Domain: dallasobserver.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to dallasobserver.com.
Comments · 62
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Re:What about 8 track???
Funny you should ask that:
https://www.dallasobserver.com...
Ferret -
Re:ADA was a huge waste
Interesting list you have there. Let me add some to it.
...OK. So let's look into the Republicans, Mark Hasse and Mike McLelland:
Mark Hasse was shot and killed while walking in the 100 block of East Grove Street in Kaufman...
the bodies of Kaufman County Criminal District Attorney Michael "Mike" McLelland, 63, and his wife Cynthia, 65, were found in their home...
Eric Lyle Williams and his wife Kim Lene Williams[7] were arrested for all three murders.
Kaufman County murdersWhat are Eric Williams' political affiliations?
[Williams] argued at pretrial hearings that he was the victim of a political vendetta. He'd supported McLelland's opponent, Rick Harrison, he said. Williams signed a campaign flier
... raising doubt about [McLelland's] Republican credentials during McLelland's unsuccessful 2006 run for district attorney.
Eric Williams, Suspect in Kaufman County KillingsIt looks like both the Republicans on the list were killed by another Republican. So which statement does all of this best support?
Leftists now shooting Congressmen in the streets for being Republican.
or
I suspect this is something of an over-generalisation.
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Re:TFA ignored obvious facts
Let me use a Basketball analogy. Linked in believes that anyone can be Shawn Kemp, or another player that never played college ball and was not highly educated. In reality, the Shawn Kemp like people are extremely rare. About 1 in a billion.
A better sports-related comparison might be Daniel Tosh's joke-not-joke about Babe Ruth playing before they let black people play, and before they were testing for juicing. It's a whole different sport today.
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Trump at the national cathedral
There's a lotta God coming out of that guy so far. He even had Dr. Robert Jeffress (hates Muslims, gays, Mormons, etc.) preach at his inauguration service yesterday.
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Really?
Microsoft has openly discussed its use of image-processing software to detect suspected paedophiles in the past...
Really now. And a false positive fucks over a person for life. Justice? Please! Not when it comes to child porn, drugs, and terrorism. Getting accused of those things is enough to ruin you.
There have been HUMANS who have fucked up interpreting what child pornography is.
It's a Goddamn modern day witch hunt!
My parents of pictures of me that would probably have sent to jail if they took them today - you know, naked baby in bathtub, running around naked, etc
.....Well, this just tells me that the "Cloud" is untrustworthy, regardless of who the vendor is - obviously they are snooping into the contents.
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Re:What we need...
You are wrong. If the traffic is that heavy, then it is slow. I commuted 15 miles (each way) in Dallas for a three month period. There were no bicycle lanes in Dallas at the time. http://blogs.dallasobserver.co...
Looks like they got one 2 years ago. But nowhere near where I was riding. I would go in the morning in rush-hour traffic, and home at lunch. Your advice is bad. The safest thing for a bike is to always ride in traffic, regardless of whether there's a bike lane or not. Certainly in places like Dallas, where there are so few bike lanes the cars don't know what to do with them, and are likely to fail to yield to people in the bike lane. And changing lanes on a bike is not at all how you describe. Can you even ride a bike? -
I disagree.
There are plenty of poor people that drive around with phones that are better than yours and cars that are better than yours. You can stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it's some sort of Reagan-Cadillac-Welfare-Queen myth but there's a lot of truth to it. Ever heard the expression "nigger rich"? And there are lots of white middle class people who qualify, with a nice job, a mcmansion, two SUVs, and still living paycheck to paycheck. Or the $30,000 millionaires. There are a lot of people who want a better standard of living than they're capable of and a lot of people with shit money skills. And no amount of money will change that. Consider the ever so common stories of poor people who win the lottery -- literally or figuratively with a record contract, pro sports job, etc -- and are bankrupt and poor 5 years later.
