Bill Ryan's Other Blog

There’s a lot of talent available.

[tags]SexyGeeks, Hot Geeks[/tags]

I’ve been wanting a SLR for a while now and Nikon’s new D3x looks pretty freaking cool, I mean, with 24.5 Megapixels and all.  You can get one (body only unfortunately) for a mere $8399.95.  Whodda thunk that we’d see a time when prices for cameras rivaled that of used monster SUV’s like the Excursion or Suburban.

[tags]Digital Photography, Digital cameras, Nikon, Nikon D3x[/tags]

This is really cool.  Tech-celebrity Guy Kawaski is going to be on Coast To Coast AM tonight talking about Apple computer as well as the financial & engineering alchemy used to push the frontiers of high tech

[tags] Coast to Coast AM, Guy Kawasaki, Apple Computer [/tags]

 As the intro to the D.C. Talk song goes, the biggest single threat to Christianity is not athiests but Christians. Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and proceed to denounce him with their lifestyle

Members of the Grace Community Church in Jacksonville probably think this verse applies to one of their former members, Rebecca Hancock.  After all, she admitted to a ‘mentor’ that she was having an affair.  She’s a Christian, accepting Jesus with her lips, and disavowing him with her lifestyle.  Well, I can’t speak to her or her relationship with God, but I can say for sure that the most horrendous sin being committed by a Grace Community Church member isn’t being committed by Ms Hancock.

The Church’s behavior is so despicable it’s really hard to describe.  I mean, it’s bad enough that they do this to Ms. Hancock, and subject her kids to all the humiliation that this is no doubt bringing now that it’s national news, but look at what it takes to become a member there.  (In addition to being a sick cult parading as a Christian Church, they apparently ain’t so good wit their Php Skillz).  Then again, 404 errors are probably a blessing if this is any reflection of the content you’ll find there.

This whole thing is just straight up whack.  That just goes to show that there’s more than one dangerous cult in middle/upper Florida.

All I can say is that as a Christian, it really bothers me that scum likes this gives the religion a bad name.  If they believe that sort of crap is behavior Jesus would support, they are seriously misleaded. They ought to quit listening to that crackpot preacher  (Dr T. Scott Christmas) e.d. just look at those creeps, it makes me uncomfortable just looking at them   and read the Bible for themselves – and then see if they really believe this is consistent with what Christianity is all about.

[tags] Grace Community Church, Jacksonville, Rebecca Hancock , Dr. T. Scott Christmas[/tags]

As a chronic insomniac, I’ve been listening to CoastToCoast AM for years.  Since I’ve gotten married, I haven’t been able to listen as frequently as I’d like since my lovely wife can’t sleep in bright noisy rooms(which I prefer).  However many nights when I can’t sleep, I’ll stay up working on the computer and get to listen to CoastToCoast.

Last night, Linda Moulton Howe had a really interesting segment based on her EarthFiles report titled, The CIA, UFO’s and Hollywood.

I’ll be the first to admit that many of the guests on CoastToCoast AM are crackpots and there’s a lot of stuff that is really hard to give any credence to. However they cover a lot of topics and people that are very convincing and have some interesting information to report. I can think of several issues that would have had huge implications that were covered in the press and then disappeared without a trace. And many of these are things I’ve heard covered on Coast To Coast.

The segment focused on the US Government’s propaganda machine regarding  UFOs.  There’s an upcoming story in the Guardian that her report largely covered that details how much involvement the gov’t has in Hollywood.  One of the topics was that the original movie The Day the Earth Stood Still was influenced heavily by the CIA to test how the public would react to learning about alien contact. Sounds pretty nutty, huh? Read the article and ask yourself that question again.

While hearing that the CIA was involved with a movie like that isn’t the most earth shattering thing I’ve heard on that show (that was believable), the segment on Steven Spielberg was among them.  He was apparently contacted by the Department of Defense, while making Close Encounters of the Third Kind and asked not to make the movie. Warned is probably a better way of saying it. Among other things, they said such a movie was inherently dangerous. Think about the following quote:

“If  NASA took the time to write me a 20-page letter,
then I knew there must be something happening.
When they read the [Close Encounters] script, they got very
angry and felt that it was a film that would be dangerous.”

