You won’t hear me say this often, but lawyers can do good. Sometimes lawyers save us from people with really stupid ideas.

Headline PC World: Company Backs Off Bounty for Mac OS X Virus

A company that offered $25,000 for the first virus that automatically spreads among Apple Computer computers running the OS X operating system cancelled the virus writing contest and retracted the offer of cash, citing concerns about legal liability….

The company placed two G5 PowerMac computers running OS X 10.3 Panther on the Internet and issued a statement on its Web page that challenged Internet users to create a virus that would spread between the two machines on or before July 31, 2005….

However, after word of the contest quickly spread online, Campbell was contacted by senior Apple employees who were experts on the security of OS X who said that it was possible to create such a virus, though doing so would be difficult. The Apple employees encouraged Campbell to end the contest. He was also contacted by an intellectual property attorney and Mac enthusiast, who warned him that writing a virus could be considered illegal, and that DVForge could be considered to be aiding and abetting an illegal activity by sponsoring the contest.

Worried about the prospect of embroiling his company in a legal battle, Campbell cancelled the contest Saturday.

Offering money to someone who can write a virus to penetrate your impervious operating system. Wow! That’s like the captain of the Titanic ignoring icebergs because the ship is invincible.

From Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking-glass:

[Humpty Dumpty:] “There’s glory for you!”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.

“Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t–till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master–that is all.”

Q.25. How is Christ a priest?

A. As a priest, Christ offered Himself up once as a sacrifice for us to satisfy divine justice and to reconcile us to God, and He continually intercedes for us.

John 1:18

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

Just when you think you’ve seen everything, you stumble across something even more astounding.

Someone has translated the Bible into Klingon, and there are online Bible Studies based on the Klingon Language Version of the Bible.

Headline AP: Woman Eating Chili Bites Into Human Finger

Headline USA Today: Bad news: Gasoline is still going up

Headline Reuters: Ford to Pump $934 Mln Into Jaguar: Report

Nothing all that special about this article, except that it is about renovations to the Dinosaur Hall I grew up visiting, and I’ve been able to share with my children. The Pittsburgh Carnegie Museum is going to disassemble and repose the dinosaurs that have been there for generations.

Headline AP: Museum to Show Dinosaurs Being Taken Apart

PITTSBURGH – What could be better than seeing the first tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered? Watching it being taken apart. Visitors to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which has one of the oldest and largest dinosaur collections in the nation, will be able to watch as the museum’s collection of fossilized dinosaur skeletons are taken apart before a renovation of the museum’s almost century-old Dinosaur Hall.

AP Photo:

Caption: “The skelton [sic] of a Tyrannosaurus rex stands in front of the barricaded work area in Dinosaur Hall at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pa., Tuesday, March 22, 2005. Visitors to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which has one of the oldest and largest dinosaur collections in the nation, will be able to watch as the museum’s collection of fossilized dinosaur skeletons are taken apart as part of a $35 million renovation of the museum’s almost century-old Dinosaur Hall. (AP Photo/KeithSrakocic)”

A strange line, right in the middle of a Washington Times article on the movie industry:

PG-rated fare offers more than just comfort food for parents leery of the next wardrobe malfunction.

A movie offers more than just comfort food? I guess that means you can do more than eat a PG-rated movie. You could watch it, presumably before you eat it.

“So, honey, what did you think of Star Wars III, the Revenge of the Sith?”

“Well, Dad, it could have used some more salt.”

Headline AP: Scientists Recover Tissue From T. Rex

Headline Pittsburgh Tribune Review: Blaze ignites debris from demolished home

She has an alibi. The fire started at 1 AM on Tuesday morning. At that time, Blaise was in our house, and she doesn’t know how to use door knobs. Plus, she is afraid of fire. She would be too afraid to be able to start a fire, even if she wanted to try.

I don’t understand why the newspaper would try to blame the fire on our primary dog. And to add insult to injury, they didn’t even spell her name correctly.