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Law
We have a dominant Taxi company in the city where I live, one so influential and powerful that it has landed a former city councilman in Federal court for accepting bribe money to stifle competition from other companies. They are, of course, bringing some serious legal pressure to bear on our politicians for allowing Uber to operate independent of codes regulating the taxi business. Seems that the biggest barriers to improving cab transportation are existing regulations and conflict with existing companies, not technical. In Dallas, the attempt to stifle Uber went so far as to include police stings of Uber drivers: http://www.dallasobserver.com/... Either existing taxi companies need to adopt new technologies like this on their own, or citizens have to demand restructuring of the rules governing them. It seems in many places that taxi companies view these more as a threat than a benefit.
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Re:TL;DR requested...
Here's what the Tesla site says:
http://www.teslamotors.com/advocacy_texasHere's the Dallas Observer's discussion:
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/09/tesla_crushed_by_car_dealer_lo.phpAnd Auto News:
http://www.autonews.com/article/20130909/RETAIL07/130909878/how-texas-dealers-slammed-the-door-on-teslaCould you put that into a car analogy for us?
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( ducks and runs for cover )
How about this: Anyone who can afford one of these will simply go to another state to pick up the keys.
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TL;DR requested...
Here's what the Tesla site says: http://www.teslamotors.com/advocacy_texas
Here's the Dallas Observer's discussion: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/09/tesla_crushed_by_car_dealer_lo.php
And Auto News: http://www.autonews.com/article/20130909/RETAIL07/130909878/how-texas-dealers-slammed-the-door-on-tesla
Could you put that into a car analogy for us?
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( ducks and runs for cover )
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More
Here's what the Tesla site says:
http://www.teslamotors.com/advocacy_texasHere's the Dallas Observer's discussion:
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/09/tesla_crushed_by_car_dealer_lo.phpAnd Auto News:
http://www.autonews.com/article/20130909/RETAIL07/130909878/how-texas-dealers-slammed-the-door-on-tesla -
Hammond Versus Barrett
The more I read about what these guys were doing--and I mean the stuff they've admitted to, not just been accused of--the more I think they are getting what they deserve. Breaking into someone's network to get at information that the public should know is political. Breaking into someones network and racking up charges on personal credit card numbers is criminal. They're like the idiots that smash store windows during street protests.
I agree they are not the good guys. But I also think it's important to mete out justice based on who was doing what. I hope in street protests when windows are smashed that the vandals are correctly identified and brought to justice. Similarly, I hope they find who are responsible for the credit card thefts but it appears Hammond is not and there are reports he did not benefit personally from this intrusion:
Barrett Brown of Dallas, Texas is expected to stand trial starting this September for a number of charges, including one relating to the release of Stratfor subscribers’ credit card numbers. He faces a maximum of 100 years in prison.
More here.
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Resources from TX Dept of Emergency Management
I live in Dallas. People are not dying in the streets. We are not living out Monty Python's "Bring Out Your Dead" sketch.
The "emergency" was declared primarily so we could gain access to 5 pesticide-spraying planes from the Texas Department of Emergency Management. -
Re:Questions
That's because most people are sheep. They go along with it under the pretense that it makes them feel safe. Everybody knows that after 9/11 that the same kind of crap would never happen on an airline in the US. Why? Look at the dumbshit underwear bomber kid, look at the AA flight attendant who went nuts a couple of weeks ago. The passengers took matters into their own hands to help resolve the issue. People will get up and defend themselves so unless would-be attackers come heavily armed there won't be a repeat. What the TSA has done is create long lines and an illusion of security. I fly every week of the year and I can tell you that I have more of a chance of falling out of the sky from a flock of geese than I do a would-be terrorist on a plane. What I want to know is why the TSA isn't installing anti-aircraft guns around airports to take care of the bird menace!
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Everyone already knows that in the future.
Brawndo, the thirst mutilator.
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Re:Yes, of course
See figure 3 in the following link for a projection of where we can expect increased drought this century
You forgot, we also get increased precipitation from global warming! It'll be warmcool and drywet everywhere!
:)Here is a wry post on the current drought conditions in Texas.
Funny, Texas never had droughts before we started releasing CO2...
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2011/09/chatting_with_a_noaa_meteorolo.php
"The good news, Hoerling says, is that this isn't global warming. "This is not the new normal in terms of drought. Texas knows drought. Texas has been toughened on the anvil of droughts that have come and gone. This is not a climate change drought."
