Steve

Friday Ark #115

This entry was posted in Bird Blogging Cat Blogging Dog Blogging Friday Ark Invertebrate Blogging Pet Blogging on by

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

We add boarders all day Friday plus intermittently on Saturday and Sunday so visit frequently.

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Birds

Dogs

Invertebrates

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn’t Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (75 shouts as of 11/30)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 140th edition, 11/26, is up at Scribblings. The 141st edition will be hosted by Catymology on 12/3. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 12/2 by The Hidden Paw . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 37th edition is up and hosted by Five Wells. The 38th edition will be hosted on 12/14 by Ben Cruachan Blog.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 14th edition is up at The Neurophilosopher’s Weblog. The 15th edition will be hosted in early December by Words & Pictures.

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat’s Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I have, though, for the past month been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

What would Mr Dewey say about her?

This entry was posted in Microsoft on by

There is a new search tool on The Internets. It might even have been made with w in mind. I’ll let Professor Myers describe it for you:

Microsoft has added everything to a search engine that you’ve missed in Google: long load times, half of the screen space dedicated to flash animation and another quarter just empty charcoal grey, results that are shown 3 at a time and displayed in a light gray font on a distracting pale graphic, and most importantly, the most annoying librarian in the universe, Ms. Dewey, who seems to be there to nag you to type faster and mock you if she doesn’t understand your request.

Yes, she will mock you:

Are you just letting your dog type now?

It wasn’t hard to get her to say:

It’s easy to make jokes about the president. So easy, I’m going to pass on it.

Maybe if they gave her a few more waiting for input routines one wouldn’t get totally annoyed by the time you are able to read the 3 search responses and figure out how to scroll for more that you can’t read.
If you are not in a hurry for your answers or turn out to be more interested in hers….well, go try it out.

NB: Ms. Dewey will show you her hands tied behind her back, admits to being coded overseas and does give a page of the Kama Sutra an intrigued bit of study. All of which means that I’ve wasted way too much time at this site!

Why You Should Not Trust Regulatory Agencies to Protect You

This entry was posted in Regulation on by

Consider that an agency, say the federal trade commission, has approved the labeling that a company uses on its products. The average citizen would expect that use of this labeling implies that the product does what the labeling implies and that the product is safe for them to use.

Unfortunately, this is not a good expectation :

The lawsuit, involving 1.1 million people who bought “light” cigarettes in Illinois, claimed Philip Morris knew when it introduced such cigarettes in 1971 that they were no healthier than regular cigarettes. But the company hid that information and the fact that light cigarettes actually had a more toxic form of tar, the suit claimed.

A Madison County judge ruled in favor of the smokers in March 2003, saying the company misled customers into believing they were buying a less harmful cigarette.

But the state high court overturned that ruling, saying that, because the Federal Trade Commission allowed companies to characterize their cigarettes as “light” and “low tar,” Philip Morris could not be held liable under state law even if the terms it used could be found false or misleading.

Read that last paragraph again. Philip Morris lied to the public, misled people into buying an ostensibly safer cigarette. The federal trade commission blessed their labeling and as a result the victims have no legal recourse against this fraudulent behavior.

Not only do they have no recourse but the entity that is supposed to protect them, the citizens, from fraudulent behavior was apparently in bed with the perpetrator.

Perhaps the ftc was fooled by Philip Morris. That’s fine, not everyone is perfect. Nevertheless, it is not acceptable that citizens can not sue just because some federal administrative agency has said something is ok.

But then, is that not a big reason companies seek out regulation? To protect themselves from accountability. All they have to do is meet the minimum standards enshrined in the regulatory rules for their industry. Rules that they often have helped write. Once they meet the rules they are protected from suit and Joe and Mary Citizen are screwed.

Joe and Mary need recourse. It is clear that agencies like the ftc and their supporting legislation are not providing the deserved protection. Failing on this account what justification is left for their existence.

The money spent on the myriad of federal, state and local regulatory agencies might be better spent by investing in a legal system that provides easy and timely access to citizens. A legal system that acts under the rule of law not the rule of legislation or administrative rule making. A system that can punish fraud by providing full restitution to victims.

Better yet the money should be returned to the tax payers. Isn’t that the appropriate option when the product you have bought is broken and the vendor can not provide a working replacement.