reubens two years ago about resurrecting the character. "Pee-wee appeals to such a great cross-section of ages," said Geller. "The character is so honest and surreal. It's one of those things that speaks to individuals who feel they may be different from everyone else."

Reubens, who is also one of the show"s producers, said he hoped the show would lead to an even bigger resurgence in all things Pee-wee. "Honestly, I have a movie script that?s based on my CBS TV series, and I thought this would be a great way to get that made," he said.

Since the heyday of the Pee-wee franchise, Reubens' career has been a roller-coaster ride of legal fiascoes and tentative attempts at a comeback. In 1991, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure after he was arrested in Florida in an adult movie theater. In 2002, he was charged with possessing child pornography because of images in his art collection, ultimately pleading guilty to a misdemeanor obscenity charge in 2004 in exchange for a lighter sentence.

"I don't think those events have an appropriate place in discussion of the new show,? Reubens said. "I'm sure people will be discussing it, but I won't."

The actor has spent the last 10 years mostly in guest-star roles on television, like his recent stint on NBC?s ?30 Rock? as a buffoonish member of a royal European family. He has also acted in a handful of prestigious indie films, including ?Blow? and the upcoming ?Life During Wartime? and ?Nailed.?

Now 56, Reubens said that returning to Pee-wee after such a long sojourn in the showbiz wilderness has given him ample time for reflection.

?It is ironic to be on this end of it all and to be redoing it,? he said. ?I?ve never said how old Pee-wee is. People attach their own age to him. I never decided myself.

?I?m glad people will be 20 to 30 feet away from me on stage,? he said. ?I?m trying to work out a system where people with bad vision sit in front. I think it will work.?

-- David Ng

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[Predator24]

Even the Chinese are into it


China officials shown at Thai transvestite show

Aug 14 03:48 AM US/Eastern

Chinese officials on a "study visit" to Thailand have triggered outrage after photographs of them at a transvestite show were posted on the Internet.
In one of the photos published in the Beijing News Friday, an official from Luzhou town in the southwestern province of Sichuan is shown dipping into his pocket for money to give to a transvestite performer.

"Going to see transvestites in Thailand is normal, the problem is whose money they used to go!" one angry Internet user said in a posting.


Following the publication of the photos, the town authorities ordered an investigation of the five people who took part in the "study visit" in 2004.

According to the newspaper, the visit took place as part of an MBA programme for several Luzhou officials in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

The Communist Party secretary of Luzhou promised to investigate the affair and said civil servants who had broken the law and regulations would be punished.

Official overseas trips by local civil servants are regularly criticised on the Internet and in the Chinese media as being holidays in disguise.

[Frothy Afterbirth]

Elmore County man gets 30 years for child porn
Posted by Associated Press August 11, 2009 3:49 PM

WETUMPKA -- A 21-year-old man, who told Montgomery police during a job interview that he possessed child pornography and had sex with an underage girl, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Circuit Judge Ben Fuller sentenced Max D. Hinton of Deatsville on Monday after his conviction of second-degree rape, sodomy , enticing a child for immoral purposes and producing and possessing child pornography.

The girl testified the two had consensual sex when she was 15 and he was 17. But a person younger than 16 in Alabama can't legally consent to have sex, and the judge voiced outrage over the child pornography involving girls as young as 6.

There was no explanation why Hinton mentioned the pornography in his job interview, which prompted an investigation and his arrest.

[McHookerino]

Man accused of having sex with his car

An Albuquerque man faces indecent exposure charges after police say children saw him simulating a sex act with his car in a grocery store parking lot.

Danny Brawner, 46, was indicted on two counts of aggravated indecent exposure and one count of indecent exposure for the July 28 incident in the parking lot of the Smith?s Food and Drug store on 101 Coors Blvd. NW, according to a news release from Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg?s office.

Witnesses told police they saw Brawner ?humping? his car?s trunk while swinging his arms in the air and shouting. His pants were around his ankles, witnesses said.

An officer said he found Brawner asleep next to his car. The officer woke him up and arrested him. The officer said Brawner appeared to be intoxicated.