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Re:Search and Seizure has Constitutional Limits
1) Wrong - When speaking to a police officer your freedom is always on the line. Since you aren't free to leave, there is no better description of the situation than a forced interrogation.
2) The Checkpoint Evasion App only marks sobriety checkpoints, the ultimate desecration of "probably cause". the issue you raised is irrelivent.
3) During a no refusal weeken your blood will be forcibly drawn if you don't consent to the illegal search of your bodily fluids. How long do you think it will be until every day is a "no refusal weekend"?
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Child porn in my photos?More likely than you think
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2003-04-17/news/1-hour-arrest/
http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?t=14089
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32904451/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts ... oh wait, that last couple wasn't arrested, just had their kids taken away for a month while they decided whether or not to arrest them. -
Re:A Clockwork Orange
Can I have the this-is-old prize? This was being done at a downtown McDonalds in Dallas in the US 13 years ago where I read about at the time and you can too: http://www.dallasobserver.com/1997-04-24/news/mcfugue-no-cheese/
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Re:And nothing of value was lost
Do this many people really not want truly guilty people caught and prosecuted?
Guilty of what and at the expense of what? Could you cite specific examples, as you seem so eager to chastise others for failing to provide?
I don't want people truly guilty of possessing marijuana to be caught and prosecuted. I don't want people truly guilty of indulging in whimsical fantasies involving fictional characters to be caught and prosecuted. I don't want people truly guilty of copyright infringement to be caught and prosecuted. Had this been some years ago I would not have wanted people truly guilty of being gay to be caught and prosecuted. I do not want people truly guilty of sexting to be caught and prosecuted. I do not want people truly guilty of being mistaken for a terrorist to be shot on the London Underground. I do not want people truly guilty of possessing a knife to be caught and prosecuted. I do not want people truly guilty of breast feeding to be caught and prosecuted. I do not want people truly guilty of disobeying school authorities to be caught and prosecuted.
Aside from that, I'd rather rot in prison than have some moron telling me that my privacy is less important than their fishing expedition for child pornography or bomb making recipes. Note from that article a detective is quoted as saying "Unless you tell us we're never gonna know... What is anybody gonna think?". I'd rather be water-boarded than cooperate with that sort of pond life. If a detective wants me to cooperate then they will need a better reason than 'we hope you're guilty of something, let us pry into your private life or we will presume the worse'.
If you haven't guessed, I'm not by definition a 'law-abiding' citizen. Were laws in perfect alignment with my principles then I would still only be law abiding by circumstance, not choice. I'd feel much safer around a person who doesn't try to kill me because they choose not to than someone who is just abiding by the law. So, here's me. Sticking it to the man. And proud of it. With long hair. But not a hippy.
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So long
*waves goodbye*
In other news, publishers get their priorities right: At The Dallas News, a New "Bold Strategy": Section Editors Reporting to Sales Managers Says it all.
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Re:I'm sorry you're wrong
Absolutely. The best book I ever read on the subject of what genetic engineering is and isn't is "Mendel in the Kitchen" by Nina Federoff. If that one seems a little too heavy on biology OR if you're already interested in organic agriculture I'd recommend Tomorrow's Table which was written an organic farmer and his wife who's a plant biologist at UC Davis.
The best article I ever read about Norman Borlaug himself and his contribution to the Green revolution wasthis one.
For a better grounding of the problems faced by both conventional ag and conventual organic, read the first two sections of Michael Pollen's the Omnivores Dilemma (you can read the other two sections of the book if you like too, they're just not as relevant). His science and stats are sometimes off, and I don't always agree with his conclusions but it's a fun read.
There was a BBC documentary that came out last fall called "Jimmy's GM Food Fight" which, if you can track a copy down did about as good a job as possible of summing up the issue in 60 minutes.
If you're more interested in the history of agriculture than the recent Organic vs Conventional vs GM split, there's a lot of good background in Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.
Hope this is helpful. I can cite blogs as well, but it's harder to find ones that are informative rather than pushing an position. Good luck and I wish more people were interested in the subject! -
Cue Cat anyone??
