The word “clueless comes to mind. Fuck you Bill!

Microsoft slams Apple iPhone as ‘irrelevant’

Apple’s soon-to-be-launched iPhone will be irrelevant to business users because it is a “closed device” and does not support Microsoft Office, a senior executive with the software giant said this week.

What’s that word… oh yeah: greedy!

The Vista Backups That You Can’t Have

…Even though the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista are backing up all files including user data files, users can’t access the backups of their own data. Want proof that the backups are there? Use Microsoft’s Windows Anytime Upgrade feature to upgrade from Home to Ultimate. When we did that, the Previous Versions tab appeared and revealed changes to data files that were made before the upgrade occurred.

Previous Versions has other problematic behaviors. Vista grabs 15 percent of each drive to archive the combination of user data and system files, with just a cryptic command line interface to change the number. There is no way to selectively add or remove a file or folder from the backup; someone could easily find an old version of a file that you thought you had removed for good. Unfortunately, it’s a package deal; you must take it all or nothing at all. Disabling Previous Versions removes user data backups, but it also disables System Restore and deletes all restore points.

Vista users may have to live with these design tradeoffs, but Microsoft’s decision to intentionally hide backups of user data is just plain wrong. If Vista keeps backups of user data, the user is entitled to see, use, and remove them. Users shouldn’t need an expensive upgrade to Vista Ultimate just to rescue their data backups.

Link and laugh

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President

The Detroit News

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford’s hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

“I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness!’ So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front,” Mulally said. “I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?”

“Microsoft says DRM-free music soon to be available to all 14 Zune owners. Steve Jobs to announce Microsoft’s next move shortly.”

“Johnny C” - as he is known in the troll escort business - is an otherwise intelligent curmudgeon and tech-journalist who has most recently unfortunately declared that “Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone.”

Now there’s a really stupid idea, and it’s not the first one he’s secreted, but he’ll get all this attention Mac lovers will spray it all over him until something else such as a troop surge gets our attention. Just a few years ago he suggested that Apple drop OSX and switch to Windows!

I hate to quote him too much - you can go read the rest for yourself.

“The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game as well as any company, there is no evidence that it can play it fast enough. These phones go in and out of style so fast that unless Apple has half a dozen variants in the pipeline, its phone, even if immediately successful, will be passé within 3 months.

There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive. Even in the business where it is a clear pioneer, the personal computer, it had to compete with Microsoft and can only sustain a 5% market share.

And its survival in the computer business relies on good margins. Those margins cannot exist in the mobile handset business for more than 15 minutes.”

In fact, Apple can move faster than any company in the world. They probably DO have a dozen variants in the pipeline.  In three months the price may drop and they will sell even more. Microsoft became the market leader through evil business practices and because Apple gave it to them in the 90s.

Ok, now get ready for this one:

Even Microsoft itself has troubles with its attempts to get into a small sub segment of the handset business with its operating system.

OOh Microsoft couldn’t do it so NO ONE CAN!
(I’m going to be sick)

Enough! Someone get this man a clue or better yet - ignore him.

Valet crashes amputee’s car - then hits him

Pensacola, Fla. (AP) — A valet accidentally drove an amputee’s specially equipped car through a Pensacola hospital’s front entrance, knocking the car’s owner from his wheelchair.

Police say Adrian Young was bringing the car back to its owner, Harold Towne, yesterday when he apparently confused the car’s special gas pedal for the brake. Young was attempting to come to a stop at the building’s entrance but pressed the wrong pedal, and the car accelerated.

Police say Young swerved to avoid a vehicle and went through a set of outer doors. The car then struck Towne’s wheelchair and went through another set of doors and into the lobby.

Towne was treated and released from Baptist Hospital’s emergency room after the accident.

Young was cited for careless driving.

The hospital entrance was heavily damaged, with glass everywhere.

There was no damage to the car, other than a small dent.