I really hope to God that he was intoxicated because, frankly, if you?re pulling your pants down at a grocery store parking lot and humping your car trunk in broad daylight as a SOBER activity, you really shouldn?t continue to be alive. Also, I fail to see how it?s ?simulating sex??in my eyes, once the pants come down, the simulation part has totally stopped and it has become full-on game time. Which is how I lay claim to having slept with tens of thousands of women. Yes, it might not have been sex in the truest sense, but the pants were down, there was yelling and I left crying and unsatisfied. If that?s not sex, I don?t know what is.

[Liquid]

British sniper describes moment he shot Taliban commander... from TWO KILOMETRES away

A British sniper killed a Taliban leader with the longest-ever fatal bullet shot in Afghanistan - from nearly TWO KILOMETRES away.

Corporal Christopher Reynolds, 25, camped on the roof of a shop for three days as he waited for the perfect conditions to shoot the terrorist commander.

He calculated the range, wind and trajectory before pulling the trigger - and the bullet flew 1,853 metres before hitting the target in the chest.

The warlord, known as 'Mula', is thought to be responsible for co-ordinating several attacks against British and American troops since the outbreak of war in 2001.

Cpl Reynolds, of 3 Scots, The Black Watch, who has already killed 32 rebel fighters, has now been credited with the longest kill in Afghanistan at 1.15 miles away.

The incident happened last week during heavy fighting in the town of Babaji in Helmand Province.

Today he told how the Taliban chief slumped into the arms of a stunned colleague after being hit by the 'lead sleeping tablet'.

Cpl Reynolds, a father-of-one, said: 'We were in a bazaar for days in some very heavy fighting and had taken up a position on a shop roof to observe the surrounding area.

'From the first few minutes after we landed, we came into contact with the enemy.

'We were taking fire all the time. We were observing down the valley and I saw a group of five Taliban.

'I identified one straight away as the commander because I watched him through the scope and when he spoke on the radio, the other one would do what he said.

'I saw that he had a weapon, an AK47. We did all the calculations for range, wind speed and all that.

'I have to admit the first round landed next to him. We were so far away that he didn't even realise he was being shot at.

'We changed our aim and when I took into account different factors like the trajectory of the bullet, my gun scope was actually aiming at the top of a doorway.

'I fired and the bullet went off, coming down and hitting him in the chest.

'He dropped straight away into the arms of a fighter behind him. The guy just panicked and dropped the leader and ran away.

'He had been given a lead sleeping tablet. I was quite proud of that shot - it is the longest recorded kill in Afghanistan.' Cpl Reynolds, who has been in Afghanistan since March, was camped with spotter Lance Corporal David Hatton when they noticed Mula walk into range.

In the ensuing battle, an Afghan sniper was taken out by one of Cpl Reynolds' comrades - who fired a state-of-the-art Javelin missile launcher.

L/Cpl Hatton, 20, from Castlemilk, in Glasgow, said: 'We had been in position for three days when he made that shot. I was the spotter on that job and I was giving him the information about the target.

'He did a top job that day - but we are all sick about him going on about it and telling us what a great shot he is.' Cpl Reynolds, of Dalgety Bay in Fife, Scotland, is on his first tour of Afghanistan but has previously served in Iraq.

His wife Becca, 29, who lives in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, with their three-year-old son Joshua yesterday hailed her husband a hero.

She said: 'I was ecstatic when I found out what he had done. I thought it was fantastic, not only for him but for the whole of Black Watch.

'He said he keeps on going on about it and everyone over there is telling him to shut up.

'He is on patrol at the moment but I speak to him about once a week.

'This is his first time in Afghanistan. he has been there since March and has been in Iraq before as well.

'He has got his screwed on and really takes his job seriously. He loves it.'

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Fuck yeah!

[troup]

Thats pretty amazing but I couldn't imagine being 20 and having killed over 30 people. I just turned 23 and I have only killed a few so far. He has the upper hand of being Glasweigan of course, they start well young!