Dark Rantings

Since it was Festivus yesterday, and since I am a procrastinator, I must now come forth with this year's Airing of the Grievances. And boy do I have a lot of them this year:

1) Wes. My grievance is that he won't tell his family that my name is not Mrs. Wesley E. Worrell.

2) Morgan. My grievance with her is that she is a teenager. Enough said.

3) My grandmother. My grievance with her is that she is never happy. Drives me nuts. Complains when you visit her, complains when you don't. Which is easier? You decide.

4) My brother. We are convinced that he was created as the result of my mother being abducted by aliens. I'm sure you've met the type - magnanimous, arrogant, condescending, etc. And that's on a GOOD day.

5) My nephew. Spawn of the brother. My grievance against him is that he is just like his father, only add a good dose of recalcitrance.

6) The puppies. Finish housebreaking already.

7) George Dubaya. Enough said.

8) Bill Gates. Responsible for more whining this year than anyone else from people who actually are attempting to use his operating system.

9) Cindy Sheehan. I'm sorry your son is dead, lady. Now stop trying to speak for everyone who happens to be against the war. You're an embarrassment.

10) My father. Stop sending me every bad picture, hoax, spam, disgusting joke, and bad HTML code ever known to humankind.

11) Mark. Stop wearing the damn anglican collar! It looks ridiculous, especially in an "all Wiccan" group. It's silly and pretentious and has become a joke. Shall the priestesses start wearing nuns habits now? Complete with Flying Nun hat? That's about as silly.

There. Ranting is done. Until next Festivus, blessings and happy foo abound.

Posted by mikki at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After sitting through several individual meetings with the DoC and others regarding ICANN, and being told over and over that there was nothing they could do about "it" (whichever "it" happened to be the latest outrage against small business or individuals at the hand of the Content Cartel or others...), and being told that ICANN was "independent" and the DoC was "only" there for the "highest forms of oversight" we find this interesting information - THe US Government TOLD ICANN what to do about the .xxx domain AND the Verisign agreement. Why this and not things like keeping Internet Users out of the ICANN loop? Or the UDRP? Or any of the other myriad of policy making that ICANN did outside of its mandate? Why indeed?

ICANN: What's in the DOC analysis of the Verisign agreement?:

At ALAC's meeting with the ICANN Board, in response to criticism of the price increases built into the Verisign settlement agreement, Paul Twomey suggested that the 7% annual increase had been blessed by U.S. regulators. He said, for the first time, that ICANN had asked the Department of Commerce, which had referred the question to the Department of Justice for competition analysis. The same report was claimed as justification at the public forum the next day.

If these reports are going to be used as a basis or justification for ICANN action, they should be disclosed to the ICANN public. If not, a FOIA request will be in order.

See also John Levine's notes.

Posted by mikki at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)