More reasons to hate vuvuzelas, the power of Betty White and the smartphone loophole in China

- Need another reason to hate vuvuzelas? I didn’t think so, but here’s another one nonetheless. Not only are these oversized kazoos loud, obnoxious and potentially harmful to both your hearing and sanity, but they may also spread harmful germs to the idiots who blow them. A study found that droplets spray from the end of the vuvuzela when it is blown, thus spreading those germs to those around the vuvuzela user. The authors of the study warned fans not to use them if they are sick, a warning that seems to have fallen on (excuse the pun) deaf ears, as every freaking person in every World Cup stadium seems to be blowing these tacky $8 annoyances. So not only could you go deaf with the roar of vuvuzelas ringing in your ears for two hours at a game, but you could also contract whatever illness that those around you happen to be suffering with at the time. In other words, someone with a chest or throat infection using the vuvuzela in a crowded place could spread his or her infection to lots of people. Then there is the issue of vuvuzela lips" where frequent users' lips have swelled twice in size - almost as if they've suffered bee stings. "Sometimes when I blow for a long time, it can be swollen," explained Romeo Martin, a Cape Town resident who admits to blowing his red plastic vuvuzela more than 100 times a day. Asked why he continues to blow that God-awful horn in spite of all the potential and actual downsides, Martin offered an unsatisfactory explanation. "Just for the World Cup," he replied. "When Bafana Bafana (the South African national team) is playing, everyone blows vuvuzelas." Not good enough, South Africans. First, the vuvuzelas blow during every game, not just your team’s games. Second, just because everyone else acts like a moron, that’s no excuse for you to do the same. Someone else acting like a fool is never justification for you acting like a fool, which is why so many people (everyone not blowing a vuvuzela) is so tired of these glorified noisemakers. No matter how good the World Cup is, the one prevailing emotion once the event ends is going to be relief and thankfulness that we will never again be subjected to the bee swarm-like drone of the vuvuzelas…………

- In the battle of employee privacy rights v. employer rights to act as Big Brother, the Supreme Court has scored a victory for The Man by ruling that state officials had the right to review the records of a California police officer who exchanged hundreds of personal messages -- some of a "sexually explicit" nature -- on his department-owned text pager. In a unanimous decision, the justices Thursday unanimously concluded that the Ontario (Calif.) police department has every right to review the records of Ontario police Sgt. Jeff Quon. "Because the search was motivated by a legitimate work-related purpose, and because it was not excessive in scope, the search was reasonable," Justice Anthony Kennedy said. The case centered on how far a government employer may go to monitor the private communications of its workers if they believe the equipment is being abused. Deciding what qualified as a basis for suspicion was also at issue for government organizations was the focus of this case, but the court did imply that under the same set of facts, its ruling would apply to all workers -- public or private. "The court also concludes that the search would be regarded as reasonable and normal in the private-employer context," Kennedy stated. That comment did not sit well with legal and technology experts, both of whom are divided over its application in the private sector. Quon claimed that his privacy was violated over messages exchanged with his wife, his girlfriend and a fellow officer on his official wireless two-way text-messaging pager. For the court, the case boiled down to what constituted the limits of "reasonable." In the end, the justices ruled that the state "did not violate Quon's Fourth Amendment rights.” In the past, numerous courts have ruled that private communications-- even when delivered or transmitted through a public portal -- are generally protected from "unreasonable search and seizure," such as handwritten letters sent in sealed envelopes sent through the U.S. Postal Service. One question the court did not address in its ruling was whether there was a general "expectation of privacy" enjoyed by public workers. "The judiciary risks error by elaborating too fully on the Fourth Amendment implications of emerging technology before its role in society has become clear," wrote Kennedy. Quon brought his lawsuit even though the police department in Ontario had a "Computer Usage, Internet and E-mail Policy" that allows workers only limited use for personal communications. He also signed a statement acknowledging that "use of these tools for personal benefit is a significant violation of city of Ontario policy" and that "users should have no expectation of privacy or confidentiality when using these resources." Perhaps he forgot about the policy or more likely, he was just like everyone else who signs a lengthy legal document filled with fine print and simply paid no attention to its contents. The SWAT team sergeant’s defense was that he was unaware the city's overall policy applied to the department and cited an "informal policy [that] allowed officers to maintain their privacy in their text messages as long as they paid the overage charges." Quon did admit that exceeding a 25,000-character limit per month, per device, before overages limit on his work phone. His supervisor grew weary of collecting the money to pay the overage charges from his officers and ordered a review of the pager transcripts for the two officers with the highest overage. The department argued that they conducted the review only "to determine whether the city's monthly character limit was insufficient to cover business-related messages." In the course of the review, they discovered often-racy messages, prompting an internal investigation. That investigation found Quon had sent and received 456 personal messages while on duty, an average of 28 per shift. Of those 456 messages, a whopping three per shift were deemed work-related. Before the case reached the high court, a federal judge characterized the messages as not "light personal communications," as defined in the policy as generally acceptable, but ones that were, "to say the least, sexually explicit in nature." In response, Quon sued the wireless company and the city for invasion of privacy. Now that the Supreme Court has decided against him, Quon now could face possible disciplinary action. However, his specific case is going to result in decreased privacy rights for others in his position. The only judge who seemed to have any compunctions about the court’s decision was Justice Antonin Scalia, who expressed concern the court was reaching too far in determining when searches of employer-issue pagers and smartphones are ever permissible. But in the end, score one for The Man…………