Ok, it’s just one quote, so what.  Well, listen to a little more of what he had to say… Skeptics might counter that Spielberg is a movie maker and he was just generating demand.  That’s plausible but he’s pretty astute about the movie market and that segment of society doesn’t seem like it’s large enough to put his energy into, does it?  If you search for Spielberg and UFO’s, you’ll find quite a bit about his beliefs in the subject and involvement in bringing awareness about it to the public.  This isn’t going to convince a hard core skeptic but it’ll likely make you wonder a little if you’re not one.

Then there’s Jimmy Carter.  Although reasonable people have many things to criticize about the former president, there are a few things that are quite interesting when it comes to him and UFO’s.  There’s a well publicized incident regarding Carter where he was absolutely convinced he saw a UFO. He went on to make the following statement:

“One thing’s for sure, I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become President, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists.”

The authors of the Guardian report assert that Carter was briefed on the UFO phenomenon shortly after becomming president and after that, never again discussed the subject.  I don’t have the link (because the story isn’t published yet nor is the book) that cites evidence of his briefing but it’s certainly not hard to imagine that he got one. After all, he clearly had a strong opinion on the subject and after making a statement like that, it’s not too hard to believe that he either requested/demanded a brief or one was provided to him b/c they believed he would ask for it.  AFAIAC, until I see the evidence of this it’s speculative but plausible enough that I’m inclined to believe it. However the other part of the claim, that he never publicly discussed the issue again, isn’t speculation. I looked around for hours and wasn’t able to find a single article or quote from him on the subject after 1978.  If one exists I’ll certainly acknowledge it but there’s no doubting that as a subject, he dropped the whole thing.  From “When I’m president I’ll make every shred of evidence available to the public” to completely dropping the issue is a change of stance that’s pretty dramatic.  To that end, I find the author’s claims pretty plausible. And if it’s true, you have to wonder why?  Again that’s a matter of speculation – maybe after all he just found other things more pressing.  He may have realized it was all a bunch of nonsense and decided it wasn’t worth talking about.  But you’d think he’d have at least mentioned his change of position at least once.  His silence seems eerily reminiscent to George W Bush’s refusal to discuss any aspect of Skull and Bones (and for the record, I have no reason to believe Skull and Bones membership is anything more than being a member of a fraternal organization. With that said, Bush’s whole response to Skull & Bones questioning always did strike me as a bit odd to say the least).

I’ve teased the whole story enough so if you think any of it sounds interesting, I’d highly recommend reading Linda Moulton Howe’s post on the subject and the upcoming Guardian article.  If you think it’s all a bunch of nonsense and a waste of time, let me recommend one other thing to read.  Check out The Disclosure Project and just look at all the names of high ranking government officials, people who are hardly crackpots or nutjobs, that have signed on to the initiative. Look at the evidence they have of CIA involvement in the whole thing.  You’d think the government could easily release this information and put an end to the whole thing (true, some people wouldn’t be convinced but it would go a long way to removing any doubts most reasonable people may have).

Although I don’t believe that BS stories from the government means a conspiracy is at hand (most notably with Truthers… even if the “official story” has tons of holes in it, that doesn’t mean it was an inside job by any means), it does make me wonder why they would go through the effort. On something like 9/11, it makes sense, after all there may be several details related to the response that they don’t want potential terrorists to know.  I can think of several reasons that an official story of that sory may not be completely true.

But if UFO’s don’t exist or if there’s no evidence of them existing, it’s hard to imagine why they’d go through all this effort.  Well, if nothing else it’s something to think about on those late nights when I can’t go to sleep

[tags] Art Bell, Coast To Coast AM, Linda Moulton Howe, Earth Files, CIA, CIA Cover UP, UFOs, Steven Spielberg, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Robbie Graham and Matthew Alford [/tags]

You may remember the DC Judge (Roy Pearson) who was suing a dry cleaner for 65million dollars over a single pair of pants. He lost the first round and it appears (thank God), he lost the next round too.

[tags]Roy Pearson, Dry Cleaner Law Suit, Custom Cleaners[/tags]

Val at Babalu wonders if we repeat his name enough, if people will start to care.  Cubans are the one minority the left really can’t stand and calling Castro what he is isn’t fashionable among them either (well, there are some on the left who care, Nat Hentoff being the one notable high profile lefty that’s on the right side of the issue).  Media and Academic types love Fidel so much they are even willing to look past his racism and homophobia… name anyone else that gets a free pass on both issues?   So Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet’s plight doesn’t get the coverage of even  the unfortunate folks who were tortured at Abu Ghraib.  We hear so much about the horrible condition of Guantanamo detainees but not a word about the systematic abuse that’s going on throughout the rest of the island.

