Dvorak News Blog

Disturbing Video: Cops Repeatedly Tase, Torture Schoolteacher who Reported Prowler

By McCullough Tuesday July 13, 2010

Janice Wells called the Richland Police Department when she feared a prowler was outside her clapboard house in the rural west Georgia town. The third-grade teacher had phoned for help. But within minutes of an officer coming to her backdoor, she was screaming in pain and begging not to be shocked again with a Taser. With each scream and cry, the officer threatened her with more shocks.

“All of it’s just unreal to me. I was scared to death,” Wells said in an interview with the AJC. “He kept tasing me and tasing me. My fingernails are still burned. My leg, back and my butt had a long scar on it for days.” The officer in question is Ryan Smith of the Lumpkin Police Department. Smith was called to back up an officer from the Richland Police Department because the sheriff’s office in the county, Stewart, had no deputies to send.

Smith resigned as a result of the incident. The other officer involved, Tim Murphy of Richland PD, was fired for using pepper spray while trying to arrest Wells. Wells is considering filing a lawsuit, according to her attorney,. Some have speculated there was a racial component to the altercation between Wells and the policemen; Wells is black and the officers are white. Smith, who quit eight days after the incident, remains unrepentant.

“I did what I had to do to take control of the situation,” Smith told the AJC about his decision to repeatedly discharge his Taser. Yet his former boss, Lumpkin Police Chief Steven Ogle, was shocked when he saw the video. “I couldn’t believe it,” Ogle said. “You don’t use it [a Taser] for punitive reasons, to prod someone. It was evident it was an improper use of force. He was an excellent officer other than that incident.” Smith resigned just as Ogle started the process to fire him, the chief said. Smith now works for the Chattahoochee County Sheriff’s office.

I’ll just take my chances with the criminals thank you.

Attention Public!! Due to Budget Cuts, Police will Stop Responding to Crimes… That is All

By McCullough Tuesday July 13, 2010

30 Comments

Oakland’s police chief is making some dire claims about what his force will and will not respond to if layoffs go as planned.

Chief Anthony Batts listed exactly 44 situations that his officers will no longer respond to and they include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism. He says if you live and Oakland and one of the above happens to you, you need to let police know on-line. Some 80 officers were to be let go at midnight last night if a last-minute deal was not reached. That’s about ten percent of the work force.

“I came here to build an organization, not downsize one,” said Batts, who was given the top job in October. Here’s a partial list:

* burglary
* theft
* embezzlement
* grand theft
* grand theft:dog
* identity theft
* false information to peace officer
* required to register as sex or arson offender
* dump waste or offensive matter
* discard appliance with lock
* loud music
* possess forged notes
* pass fictitious check
* obtain money by false voucher
* fraudulent use of access cards
* stolen license plate
* embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
* extortion
* attempted extortion
* false personification of other
* injure telephone/ power line
* interfere with power line
* unauthorized cable tv connection
* vandalism
* administer/expose poison to another’s

I feel safer already, I mean, this is Oakland after all.

Over 5,000 Anti-School Bookmarks Found in Books at Libraries in Dover, Portsmouth, Durham

By hhopper Tuesday July 13, 2010

21 Comments

Library Director Cathleen Beaudoin

Fosters.com

DOVER — Local libraries were recently the subject of a deliberate and calculating attack — of the bookmark variety.

Volunteers and staff at the Dover Public Library spent 30 hours in May collecting more than 5,000 bookmarks secretly placed inside books at the library sometime before May.

The bookmarks contained information about the beliefs of two organizations, the School Sucks Project and Freedomain Radio.

The School Sucks Project is focused on a call to end publicly funded education because of what the group calls an attempt to stifle creativity and a valuing of order and obedience over all else in the school system, according to the group’s website.

Freedomain Radio describes itself as a philosophical radio show with topics including politics, economics, science, philosophy, relationships and atheism, according to its website

People always have to push their ideas and beliefs on others.

Found by Jay.