How could they not mention Belo Corp (owner of the Dallas Morning News)$40 million dollar investment in the Cue Cat? The ultimate link between newspapers and web pages via bar codes in an adorable PS2 device.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2001-06-28/news/goodbye-kitty/
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Re:Expensive!Most photo sites offer free shipping, to boot. Free shipping of your children to child protective services?
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Child porn allegations?Printing photos? That costs me $0.11 per print at Costco. Why would I want to do that at home when I get better quality at a far lower cost from them? Is $0.11 per print for 10x15 cm (4x6 inch) prints or for the typical 23x30 cm (7.5x10 inch) enlargements that I'm often asked to print? And if you are printing photos of a child breastfeeding or bathing, isn't there the chance that you'll get your children taken away from you? Sometimes privacy is worth it.
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And have your kids taken away?The later is a cheap for a few single prints as the photo shops. Until the photo shop leaks your (PG-13 rated) breastfeeding photos to the police and child protective services intervenes.
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Re:Reliability
...I have no real need for colour and have the few photos I want on paper printed by a lab
Just make sure there are no unpleasant surprises. -
From Dallas
I live in Dallas currently, and let me say, these cameras are starting to go up everywhere, at just about every single light in the city. And Dallas, especially around the downtown area, lights are designed to make you want to run them. There's a set of lights on Commerce St that all match, except one, in the middle, so you can typically breeze halfway through most of them and then you have to wait, can go one, and have to wait for that one then you can finish. It's ridiculous, it's a tiny street never used by anybody, and if they are they have to turn onto Commerce(one way, 3 point intersection).
There's lots of other places, recent construction has literally removed some intersections, but not the lights, which are left running just as before(some with extended hours! Typically blink yellow after 9, but not anymore). Although, I seriously run them and they haven't put cameras up there yet and I would argue and drag it out long enough to make a police officer regret stopping me, but I have seen others stopped because of it. The lights going into downtown(mainly Elm and Main) are typically tuned so you're going to just miss each one and have to wait the full length of time to go, or buses are everywhere and because of continuing construction have to block all traffic going in a certain direction, as the bus lane is now a construction lane. It's quite aggravating and these traffic cams are an insult to everyone in Dallas, "We don't have good roads or a decent traffic system but we'll ticket you for it!" and probably an insult just about everywhere else in the country. I can see reasons, especially at dangerous lights, and I hate to defend myself, but a 3 mile trip shouldn't be 20-30 minutes because of 8 traffic lights(typically having to wait twice at two of them because of some additional not syncing up on cross streets). Fix the system first where running a light is trying to be a bastard instead of trying to go to the grocery store, then let's put them at dangerous intersections and highway/feeder type intersections, and let's go from there.
That being said, and the cameras not about to go anywhere, I find it quite fabulous that an officer is being forced to pay. We had a whole spat of police fired within the past two years because of unpaid traffic fines in different cities and counties and this just adds to the fun. Of course we're completely understaffed, have a terrible corrupt staff, and a high crime rate by police officers who will not look at anything except a speeder. I actually went to report a break in of a car(that was happening at that exact moment) and an office told me he needs to steal the car and speed or he won't care. Then they tried to beat up on our Derby Girls! C'mon! That's just low. -
Good thing he's not in texas
Because down here we ain't got no good judges.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/Issues/2006-10-05/ne ws/feature.html
From the article:
An examination of the trial transcript, witness statements, police reports and appellate briefs reveals something even more shocking.
Except for an alleged motive, there was no evidence against Karage.
"I couldn't believe it," says Lawrence Mitchell, one of the top criminal appellate attorneys in Dallas, who represented Karage on appeal. "There's not a shred of evidence he committed the crime. I don't know how Karen Greene came to the conclusion he was guilty. It's bad judging all the way through. I think a first-year law student would have seen he wasn't guilty. I have never seen a case this egregious."
The project is GPL right, so it will go on anyways, perhaps a new name, but, that wouldn't be right either. -
Half Empty, Half Full.
I suspect you're right. Enron made their income & expenditure information public, too. For funzies here's a story about how they evade being specific here in Dallas: Schutze rules, by the way.