I don’t pretend to think a few bloggers are going to make a difference, but it’s still something worth fighting for. 

The Lawton Foundation has more information on Dr Biscet.

[tags]Fidel Castro, Political Prisoner, Dr Oscar Elias Biscet, The Lawton Foundation[/tags]

You know, like Erlicha who thought people were the root cause of everything – when he wasn’t studying butterflies. Who thinks more people = bad. Except I don’t make stupid predictions that never come true.  I used to think people like Erlich were elitist whackjobs who were really freightening b/c if their policies were implemented, well, lots of people would be dead.

Then I read this. So these asshats want to name their kids after Hitler and Himmler?  It’s a free country, they’re entitled to do things like that even if it’s going to f*ck their kids lives up something fierce.   But they don’t have a right to play victim every time someone gets offended or doesn’t want to help them advance/publicize their issues (and I mean issues in the broadest sense of the word).  What kind of life are these kids going to have… In New Jersey? If they went to small private schools like I did, well, they might have a prayer.  But I don’t think most private schools would take them (not b/c of their name but b/c of the whole Poor White Trash vibe they ooze out of every poor).  So what’s going to happen when  a bunch of Jewish kids and Black kids run into these two?  I’m just glad my name is William, even if it is nerdy and my middle name George is even nerdier.

Holocaust Denier?  It’s really hard to even take people like that seriously. And of course they say they aren’t racists….. of course not.  Neither were Hitler or Himmler I’m sure.  Being a bigot is bad enough. Lying about being a bigot is bad enough. But denying that innocent people all over the freaking world died takes the cake.  I guess PWT like this has the reputation they do for a reason. When I call customer service or go to the mall, I often feel unemployment is wayyyy to low. When I drive to work behind all the slow inconsiderate aholes in the left lane driving nice and slow (usually gabbing on their phones) I think too many people have driver’s licenses.  When I go to Walmart I almost always feel that too many people make children.  And when I read this, I know I’m absolutely right about at least one of those ideas.

 UPDATE:  ShopRite responds

[tags]Adolf Hitler Campbell, Paul Erlich, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Deborah and Heath Campbell,  Shoprite[/tags]

The bad part is that I run into several of these on a regular basis.  So are they really that bad?  Need I say more?

[tags]CAPTCHA, Web Usability, Web Design, Layout [/tags]

As funny as this post is, the comments are even better:

So when you’re feeling a little smug and slamming people who have degrees from unaccredited or “questionably accredited” institutions, you might want to cut those people a little slack. In the era of offshoring and outsourcing, people are looking for a way to keep their jobs and they might be a little less thorough in their due diligence when investigating schools. 

The whole post highlights what an utter sham Belford University was pointing out that you can earn a high school diploma the whole way up to a Ph.D, all for under $1,000.00 and in under a week, without ever attending class.  Well, Scott apparently didn’t like the ridicule being dished out and points out that not everyone that gets caught up in such an endeavor is looking to pull a fast one. Apparently there are really slick talking counselors out there that tell you the school is accredited and well, all the stuff I quoted above.  Sorry Scott, if someone purchases a degree from a place that allows you to order everything from a HS Diploma to a Ph.D for under 1k, the smooth talking salesman excuse ain’t cutting it. Read his whole reply, it’s priceless.

[tags] Belford University, Online College Degrees, Fake College Degree [/tags]

At first I thought it was a goof, but apparently, BlackBird is all kinda real.  I’m downloading it now and honestly, it looks damned cool. 

It looks like Firefox meets Windows Media Player and uses the Honda Goldwing symbol as a logo.  Here are just some of the features:

For more details, check BlackBird out for yourself

[tags]Blackbird, Web Browser, African-American Community[/tags]

Seems like just yesterday I posted about the Bernard Madoff scandal… so today as I’m editing the layout for this blog, I see the following pop up in Google Adsense.  I’m not sure what surprises me more, that an attorney has already gotten up a portion of his site dedicated to suing Madoff (as fun as it is to hate trial attorneys, it’s hard to have much sympathy for Madoff) or that there are enough people out there directly affected by it.  If I remember correctly. the article said he had less than 25 clients (which seemed hard to believe considering the esimated losses are to the tune of $50 billion) so I’m guessing people with that kind of cash don’t pick attorneys from Google Adsense advertising.