Caption This Photo

By Uncle Dave Tuesday July 13, 2010

46 Comments

Is The Cyberwar Threat Overblown On Purpose?

By Uncle Dave Tuesday July 13, 2010

22 Comments

Here is the abstract of a paper called “Manufactured Consent and Cyberwar” (pdf):

Over the past year, there have been numerous pieces that have appeared in the press alluding to the dire consequences of Cyberwar and the near existential threat that it represents to the United States. While these intimations of destruction can seem alarming at first glance, closer scrutiny reveals something else. Ultimately, the gilded hyperbole of Cyberwar being peddled to the public is dangerous because it distracts us from focusing on actual threats and constructive solutions. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain says the ball of fire named Oz. In this presentation, I’ll pull back the curtain to expose the techniques being used to manipulate us and the underlying institutional dynamics that facilitate them.

If the public fears a cyberwar because the powers that be says there is danger, that makes it easier to put into place systems that watch and record everything you do online, provide justification for cutting off the Internet during an “emergency” and other measures. Wait, look over here…

Found by Brother Uncle Don

View From the Left: Obama Speechwriter Mort Zuckerman on Administration

By McCullough Monday July 12, 2010

45 Comments

The hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment. Americans are dispirited over how wrong things are and uncertain they can be made right again. Hope may have been a quick breakfast, but it has proved a poor supper. A year and a half ago Obama was walking on water. Today he is barely treading water. Then, his soaring rhetoric enraptured the nation. Today, his speeches cannot lift him past a 45 percent approval rating.

There is a widespread feeling that the government doesn’t work, that it is incapable of solving America’s problems. Americans are fed up with Washington, fed up with Wall Street, fed up with the necessary but ill-conceived stimulus program, fed up with the misdirected healthcare program, and with pretty much everything else. They are outraged and feel that the system is not a level playing field, but is tilted against them. The millions of unemployed feel abandoned by the president, by the Democratic Congress, and by the Republicans.
…..

Thumbs Down on iPhone….Consumer Reports

By McCullough Monday July 12, 2010

53 Comments

Consumer Reports initially dismissed the iPhone 4’s antenna troubles by saying that it’s not necessarily unique to the phone. But after testing the device and recreating the problem, the consumer publication has concluded that it cannot recommend the iPhone 4 until Apple addresses the antenna issue.

Consumer Reports’ opinion is significant because it’s well respected by mainstream consumers and the tests they’ve conducted appear to be the most comprehensive by an independent organization. Unfortunately, Consumer Reports hasn’t provided much actual data to bolster its findings.

Consumer Reports tested three iPhone 4s in a special chamber designed to block out wireless signals. Inside, they recreated a cell site and tested the phone’s controversial external antenna.

Like many other accounts, Consumer Reports found that signal degradation is significant when users touch the left hand corner of the iPhone, where two of the antennas meet. The degradation is enough to drop calls when existing reception is weak.

“…Apple needs to come up with a permanent – and free – fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4,” the publication wrote. The report says the test results call into question Apple’s earlier explanation that the perception of dropping signal strength was due to a software problem that over-estimated the signal meter of the iPhone 4. Apple has said a software update in the coming weeks will fix the problem, which it said was present in previous models as well.

The Consumer Reports researcher said tests on an iPhone 3GS and a Palm Pre did not produce the same signal loss. However, covering the antenna in the lower corner with thick duct tape or other non-conductive material remedies the issue.

Will a software update fix the problem, or is it going to be duct tape? Shhhh! I can hear Steve hyperventilating as we speak…..

Google Spending Big on Games?

By John C Dvorak Monday July 12, 2010

3 Comments

Google codeless App Inventor getting attention.
MSFT now selling cloud services to others. I hear eBay will be testing it.
HTC EVO 4G phones taking forever to ramp.
RIM to do Blackberry tablet?
Google buying into Zynga.
I have a Google profile! So?
Facebook adds panic button for dummies.
US Senator worried about doomsday.
Acoustic fibers can sing!

click ► to listen:

Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.

