Author: Jere

Try your hand at Ice Breakout. It reminds me of the old YetiSports games that I still play every so often.

So go kill a couple minutes playing Ice Breakout via Miniclip.com.

Becky redesigned her website and I just finished coding the main page and the contact page last night. So the new site is up and running, and I think it looks great!

Cribsakes

She is starting to get a lot of inquiries from all over the world. We can thank all of her family members and former clients who are doing a great job spreading the word. Especially Sarah, he seems to be our internet advertiser.

Last thing, can someone running IE6 on Windows let me know if there are any inconsistencies? All the other browsers should display the site correctly.

“INTO THE WEST, a six-week television event from TNT, Executive Producer Steven Spielburg and DreamWorks Television, explores one of the most powerful and defining chapters in American history.”

I’ve really enjoyed the first two episodes of Into the West. I’ve only caught bits and pieces of the first episode, saw all of the second, but missed the third. There will be six, two-hour episodes altogether. This weekend they’ll show the fourth episode. You can see the new episodes Friday, Saturday, or Sunday evenings (8/7c) with an encore presentation of the previous episode on Sunday evenings (6/5c) just before the new episode airs.

One of the main character’s name is Jacob Wheeler who originates from Virginia. He rescues a Lakota named Thunder Heart Woman from being sold to a mountain man. They eventually get married, move back to Virginia, then move back out to California again (with tons of other things going on in between). The whole show doesn’t focus on the two, but so far they seem to be the two common links between the settlers and the Native American’s. Here’s a preview of what this weekend’s episode entails:

“Jacob Wheeler’s children witness history as the transcontinental railroads bring east and west together. Margaret Light Shines, Jacob’s daughter, is captured by the Cheyenne, and is adopted by the tribe. But when their village is brutally attacked by U.S. soldiers, she turns her back on her old life and escapes with her new Cheyenne family.”

As the many different stories have unfolded, we get to see the settling of the West from many different perspectives, and the good and bad aspects of both the newcomers and native people are presented. You can read a very detailed synopsis of each episode that has aired as well as brief descriptions of what is yet to come at the Into the West website:

Into the West

I’m also looking forward to the final two episodes of the series. Episode 5 will be about Crazy Horse and Custer at Little Big Horn, and the series will culminate with the massacre at Wounded Knee in episode 6.

It’s unfortunate that you have to have cable or satellite to watch this. But I’m sure that the DVD will be available shortly. I’ll most likely at least rent it on DVD when it’s available so I can watch them all together. And hey, it could possibly the first made for TV anything that I purchase on DVD.

It’s been quite a week of news for the Supreme Court. From CNN.com about 10a Eastern:

“Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court and a key swing vote on issues such as abortion and the death penalty, said today she is retiring. O’Connor, 75, said she will leave before the start of the court’s next term in October, or when the Senate confirms her successor. “It has been a great privilege indeed to have served as a member of the court for 24 terms,” O’Connor wrote in her resignation letter.”

CNN.com – Sandra Day O’Connor leaving Supreme Court – Jul 1, 2005

She was a desenting voice in the recent eminent domain decision and had written a very critical response to the decision.

Apparently, in the wake of this week’s eminent domain ruling, a group of individuals have come up with a plan to build a hotel on Justice Souter’s property. The plan also includes a museum exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. A little humorous but seriously, I hope something “constructive” comes of this.

The Lost Liberty Hotel

… Rich, private, corporations and their interests. That’s who mostly won this week with the three most recent Supreme Court Decisions. To be truthful, two of the three decisions progressed the interests of the wealthy corporations. In my opinion, it was not a stellar week for the US Supreme Court.

Before I get started, remember, I’m not a legal expert. So the accuracy of my conjectures may not be 100%.

I’ll start with the ruling that deals with the public display of the Ten Commandments. I can see why the court made the ruling it did, and I’m not really for or against the ruling itself. It’s just another example of how far away from God this country continues to slip. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the religious beliefs of the founding fathers played a big part in how they shaped our government. The last time I checked, our national motto was, “In God we trust”. You can read about this specific ruling here:

High court split on Ten Commandments (CNN)

The next ruling had to do with file sharing and whether an ISP or producers of file sharing software can be held liable for any copyright infringement that may occur by the users of their networks or software. In what was not all that much of a surprise to me, the court ruled in favor the big corporations and media conglomerates, basically saying that yes, they can sue the ISP and/or the software producers if someone misuses their network or software. I guess the RIAA got tired of settling measly $3,000 suites with 13 year olds. They now want permission to go after the big guns. Maybe this was an example of a court that is “out of touch” with some of the modern concerns of this century.

File-sharing services can be liable for music theft (CNN)

Now to the biggest travesty of all the decisions to spew out of the court this week. This is the one I totally disagree with. And I’m not too far off from most of the country as people from both sides of the political line are equally as stumped and worried about the ramifications of this decision. The decision has to do eminent domain. Government has the right to take private property if the acquisition of the property is clearly for the benefit of the “public”. Well, there is no clear benefit to the public in this case as it looks like the major benefactor of this decision is a PRIVATE pharmaceutical company.

Supreme Court backs municipal land grabs (CNN)

My thoughts and fears are best summed up by the following article:

“Hi, I like your view, so I’m taking your house”

My hope at this point is that all my friends that just graduated from the UM law school eventually have a hand in putting this country back together.