Dvorak News Blog

Puppet Cleavage Offends Colorado Christians

By Eideard Wednesday February 24, 2010

Click for image NSFW in Colorado Springs

Puppet cleavage has been ruled out for advertising posters in Colorado Springs bus shelters.

Lamar Advertising rejected posters for a touring production of the Broadway show “Avenue Q” because they show the cleavage of a fuzzy pink puppet.

The city is known for its political conservatism and is home to the headquarters of some conservative Christian groups.

The poster has been replaced by one showing the face of another puppet.

“Avenue Q” is a Tony-winning musical about twentysomething New Yorkers, both human and puppets, searching for life and love.

Would you expect to find either in a proper Christian city.

DH Unplugged #54
The Tiger Woods Market Effect

By John C Dvorak Tuesday February 23, 2010

3 Comments

Here is the latest conversation I had with money manager Andrew Horowitz…. new insights for anyone who invests in anything. This week we discover new stocks to watch and short! Plus a discussion about the implications of the weird situation in Europe, now Spain. PLUS predictions.

click ► to listen:

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

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Would Re-Legalizing Dueling in Washington Help End the Political BS?

By Uncle Dave Tuesday February 23, 2010

26 Comments

“You want to filibuster MY bill? I’ll see you at dawn, sir!”

I can see it now. Replace the Sunday morning talking head shows with the Political Duel of the Week.

What if we re-introduced dueling to Washington?

No more dueling press-release rhetoric harmlessly flying across Capitol Hill. No more interminable floor debates or town halls producing empty promises that go unfulfilled anyway. Presidents would be exempt, of course, because it costs so much money to buy them.

But if, say, some Democrat senator called a Republican president a liar, the chief executive could designate a second. So, Harry Reid vs. David Petraeus at sun-up.

Dueling could helpfully whittle down one side’s ruling majority without waiting for tedious and expensive elections. Quicker even than term limits. And Sarah Palin’s certainly qualified for this! Be good TV ratings too probably.
[…]
Have those elected political folks put their own bodies where their overblown rhetoric is. See if that tones things down a bit on the sound bites that pass for political dialogue these days. A Republican leader insults Reid’s secret healthcare legislation deals and in his own Nevada dialect Harry could challenge a duel.

Reid’s a much smaller target than Republican Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell. And they both wear spectacles.

Google Sued!

By John C Dvorak Tuesday February 23, 2010

4 Comments

Apple SDK for iPad shows camera.
Google hit with EU anti-trust probe for being too good.
Sex apps still in iPhone store. Nexus One has more.
FCC pushing broadband even more than before. Why?
Intel investing in green tech.
Mobile phone sales down in 2009.
Intel hacked with Google. Some kid supposedly doing hacks.
New dinosaur story crops up again.
Bloom Energy rolls out tomorrow.
Amazon getting Linux patents for some unknown reason.
AT&T faster than Verizon they say. Hmpf.
Xerox attacks Google and Yahoo.

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Controversial New French Anti-Smoking Ad

By honeyman Tuesday February 23, 2010

23 Comments

“To smoke is to be a slave to tobacco” – Click image to embiggen

A new French antismoking advertisement aimed at the young that plays off a pornographic stereotype has gotten more attention than even its creators intended, and critics suggest that it offends common decency and creates a false analogy between oral sex and smoking.

France has banned smoking in cafes, bars and restaurants. But smoking is still increasing among the young in France, according to the French Office for the Prevention of Smoking, prompting an antitobacco organization called Droits des Non-fumeurs, or Nonsmokers’ Rights, to create the ad.
[…]
Florence Montreynaud, the president of La Meute des Chiennes de Garde, or the Pack of Female Watchdogs, which opposes symbols of sexual violence in films and advertising, called the ads “unbearable” and said “what is most shocking is the banalization of sexual violence.”

She is a feminist, she said, and a longtime member of Droits des Non-fumeurs. “But it is terrible to represent in the public space this kind of image restricted to pornography,” she added. “I’m appalled. It’s a poverty of imagination. When people have no ideas, they use female bodies.”

Nadine Morano, the secretary of state for the family, said she wanted the campaign to stop, saying she found the symbolism intolerable. “One can shock on the issue of tobacco, that doesn’t bother me, but there are other campaigns to do instead of this one,” she told Radio Monte Carlo.

One can only imagine the reaction this would receive in America.

