The New York Times is reporting that evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students.
The Department of Education says the removal was accidental and it'll be relisted. Others find the explanation somewhat suspect.
-TPP
Tony Avella is the New York City Councilman in the district I live in. He'd be my councilman, if I was a citizen.
He's been in the limelight recently for some "unfortunate" statements regarding a vicious attack on four Asian college kids by two guidos in Douglaston. One of the scum even decided it'd be a great idea, if he fought with the police who caught up with them after the attack. Bright kids these two.
Mr. Avella, undoubtedly playing with the home court advantage in his predominantly white district, said racial tensions in the neighborhood have been increasing, because the Asian immigrants, who own stores in the area, have been putting up Korean or Chinese language signs on their storefronts. Apparently, according to Mr. Avella, this is making the whites in the area feel unwelcome. And according to Mr. Avella that might be causing racial tension in the area.
What a load of bullshit.
Maybe Mr. Avella and his constituents might want to move beyond their prejudices and step inside one of these stores and look around (and leave the baseball bat behind). Not only will you be completely welcome, but you'll also quite likely find the stores cheaper than the American competitors. You'll also find merchandise you can not get anywhere else. Experiencing something like that might cure the area whites of their bigotry. That is, if it's not inbred into them. Like the case is with the two assholes in Douglaston.
Next time Mr. Avella is up for re-election, let's hope the (Asian) immigrant population in his area exceeds the number of whites in the area. It's high time this apologist gets voted off the City Council.
-TPP
PS. Before any white person from Bayside or Douglaston gets too upset at me, let's just remind everyone that I'm quite white. In fact, I'm probably much whiter than the average Queens whitey, since I come from one of the blondest countries in the world. You can't get any more pale than me.
A Federal Judge has ruled the NSA warrantless wiretapping unconstitutional and snapped President Bush on the fingers by stating:
The president of the United States ... has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders.
Allow me to climb a tree and scratch my nuts while I ponder on the following chart.
-TPP
These bigoted asses in the Republican party just can't keep their mouths shut, can they?
It's good that they can use us immigrants as a wedge issue and all, but Virginia Senator George Allen probably wished he hadn't had the press there when he called a person of Indian ethnicity a monkey. It's good to know we have people like him representing us in the US Senate.
After all, there're way too many brown and yellow people in the country already. Right Mr. Bigot?
-TPP
Ned Lamont, who is against the Iraq war, won the Democratic party primary for the Connecticut State Senator seat recently. His opponent was a fence sitter Joe Lieberman, who supports the war.
The Vice President felt compelled to comment on the primary results with the following:
The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.
An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American politicians, but it is not the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain their cause. His bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America is out to destroy Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of willing young martyrs.
More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The "news" of terror--whether real or fantasized--reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.
We now know that from the very beginning, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress saw the terrorist threat not as a problem to be solved, but as a political opportunity to be exploited.
RIAA sues man. Man dies before case is over. RIAA goes after the estate. RIAA wants to depose the dead man's family.
But RIAA graciously allows 60 days for grieving.
The law firm litigating this case for RIAA is Soble Rowe Kirchbaum LLP. The asshole running the show is "Mr." Kirchbaum:
What a delightful man. Looks so happy go lucky in that picture, too. Too bad he's a necrophiliac.
Update: RIAA is dropping the case against Mr. Scantleberry. RIAA's public relations release over the matter says:
Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case.
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has released a statement regarding RIAA's audio broadcast flag demands.
The statement feels like a smackdown. It's like an adult putting down a petulant child in front of all his classmates.
It hasn't been a good week for RIAA. First they got spanked by every civil liberties / free speech advocacy organization in the country, and now they're getting chewed on by an organization they NEED as a partner to get the boneheaded audio broadcast flag into tomorrow's radios.
-TPP
I guess RIAA's just been called out. The acronym combination is kind of like the royal flush of free speech / civil liberties advocates in the US. I wonder if such a combination has ever joined together against an organization such as RIAA before.
EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), AALL (American Association of Law Libraries), ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and Public Citizen have filed an amicus brief in favor of Deborah Foster's motion to have RIAA pay for her legal fees.
RIAA sued Ms. Foster claiming she was sharing copyrighted content on a P2P network. RIAA withdrew the case after dragging the case for months when they already knew Ms. Foster wasn't guilty (her daughter was).
The brief is fascinating reading and outlines in plain english RIAA's legal tactics.
EFF's press release and the brief about the brief can be found at EFF's website.
-TPP
The US Department of Justice has threatened to sue the State of Maine, if the Public Utilities Commission there proceeds with an investigation on whether Verizon broke the law and handed over customer records to the US Government.
Ask yourself why would the US DOJ bother doing that, if there wasn't anything to the allegations that the phone companies have been feeding the US Government customer data for years?
-TPP
Looks like the Big Oil can't really discredit Al Gore's message about global warming, so they decided to attack his character instead in a classic ad hominem style by creating a YouTube video piece.
That would've probably been just ok, if they also would've been upfront about producing the video. But that would've been way too honest for companies, who are making more money than any other company in the history of mankind while still begging for money from the US Government claiming they can't afford to fund research, because hurricane Katrina has negatively affected their profits.
So they didn't disclose producing the video. Instead the video was claimed to have been produced by toutsmith. Who the fuck is "toutsmith"? According to Wall Sreet Journal, he is an employee of DCI Group, a well known propaganda company, whose clients include just about every big corporation and political party in the country.
When you can't attack the message, attack the messenger?
-TPP
Yesterday a Federal District Court Judge James M. Rosenbaum ruled that the Minnesota Restricted Video Games Act is unconstitutional. Specifically the judge ruled that the State of Minnesota has not proven violent video games lead to violent behavior. Here are some quotes from the ruling:
The State’s concerns are inchoate. It is impossible to determine from the data presented whether violent video games cause violence, or whether violent individuals are attracted to violent video games.
Further, there is no showing whatsoever that video games, in the absence of other violent media, cause even the slightest injury to children.
"The whole ruling defied common sense. I am so disappointed. The federal court said we don't have a right to protect our children, but we protect our children from other things. We don't let them smoke or buy liquor. You score points (in video games) for how many women you rape, how many cops you kill. How could that not affect them psychologically?"
