How about the annoying people who write the installation software for HP printers.

Note to self: when replacing an HP printer with another HP printer, always remove any and all HP printer software first, as the installation of new software does not update or overwrite existing programs, it duplicates them and they want different versions of .dlls with the same freaking name located in the same directories.

Actually, it started yesterday, but I was busy trying to clean-up after the mess made by installing a new printer.

Banned Books Week is a project of the American Library Association, among others, to highlight the ongoing attempts by individuals and governments to control what people can read.

Looking at their list that includes the reasons books were banned can be a trip down the rabbit hole.

For instance, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, was burned by the Nazis for being socialist, but the East German government banned it because they didn’t think it was socialist enough. This was the novel that was a major reason we have a Food and Drug Administration.

It’s about the meat packing industry, and was written to protest the working conditions of the employees. Of course, nothing was done about the abysmal working conditions, still performed mostly by immigrant labor in appalling conditions, but the food is a bit safer.

A real surprise was learning that The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, was burned by the Nazis. It’s a book about a dog. What’s not to like about a dog, even Hitler liked his dog?

Even the Local Puppy Trainer had an article on Banned Book Week [polishing their libertarian credentials]. They featured a story about a parent complaining about a book her child had gotten from the local library being inappropriate.

It turns out that it was inappropriate for children, which is why it is kept in a special section, and her child didn’t check it out. It was stolen and the library wanted it back and banned the child.