The administration knows what would happen if the started up the draft again, so instead of doing what’s necessary at the cost of perhaps losing the next election, they are willing to risk the lives of wounded soldiers who have already made the penultimate sacrifice.

The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq

Mar. 11, 2007 | “This is not right,” said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. “This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers,” he said angrily. “If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight.”

As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.

On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division’s 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier’s “physical profile,” an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier’s physical limitations because of medical problems — from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers’ profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny…

Oh, there’s more: LINK

Miami developer arrested after using official funds to buy watermelon statue

Fri Mar 2, 5:16 PM ET

A prominent Miami developer was arrested Friday for allegedly skimming official funds to buy himself a 150,000-dollar sculpture of a giant watermelon slice.

Raul Masvidal turned himself in to authorities after he was charged with organized fraud and grand theft.

Masvidal had obtained millions of dollars from the Miami-Dade county to build new offices for the Housing Agency, but used part of the money to buy the sculpture by artist Julio Larraz, according to an affidavit filed in court.

The sculpture, called “Mars”, portrays a huge watermelon slice that has been bitten. To hide the purchase, he allegedly asked an art broker to write a fake invoice that listed only a sculpture of stacked cups that was to grace the new building, but charged for both artworks.

The Cuban-born Masvidal had gained prominence in Miami as a political advisor, philanthropist and businessman.

“What a great disappointment,” said State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. “He turned on his community. He turned on his friends.”

So, he tried to hide this fetish by disguising it as a sculpture of “stacked cups!” See when happens when you get addicted to figurative realism - before long you start craving huge fruits and eventually human body parts the size of office buildings. Where will it end. This must be stopped!

RINK

“He was also charged with damage to a mini-bar
in the room, but this charge was later dropped when the defendant said
that it was the donkey who caused that damage.”

Mac Display Eater kills home files

PR disaster waiting to happen

A MAKER of Mac software has uncovered a “scary” anti-piracy measure in a bit of code called Display Eater.

Display Eater records motion video on your screen which you can then convert to a Quicktime movie.

However writing in his bog here, Karsten Kusche, who works for another Apple software maker Briksoftware, says that if you try to use a pirated serial number with Display Eater, the software will delete your home file, which in Mac land is the same as killing your computer.

Kusche said that while it is not right to pirate software it is a bit drastic to kill a mac user’s home file.

He said that the would be pirates might even buy a licence one day if they like the software or at least talk kindly about it. However if it is the same software that killed their computer they are less likely to say nice things about it. We would have thought they would have sued. µ

LINK

The facts:

The developer did this as a “Scare Tactic” to prevent people from stealing his app, but it backfired on him. Either way, it was a very bad idea and he will pay for it.

Public Letter:
I hope the public will read this entire letter.
There has been alot of confusion regarding the copy protection of the program called Display Eater.

It is described here in:

There exists two illegal cd-keys that can be used to register the program without paying for it. When Display Eater detects these keys, it would delete your home directory.

However, this is not the case in reality. The whole purpose was to create a scare campaign. You can download, the file linked from the main page, which is now down(the link is still intact here), and check it for yourself. It has been this way since 2/7/07.

It was my hope that by creating a scare campaign, I could stop wasting time writing copy protection routines to be broken over and over. But, I was wrong, it backfired.
People started buying multiple keys, which I never intended, and in the beginning when the protection was in place, people who did not even know they had committed piracy or what piracy was were left in the dark. Legitimate users started fearing the program, which I never imagined.

A reporter called me today, and suggested that I make it free, and then have users pay for support. Or open source the program. I will consider all of these. -Reza

LINK

No wonder there are so many really stupid decisions being made today -people are using the wrong organ! This may also explain Dell’s market share and the voting habits of many large English-speaking  countries.

‘Unlucky’ airline logo grounded
A new Belgian carrier, Brussels Airlines, has been forced to change its logo following complaints from superstitious passengers.

