MLManley

In the immortal words of Yosemite Sam speak ” I hates computers!”

I had yet another fucking hard rive take a crap on me. Another Maxtor external drive. In my opinion they have a problem taking the heat and tend to take a crap. The drive is 7 years old. And as if that wasn’t enough, something got freaking screwed up in my Windows installation and now I have to spend countless hours re-installing windows again. What a pain in the ass. If it weren’t for a few things like my webcams and some other small programs I would try Ubuntu again. At least Ubuntu has it right when it comes to the file structure and all. Fucking windows is stuck using the damn registry where one simple error will hose your entire system, not so with Linux.

So back to the Windows install grindstone I go. ^MM

The people of Bell, Calif., in southern Los Angeles County, are reeling at recent allegations of city official corruption.

While 17 percent of the suburb’s 40,000 residents are living under the poverty line, former City Manager Robert Rizzo was making nearly $800,000 a year while on city payroll.

As if years of bilking Bell’s taxpayers wasn’t enough, Rizzo stands to earn $600,000 a year in retirement — the highest pension for a public employee in the state of California.

Public outcry has led California Attorney General, Jerry Brown to take action.

“We have a case where hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money has been paid out under completely suspicious circumstance,” Brown said.

See video at >> Bell City Council Fights Back Against Overpaid Managers – ABC News.

AMES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s college graduates have some of the highest student loan debt in the nation.

The latest report on the subject from the Project on Student Debt says 73 percent of Iowa graduates left college with some debt in 2008. Their average debt was nearly $28,200, the second-highest in the U.S.

Only graduates in the District of Columbia owed more, on average.

Among the state’s public universities, Iowa State graduates tend to owe the most. Iowa State’s class of 2008 owed an average of $30,700.

Iowa State senior Jonny Choate tells the Ames Tribune that he will owe more than $50,000 when he graduates next spring. He says he’s worried about finding a job that will pay enough for him to pay off his debt.

——

Information from: The Tribune, http://www.amestrib.com

via KGAN CBS 2 – Illinois News.

Three years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) finalized its decision to remove the grizzly bear population in the Yellowstone area from the list of federally protected endangered species. Having met all the recovery goals, and with strong state plans in place to take over grizzly management, FWS declared Yellowstone grizzlies to be an Endangered Species Act success story.

The National Wildlife Federation and its affiliate, the Montana Wldlife Federation, lauded the decision to delist Yellowstone’s grizzlies. Having worked for 40 years on grizzly bear conservation, staff at NWF’s Northern Rockies and Prairies Regional Center are proud of the role they played in the bear’s recovery.

“It is an incredible feeling to know that your work helped bring a species back from the brink of extinction,” said NWF Regional Executive Director Tom France. “And to do it for an animal as iconic the grizzly made it even more amazing.”

More >> NWF Defends Decision to Delist Yellowstone Grizzles – National Wildlife Federation.

There was a touch of legal drama in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster yesterday. The 350 tonne, 50 feet high blowout preventer that should have prevented the explosion in the BP oil well, was effectively placed under “arrest” by US authorities.

Admiral Thad Allen, the retired Coast Guard commander in overall charge of the operation, declared that the preventer “will be taken into custody” and become part of the “evidence material that’s been required by the joint investigative team”.

His comments reflected another shift in the direction of a tragedy that has claimed 11 lives, cost BP chief executive Tony Hayward his job, BP and its shareholders at least $50bn (£32.3bn), diminished the credibility of President Obama, disrupted fishing and tourism, and threatened the environment around the Gulf states.

The preventer, now under close guard and inspection, has almost assumed a criminal dimension. It will form a crucial part of the evidence the US Justice Department is examining to see whether BP or Transocean, owners of the stricken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, have broken any rules that could result in a successful prosecution. Law enforcement officers were on hand to take charge as soon as the preventer broke surface, 500ft above the seabed.

More >>  US authorities seize BP’s blowout preventer – Telegraph.

An Iowa State Patrol trooper fired last year after repeatedly circulating what he believed was humorous material about racial minorities is fighting his dismissal in Polk County District Court.

