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Doug Giles takes on the “Passion Police” in this mildly humorous, yet deeply biting piece on Andy Rooney, the raging rabble of the media and other ranting noisemakers such as the Anti-Defamation League.

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In a land where it is gradually becoming a social crime to profess Christianity, and perversion of all sorts is being proliferated through every possible facility known to man today, I cannot help but laud a few men who I believe to be true heroes of our time. Men like Mel Gibson who was willing to put everything on the line just to tell the story of Jesus’ death without adulteration. Men like Justice Roy Moore who sacrificed his judicial career to stand up for what he believed in (interestingly enough, Gavin “Any-Twosome” Newsom is blatantly violating clearly established state law right now in California, but the same media that crucified Roy Moore today hails him as a civil rights activist!). Men like the pastor in this story who dared to pray a sincere prayer before the senate that squarely addresses the evils that face us in our time. Men who are willing to be the catalysts that will wake up the sleeping Christians in America to the perilous times we live in. The last line of the article says it all: “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for everything.”

Microsoft has applied for a software patent #20030189597 for a “Virtual desktop manager”. The person behind this is Bret Anderson, the author of LiteStep (an alternative Unix-wm-like shell for windows) who has apparently been hired by (and sold his soul to) Microsoft. Abstract:

A method for a user to preview multiple virtual desktops in a graphical user interface is described. The method comprises receiving an indication from a user to preview the multiple virtual desktops and displaying multiple panes on the display. Each pane contains a scaled virtual desktop having dimensions that are proportionally less than the dimensions of a corresponding full-size virtual desktop. Each scaled virtual desktop displays with one or more scaled application windows as shadows if the corresponding full-size virtual desktop has one or more corresponding application windows that are active.

This pretty much describes the Enlightenment pager in detail. Is it that Microsoft is absolutely incapable of ever coming up with a single innovation of its own? This is why software patents are evil: if this patent is granted (despite the prior art–we all know how adept the USPTO is at identifying legitimate patent claims), it becomes a complete case of theft: Microsoft not only copies the technology from those of us in the open source community that are actually innovating, but decides to rob us of the freedom to develop and use our own creations.

I guess I need to go and cool off a bit. SERENITY NOW!

I don’t even know what to say about this. Read for yourself. No matter what you think about how much MS products suck, this is not good at all. I for one plan to avoid downloading or seeing the code at all costs, and any person with a modicum of intelligence ought to think likewise. Apparently Microsoft has confirmed, although they attempted to downplay it. Brace yourselves, sysadmins…