The 13 dots making up the stylised ‘b’ brought a flood of complaints about the “unlucky” design.

The airline, which formally launches on 25 March, said it was taken aback by the strength of feeling and felt obliged to respond.

It has now altered the design to incorporate an additional dot.

LINKOID

Vancouver cops hate WiFi

Vancouver’s cops have espoused vague, technologically ignorant objections to city-wide WiFi. They argue that the ability to communicate anonymously will help criminals (cough pay-phones cough) and that WiFi is all about people stealing each others’ connectivity. It’s like the Vancouver cops have never even considered the possibility that people might deliberately share their Internet connections with their friends and neighbors just to be neighborly.

    Police are concerned that unrestricted wireless access would give criminals an advantage by making it more difficult to track them…

    “In this particular project, we’re not concerned about the project in itself. We will mitigate risks properly. In the general sense, however, we have concerns. You can go by coffee shops and even people’s houses and piggyback on their wireless,” he said.

LINK

That last line just frosted me - like there is something wrong with people using WiFi in coffee shops or curb side? What is the matter with these people? Where did they get the idea that using the stray signals from someone’s Linksys wireless router is a problem? What if I dare to read by the excess light spilling out of their house at night? Is that an offense?

I keep running into folks who have enabled passwords on everything and firewalls on the rest. They live in complete fear that some one will steal their internet service, invade their computers or put viruses on their Macs. Naughty WiFi!

Let me explain this one more time - once you pay that flat rate fee for the internet connection then run it through your router - you are done with it. Nothing anyone else does to that signal will degrade, diminish or wear out your connection. Bit’s are not things. Bits are not things. Bits are not things!

How can can you steal something that is still there when you’re done?

If you have a Mac and use a good password then no one can get into your computer. And (pay attention now) no one cares about what’s on your computer. Really! You’re just not that important. Paranoia is a pathology, not a hobby. Get some help - instead of paying for more security software.

The only security problems most of us have are with our own conscience. We’re just not that important and with a Mac we can’t even get infected with viruses or spyware so invading our networks is futile.

Now if you have a huge collection of robot or animal porn on your computer then you may have something to worry about. Not that any one really gives a flying dildo, but the guilt alone may drive you to extreme and irrational behavior, which is a symptom. You don’t need a FireWall; you need therapy or a good anti-depressant. If you’re cheating on your taxes or your spouse, then you might want to lock up your router so the space aliens or the Illuminati don’t find out. Covering your computer with tinfoil will help.

So what are the police in Vancouver hiding?

“Dell Laptop Burned Down My House”

On Monday morning I was heading to work like any other day.. little did I know that my home was being consumed by a raging fire. I arrived my desk to find that the phone was ringing - I needed to come home immediately was the message.
When I arrived home the entire street was blocked with fire and rescue crews. My 130 year old former farm house was engulfed in flames, with thick dark smoke pouring out of the windows and roof. Over 60 firefighters from 4 departments fought the blaze and battled equipment failures due to the near zero degree weather.

Hours later, after investigation the fire Marshall investigator took me aside asked me if I had a laptop computer. Yes — I told him I had a Dell Inspiron 1200…

It was determined that the laptop, battery, or cord malfunctioned around 15 minutes after I left for work, and quickly spread through the living room, the nearby dining room, and then up a stairwell into the bedrooms. Virtually the entire house suffered extensive fire, smoke, or water damage. The cold weather ensured that water quickly turned to ice which has further burdened and damaged the structure. All of our possessions have been lost - photos, keepsakes, clothes –everything. It looks like the house will be a total loss.

LINKPOO

“Goofy” arrested on child porn charges

Orlando, Florida - A Disney actor who plays “Goofy” and “The Beast” from ‘Beauty and the Beast’ faces 51 counts of child porn in Orlando. 