Former Sgt. Rodney Hicok, 48, of Webster City filed a lawsuit in August claiming his termination was based on “improper political influence” and was not supported by substantial evidence.

He was discharged after state officials concluded his employment was “counterproductive to the best interests of the department.”

Hicok’s lawyer, Pam Walker of West Des Moines, claims officials came under intense political pressure from state lawmakers who are African-American to fire Hicok, who is white.

Hicok spent 28 years with Iowa’s Department of Public Safety and was paid $76,732 annually.

Many of his colleagues praised his work during administrative hearings in which he unsuccessfully appealed his dismissal.

An administrative hearing record shows Iowa Public Safety Commissioner Eugene Meyer testified that state legislators who are black had urged him to examine Hicok’s conduct “with a very critical eye” after news reports in January 2009 about Hicok sending unflattering e-mails about President Barack Obama.

Read on >> Trooper blames legislators for firing | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register.

More than two dozen Iowa government workers received $30,000 or more in overtime pay in the past fiscal year, a Des Moines Register review of state salaries shows.

The state spent $29.5 million on overtime last year. That is about 7.5 percent less than the previous year.

But the overall trend for state government overtime since 2002 has outpaced inflation by more than $8.5 million, records show.

Most of the top overtime users were treatment workers or nurses caring for Iowa’s most disabled residents.

That’s a sign that some state agencies are either deeply understaffed or poorly managed, according to several consultants who have studied issues related to overtime. Chronic overtime costs taxpayers millions of dollars, they said, and fatigued workers can jeopardize public health.

How much overtime is acceptable in government jobs?

For the rest and charts visit >> Some state workers’ overtime pay tops $30,000 | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register.

What this infection does:

Defence Center is a rogue anti-spyware program that uses deceptive scan results to trick you into thinking that you are infected. Defence Center is typically installed via malware that installs it on to your computer without your permission or knowledge. When installed Defence Center will be configured to start automatically when you start Windows. Once started the program will scan your computer and state that there are numerous infections, but will not remove any until you purchase the program. The infection results, though, are all made up with little or no information as to what files are actually infected. It provides so little information because there are actually no infected programs other than Defence Center itself. It is only stating that there are infected files on your computer in order to scare you into purchasing the program.

via Remove Defence Center (Uninstall Guide).

On August 30th, 1888, Asa Candler essentially completed his purchase of the formula, trademarks and manufacturing equipment of Coca-Cola. Candler had begun buying portions of the Company in April 1888 when Walker, Candler & Company (which was controlled by Candler) purchased the one third share of Coca-Cola held by John Pemberton for $ 550. Three days later, Candler purchased a one half portion of the remaining interest of Coca-Cola which was held by two investors, Wollfork Walker and his sister Mrs. M.C. Dozier for $ 750.

When Candler purchased the rest of Walker and Dozier’s interest on August 30th for $ 1,000 plus interest, he now controlled all the stock for Coca-Cola and had expended $ 2,300.00 plus interest. While he controlled the Company and the formula, Candler waited until December 29th, 1891 to petition the Fulton County Superior Court to incorporate The Coca-Cola Company as a Georgia corporation. The first meeting of the The Coca-Cola Company was held on February 22nd, 1892. Candler sold the Company in 1919 for 25 million dollars. Not a bad investment on that original $ 2,300.

via Coca-Cola Conversations: Asa Candler Purchases The Coca-Cola Company.

(CNN) — Divers are recovering bottles of champagne that have been lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea for about two centuries, an autonomous Finnish island official said Wednesday.

About 70 bottles lie mostly undamaged at 50 meters deep [roughly 164 feet] south of the Aland Islands.

“The first bottle was brought to the surface in mid-July,” Rainer Juslin, permanent secretary of the island’s ministry of education, science and culture, told CNN via telephone from Mariehamn, the capital of the Aland islands. “We believe this is the oldest champagne in the world.”

Juslin said that the cargo was aboard a ship believed to be heading from Copenhagen, Denmark, to St Petersburg, Russia, between 1800 and 1830. It could have possibly been sent by France’s King Louis XVI to the Russian Imperial Court.

Read on >> Divers lift 200-year-old champagne from Baltic shipwreck – CNN.com.