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Re:Casino
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Black & WhiteI suppose gamers are so used to weak and stereotyped game stories, that they try to apply this simplistic "good or evil" criteria to everything related to games... especially Romero. Why is it so hard to believe he can be simultaneously:
- a great programmer and level designer (http://www.idsoftware.com/);
- an average game designer (Daikatana); and
- a really bad manager (Ion Storm).
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Not true.I think you're (O'Reillys Bar) wrong.
The same name thing in differant industries is usually just fine.
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Re:Income tax misnomerHmm. No blood in the streets here, or anywhere else in the U.S. where I've lived.
As I said, the US is nowhere near to being a libertarian country. Count your lucky stars.
H, Markham, Ontario was a pure hell for the four months I lived there, when it came to crime. Whitby was not much better. We got used to the Metro Toronto "murder of the day" being announced on the news, but certainly didn't like it.
You are a bald-faced liar. There were 65 murders in 2003 in the whole Greater Toronto Area, which happens to be the most populous city in the whole country. For some contrast: Dallas, Texas, your neck of the woods, happens to be
... err ... the crime capital of the US in 2003, with 244.Kettle, meet Pot.
I remember checking violent crime stats, and learned that the rate of violent crimes against women in Canada was double that in the U.S. Of course, in Dallas, women kill their would-be rapists.
Do share. In the meantime, from that article:
Dallas is No. 2 in per capita nonviolent theft and fraud, after San Antonio. We're second for rape, after Philadelphia, with more than twice as many rapes per 100,000 people as New York City.
Sigh, what a turkey.
"fall hard" end up getting told, "You made $$$$$$ last year -- no help for you!"
.I fully sympathise! How horrible it is to have to sell that $120k BMW and to re-mortage the mansion! Don't these communists have any compassion?! Don't they realise how hard it is to have to let the maid go and do your own laundry?! No help until you actually really need it!? You were not cut out for this! This is like, like,
... insulting! You are sooo better then this! Can't they tell a superior being when faced with one!? Barbarians!(Generally businessmen who's businesses failed due to competition, and who once employed dozens of people)
Oh dear. Poor businessmen! Look, they only failed to compete in a marketplace, for which failure they collected a significant income while it lasted, and as a result of which there are dozens of people now out of work. And these ugly communists refuse to even pay for one butler! These wealth redistibution fiends want you to take responsibility for your own screwups and sell the yacht. Don't talk to me about these dozens of employees who now have to be helped! These peasants were the cause of it all! If they only worked harder and over the weekends as you told them! Bastards! And now the commies mock you by saying that they will give you welfare, housing aid and so on only after you are as poor as those employees of yours. The devils even dare to offer you
.... job training! This is outrageous! Demeaning! What unspeakable, communist evil!Not me. No more.
As I said, have fun. The one thing we can agree on is that you are happier out of here and so is the majority of Canadians for not having to put up with your childlish tantrums anymore.
And that "Notwithstanding Clause"... Geez: "These are your rights unless we say otherwise." That is just so messed up.
It has its uses, apparently. But the pros and cons of the Charter of Rights and the related laws are really no longer of any personal interest to you. Unlike the US politics, which, purely due to geography and the size of US population has a significant impact on Canada, the reverse is not true. Thus no problem as far as you are concerned.
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Evil Bit set by 1998The article is only about the dawn of
.mp3, but within less than three years, the RIAA & co. had configured themselves to set the Evil Bit whenever they saw the .mp3 extension. Or at least, that was my experience.
In 1998, I started a little fan site detailing the history of a country group -- I won't name them, but they became famous and then infamous within the span of 5 years. As part of the site, I included some low-quality .mp3's of the group's orignal sound, from some out-of-print indie albums. But before you could say "infringement", I got a Cease And Desist letter from the group's lawyers. I capitulated, but the affair proved the perfect grist for a story in the local alternative newsweekly -- they saw the group as having sold out to Nashville, with the C&D just further proof.
But check out what the group's manager said about the nascent format:Senior Management's Simon Renshaw, the band's manager, insists the only reason the band went after Brooks was that the sound bites were in MP3 form. "I will just say one thing: His site with MP3 files...is a huge red flag," Renshaw says. "And that's all I really want to say about that, quite honestly."
