It was a bright sunny day as Bret awoke to find the light summer breeze coasting through his room.

"Ahhhhh...what a beautiful morning" he thought to himself even though it was in fact 15:47 in the afternoon.

"I think I’ll go and play in the park seeing as business is slow and the weather is so nice" he thought as he tried to get up.......however he found he could not.......life was not feeling kind today. Bret looked down to find what the problem was and was faced with a waistline that could even have given Rylands a run for his money(...but....not very much running!!!!).

"What happened to my gut?!!" cried Bret the fat Bastard attempting to roll over on his front.

"How did I get this fat?"

Then suddenly it all came back to him.....(wavy shimmering kind of flashbacky effect). He had gone to the pub the night before and had had a few jars with the lads. After drinking straight from the bar taps constantly for 3 hours he finally got up for a short break to go to the toilet. Then while he was in the toilet the Barman offered him the chance to sample something that he had...............

.....(You dirty minded Bastards!).... after beating the shit out of the Barman Bret finally realised that he wasn’t a faggot. The Barman (who incidentally Bret had never seen before but was sure he knew him) said that this was the opportunity of a lifetime ....to try the greatest alcoholic drink of all time.

"No-one can resist it’s ability to completely overpower the mind!" explained the Barman. Being a man who can’t resist a challenge Bret said that he would like to try it. The Barman then brought out a can of his special brew.

"I call it Tafs’drazil brew" said the Barman.

Bret took the can and gulped down the special brew.

"I don’t feel a thing!" retorted Bret looking at the man who now looked incredibly familiar except for the fact that there were now many more of him and his number were increasing rapidly.

"oh and by the way it may have some side effects" said the Barman.

"What side effects?" said Bret struggling to keep the man in focus.

"Well it’s only really been tested on one other person! (no prizes for guessing guys)"

"WHAT!!!" shouted Bret losing consciousness.......(wavy kind of flashbacky effect backwards)

......So that was it, the side effect was an incredibly large beer belly and a bad attitude coupled with a short temper and a fixation with women who aren’t even remotely interested in you (another subtle dig). Bret finally managed to get himself on his feet and he bounced downstairs and tripped managing to destroy much furniture and then promptly careered through the front door. When finally he reached a halt he found himself in the park. Then he was surrounded by lizards.

"Ha! if it isn’t Bret the Fat Bastard" said Lizard1 copying the author’s joke and finding his own useless attempt at humor funny.

"I’ll get you!" shouted Bret getting to his feet and making a mad waddle for Lizard 1

...then falling flat, or rather round, on his belly.

"You can’t hurt us" said Lizard 12 "You can’t even stand up!"

......Then another voice was to be heard...

"So Bret the Bastard is no more the king of the castle...he is just the big fat rascal. We the lizards now have control. Bret cannot even tie his own shoelaces. We have won", It was the lizard leader, he was alive, but how?

"How is it that you are still alive?" asked Bret

"Well you would be surprised what they can do with DNA Technology these days, (well they get away with it in Star Trek all the time)"

"I can still get you, remember I can quote "Take That" songs!" shouted Bret the fat but ever resourceful and most definitely still a Bastard.

"What's that you say?" said the Lizard leader" I have my patented Take That protectors in my ears and I can't hear a word that you say......we will leave you now to lie here and slowly die as the children one by one come and kick their new football......... hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha !!!!!!!!!! (all lizards seem to have no real sense of humor and definitely no joke telling skills)

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Sigh..........you Linux fans.
It will never take off until:

There is one, maybe two versions, not half a hundred bits and pieces.

It supports DirectX for gamers. Serious gamers.

Its friendlier.

Meanwhile Mr Gates will continue to grow richer.

The Corporate CONmen seem to have been doing some effective soliciting with Washington COWARDS. Here are the GUTSY details, thanks to real Americans with GUTS. ("Lou Dobbs Tonight" CNN M-F 6pm) ...

DOBBS: The United States citizenship and immigration service finally released its report to Congress on the H1B guest worker visa program. But Congress still hasn't seen fit to release that report to the public, perhaps because the numbers are much higher than the government has authorized.

Bill Tucker reports.

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The number of H1B visas an existing guest worker program for skilled workers is capped by Congress at 65,000. Another 20,000 foreign students who graduate from American universities with advanced degrees are also eligible for the visa.

That's 85,000 visas a year. But the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service approved 116,927 applications in 2005. It approved 130,497 in 2004.

The reports in 2004 and 2005 were not released until November 20th of last year. A release date that activists find disturbing.

JOHN MIANO, ATTORNEY: I think it's odd that it occurred after the election. Somewhat suspicious that while there were bills pending to have an H1B increase, that the information about the actual numbers of H1B visas was not available.