RIAA: Lime Wire Hid Cash to Avoid Paying Damages

By hhopper Monday July 12, 2010

16 Comments

CNet News

Lime Wire founder Mark Gorton during the past decade made millions of dollars helping people share billions of pirated songs. Now, the big record labels claim in legal filings that Gorton has maneuvered to prevent the court from seizing his gains.

In court papers last week, the Recording Industry Association of America once again asked the court to freeze Lime Wire’s and Gorton’s assets. The trade group for the four largest record companies alleged in a copyright complaint filed in 2006 that Gorton had for five years placed his assets in a trust that he, his wife, and two children control in an attempt to put the money out of reach of any court.

Caption This Photo

By Uncle Dave Monday July 12, 2010

39 Comments

Supercomputer Calculates Projected Path of BP Oil Disaster

By McCullough Monday July 12, 2010

17 Comments

BP may not know where oil from the Gulf gusher will go next, but Intel does. The Xeon-powered Encanto supercomputer, located at Intel’s Rio Rancho campus, is one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. And all of its 3,500 quad-core processors are devoted to tracking the potential paths of the BP disaster.

Encanto started working on the oil disaster just a few days after it began, but progress has been slow-going. The first six simulations alone sucked up over 250,000 hours of computer time using the Parallel Ocean program, a 3-D ocean circulation model design at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Intel researchers plugged in the latitude and longitude of the Gulf disaster to see where an electronic “dye tracer” dropped in the water might land. The results aren’t encouraging. Once the oil moves past Florida to the Gulf Stream, it could carry oil up to 3,000 miles each month–to the East Coast and beyond.

Maybe if it were to reach the UK, that would motivate them.

Hilarious! NRA Slammed by Tea Party Nutballs

By Eideard Monday July 12, 2010

42 Comments

The National Rifle Association, the powerful lobbying group that has been a longtime nemesis of liberals, is facing mounting criticism from influential allies on the right and even from its own board over a series of recent moves they say are selfish, short-sighted and ultimately harmful to the conservative movement.

Critics cite a list of transgressions, from considering an endorsement of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), to endorsing moderate Republicans — and even Democrats — rather than their more-conservative challengers, to taking a cautious approach to Second Amendment court cases and President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees.

And they are especially angry about the group’s willingness to play ball with Democratic leaders on campaign finance legislation vigorously opposed by congressional Republicans, powerful business groups and nearly the entire conservative movement.

Republican congressional leaders have privately conveyed their unhappiness to NRA officials, but online conservative activists linked to the tea party movement have been vociferous in their criticism.

“The NRA is all about the NRA — helping their organization and not necessarily the cause,” said influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson, who has repeatedly taken to his blog RedState in recent weeks to urge conservatives to turn their backs on the NRA…

Har! Rightwingers believe that single issue organizations should kneel to all of their ideology.

Climategate Whitewash Continues

By John C Dvorak Monday July 12, 2010

74 Comments

This article contends that there is so much government money to be made promoting Man-made global warming that the scientists on the dole will stop at nothing.

But Mr. Jones wrote Mr. Mann on March 11, 2003, that “I’ll be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor,” Chris de Freitas of the University of Auckland. Mr. Mann responded to Mr. Jones on the same day: “I think we should stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues . . . to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board.”

Mr. Mann ultimately wrote to Mr. Jones on July 11, 2003, that “I think the community should . . . terminate its involvement with this journal at all levels . . . and leave it to wither away into oblivion and disrepute.”

Climate Research and several other journals have stopped accepting anything that substantially challenges the received wisdom on global warming perpetuated by the CRU. I have had four perfectly good manuscripts rejected out of hand since the CRU shenanigans, and I’m hardly the only one. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, has noted that it’s becoming nearly impossible to publish anything on global warming that’s nonalarmist in peer-reviewed journals.

Of course, Mr. Russell didn’t look to see if the ugly pressure tactics discussed in the Climategate emails had any consequences. That’s because they only interviewed CRU people, not the people whom they had trashed.