And the lawyer, on the broader issue of copyrights:"The bottom line to me is very simple," says Beiter, whose firm was hired by Senior Management, the band's Nashville-based management company. "To me, it's just not fair. It's not fair for him to take their copyright and decide that he's unilaterally going to give it away out on the Internet. It's not fair for him to do that. He may try to cast it as David versus Goliath or Robin Hood or whatever, but it's just not fair for him to do that. He never even asked."
In the end, I got more free publicity for my little fan site than if I'd scattered flyers all over Dallas. I'll avoid whoring for hits in this post, though... I think you can figure out where to click if you're really interested. -
Re:I'm taking bets...
A number of businesses around Fort Worth, TX provide free wireless access. Most of those use a transparent proxy to filter "objectionable" material. I have yet to find one that cannot be subverted by configuring a browser to use a normal HTTP proxy. There are lot of open HTTP proxys out there...
P.S. That Texas wants to filter rest-stop internet content is not surprising at all. This is the state in which a woman was arrested last year for selling sex toys in her own home.
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Re:Why won't they sell AO games?You want to know the answer to that question?
The details of the case:
1. Jesus Castillo managed a comic book store which had an "Adults Only" section.
2. Some concerned citizens in the area decided to make an example out of him. They sent a Vice Squad cop in to buy a copy of the Legend of the Overfiend manga.
3. Jesus Castillo was arrested for obscenity. His case wended it's way through the courts. The Supreme Court denied his last appeal.
4. As of August 5th, 2003 Castillo was still on probation for his conviction on an obscenity charge.
No retailer wants this kind of heat unless they are in the adult services industry and are used to it. (Even then they don't want it.)
More references...
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Re:Texan-style!
Living in Texas, I'm not sure what constitutes `Texan-style private ISP justice'.
I think this could be called "Texan -style justice." -
Not paranoia at all
God forbid the government somehow finds out he's got pictures of his kids breastfeeding or in the bath. They'd definitely be happy to get his sick perverted ass off the streets or, at the very least, fuck up his life horribly before saying, "Oops, I guess maybe that photo wasn't kiddie porn after all...".
Granted, nobody else is likely to ever check out the photos on his iPod... But you're naîve if you think family photos are necessarily benign. -
As a Dallas County taxpayerThis peeves me to no end. Dallas has so many fiduciary problems right now. Hell, the school system was finally desegregated within the past few years. The schools don't have enough money to house all the students, and they want to spend $thousands or $millions on notebook computers?
I could go on and on about those, but I won't. I invite you to check out the Dallas Observer for a glimpse into Dallas's politics. Read about the fake drug scandal, for instance.
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Dallas Public Library
Nothing like visiting the Dallas Public Library, where the homeless get equal opportunity to view the pr0n we all know and love. Question - is this really progress?
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Re:TXU
What is/was the scandal? I'd like to know because I write them a check every month
:/
In 2002, their European operations took a nosedive, and they had to borrow a wad o'cash to get things back together. I can't find any decent muckraking on the events, probably because the local paper is widely known to be a corporate tool (just ask these guys or these guys).
But here's one mention (2/3 down the page), and the local paper did mention the problems in a puff piece saying how great everything is now: turn off JavaScript to read without registration (google cache also requires you turn off JS). -
Re:McDonald's BBQ near Canton, Texas
Dude, I'm not a lawyer, but I read about your stuff, and it looks like you really screwed up. Sorry.
:(
Well, as I said, I'd know better now. And besides, I found a sympathetic ear at the Dallas Observer (an alternative newsweekly, owned by New Times). If you're interested, here's a link to the story (I haven't updated the links on my site in ages). Yeah, I got lucky...
(and your site's great... hug the kids...) -
McDonald's BBQ near Canton, Texas
Opening a restaurant called MickDonalds wouldn't be acceptable nor would a WaltMart.
Actually, on I-20 between Terrell and Canton, Texas, there's a barbeque joint named "McDonald's", or possibly "Mac Donald's", that has nothing to do with any golden arches. It's a fair assumption that they serve hamburgers and fries as well.
The signs for the joint are rather small, and make no reference to any other hamburger joint. And I haven't been able to locate the place online -- the closest I've come is a place called the Interstate Cafe that looks like it's in the right location (Superpages link).