As I started looking over the rest of the ads, it’s not just an attorney or two with a page dedicated to suing this guy, there are entire sites dedicated to it. Somehow I’m guessing that pissing off people with that many zeroes in their net worth isn’t a really smart career move in and of itself, but now that the cat is out of the bag, I’m guessing all the people indirectly affected by this scam are going to try to recover their losses too.

You know, every time I hear a story about some ordinary hard working citizen that gets their life savings ripped off it’s really maddening.  I guess it’s so rare I had never thought about it, but imagine having over a billion dollar net worth and having it all gone. When you’re that rich, you probably figure no matter what, you’ll never be broke.  To spend money like that, you’d invariably have to spend much of it on assets and the likelihood of them all going down to nothing is, well, next to nothing.  Just like my heart goes out to the everyday folks who get ripped off, I guess I have a lot of sympathy for the billionaires that get it all ripped off too.  Getting screwed out of your life’s savings is awful no matter what your lot in life is – and as some of these poor folks are going to find out, it’s going to be devastating.  There’s really nothing you can do to a 70 year old man that’s hurt this many people this deeply that will amount of any real form of justice.

Sadly, just like 9/11, Waco, Enron, TYCO, and every other major government oversight failure, I’m guessing not only won’t anyone get fired over this, there will be some promotions along the line.  When you read the story of how Madoff pulled this all off, you really have to ask, What exactly are we paying the SEC to do again?

[tags] Bernard Madoff, Securities Exchange Commission, Madoff Fraud [/tags]

I’ve been using Twitter for about a year now, ever since Ryan Olshan turned me on to it.  Shortly after I started Tweeting (or whatever the correctly conjugated verb for it is), I came across a fellow Tweeter in Atlanta @Streetlightlilly.  She’s cool, she’s funny, she’s smart and she talks major trash on UGA, what more can you ask for in a Twitter buddy.

She just started a blog this evening and so far, she’s not doing too bad traffic wise. Although this blog is too new to generate much traffic, hopefully I can generate a little more for her from my MSMVPS blog.  Anyway, if you take your snark with an extra dose of smart and clever, check her out.

For a while, I was really uncomfortable with some of Obama’s associations.  Not any one in particular, but it just seemed like everyone he was friends with in the past was some sort of America hating reprobate.  I really liked Obama but that part of him coupled with his relative inexperience really made me uncomfortable.

But I’m so glad he won.  I’m not commenting at all on Palin and don’t want to even think of going there.  But when I see stuff like this it just makes me realize how crappy things would be if McCain had won president. He’s everything I hate about Bush but none of the good stuff.  When a large contingent of Democrats turned on Joe Lieberman I thought it was uncool too, but at least in that case, it was several years and there was a big issue they split on , namely the war.  In this case, it’s totally different.  McCain asks Palin to be his VP nominee.  Love her or hate her, she did her job loyally.  He partakes in that SNL skit making her look pretty stupid and after getting drubbed in the election, his people just trash her on a really nasty personal level.  McCain is nowhere to be found during that – Mr Honor is all fine with his people throwing really crass, tawdry as Mrs Cheney would say, shots at her.  Then this. 

Which gets to my point. If he can’t support her for President, that’s fine. But why in the hell did he essentially do just that a few months ago. I mean, less than a month and a half ago, he thought she’d be the best choice for president among the bunch didn’t he?  Or if it was purely a political thing and he didn’t believe she was the best for the job, how can he claim he did the honorable thing by nominating her?

For what he did in Nam, McCain is 100% more of a man than I’ve ever proven myself to be and I doubt I would have faired very well under the same circumstances. For that McCain deserves a lot of respect and admiration. But honestly, it seems that guy died a long time ago.  He got fat and comfortable feeding off the trough of taxpayer money and got power hungry. And now, far from carrying about everyone else before himself, all he cares about is himself. His whole tired Maverick routine just makes me want to barf.  Even when I agree with the guy, he’s the member of a party but has no loyalty whatsoever. Screwing over your friends doesn’t make you a Maverick. It proves that when it comes to currently politics, the parties are a jokes, there are Demopublicans and Replubicrats and McCain is the epitome of them.

[tags]Obama, McCain, Palin, Maverick[/tags]

If you’re doing any Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 development, the CRM Accelerators up on CodePlex are pure gold.  The CRM team just added 6 more videos to the series. 

