Day: May 3, 2002

Charles Eicher on Userland Support

Charles Eicher’s weblog was apparently going to contain a story about his role in the Rodney King trial this week. Instead, it has been devoted to chronicling yet another Dave Winer eruption.

The thing I will never understand is how Winer can be so arrogant even when it is his company that is at fault. Is it really surprising that when you have an outage going on for 7 days and a relatively buggy, inefficient application, that people’s tempers are gonig to flair? But Winer’s only reply seems to be that users should help themselves (i.e., $40/pop for Radio is not a good model for supporting a product).

Doesn’t Winer realize that he’s cutting his own throat, here? Just as I was dissuaded from going with a dedicated Manila server after one of Winer’s eruptions a couple years ago, so potential Userland customers are sitting back going “Holy shit, why would we want to have a business relationship with that guy?”

HSUS Honors Ex-Klansman

The Humane Society of the United States recently held a gala in honor of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.) and bestowed upon the senator a lifetime achievement award.

According to the HSUS’s Wayne Pacelle,

What distinguishes Sen. Byrd is his oratory. He took to the floor with criticism of abuse of animals, of factory farming, of forced molting . . . I do not believe any other senator has ever come to the floor to speak out about those issues.

Oh yes, Byrd is quite an orator. In 1964, Byrd used his powerful oratory skills to filibuster the 1964 Civil Rights Act for more than 14 hours.

All par for the course for a man who originally used his oratory skills in the 1940s as a recruiter or the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1946, Byrd wrote a letter to then-Mississippi Sen. Theodore Bilbo saying,

Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

And, of course, although Byrd is now a respectable member of the Democratic Party, he seems to occasionally have trouble letting go of his racist views such as his comments to Fox News back in March 2001 that,

There are white niggers. I’ve seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I’m going to use that word.

Of course, Byrd is an ideal candidate for HSUS to adopt as their champion. Anybody that stupid should have no problem swallowing the contradictions and lies emanating from Pacelle’s cronies.

Source:

Group calls Byrd a ‘real champion’ for animal rights. Karin Fischer, Charleston Daily mail, April 30, 2002.