Obama Covers Beatle Song: Taxman

By John C Dvorak Tuesday February 23, 2010

15 Comments

Cripes who has this much time to work this up? Amazing. Another beauty by Rx2008.

Found by AJ 89.

Mouse Fitness: Nutrition & Exercise

By Eideard Tuesday February 23, 2010

6 Comments

Don’t be put off by the middle. Let it play through to the end – it’s worth it.

Thanks, Jägermeister

Next Olympic Sport… Pole Dancing?

By McCullough Tuesday February 23, 2010

25 Comments

Absolutely, say thousands of pole dancers and the rapidly growing number of international and national federations transforming what was once the exclusive property of strip clubs and cheap bars into a respectable — and highly athletic — event.

“I could definitely see pole dancing in the Olympics,” said Sato, who, a dancer since the age of three, out-twirled a bevy of athletes from 11 countries at the second International Pole Dancing Fitness Championships in Tokyo two months ago. “I would love to win a gold medal.” Hong Kong-based Ania Przeplasko, the founder of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association, the sport’s fledgling supervisory body, believes Olympic recognition is only a matter of time and would be a victory for underappreciated sports worldwide.

“There will be a day when the Olympics see pole dancing as a sport,” she said. “The Olympic community needs to acknowledge the number of people doing pole fitness now. We’re shooting for 2012.” Pole dance advocates note that more unlikely sports have gotten the IOC’s nod.

Tug of war, for example, was one of the early Olympic medal contests. Equestrian events are in the Olympics, but who owns a horse? Curling, which virtually no one pays any attention to in non-Olympic years, has become one of the Winter Games’ biggest darlings. Though they are not in the games, the IOC recognizes such obscure sporting endeavors as boules, powerboating, bandy and floorball.

Then of course there’s mobile pole dancing…just think of the possibilities!

Is Texas About to Execute Another Innocent Man?

By hhopper Tuesday February 23, 2010

46 Comments

Texas Execution Chamber

Reason.com

Henry Watkins “Hank” Skinner was supposed to be executed tomorrow, but last Tuesday a Gray County, Texas, District Court judge pushed the date back one month, to March 24. Skinner has been on Death Row in Texas since 1993, awaiting execution for the murder of his girlfriend and her two sons. He has maintained his innocence since his arrest, and investigators from the Northwestern University Journalism School’s Medill Innocence Project have shot numerous holes in the prosecution’s case. But Texas officials refuse to conduct a simple DNA test that could point to the condemned man’s innocence or cement his guilt.

Skinner’s scheduled lethal injection comes shortly after Texas Gov. Rick Perry has removed sympathetic panelists from the state forensic committee’s investigation into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham and replaced them with panelists critics say are stymieing the investigation. Willingham was executed in 2003 for murdering his three daughters by setting fire to his house. Nine arson experts and an investigation published in the New Yorker last year have since made a strong case that Willingham was innocent of the crime.

Prosecutors do not like to be proven wrong.

Thanks Cináedh.

Judge Accepts SEC/BofA Deal – Barely!

By Eideard Tuesday February 23, 2010

19 Comments

In strikingly unenthusiastic fashion, federal Judge Jed Rakoff signed off on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s plan to fine Bank of America $150 million after failing to tell shareholders of about $16 billion in impending losses at Merrill Lynch.

“While better than nothing, this is half-baked justice at best,” wrote Mr. Rakoff in his ruling released Monday, a week before the case was scheduled to go to trial. “The amount of the fine appears paltry.”

The judge wrote in his report that his court was “shaking its head” and that, based solely on the merits, the settlement between the SEC and BofA should be rejected as “inadequate and misguided.” Yet he elected to go along with the SEC’s proposal, citing deference to the authority of regulators and adding that federal judges should be wary of the “power to impose their own preferences…”

The judge’s ruling also seems like a final slap at the reputation of the SEC. The federal agency was prepared to accept a $33 million fine from BofA last year until Mr. Rakoff rejected that settlement.

In the end, the judge signed off on the $150 million penalty—equal to about 3% of BofA’s pretax income last year—by citing a distinguished soothsayer and baseball player. In considering the tortured nature of the BofA case, the judge quoted Yogi Berra, who is said to have said: “I wish I had an answer to that because I’m getting tired of answering that question.”

They’re just getting better at covering their tracks.

