Microsoft plays bad cop, the RCMP have to prove they are worse.

Microsoft reportedly is reportedly considering putting anti-piracy software into future versions of the Zune, according to the New York Times. The software would scan your hard drive for unauthorized content and report it. Which rules out me ever buying a Zune. I refuse to let any third-party peripheral scan my hard drive and use that information for any purpose I do not specifically authorize. It is bad enough that so much software calls out to a server on start-up and you have to pull teeth to stop it. I know that many corporations don't value my privacy, but I do.

The British Columbia RCMP are in the news again for being way too trigger happy with the tasers. This time it was an 82 year old, hospitalized man who it seems had a small jack knife. He was tasered three times in the chest and is lucky to be alive considering the condition his heart is probably in at this point in his life. I'm still waiting to see some discipline meted out to the RCMP, but I'm probably fooling myself that the powers that be at HQ in Ottawa even care.

A wrong was set right after a cashier at a Tim Horton's in London, Ontario got her job back. She was fired for giving a timbit (or donut hole as you call them in the States) to a customer's fussy child. The value of this item? Sixteen cent. I can not fathom firing anybody over sixteen cents. The hassle of getting a replacement hired on would make it a losing proposition. I also seem to remember that if you go through a Tim Horton's drive through with a dog, they'll usually give the dog a timbit as a treat, thereby making this whole situation ridiculous.

Myanmar got a little smaller in the wake of last week's typhoon. Images taken by NASA's Terra Earth sciences satellite show that enough land was washed away or severly flooded to the point of being visible from space. Yikes.