It's amazing how often over the years I've had to spend time in court rooms for simply participating in legal, constitutionally protected protest. In almost all cases, things get thrown out of court before trial. I've been told a number of times by different lawyers "the process is the punnishment."

Jenna and I thought long and hard about what to do with this crazy "economic stimulus" check.

While I really would have liked to waste it on something stupid like an air conditioner or TV, I feel much better about our decision to donate it to war tax resistance and an abortion clinic in Mississippi. I'll survive another summer without AC. See Jenna's blog post for the full details.

The king of LOL-stuff, I Can Has Cheezburger, is looking for a developer. That would be a fun project, however, their job announcement specifies that the code be done in Microsoft's .NET and not using Free tools.

This has started a bit of a LOL-debate about the use of Free/Open Source Software. I'd participate, but trying to read and write comments about a serious topic using lolspeak makes my head hurt.

The highlight so far:

why doesn’t you use a php flaverd intertube for da kittehs? and a ceiling cat approved apache server? everyone know IIS is the work of basement cat.

I've seen a lot of ads for FreeCreditReport.com lately, annoying songs that get stuck in my head. It's bad enough when it's real music, there's something terrifying to me about advertising jingles being in my head.

They've got good promotion and a great name, Free Credit Report. But, it's not free. They will send you a "free credit report" only after you purchase their credit monitoring service.

However, you do have a right to a yearly free credit report, you just can't get it from freecreditreport.com.

I was doing some research today, keeping up on new developments in HIPAA compliant software. (HIPAA is U.S. law which regulates the portability, privacy and security of healthcare information)

On the site of a software company that is selling a "secure email system" that they claim is HIPAA compliant, I found the following completely ignorant statement about the relationship between security and free/open source software

"Why does SafetySend use Proprietary Code and Technology?
Because any code or technology that can be purchased is vulnerable.