Karzai Seizes Control of Afghan Electoral Watchdog

By honeyman Monday February 22, 2010

11 Comments

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has unilaterally taken control of the country’s top electoral watchdog, provoking outrage from western diplomats, the Guardian has learnt.

The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), which forced Karzai into a runoff election after it disqualified nearly 1m fraudulent votes in last year’s presidential election, previously included three foreign experts named by the UN.

However, according to a new presidential decree published today, Karzai will have the exclusive power to appoint all five panel members.
[…]
Diplomatic sources say Kai Eide, the head of the UN in Afghanistan, had struck a private deal with Karzai under which he will use his new powers to appoint at least two foreigners to the election watchdog.

But that will mean Karzai’s Afghan appointees would hold the balance of power in the commission and be unlikely to challenge his wishes.

The fox has barricaded himself inside the hen-house.

Naps Make You Smarter!

By John C Dvorak Monday February 22, 2010

4 Comments

Walmart gets into online movie services.
Someone gets married in Apple store. Gak!
Apple market share growing in France.
Chinese under attack on Google attack.
It appears that naps are good for you.
Bloom Energy is in the news.
School spy cam story under investigation by FBI.
UN worried about e-waste.
USA Today says digital cameras are cheap. DUH!
It’s reported that 3D movies are hard to watch.
Facebook stupidly replacing college yearbooks.

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Cypriot News Anchor Charged with Organising Hit on Her Boss

By honeyman Monday February 22, 2010

11 Comments

To most viewers of Cyprus’s Sigma TV, Elena Skordelli was just another pretty face in an endless schedule of soaps, game shows, and cosy sofa chat.

Yet behind the blonde hair and girlish voice there lay a steely desire to get to the top: having started her career as a daytime TV lifestyle guru, she fought her way to a coveted job as an evening news anchorwoman.
[…]
Ms Skordelli is alleged to have arranged the revenge killing of Andis Hadjicostis, 43, a popular and well-respected broadcasting mogul who was gunned down outside his villa in Nicosia’s diplomatic quarter on the evening of January 11th.

The head of Dias Group, the largest media company in Cyprus, his otherwise inexplicable execution was initially thought to have been linked to the divided island’s long-unresolved political dispute. Shell casings believed to have from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus were found at the scene of the crime, prompting speculation that it was connected to his firm’s opposition to UN-backed plans to reunite the island.

Now, however, detectives have charged both Ms Skordelli, her brother Tassos Krasopoulos, and an alleged hitman with the killing, after a fourth accomplice, Theophanis Hadjigeorgiou, was arrested and agreed to give state’s evidence.

They believe that Ms Skordelli was motivated by both revenge for her sacking and a desire to become a media mogul herself by siezing control of Dias. Having already acquired a 20 per cent stake jointly with her brother, she attempted to buy out other Dias shareholders after Mr Hadjicostis’s death.

Crikey!

US Experts Close in on Google Hackers

By hhopper Monday February 22, 2010

10 Comments

The Financial Times

US analysts believe they have identified the Chinese author of the critical programming code used in the alleged state-sponsored hacking attacks on Google and other western companies, making it far harder for the Chinese government to deny involvement.

Their discovery came after another team of investigators tracked the launch of the spyware to computers inside two educational institutions in China, one of them with close ties to the military.

A freelance security consultant in his 30s wrote the part of the program that used a previously unknown security hole in the Internet Explorer web browser to break into computers and insert the spyware, a researcher working for the US government told the Financial Times. Chinese officials had special access to the work of the author, who posted pieces of the program to a hacking forum and described it as something he was “working on”.

6-Year-Old Girl has Tantrum at School. Gets Handcuffed by Cops and Tossed in Booby Hatch.

By John C Dvorak Monday February 22, 2010

34 Comments

Tough customer for coppers.

Six-Year-Old Handcuffed — Why weren’t the parents called to take care of this. Welcome to the US School/Prison system.

Kathy Franklin says she wants to get her daughters back in school. But after her 6-year-old was handcuffed and then sent to a mental health facility, she no longer feels her children are safe at Parkway Elementary.

“These people are going to the extreme,” Franklin said. “She is so tiny. They didn’t have to use force on her.”

On Tuesday, after another disruption, the girl was put under a law enforcement involuntary Baker Act and taken to a mental health facility. Franklin says the latest events have traumatized her daughter. She is afraid of law enforcement and school, she said.