20-year-old Matthew Wendland was arrested early this morning at his apartment.  Police found explicit photos of children as young as 3-years-old, posed in pornographic positions inside Matthew’s room.  Officials say it was his roommates that led police to the pictures. They say Wendland usually kept his room locked.

Deputies believe Wendland did not act on his urges at the Disney World theme park while he was working.  Investigators say Wendland has no criminal history.

LINKO

Two arrested after fight over washcloth.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Officials say a fight over a washcloth in Ponte Vedra Beach sent two people to jail.According to the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, Ronald Anderson had asked his brother’s roommate, Candice Spivey, for a washcloth while she was in the bathroom.

The two started arguing, then authorities say Spivey called Lucas Brown and said she was being harassed. When Brown arrived, police say he had a shotgun and forced Anderson to the floor and kicked him in the face.

Brown later fired the shotgun into a wall. He was arrested on charges of battery, aggravated assault and shooting into an occupied dwelling.

If trying to kill someone because they ask for a washcloth isn’t enough, let’s beat the crap outta them for NOT drinking.

Non-Drinking Designated Driver Kicked Out Of Bar

PINELLAS PARK A Florida man is planning to file a discrimination lawsuit against a Pinellas Park bar, not because he drank too much but because he drank too little.

Gary Maujean was inside Claire’s Lounge with his wife and friends but he wasn’t drinking alcohol, only soda, because he was their designated driver.

He claims he was penalized for trying to do the right thing and says the owner and a bouncer threw him out of the bar for not drinking alcohol. His attorney said the bar’s owner grabbed Maujean, slammed his head against a door and forced him out of the facility. Attorney Tom Carey said Maujean was injured and required more than a dozen stitches.

The bar tells a different story and claims he didn’t order anything at all.

Well, see! That’s yer problem.

“Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.”

You can read the rest of the article here, then decide if the richest man in the world is delusional, lying or just out of touch by a few parsecs.

The media is covering the release of Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system or as we like to call it: “OS 9.2. Bill has even gone so far as to play a meat-based robot on The Daily Show where Jon Stewart asked him what the “F12″ key was for. I mean Bill has the comic sense and timing of a trout! This is not someone you want to take to see Eddie Izzard.

At least it will soon be over and Bill can be put back in his box for another five years or until the Borgs need him to inject brevity into yet another bag of code.

Zune’s Boss Steps Down. Is the iPod Killer…Dying?

Bryan Lee, the head of the Zune project for Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft, is leaving the company “to focus on the next chapter in his life,” but analysts claim it’s something fishy about his departure.

A spokeswoman for the Redmond behemoth declared that the corporate vice-president at the EDD is stepping down “to pursue personal interests.” Zune is Microsoft’s digital portable media player and is also associated with the online music store (an iTunes rival). The portable MP3 player was released to the U.S. market with a 30 GB model for US$249.99 on November 14, 2006.

The EDD planned a $100 million advertising campaign for Zune, with “music the way it wants to be” as a major theme. Microsoft has enrolled approximately 300 “Zune masters” to advertise the device on American college campuses. They receive free merchandise, including a Zune; in return, they are expected to promote the item and run Zune-related events.

But apparently this was not enough. The Zune (previously called “the famous iPod-killer”) didn’t scratch the surface of the iPod.

Overall, Apple still maintains a tight grip on the MP3 players market, with 82.7 percent market share for the hard-drive iPods in the first half of December 2006, but down from the 86.8 percent registered last year. Considering both hard-drive and flash-based MP3 players, Apple holds an impressive 62.2 percent market share for its gadget, almost the same percent as in 2005 (63%).

As a comparison, Zune managed to obtain 9% market share in the first week since its launch in November, making it the second most important MP3 player, but far behind iPod. Zune’s success is diminished though when we consider that it took 9% of the hard drive MP3 player market. These numbers also do not include sales from Apple retail stores, which sell only iPod players.

