Oh man.. This really, really sucks ass.

Original story here

Singer Elliott Smith dead at 34

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Elliott Smith, a singer-songwriter whose dark, introspective songs won him critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination, has apparently committed suicide, his publicist and coroner’s officials said Wednesday. He was 34.

Smith’s body was found by his live-in girlfriend Tuesday, Los Angeles County Coroner Records Supervisor Marsha Grigsby told AP Radio.

He sustained a single stab wound to the chest that appeared to be self-inflicted, she said.

His New York-based publicist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also confirmed his death.

And omg…what a way to kill yourself. A stab wound to the chest? That must have been a horrible and not incredibly quick way to die.

Poor guy.

Now *THIS* is the kind of therapy victims of child sex crimes deserve.

There are several crimes that I feel should negate a person’s rights to not have the shit pounded out of him, and child molestation is definitely one of them.

Original story is here.

TAMPA, Fla. — A convicted child molester who was placed in the same Florida jail cell with one of his victims was beaten unconscious Thursday.

The former victim was being held on a probation violation.

Authorities say he recognized cellmate Kevin Kinder as the man who abused him and three other boys when he was 11 years old.

His lawyer said the man, who is now 22, jumped on Kinder and punched him repeatedly.

The former victim’s mother called the encounter a “fluke” but added that it was very “therapeutic” for her son.

There were about 65 other inmates in the holding cell at the time of the attack.

Kinder is serving 60 years in state prison on a probation violation after serving six years for molesting the four boys. He was at the Tampa facility for a hearing.

Grocery workers are on strike in California.

Original story is here.

My question to the union is this: what the fuck kind of crack are you smoking?

I’m not 100% up to speed on union labor law, but I was under the impression that if a union’s contract expired, replacement workers could be brought in and the union officially discharged.

How hard is it to find people to work at grocery stores? How hard could it possibly be to replace all of these people and just give the 70,000 strikers their pinkslips?

Reminds me of a grocery worker strike here in Baton Rouge about 15 years ago. The workers of all the Super Fresh stores went on strike. The company responded by closing all of their stores and firing the workers.

The theory of unions, no matter how much I disagree with it, works fine when you’re talking about highly skilled, highly trained specialists like mechanics, airplane maintenance workers, etc….but GROCERY STORE EMPLOYEES?!

Give me a break.

Fire these losers and hire replacements.

From wired:

Microsoft said on Tuesday it would pay $10.5 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit brought by U.S. customers who claimed the No. 1 software maker used its monopoly power to overcharge them for direct purchases of software.

Under the settlement, consumers and businesses that bought Microsoft’s software directly from the company’s website or direct marketing campaigns agreed to drop their charges.

I wonder if anyone realizes how utterly insignificant 10.5 million dollars is to Microsoft.

According to their latest balance sheet, 10.5 million dollars represents about 0.00178% of their total current 58.9 billion dollars in current assets.

To someone making $50,000.00 a year, this would be the equivalent of $8.91.

Way to make M$ pay! Woo hoo!