Saturday, April 28, 2007

"Barack The Magic Negro"

As Greg Sargent noted, Imus has nothing on Limbaugh.

via tpm

Friday, April 27, 2007

Student arrested for violent essay

Allen Lee, an 18 year old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School was arrested and charged with two counts of "disorderly conduct" after he submitted an essay in his creative writing class. The essay describes a violent dream where Lee kills people and "had sex with the dead bodies."

via The Obscure Store

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

DJs Suspended Over "Flied Lice"

The hosts of WFNY-FM's "The Dog House With JV and Elvis," have been suspended indefinitely without pay because of a skit broadcast the day after Don Imus made his infamous remark, and rebroadcast again last week. The duo reportedly have been "campaigning online and on the air in support of Imus". In the broadcast, someone calls a Chinese restaurant and uses sexually denigrating and culturally offensive language (eg. attempting to order "shrimp flied lice"). The station is current running "The Best of The Dog House" during the suspension, which indicates the duo will probably be returning to the air.

5/13/2007 UPDATE: CBS has announced that it is canceling, "The Dog House With JV and Elvis".
"This is a victory not only for the Asian-American community, but for all communities who find themselves constant targets of racist and sexist programming," said Jeanette Wang, an executive with the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Castro's Health "Rebounding"

Reuters is reporting some U.S. intelligence officials believe Fidel Castro's health is improving, and he might even be able to resume power.
"He probably has rebounded. Whether that means he's ever going to experience a full recovery would be speculating," the senior official said.

"It certainly is possible. One can't rule it out. And it's the same thing with retaking power. I think it's unlikely at this point, but we can't entirely rule it out," he added.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

White House: Oops, we lost the evidence!

Our story so far:
Congress investigates questionable firings of U.S. Attorneys.
Congress discovers an RNC funded email system.
Congress demands records from that email system.

In today's episode:
The White says they've lost "thousands" of these email messages.
"The White House has not done a good enough job overseeing staff using political e-mail accounts to assure compliance with the Presidential Records Act," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said in an unusual late-afternoon teleconference with reporters.

And some members of Congress ain't too pleased:
"This sounds like the administration’s version of the dog ate my homework," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the dismissal of the prosecutors.

"I am deeply disturbed that just when this administration is finally subjected to meaningful oversight," Mr. Leahy said, "it cannot produce the necessary information."

Voter Fraud? Not So Much...

The New York Times is reporting that the Federal Election Assistance Commission is playing down "the findings of experts who concluded last year that there was little voter fraud around the nation". It seems the commission is putting a political spin on the information it provides.
Though the original report said that among experts "there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud," the final version of the report released to the public concluded in its executive summary that "there is a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud."

Organ Donors Aren't Quite Dead

The L.A. Times is reporting that, for the second time in recent months, California doctors may have attempted to harvest organs from a patient before they were dead.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

LAPD Complaints Unrecorded for 5 Months

The L.A. Daily News is reporting that an LAPD system which was meant to ensure that complaints regarding police abuse were recorded, wasn't functioning for five months, and nobody noticed.
"It's an obvious concern when the mechanism to intake complaints is not working," LAPD Inspector General Andre Birotte said. "It's something that needs to be remedied sooner rather than later."

A spokesman for the department said that calls to a toll-free complaint line were "were taken, documented and investigated" but not recorded, as required by a 2001 consent decree. He went on to say the problem has been fixed and all incoming calls are now being recorded.

via LAObserved