TUCKER: A spokesman for USCIS admits the reports were late, but he calls the oversight "honest," explaining that in the transitions from INS to the Department of Homeland Security they neglected to file the reports.

"We notified the oversight by a member of Congress. They quickly produced the reports."

Some critics see a pattern.

RON HIRA, ROCHESTER INST. OF TECHNOLOGY: There's been a pattern by the administration to -- to keep, you know, this data that they don't particularly want out bottled up, and we've seen this with the Commerce Department offshoring report, and we've seen it in other areas like NASA (ph) and the like.

TUCKER: And there is intrigue. These reports were obtained by LOU DOBBS TONIGHT, not off a Congress Web site, not from the House Subcommittee on Immigration, but off the Internet, where activists are distributing them by e-mail. (END VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER: The reports are real. USCIS acknowledges publishing the reports and giving them to Congress in late November. But USCIS says it's not their job to distribute the reports to the public, that's up to Congress.

And, you know, Lou, it may serve in the congressional interests to not make the report widely available to the public, because there are some disturbing facts in that report, and Congress is about to take up debate on doubling that program again sometime this next couple of months.

DOBBS: Well, if they are going -- permitting -- I mean -- I mean, it's just mind-boggling. The program is under such intense criticism.

TUCKER: Right.

DOBBS: Just allowing employers to go over by 40 percent over the quotas, more than that, in point of fact, 40 to 70 percent, without effect -- the USCIS does not explain why it's not enforcing it, doesn't have the information, and is holding information back. And now Congress as well?

TUCKER: It gets better, actually, Lou, because when you talk to USCIS, they say, "It's not our responsibility to issue the visas. That falls to the State Department. We just approve the petitions."

DOBBS: And the relationship, of course, between the petition and the -- I mean, this is -- if the American people have not figured out that there is a corporatist agenda at work in this administration and throughout the bureaucracy, then I don't know what more we could possibly report.

And this Congress, whether Democratically controlled or not, has an absolute responsibility to ask, why aren't immigration laws being enforced? Why aren't the laws passed by this Congress being enforced? And the American people need to ask why does neither Congress nor the executive branch fulfill their duties, their constitutional duties?

It is remarkable what is happening in this country. It is on the verge of tragic.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/26/ldt.01.html

Can the Linux Journal shine a spotlight on the H1B visa game and how it is destroying tech jobs for legal U.S. tech workers ?

Might take some extra GUTS.

Back in the middle 1980s, almost all the PC owners I knew subscribed to PC Magazine, and lots of us subscribed to Byte. Now, if I look at PC Rag on a news stand, it's because the thing is hiding something I'm looking for. I think Nicholas is right; there's nothing in there to read now. Looking for, say, a printer? You have your choice of great, greater, greatest, and editor's choice. What's the difference? You sure can't tell from the articles.

To be fair, software and hardware have improved to the point I expect whatever I buy will work, in some sense. But that means I need more in-depth comparisons and descriptions.

Linux Journal and Linux Magazine should take note. Many of the reviews I've read in the last year in these magazines focus more on setup, rather than features, "does it work?", and bugs or inoovation that works. That should be in a table: does the default install of Suse, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. (maybe multiple versions), include this as a .rpm? Does the program conflict with library requirements for other commonly used programs? Does compiling and installing require some other, off the wall, program or utility? Cover the installation in no more than two paragraphs and move on, please. I'm more interested in why I should try it, or install it, than how this new thing wasn't included in your old Redhat 6.2.

Their unbridled greed is greater than their virtue. We are watching the American Dream unravel, and that is unAmerican.

The CONmen solicit those of weak character to perpetuate their dirty tricks.

The COWARDS have two things in common, fear, and they all emulate the worlds oldest profession.

The CONmen and the COWARDS don't mind the "low road". After all, they are in a race to the bottom. It's all about them.

Are the COWARDS in denial? (Money before ethics, Money before future generations, Money before freedom, just pure greed.)

This country needs more honest people with guts and integrity like Nicholas, and more "high road" publications like the Linux Journal.

Carry on.

Nick:

As always, you hit the nail on the head. It seems like the fun is gone, the spice and the flavor, since your last column in InfoWorld duking it out with Bob Metcalfe. Your replacement there didn't last too long before he either left or was shutdown.

I'd bet that just as IBM's relevance in the marketplace diminished as Microsoft rose, so too will Microsoft's power and domination of the scene wane as OpenSource and other future interests rise up.

Scott S. Jones D.C.
Sandy, Utah

Scott S. Jones D.C.
Sandy, Utah

It seems pretty obvious. They're not stupid, they're just greedy. If they start hammering on other companies for doing what they praise Microsoft for, well, then how do they look?

At least they have the honor, once they are bought, to stay bought.