The rap on Mr. Jackson is that he values loyalty among a closed circle of aides and allies above openness, transparency or a willingness to forthrightly address failings. In fact, his style is reminiscent of Mr. Johnson, the man he would replace as county executive.

That's been evident in a number of instances, not least the mishandled drug raid in which his deputies shot two dogs at the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, who turned out to be innocent of any wrongdoing. Not only did Mr. Jackson admit no error by his office, but he also failed to apologize to the mayor for a year.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of anyone running in this election, but the facts remain: Michael Jackson's minions failed to coordinate a raid with the relevant local police department, terrorized an innocent family, killed their dogs, and blamed the "War On Drugs"; and Rushern Baker's minions... didn't. For that alone, I'll take Baker over Jackson, who now resides on the "Not If You Were The Last Candidate, For Any Elected Post, On Earth" list.

Again: if Farmville is laborious to play and aesthetically boring, why are so many people playing it? The answer is disarmingly simple: people are playing Farmville because people are playing Farmville.

"The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club."

Once again, xkcd's hat guy does what many of us have secretly wished we could get away with.

In a recent EE Times survey of 285 engineers, 85% reported that they don’t use Twitter. More than half indicated that the statement “I don’t really care what you had for breakfast,” best sums up their feelings about it;

Well... yes.

It’s time for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and other free software supporters to stop being the Party of Gno, and start thinking of positive ways to push for software freedom. The negative campaigns and telling users what not to use aren’t working. It’s time for change.

I'm glad someone finally stated what has been obvious to me for a long time now. Idealism only goes so far; in the end, if all you're doing is complaining about something "bad" without providing a compelling "good" alternative that people will actually use, you're not going to convince anyone. (I say this as a supporter of the FSF; I think they are often the canaries in the coal mines of modern technology and how it can be abused, but their recent name-calling campaigns like "iBad" have really turned me off.)