On Saturday, June 21, 2008, the NHRA Drag Racing community lost a champion when Scott Kalitta crashed after his final qualifying run in Englishtown, NJ. It was an horrific crash that left spectators and fellow racers in a state of shock.

Fellow racers who saw the crash knew that the chance Scott had survived was almost non-existant. It was apparent that he was possibly unconscious or disabled inside his funny car dragster after the engine had exploded as there was no visible attempt to slow the car after having crossed the finish line.

People and the media are already on top of the story of another death after the use of a taser to subdue a suspect. This time, the debate begins within our own county. Quintrell T. Brannon, 25, died Sunday night about 40 minutes after a Knox County Sheriff's deputy used the Taser on him. Officials said Brannon was being disorderly and resisting arrest. They first used mace and then the Taser to subdue him.

The debate is usually a "all-or-none" argument. But it should really be developed. I don't personally believe there is never the need for the use of a taser. But I do believe that it should be used only in the presence of a weapon that a suspect is using. If the suspect is only being physical, then the taser should not be an option. Why? Because it is obvious that the taser can be lethal and should be used as such a weapon as a pistol.

This is one of those things that just gets me enraged at so many different aspects of such an event that I can hardly type what I'm thinking. A hacker has supposedly made his way into a Greene County financial institution's database and accessed sensitive information. What gets me so frustrated is that the local town marshal won't disclose which institution has been compromised. Further more the Green County Daily World article doesn't even disclose in which town this occurred.

This is vital information that is NECESSARY FOR ORDINARY CITIZENS to have. Those who might be affected might not even realize that they are. Those who are not affected are left to speculate that they might be. This is a failure on both the parts of the local newspaper in Greene County and local law enforcement. Both should be ashamed that they are trying to protect the reputation of the bank rather than protect the financial situation of many citizens.

If you haven't been paying any attention, the Indy Falcon Cam is up and active with this Spring's brood of four chicks. Kinney has become that nation's lead producer of offspring, with 50 under his belt after the fourth egg of this years clutch hatched over the weekend.

The Falcon Blog is active with lots of action from the mother and father coming in to keep the chicks warm and feed them with the latest catch from the downtown circle of Indianapolis.

Not too many were even awake at the time of the earthquake last week that shook much of Indiana and Illinois. I happened to not only be awake but was working and felt the ground beneath me moving. My first reaction was that a train was derailing. But when I saw shelving swaying above me, I knew what was occurring. I carefully stepped back under a sturdy structure to protect myself from anything that might fall from overhead. Luckily, nothing fell.

Some people I've talked to didn't even know that an earthquake had occurred. They either slept through it or were driving and it was not apparent to them while on the road. Yet others were very freaked out by it, almost panicked, and that is the wrong reaction. Here are some tips from the USGS about what to do not only during an earthquake, but before and after one occurs.

An open source operating system was the sole survivor of the Pwn to Own contest at CanSecWest this week, reports C|Net News. The contest went into a third round before it concluded. The first round, which allowed only hacks against the operating system itself produced no winning hacker. The second round, which allowed attacks against common applications such as web browsers, produced a winning hack against the Mac AirBook showing a flaw in its Safari web browser. The third round opened the hackers to work against any software installed which fell the system running Windows Vista Ultimate to a flaw in Adobe Flash. In the end, only an Ubuntu loaded laptop remained untouched.

Yesterday's big story about trash pickup routes in Vincennes got me thinking about the topic. At first, I thought to myself, "Hey, no big deal. I put my trash along the roadside at the alley, anyway." But today I realized that if the trash trucks begin going down the roads only and not down the alley, then that's going to be a traffic obstacle for us all to have to avoid. Some of the streets in Vincennes have only enough room for one vehicle to go down that street even though it's a two-way street. One such street that I use often is Locust from Washington Avenue to Upper 11th.

Between Washington Ave and North 11th, there is only room for one vehicle due to parking on both sides of the street. That particular stretch of the road is pretty heavily populated, so the trash truck is going to have to stop all along the way to pick up trash. That is going to be a real headache for everyone, including the garbage truck driver.

This year's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is off to a whale of a start for fans. Toyota, having scooped up Joe Gibbs Racing, is showing real dominance on the track and last year's powerhouse team, Hendrick Motor Sports, has only Dale Jr in the top 12 in points. Jeff Gordon and defending champion Jimmie Johnson sit in 13th and 14th spots, while Casey Mears in all the way back in 33rd.

Mears has had a lack-luster performance since going to the Cup Series. He remains winless and has not managed to get into the Chase since its inception. But he is not alone. Several other drivers also have a poor performance history and they are all in trouble of losing out to young drivers coming up in the ranks of the Nationwide Series or newcomers from open-wheel racing.

Our primary elections are just around the corner and having read about so many problems occur across the country, I decided to look up something about the vendor of our local voting machines in Knox County, Indiana - MicroVote. I was quite shocked to find so many different stories regarding the company and a somewhat less than clean history. Additionally, an interview transcript posted on VotersUnite.org that left a less than stellar impression.