Despite the heavy investments in advertising and marketing, Zune was received by consumers with indifference. A survey of 40 retailers conducted by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster found only 8% of the sales people recommended Zune last year compared to 75% recommendation for Apple iPod, and that most of the sales people did not even know what Zune was or who made it.

“This is clearly a sign of trouble in Zune-land,” said Van Baker, industry analyst at Gartner Inc., citing sales results for the Zune device. “It had an acceptable launch week, but then it immediately slowed down.”

More giggles: LINK

It was looking like the therapy had taken good effect for a while but then these delightful pieces occurred in fark.com which is so much easier than actually doing research.

So now the great state of below sealevel allows you to carry a concealed weapon even if you are guilty of a felony. The NRA will then blame those naughty judges who paid for the guns. But then when you go to the police station be sure to get all the drugs out of your pockets first. You can keep the gun.

Fla. Gives Gun Permits to Felons

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Hundreds of criminals were able to obtain concealed weapons permits in Florida because of loopholes, errors and miscommunication, a newspaper reported Sunday.

An analysis of state records show the roughly 410,000 Floridians licensed to carry hidden guns included 1,400 who had pleaded guilty or no contest to felonies, 216 with outstanding warrants, 128 named in active domestic violence injunctions and six registered sex offenders, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

“I had no idea,” said Baker County Sheriff Joey Dobson … “I think the system, somewhere down the line, is broken.

Marion Hammer, a Tallahassee lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, blamed law enforcement gaps, “bleeding-heart, criminal-coddling judges and prosecutors” for missteps that put guns in the hands of criminals.

Critics, however, say the NRA pressures lawmakers to ignore the problem.

LINKE

Walk-in Drug Arrest

Bay County Sheriff’s Office narcotics investigators arrested a local man yesterday at the Bay County Sheriff’s Office when he showed up for questioning with illegal narcotics in his pockets.

Investigators initially contacted James Timothy Buchanan and requested he come to the Sheriff’s Office for questioning on a warrant that had been issued for him. Buchanan arrived at the Sheriff’s office… and was served with the warrant on a charge of Obtaining a False Prescription.

A search of Buchanan’s person revealed Lortab pills in his pockets. Buchanan allegedly has no prescription for Lortab.

Also discovered was the fact that Buchanan had in his possession three Florida Driver’s Licenses.

LONK

Can this spray really stop mobile phone signals?

Did you know that, right now, artificial electromagnetic (EM) waves could be tearing your skin cells apart and causing your face to age prematurely? Waves from televisions, mobile phones and radios are all around us. They pass through metres of concrete, so imagine what they’re doing to your skin.

Clarins reckon they have something to help. It’s Expertise 3P, “an ultra-sheer screen mist containing a pioneering combination of plant extracts capable of protecting the skin from the accelerated-ageing effects of all indoor and outdoor air pollution but, most significantly, the effects of Artificial Electromagnetic Waves.” It’s a bargain at £30 a bottle.

This is such an important discovery that it is the subject of a new scientific research paper. Sadly, the Clarins press office couldn’t tell us where or when the paper would be published. But it could offer an interview with the excitable Lionel de Benetti, head of research and development.

One of the ingredients, thermos thermophilus, comes from 2,000m deep in the ocean. The other, rhodiola rosea, lives in the extreme cold of Siberia. De Benetti can barely contain his glee at the discovery: “We exposed our cell cultures to a frequency of 900 MHz in the presence of these two plant extracts and found that their structures hardly changed!”

Michael Bluck, an engineer at Imperial College, sounds distinctly unconvinced. We have been bathed in EM waves since the dawn of time. So-called “artificial” waves are used by electronic devices because they do not interact with our bodies. If you were intent on stopping the waves, Bluck explains that you could scatter them with a fine mesh of metal or absorb them - although the energy would be converted to heat, which would cook your skin.

But what about the ocean ingredients that prevented ageing in lab tests? “Presumably there’s not a lot in the way of electromagnetic waves, particularly artificial ones, down in the bottom of the ocean, so why the organisms should have evolved this capability is beyond me,” says Bluck.