• An Introduction with Reuben Krippner
• Enterprise Search
• Notifications (RSS)
• Event Management
• eService (ASP.NET Portal)
• Analytics

I haven’t seen all of them yet but of the ones I’ve seen, they’re excellent (Analytics, Enterprise Search and Notifications).  My coworker Will Wilson worked on the RSS accelerator and it’s quite impressive.

[tags]Microsoft Dynamics, CRM, CodePlex, CRM Accelerators  [/tags]

As you’d expect, #118 is as on target as it is funny.  And that’s a big accomplishment coming off of #117 – Political Prisoners.
[tags]Stuff White People Like, Sweater Parties, Political Prisoners[/tags]

When I was in grad school, I had to do a paper on a treatise called On the folly of rewarding A while hoping for B.  In a sentence, the premise is that we get what we reward. If we expect what we reward, we’ll be happy, if we don’t, we’ll be disappointed.  John Tierny has a great example of this called Science or Garbage? 

I spent most of my younger years in private school and didn’t head to public school until high school.  While my experience was positive, I say that mainly for social reasons.  The overall education was decent enough but one big difference was the amount of time on BS courses.  In private school we didn’t have Study Halls. We didn’t have regular pep rallies. We didn’t have D.A.R.E and we didn’t have any other feel good program.

The D.A.R.E. rallies were the biggest jokes there were.  At the risk of outing any old friends, suffice to say there was a contingent who thought it was cool to puff a few J’s before heading to the D.A.R.E rallies. One year, the head of S.A.D.D. was busted for  a DUI (which was a real accomplishment in that part of the country). We had a domestic violence seminar that has held by this lady who was the most bitter and angry person I ever met. She went so far as to say that tickling your girlfriend or joking around with her was domestic violence. (It wasn’t the case in reverse she was quick to point out).  I don’t know how many hours all this crap took but it was a good bit of time when you added it all up.

People can argue whether or not these programs have merit all day. Everything I’ve read indicates D.A.R.E is an absymal failure and usually resulted in people pointing out all the BS they fed us.  For instance, they said that if teenage boys smoked pot, they’d develop breasts.  There were probably 100 examples to the contrary sitting in the audience so it didn’t fool anyone.  But intentions don’t matter.  Results do.  If all that time was spent in Science or Math, it’s hard to argue we wouldn’t have been better off. If you are going to have sex, drink and drive, do drugs or whatever else, a big meeting in the auditorium isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference either way.  I’d go so far as to say the same holds for sex education. I hear all the arguments about how kids won’t get this information at home in many cases and that results in teenage pregnancy and STDs. I knew some real dumb asses in my life, but I’ve never met one who got pregnant or got someone pregnant and didn’t know how it happened.  I don’t have a gripe with sex ed for moral reasons, my only gripe is that it’s a waste of time.

If our schools were doing sooo well in math and science that we were the envy of the world, I could see how we might be able to afford wasting time with stuff like this. Anyone want to argue that’s the case? As long as we’re behind, this sort of crap needs to go out the window – or there should at least be an exemption for kids that would rather learn something worthwhile than learn this stuff. Otherwise, we’re engaging in a textbook case of rewarding A while hoping for B.

[tags] D.A.R.E, Sex Ed, Earth Day, Teen Pregnancy[/tags]

Most of the adult men in my family were huge photography geeks. As a kid, wanting to be like all of them, I too got into photography at a really young age. I had my first real 35mm camera at age 8 (It was a Pentax and  I loved it) and by 12, I was a full fledged Nikon snob.

I’ve been on the fence about getting a new SLR for a while now.  Most of the people I trust swear by Canon although they’ll admit when it comes to the Canon/Nikon battle, it’s largely a  matter of taste.  We got my step-dad a Canon D40 for his birthday and he’s in love with it and I’ve been leaning that direction, but old habits die hard and I still think I want a Nikon.

Knowing that my photography skills aren’t good enough to push any real SLR , I’ve been reading up as much as I can so I make sure I make the right decision.  Tonight, I came across one of the most kick a55 sites for Photography Geeks that I’ve come by yet.  If you are at all interested in Photography, check out Penmachine.com - it’s awesome.

