Hot-linking is the embedding of other people's content in your own web page, usually without attribution. You do it, for example, when you copy the URL of an image and paste it into the code of a blog post. Instead of hosting that image yourself, you're basically stealing someone else's bandwidth to display something.

I don't really mind people hotlinking my stuff. I get a lot of referrers from forums, for example. People link to a lot of stuff from my sketchbook pages, despite the generally low quality of the drawings. I usually let it slide.

But for some reason, I just couldn't help myself when it came to these guys. The general douchebaggery of the page made it irresistible. Hint: Check out 'Hobbies'. They'd loaded this picture from my server on their page without asking. They won't notice it, either, at least until their browser cache expires.

I could've done worse; just ask A-Heldin. She learned the hard way.

Love is, as they say, a many-splendored thing. A man's dealings with the fairer sex are the sweetener that makes his life bearable. It gives us dignity and hope, and keeps us in line when we'd rather be smashing chairs over each other in a swinging-door saloon with straw on the floor.

But a man's psyche troubles him sometimes. There's a bitter feeling, not quite jealousy, really, more like an undignified curiosity, that creeps into his head. How do I stack up? What's she really thinking? Does she sometimes say to herself, in tender moments, "wow, that was a good orgasm, but not quite as good as that one time, when that muscle-bound bartender did that thing with his thumb..."? It's not that we, as men, begrudge her past orgasms or anything. I mean, we're glad she had them. Why shouldn't she? But still, it's the male brain's duty to throw shit like that around when it doesn't have anything productive to take care of.

Men generally have only two problems with women: They're not virgins when you get them, and they don't die when you lose them. With exceptions, of course. Coming to terms with either of these things seems nigh impossible for the male ego. Luckily, nature has compensated for this by making men borderline autistic. As long as we aren't directly confronted by the history or future of our women, we're pretty good at convincing ourselves they don't exist.

Some guy in her past had more money than you; some guy had a bigger johnson than you; and some guy had better moves in the sack than you.

And you know what? That guy was probably me.

When I was a kid, Georgia looked a lot different than it does today. In addition to speaking English, we also had a different flag. Here's the old Georgia flag that I grew up under:

Now, the astute among you will discern a certain element to this flag that is a bit, shall we say, politically incorrect. This flag was introduced in 1956, and incorporated the Confederate Battle Flag, last seen in the Late Unpleasantness. This was done, legend has it, as a response to the growing Civil Rights Movement.

Fast-forward a bit to the Clinton presidency. Having our first black president, it became fashionable to declare the struggle for Civil Rights won, and for the Southern states to slowly divest themselves of Confederate symbolism. In 2001, drunk with the spirit of reconciliation and brotherhood, Georgia started flying a more neutral flag, reminiscent of its antebellum flag.

Attractive, if a bit hard to get tattooed on your biceps. As a compromise between the banjo-playing Beatty-rapers and the Freaknikers, the Confederate Flag lost its prominent place, but remained hidden in the footnotes. After 9/11, people began complaining that the Confederate Battle Flag, a symbol of violence and sedition against the U.S., had no place on an official American symbol. So, Georgia once again replaced their flag with a more neutral version.

Now, many people mistakenly call the Confederate Battle Flag the "Stars and Bars." In fact, it's hard to say the words without the same Southern drawl that Uncle Jesse used when he said it. But the Stars and Bars was actually the official National Flag of the Confederacy, and looked like this:

Now, let me get this straight: Instead of displaying the Battle Flag as a part of the State Flag, Georgia actually adopted the entire Confederate National Flag? You crackers aren't even trying any more.

The question I'm struggling with is whether to forsake the Confederate Navy Jack, and remove it from my backpacks. I wear it as a person who's proud to be from the Southern U.S., but I've been called out on it a couple of times. And when you look at it realistically, what exactly is it about that flag that I'm proud of in the first place?

Dear Sony,

It's not exactly good word-of-mouth advertising when your products explode while sitting on people's laps. And it's not exactly helping matters when one of the victims is the main developer of Linux.

Luckily, no bikini-girls were harmed in this incident.

Well, looks like everybody's favorite future Worst Public Defender Ever had a hell of a weekend. There's something you don't see every day, unfortunately.