It's entirely possible that the joint has been contacted by the "other" McD and entered into some sort of agreement. But they probably got their lawyers involved from the get-go, a suggestion noted by many in this discussion.
I didn't hire a lawyer when I got my own Cease and Desist letter. I did the same thing as this poor guy... sent my own non-vetted letter back, and contacted the media. My situation worked out fine -- I never heard back from the lawyers -- but I'll be more careful if it ever happens again. -
Some BackgroundThe links Hemos gave did little to establish background for the "Jesus Castillo case" so I'll try and do it based on some brief research and what I found through Google.
Basically, during the month September 1999, an undercover police officer purchased a collection of adult comics from a store called "Keith's Comics" in Dallas. He then looked through them to try and determine comics that would be considered obscene by community standards. (This is a normal part of vice operations anywhere.)
The comics chosen where Demon Beast Invasion: The Fallen and Legend of the Overfiend (links to Google searches). At trial the second one was dropped and only "Demon Beast Invasion" was considered as being an obscene book sold to the officer. (Funny quote from the Dallas Observer article: "There was no test here to show the clerk knew what was in there. You can't judge a book by its cover." (Said by Castillo's attorney, working for the CBLDF.) Look at the Demon Beast Invasion cover. I think you probably can judge that book by its cover. Just look at the Google links above. Enough editorializing...)
The defense basically argued that the books were not legally obscene because they did not "taken as a whole, lacks any serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Scott McCloud (OT: one of my father's childhood friends was his older brother) testified about the artistic values, and Susan Napier, an associate professor in UT-Austin's Department of Asian Studies, testified about the cultural value in relation to Japanese culture.
Castillo was found guilty, and both appeals in the Texas legal system failed to overturn the verdict. The Supreme Court was the last resort, and they have declined the case. He has already paid his $4000 fine and began his 180-day probation.
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Speaking of lawyers...
How about an "Ask Slashdot" with Hank Mishkoff of www.taubmansucks.com and/or Paul Levy of Public Citizen? Their fight and eventual win against Taubman and their crooked lawyers (just read the account and you'll see -- they're lying and distorting throughout the process, and frankly I find it amazing what they *get away* with[0]) is not only important in itself, but the way Hank documented it is an inspiration to all. It provides real insight into fighting a corporation out the crush you.
Great work by the team of Public Citizen; Press Release (Won appeal)
Here's an article in the Dallas Observer about the case -- check the spin Taubman tries! (third paragraph from the end)
[0] Maybe we should Ask Slashdot with Julie from Gifford-Krass-Groh-Sprinkle and ask her how she sleeps at night. "Great", I guess
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Dallas Observer article about Philyaw/Pulitzer guy
I wish I had remembered this earlier; I would have posted it then. About a year and a half ago, the Dallas Observer (one of those "let's all pretend we're not owned by a giant soulless corporation" alternative weeklys) posted a positively high-larious article about Digital Convergence, the Belo Corporation, and our friend Mr. Philyaw... er, Mr. Pulitzer. Mr. Whatever Person.
It's short, funny, and worth a read. And it mentions uses a Simpsons reference to advance the story, so it's got to be cool.
Because this article will be off the front page soon, meaning nobody is going to see it, I'll post this little tidbit in my journal as well. That way the Teeming Horde (i.e., my fans) will get a chance to read and laugh and live and love! -
Re:Belo and CueCat
I don't know if you live in the Dallas area, but if you do, surely you read the Dallas Observer. They had some of the most hilarious stories mocking the Cue Cat. It's an alternative newspaper, so it was a godsend for them when Belo unveiled it. Every now and then they'll mercilessly bring it up when Belo makes another dumb investment decision.
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Ion Storm coverage
One of the best (IMHO) stories about the mess that was Ion Storm was by the Dallas Observer. It was covered in this old (1999!)
/. article Ion Storm has Financial and Personnel difficulties. The story link is out of date as the Observer changed their website structure. The story is located here. -
Re:Iran... How Ironic...
As an aside, the U.S. Immigration Department refused to allow acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, director of both the Oscar-nominated The White Balloon and the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion-winner The Circle (the also the author of the referenced article), to change planes in New York....
link