[tags] Digital Camera, Photography, Nikon, Canon [/tags]

I was recently reading a book on WW II history that appalled me to say the least.  I was shocked at the inhumanity people could show each other.  Then I started looking around the internet and found that the atrocities I was reading about were hardly the worst I was to come across.  The wikipedia entry (and I know, that’s hardly a reliable source, but I followed the references and was able to track most of them to a source that was, from as far as I could tell, a reliable one), mentioned that Japanese medical experiments on Chinese civilians included wetting of the limbs and then forcing the person out in sub-zero weather. They’d wait until the limb was frostbitten. Then they’d amputate it.  They do it at the elbow, then the shoulder. They’d do the same with the legs until all that was left of the person was a torso and a head.  At that point, they would use them to test infectious diseases, until they died.  It was pretty hard to stomach to say the least.  It’s hard to dismiss the notion of true evil when you read things like that.  But some still argue it.

I was reading Jihad Watch today and came across this.  Look at the picture first, before reading the text:

This man was sentenced to be stoned for “Adultery”.  The definition isn’t the same as we are used to here in the States, rather, it refers to any sexual intercourse that isn’t sanctioned by the Holy Book.  This could include simply having sex outside of marriage, a woman having sex with someone other than her husband and all sorts of other things I did by the time I was 13.  The whole purpose of stoning is to inflict as much pain and humiliation as possible.  Imagine being forced to watch this happen. Imagine seeing a loved one or a friend suffer this fate and being unable to do anything about it.

From the Jihad Watch article (it’s hard enough to read.  But it’s unfathomable that people can do this to each other.  Even moreso that they can do this to each other for something that is completely natural.  Rape is wrong b/c it’s wrong in all cases.  Sex on the other hand , provided its consensual is something pretty much everyone does.  The fact that a legalism is the difference between living like a normal life in this culture [normal defined loosely] and getting stoned to death – all cultures are not equal). And keep in mind, that this was hardly the only atrocity of the day.  A woman, ostensibly the partner to one of the condemned men, got a light sentence b/c she was never married.  Her sentence was a mere 100 lashes (something it’s pretty difficult to imagine living through).

The article goes on…

A hadith regarding stoning: “‘Umar said, ‘I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, “We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book,” and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed. Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession.’ Sufyan added, ‘I have memorized this narration in this way.’ ‘Umar added, ‘Surely Allah’s Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him.’” — Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 82, Number 816

Sharia Alert: “Pictured: Islamic militants stone man to death for adultery in Somalia as villagers are forced to watch,” from the Daily Mail, December 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

This barbaric scene belongs in the Dark Ages, but pictures emerged today of a group of Islamic militants who forced villagers to watch as they stoned a man to death for adultery.

Mohamed Abukar Ibrahim, a 48-year-old, was buried in a hole up to his chest and pelted with rocks until he died.

The group responsible, Hizbul Islam, also shot dead a man they claimed was a murderer.

Moments before his execution, his hands still free, Mohamed Abukar Ibrahim is buried in the ground.

But the verdict was so shocking that it prompted a gun battle between rivals within the group that left three militants dead, witnesses said.

The executions took place yesterday in Afgoye, some 20 miles south-west of the capital of Mogadishu.

Hizbul Islam fighters ordered hundreds of residents to a field, where a rebel judge announced that the two men had confessed to murder and adultery.

A woman who had confessed to fornication had been sentenced to 100 lashes, he added.

‘This is their day of justice,’ the judge, Osman Siidow Hasan, told the crowd. ‘We investigated and they confessed.’

But when some Hizbul Islam fighters wanted to delay the executions, a bloody gun battle broke out between the two factions, shocked residents said.

‘Three Hizbul Islam fighters died and five others were injured after they fought each other,” Halima Osman, an Afgoye shopkeeper, told Reuters in Mogadishu by telephone.

‘Some wanted to delay the execution while the others insisted. They exchanged fire. The group that was against the execution was overpowered and chased away,’ she said.

Once the gun battle was over, the militants coldly carried out the verdicts.

A relative of the murder victim shot the first as he lay on the floor.

‘I could not watch,’ local man Ali Gabow told Reuters. ‘The lady who had been with the second man was only given 100 lashes because she said she had never married.’…

Wow, Google admits that in many cases, staff members pick search results. Not a big deal unless you maintain that a computer algorithm is responsible for all results and hiding behind that statement to avoid criticism.  Being the big man on campus isn’t as easy as many people think it’s a lot easier to be idealistic when you’re not in the driver’s seat.

[tags] Google, Do no harm [/tags]