ASYLUM

* Get Your Rage On

Mark Lucovsky used to work for Microsoft.

He had a meeting with Steve Ballmer in which he informed Mr. Ballmer of his resignation, as he was moving to another company:

I told him it was Google. At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google." — Declaration of Mark Lucovsky

* Kafka Would Be Proud

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is accused of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President Bush. Obviously, he denies it, duh:

Abu Ali, of Falls Church, says he gave a false confession after being tortured by Saudi authorities, and says he has the scars on his back to prove it. — New York Times

But did he? Maybe he did, we don't know. Because we can't see the evidence. That's the reason for this post.

There's apparently evidence that says he didn't, you see. And the prosecutors have that information. And the Judge has that information. But Abu Ali and his defence lawyers do not:

One of Abu Ali's defense lawyers, Ashraf Nubani, applied for a security clearance but his request was denied last week. He said he was not given a reason for the denial. — same article

He and us and the rest of the world only know this evidence even exists because of the integrity of the Judge. They can't see what the evidence is, though or even find out why they can't see the evidence.

This is not a fair trial.

If the man is guilty, then a fair trial should find him guilty and send him to prison. This Star Chamber bullshit should not be required.

And if he isn't, this is another example of the total bullshit that typifies the Bush regime's current working practices.

* Pandora's Music

Okay, this is good: It's an internet radio station based on the Music Genome Project. Type in the name of a musician or song and it finds you similar music (properly similar, not Amazon "customers who bought this music also eat food"-style recommendations) and streams it at you.

You get ten hours free. You can probably reset this counter (at the cost of losing your presets) by deleting your Shockwave local storage, but I haven't tried this so I cannot condone or vouch for this technique.

Subscription's $36/year, or about twenty of our Fine British Pounds™.

Also: 31 degrees here today. Hot! Sleep? Unlikely! Tired? Yes!

* Serene

"I've seen the Firefly movie, who wants to touch me?"

('s ok, no spoilers here)

Yes, I was at the preview screening of Serenity last Wednesday night, with my kitten, and a few friends. It was a pretty cool evening. The film was great, and afterwards there was a Q&A session with Joss Whedon and Summer Glau.

You Will Go And See It. You Will Go And See It.

We want a sequel, dammit.

Yes, this post is my now-traditional one-week-late. What of it?