Perhaps the most troubling thought came from the interview transcript. The one single line that just doesn't sit well with me is as follows:

The Associated Press reports that a woman has filed a lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and MediaSentry. The suit claims that RIAA and MediaSentry have used unlicensed, unregistered and uncertified investigators to illegally enter and search the hard drives of tens of thousands of people.

The woman's lawsuit follows her having been falsely accused of downloading music illegally and served papers from RIAA.

An article in the Evansville Courier discusses how many Chinese-manufactured technology gadgets like MP3 players, navigational systems and digital cameras that come with software installed on the gadget are infected with spyware, malware, and virus programs. The story's author seems to believe that this is something new. But it's not.

Several years ago, I was a guest on Knox County Today on WAOV and was asked about the future of Internet access. The host, Tom Lee, was asking me this question in regards to being a dial-up provider in the face of growing competition from cable and DSL providers. I directly answered that cell phone providers stood to be in place to take the lead. They only needed to install the technology within an already-in-place infrastructure. I believe that interview took place in 2002 or 2003.

Well, the cell phone companies almost did it. But they have been very slow to respond to the mass market and have priced it out of the range of the "average" users. DSL and Cable have pretty much reached a point of complete saturation of their markets. The only way for them to grow is to expand their markets, which is unlikely in most cases as that is not a profitable venture to go into the country side. Fixed wireless has a pretty good hold in that market already and the satellite and cell phone providers have made some inroads there, too.

What has to be the biggest find in recent memory, police in Allen County located over 3 tons of marijuana, reports the Indianapolis Star. According to the article, police got a search warrant for the man's rented residence after they found 10 pounds in his car and $100,000 dollars cash when he was pulled over for speeding.

Wizards.com reports that co-creator of the popular game Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, died March 4, 2008. Gygax was 69 years old. No cause of death was provided by the sight.

Dungeons & Dragons, perhaps one of the most original and popular games of the 20th century that spawned multiple computer and other Fantasy Role Playing Games (RPGs), was first published by Gygax and Dave Ameson in 1974. It was often the focal point of religious zealots who accused the game and players of witchcraft and satanism during the late 1970's' and early 1980's. Some parents even claimed the game caused their children to behave violently or caused outright insanity and suicide.

The problems for Microsoft and the Vista version of its operating system just won't go away and are getting worse. The lawsuit against Microsoft over its "Vista Capable" logo on computer systems sold in 2006 is heating up. It has been given class-action status and may also end up with added defendants which might include Intel.

Last week, emails between Microsoft, Dell, HP and Intel as well as hand-written notes were released (although redacted) for public view. They show a lot of frustration among vendors and Microsoft executives alike over the branding of computers as "Vista Capable."

It appears that the logo was created solely for Intel to be able to sell its model 915 chipset series of main boards in laptop computers. That particular series did not have enough graphics power to run anything beyond Windows Vista Home Basic edition, which did not include the Aero package found in higher versions of Vista. Even a couple of Microsoft executives ran afoul of the problem themselves. Mike Nash, Microsoft Vice President of Windows Product Management wrote in one email:

Vincennes native Rollie Helmling stepped down as President of USAC three months ago and has now joined the Economic Development Commission as Indiana's new director of motorsports development, reports WhoWon.com

In Vincennes, Helmling was most well known as the owner of Harold's Supermarket and the CarQuest automotive stores in southern Indiana. He sold his businesses in 2001 and became the president of USAC.

As you may already know, a series of robberies has been a problem within Vincennes. Over the past two days two businesses were robbed at gunpoint. The latest is the Marathon station at Belle Crossing on Washington Avenue. The prior was Puff-N-Stuff on Second Street just across from the Vincennes University campus.

In both robberies they describe the perpetrator as being about 5 feet, 11 inches tall, white male with a thin build.

On February 18th, two men robbed the Huck's Convenience store on Washington Ave. On February 15th a man robbed Glass Specialties on 2nd Street as well as the EconoLodge. And, in January, a woman robbed the Money Place at the Hart Street and 15th Street intersection.

Microsoft continues to butt heads with the European Union on competition issues related to its operating systems. The end result has been a massive amount of fines totaling more than $2.5 billion that only a monolithic corporation could possibly absorb.

Reuters reports that at issue is interoperability with competing software. In layman's terms, the ability of software made by companies other than Microsoft to work on the Windows platform effectively. Microsoft has long kept its inner workings very secret, making it difficult for programmers to write software that worked with the operating system without paying heavy fees to Microsoft.

As we reported from the news on January 11th, Network Solutions has been putting a hold on domain names that users searched, forcing them to register with Network Solutions for $35. Now a lawsuit has been filed on behalf of one such user, reports PC world.

The lawsuit claims that Network Solutions creates a monopoly for itself in this practice, forcing the user to register with Network Solutions at a much higher price than if they had gone to a competing Domain Name Registrar. They are also seeking a class-action status for the suit to force Network Solutions to provide refunds to everyone forced into registering with them.

The Register reports that users of Windows Vista are losing applications that are supposed to protect them from Internet security threats, among others, after installing Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista.

Microsoft is not backing down, though, saying that the software vendors must update there software to be compatible. So, if you're using Zone Alarm or Bit Defender on Windows Vista, you might want to reconsider installing the service pack.