On Marketplace this morning, consumer advocate Jamie Court made a very imprecise statement of law while discussing arbitration clauses in credit card agreements. He remarked that the 7th Amendment guarentees a right to a trial by jury. This is not exactly true. The Supreme Court decided in Colgrove v. Battin that the Seventh Amendment preserves the right of a trial by jury in federal civil cases as it "existed under the English common law when the amendment was adopted."

Furthermore, there is nothing in the US Constitiution preventing a State from denying a trial by jury for a civil matter. Moreover, Mr. Court failed to mention that it is completely permissible to knowingly waive your right to a trial by jury.

The problem with consumer arbitration agreements is that they are unconscionable. They are in small print. They are made by one party without the knowledge of the other party. They are made by one party who has disproportionate bargaining power and knowedge of the law. They are unfair. And they usurp the right of the consumer to go to court over a wrong done to them. This issue has nothing to do with the seventh amendment.

If you have a disagreement with a company and they want to make you arbitrate, contact an attorney immediately to determine your rights. Don't sign or agree to anything without legal counsel since State and Federal laws pertaining to the validity of arbitration agreements vary wildly.

I love my USB key. It is a 1 Gig Corsair Flash Voyager. Here is a review: http://www.maximumpc.com/2005/07/corsair_flash_v.html

I currently have the following portable applications installed: FoxIt Adobe Acrobat Reader, Damn Small Linux (Qemu Emulation for windows), freeCommander, Portable OpenOffice.org, Portable Firefox and Thunderbird, TrueCrypt, VLC media player, and GAIM portable.

These portable apps are so awesome, because they give me flexibility if I am using a friends computer, if I am at the library, or most importantly, I am at a job site where they don't understand the importance of Firefox.

Plus, I can store lots of important files on it!

So, why do I hate my USB key? Because I am forced to run virus scans every time in hooks up to my computer, to make sure that I don't have internet cooties.

And today, for the first time, I got a serious case of computer VD from a Times Square computer. I had to print out my CV...and my printer at home needed new ink...so I stopped into a printing place near Times Square...the next before I went to sync my firefox bookmarks...I scanned the drive and found Win32:Trax and VBS:Malware on my key! So, now I am scanning my computer, just in case...what a bummer.

Age old Moral of the story: Don't poke your stick into anything at Times Square.

I am still frustrated with the Democrats response to the Alito nomination to the Supreme Court.

Originally, I stated that I did not find Alito's nomination to be objectionable, mostly because the news media portrayed him as mostly moderate and not really against abortion. However, my position has changed to opposing Alito to the Supreme Court, based on memos that show he was behind a grand Republican strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade in little tiny baby steps. This man must be opposed. But how?

My original feeling that the Democrats would waste the valuable political capital they had built up during the Plamegate fiasco was correct. The inditement has been mostly forgotten, mostly due to other big stories in the media. The threat of more repercussions from the inditements and the extraordinary rendition scandel still loom over the Whitehouse.

As I predicted, the public has lost focus on the Libby inditements and our sagging world popularity.

The solution is still to push off arguing about the merits of the abortion debate in challenging Scalito's nomination. I truly believe it is a loosing issue to argue about, if you are trying to capture swing voters. Especially since 70% of people believe that spousal notification before an abortion is not a bad idea.

Let these stupid Republicans implode under the weight of their own stupidness and arrogence.

I am growing frustrated with the Democrats who are trying to challenge the Alito nomination to the Supreme Court.

As a Democrat, I do not find Alito's nomination to be that objectionable. Secondly, I do not believe that the Democrats should waste the valuable political capital they have built up during the Plamegate fiasco to fight this nomination.

Luckily for the Bush Administration, there are so many things going on. Who will remember the hurricane fiasco and the inditement fiasco and the sagging economy and Supreme Court fiascos and Bush's sagging popularity when Bush is busy scaring us with the Avian Flu and appointing new Supreme Court Nominees? Way too many things are going on, and the public is...and has...lost focus on the inditements of Libby and our losing the war in Iraq.

Solution: Don't fight this nomination. Don't get drawn into the abortion debate. Or the equal rights debate. It is bad politics now, and the Bushies are going to stomp all over you. I hear it on the radio now...and I can tell that the Democratic party machine is going to botch this opportunity away again.

Why are Democrats going to squander this opportunity? Because they don't understand how to pander to the country's electorate. Democrats have to change their tone on certain non-fundamental issues. Like gun control. You can be a liberal and believe in being able to own a machine gun. People won't vote for you if you are gonna take stuff away. Thats why Dems own the Social Security Issue. Democrats need to jettison the far left wing nutty wing of the party, the same way the Republicans need to jettison their right wing.

So, what does the party know that I don't? Do they have the votes to not nominate Scalito?

I just have a bad feeling about this...

I recently installed UT2004 on my Ubuntu Linux Box. Installation was a breeze. (Breezy Badger, hah!) I inserted the first install CD, typed sh /media/cdrom/linux-installer.sh at the command line...and voila, the launcher started. When it asked me to change disks, I right clicked on the CD icon on the desk top, eject and dismounting the disk. Then I put in CD 2...ubuntu mounted the disk...automatically!...then i clicked continue...and so on until installation finished. Relatively painless. And the game runs great!

I had an extremely frustrating experience this morning with a co-worker who needed help installing programs on her new laptop computer. It is a nice rig, AMD64, ATI mobility RADEON, good number of ports and accessories.

However, she was having trouble with her e-mail. AOL e-mail of course. She couldn't send attachments. And she was upset that Microsoft Word was only a trial version that was about to expire.

So, what did I do? I suggested installing Kerio firewall and Avast! virus scanner along with some spyware utilities to make sure that nothing funny was going on. I also recommended Firefox and Thunderbird, along with a few other software utilities. I downloaded the installers at home and put them on my USB key.

When I actually got infront of the laptop, she didn't want me to install "FoxFire" or any of the other common techie tools I wanted to install on her system. I installed the virus scanner and ad-aware. Adaware found 44 adware objects, which I showed her, and removed. That scared her enough to let me install the Kerio firewall. She wanted me to hold off installing anything else, including OpenOffice.

However, an other co-worker who knows computers installed Microsoft Office, bootlegged of course, to her computer. He also uninstalled the virus scanner. I am sure he is going to uninstall Kerio, because he dislikes it.

Her main objection was that she wasn't familiar with the programs. She liked her Symantec anti-virus and AOL spyware blocker (which didn't protect her computer at all, btw). She was just about the name brand. She did't want to research or investigate.

So, the question is, how to you educate someone who doesn't know the difference between an Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office? And someone who isn't willing to learn?

Do I insist on having complete control of the tweaking process?