His advice for anyone worried about EM radiation? “Live as far away from the producers of EM waves as possible and live with the consequences of having no friends and no life,” he says.

Ripped intact from: LINK

Careless mistake reveals subversion of Windows by NSA.

A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had built an NSA “help information” trapdoor into its Notes system, and that security functions on other software systems had been deliberately crippled. The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two years ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren. But it was only a few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the access system.

With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA. Computer security specialists have been aware for two years that unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows software “driver” used for security and encryption functions. The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of security functions.

If you use Windows, you will find it in the C:\Windows\system directory of your computer.ADVAPI.DLL works closely with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but will only run crypographic functions that the US governments allows Microsoft to export. That information is bad enough news, from a European point of view. Now, it turns out that ADVAPI will run special programmes inserted and controlled by NSA. As yet, no-one knows what these programmes are, or what they do.

LINK

Vista is a disaster. Microsoft is so desperate to get the entertainment industry locked into its platform that they’ll destroy themselves to get there. This is an operating system that, when idle, will have to check itself every 30 microseconds to make sure nothing is still happening, and no hackers are attacking it. It acts like an unmedicated paranoid. If Vista catches on, hundreds of millions of computers will be burning heptillions of cycles and tons of coal just making sure that no one is putting a voltmeter on the traces on its motherboard.

And those are its good points.

LINK & LAUGH

In fact, it’s clear that Windows Vista stands just below the
Patriot Act for evil intent with no redeeming qualities. Vista is
nothing more than a power-grab by greedy corporations and the federal
government. In fact the well-loved National Security Agency recently
admitted to “assisting” in the development of the new operation system
in unspecified areas. That’s like giving the police your house keys and
wallet while carrying your own pair of handcuffs just in case you do something bad.

As more people have an opportunity to crawl under the hood, the real pathology of Microsoft’s intentions will be revealed.

Consider this short excerpt from “Analysis of Microsoft’s Suicide Note:

“The entire operating system now seems to have turned against the
user. Zero tolerance drivers and regulation code will lock the system
down if any type of deviance is detected. So called “tilt bits” will
signal an attack on the system if anything is found out of the
ordinary. These changes won’t enhance user security unfortunately as
they were designed to protect only “premium content”. Medical data,
credit card numbers, and other private things that do deserve this
level of protection are completly ignored. Untrusting of any
environmental changes the system will shut down or degrade performance
in response to a perceived attack.”

Rest assured there will be more revelations of Microsoft’s villainy as time goes by just as there will be more people buying Macs this year.

LINK to more of the above

Man Run Over, Set On Fire By Own Car

POSTED: 9:57 pm EST January 7, 2007

A 43-year-old man in Orange County, Fla., working on his vehicle over the weekend, was run over and then set on fire when the car slipped into gear.

Police said the man was working on his vehicle at the Hunter’s Creek nursing home located on Town Loop Boulevard when the vehicle jumped forward and ran him over, pinning him to the ground.

The catalytic converter then caught his clothes on fire, Local 6 News reported.

Two Orange County sheriff’s deputies responded and lifted the vehicle off the burned man.The victim suffered second- and third-degree burns on his body. He was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center but his condition was not offered Sunday night.

I assume the car was released with minor injuries and will be filing suit for abuse to it’s auto-immune system

Myakka River State Park is a mostly water - it’s a river in a state with an average land height of seven inches. Above the alligators and snakes the grass floats on a thin layer of slime and mud. I know, I spent many happy, youthful hours there discovering the joys of sex, drugs and small biting insects. Anyone who even thinks you can drive across this place demonstrates a sever cognitive deficit.

But of course, this is Florida, where brain death will always get you some free press.

Official caught off-roading in preserve

VENICE — In this 11-hour battle between mud and man, the mud won.

