Ah Windows

I just got a new PC, and spend most of the past day networking it to the old one. Thank you Microsoft, you make things so pointlessly complicated. For a while Suzy (the old computer) could find Joey (the new one), but Joey wasn’t able to find Suzy, even though she was next to him… (Why are they named Joey & Suzy you ask? Because I named them after my cats. Awww you say, how sweet…)

Finally, after much gnashing of teeth and tweaking of obscure, geeky networking options - not to mention rebooting both systems both, oh, 500 times to test - Joey found Suzy. Then only about another hour getting Suzy to find the network printer.

Yes, I know. You MacHeads out there are feeling deeply superior by now, thinking, hey with a Mac, you just plug them together and they network themselves.

Sigh… 

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Pensylvania town revokes civil rights for corporations

“On the evening of December 9, 2002, the elected municipal officials of Porter Township, Clarion County - a municipality of 1,500 residents an hour north of Pittsburgh in Northwestern Pennsylvania - became the first local government in the United States to eliminate corporate claims to civil and constitutional privileges. The Township adopted a binding law declaring that corporations operating in the Township may not wield legal privileges - historically used by corporations to override democratic decisionmaking - to stop the Township from passing laws which protect residents from toxic sewage sludge. “

Corporations under current law are considered to be “artifical people”, enjoying the same rights as people. Which allows them to get away with all sorts of mischief. This is an excellent first step in getting corporations back where they belong, as a legal entity subservient to the people.

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Roundup of Labor Antiwar Statements.

Comprehensive U.S. Labor Antiwar or Related Statements & Groups.  With the strong statement by AFSCME against the war, the strength of antiwar sentiment against the war within the union movement is becoming a vibrant part of the antiwar movement. (See the full list of antiwar statements in the full article). [No War Blog]

Here in L.A., local 660 of the huge SEIU has endorsed the upcoming mass demonstration on Jan 11.

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California budget deficit now at nearly 30 billion

A few months back the deficit was estimated at maybe 20 billion, then it was 21 billion, now it’s nearly 30 billion. Um, no one in Sacramento knows how to count?

One wonders what the real numbers are, and how much higher it will go. And of course, Gov. Gray Davis, who campaigned on making education a priority, is now slashing education as fast as possible. He has yet to go after the bloated salaries of the prison guards, whose union, in a bizarre coincidence, is among his biggest contributors.

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