It beat Chris Sharek, the director of Venice’s utilities department, whose job is to ensure that the city obeys environmental regulations, though he apparently failed to do so himself.

A judge slapped Sharek with 25 hours of community service and probation last month for off-roading through a protected wilderness preserve with his wife and father-in-law.

When their vehicles got stuck in the mud at Myakka River State Park, Sharek phoned for help. Friends arrived and dismantled a fence so they could drive in to free them. Their cars, in turn, got stuck. Another round of calls went out. Another round of cars were trapped…

…”After talking with the deputies, I was able to get a picture of what was going on,” Hines wrote in his report. “By the time it was all said and done, there were two Jeeps, two Fords, one Hummer and one tractor in an area closed to vehicles.”

Sharek and the others had driven past several “No Trespassing” signs and others that labeled the area a protected wilderness preserve open to foot traffic only, the report said…

…”I think it reflects poor judgment on his part,” Black said. “It is not an action which relates to his employment with the city, so there is no need to take any disciplinary action.”

Sharek said the off-roading trip was a mistake. “It was a bad decision. I took responsibility for it,” Sharek said…

But did Sharek know he was breaking the law? “I suppose,” he said.

Link

Fla. Residents See Jesus Image In Tree

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Man-made religious decorations are a common sight at this time of year, but the image on a tree in an Arlington man’s front yard is natural and some neighbors have begun calling it a holy tree, according to a WJXT-TV report.

Neighbors near Daryl Brown’s Arlington home said a tree in his yard bears the image of Jesus. The likeness has created a buzz in the neighborhood and has many residents at a loss for words.

“I see the face, eyes, and you can see the crown,” said one neighbor.
“I can’t say what I feel, I just feel it,” said another neighbor…

“Jesus don’t just pop up like that. If you know the word of Jesus and you believe in Jesus, then there you go. He does exist,” Brown said…

The woman who discovered the image told WJXT-TV that she moved to the neighborhood after she retired to find some peace and quiet, but that she did not realize she would find Jesus. She said every time she walks her dog she is comforted knowing Jesus is watching over her.

LINK

Woman may face charges over keeping ball

OCALA, Fla. (AP) — A woman may face charges after she reportedly refused to return a child’s ball that was given as a Christmas gift but then kicked into her yard by a child.

A Marion County deputy and the child’s mother say they plan to pursue charges against the woman, Jeannette R. Odom. The child’s mother told sheriff’s deputies her 8-year-old son and some other children were playing with the red Spiderman ball when it landed in the woman’s yard.

Before the boy could retrieve it, Odom allegedly took the ball and went into her trailer. A sheriff’s report says that she refused to return the ball at the request of Deputy Erica Hadley.Odom told the Ocala Star-Banner that the children had kicked the ball into her yard four times before she went out to retrieve the toy.

Hadley estimated Odom to be between 75 and 80 years old. Hadley said she would pursue petty theft charges against Odom. The case would have to be forwarded to the state attorney’s office to determine if charges would be filed.

LINK

Driver hurt after lighting illegal firecracker in truck

James Rich, 46, was parked outside a Hollywood convenience store Tuesday afternoon when he lit a powerful illegal firecracker. But Rich couldn’t toss the explosive out of his pickup truck fast enough. It blew up in his left hand.

One day later, Rich remained in critical condition at Memorial Regional Hospital. Police are still trying to determine why he lit the device The blast happened about 1:30 p.m. in the 1000 block of South 56th Avenue.

Rich lit either an M-80 or M-100 firecracker, both of which are illegal in Florida, said Capt. Tony Rode, a Hollywood police spokesman.

‘’They are extremely powerful firecrackers,'’ Rode said. “The M-100 is like a quarter stick of dynamite.'’ Rich suffered severe burns and was likely to have his left arm amputated, police said. Nobody else was injured. Police believe Rich may have been selling the explosives, Rode said. Other fireworks were found in his truck. It was unclear if drugs or alcohol played a role in the explosion.

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