- Do not mess with the power of Betty White. Maybe I’m the only one who could not care less about this old woman and her acting resurgence, but the rest of the world freaking loves the former Golden Girls star, so much so that they are willing to watch a lame-tastic TV Land sitcom set in Cleveland with a cast comprised of a bunch of past-their-prime cougs who have all seen better days. White helped make the debut of Hot in Cleveland a record-breaking event for TV Land, attracting 4.75 million viewers and posting triple-digit gains on the night across all key demographics. It was literally the most-watched telecast ever in the network’s history despite having former fat chick/Jenny Craig pitchwoman Valerie Bertinelli, irrelevant former Frasier actress Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick as cast members alongside White earned. Cleveland earned a 1.9 rating and averaged 2.0 million viewers among the network’s target adults 25-54 audience and also averaged 1.3 million among Women 25-54. As I said, maybe “acting” in a Snickers commercial that premiered during the Super Bowl and being a cast member of a forgettable, regrettable show about four quirky old women a long time ago carry more weight than I thought, because White has been cashing in on her rediscovered 15 minutes of fame by hosting Saturday Night Live, appearing at the MTV Movie Awards and now leading a bargain-basement comedy filmed in front of a live studio audience and focusing on three best friends who arrive in Cleveland on a fluke and end up making it their home into ratings history for a network that makes its money airing old shows from decades past. Well done, B. White, well done………

- China’s restrictive, oppressive Internet policies are legendary inside and outside of the tech world, but at long last there may be a loophole for Chinese looking to get the drop on their government and access previously unavailable information: smartphones with mobile web access. Accessing Web sites on a BlackBerry, iPhone or other wireless device could provide and end-around for citizens looking to view pages and sites that would be blocked through a hard-line connection or laptop with wireless access. Mobile phones are not entirely unfettered in China, as last December, nine Chinese ministries initiated a campaign, which ended in March, to crack down on pornography transmitted via mobile networks. Additionally, mobile carriers began monitoring text messages for pornographic and other "illegal" content, blocking phone services to subscribers who sent such messages. However, time is proving that there are holes in the mobile Web in China, holes many experts say could grow bigger as more people buy smart phones and third-generation networks become stronger. Of China’s 1 billion-plus citizens, some 346 million have Internet access and of that number, 233 million use mobiles to access the Internet, according to government statistics. "It's not because the government does not want to regulate the mobile Web, it's because the system and the situation makes it much harder to regulate the mobile Web than the real Web," said Li Qiang, a researcher with the Institute of Policy and Management at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "Technically, for the moment, the mobile Web is less regulated than the real Web." The burden for policing mobile content falls mostly to the carriers themselves and China’s three mobile phone operators -- China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom - filter their own content. Their situation is complicated because they have invested billions of dollars in building third-generation networks across the country as part of the government’s plan to extend Internet access to the roughly 700 million who remain without access. They are in the position of having to block content that would likely make their services more desirable and profitable. Yet some operators, according to a study released this month, are still "secretly providing services to porn sites." Access to these sites and online gaming sites is more readily available on mobile devices and some companies take advantage of this by setting up wireless application protocol, or WAP, sites, which can only be viewed on mobile phones, containing content that otherwise would be censored. Others are partnering with companies that provide potentially offensive (to the government) content. Another factor in the equation is the increasing capability of individuals to create and generate their own video and miscellaneous content and upload it to certain social media sites. That content is much more difficult to regulate and the government is having a tough time doing so. Still, certain sites are blocked even on mobile devices. For example, Foursquare, which lets users alert friends to where they are through mobile phones, remains blocked, possibly b/c a number of users had been "checking in" from Tiananmen Square on June 4 to mark the anniversary of Beijing's brutal crackdown on demonstrators there. Way to keep your oppressive ways in finest form, Chinese government……….

- Not that disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy has a lot of credibility and goodwill left in the bank, but a statistical breakdown of games Donaghy refereed on a blog run by statistical analyst and pro sports gambler Haralabos Voulgaris further contradicts Donaghy’s insistence that he did not fix games. Donaghy’s repeated game-fixing denials continue to this day, but Voulgaris broke down games Donaghy worked and cited one statistical example to cast serious doubt on those claims. He examined a New Year’s Day, 2007, game featuring the Charlotte Bobcats at Minnesota. The game was included in the book Donaghy wrote about his downfall and subsequent prison term. In the book, Donaghy claimed that he told his mob connections to bet Charlotte and take the points (+4). His reasoning for wagering on the Bobcats: In addition to the anticipated crackdown on Garnett, I liked the way Charlotte coach Bernie Bickerstaff had his squad playing high-energy basketball most nights. I called Tommy and told him to bet Charlotte. The Bobcats played well early but fell part during the second half, getting outscored 34-18 in the fourth quarter. Garnett played exceptionally well for Minnesota, while Charlotte’s players were arguing amongst themselves all night. Much of the angst was directed at the Bobcat’s Adam Morrison, who took several off-balanced, ill-advised shots down the stretch in what had been a fairly tight contest. Minnesota kept its composure and pulled out the road win 102-96. It was a loss for me, Tommy, and Ba Ba, and once again there were no apples coming my way. So the bottom line for the game is that Donaghy claimed that he and his compatriots lost money, but Voulgaris discovered an irregular and unexpected betting line move due to heavy betting on none other than Minnesota. His research showed the betting line opening at Minnesota -2.5 and closing at Minnesota -4. Unless something totally bizarre, unexplained and simultaneously forgotten occurred at that time, those numbers mean that an imbalance in Minnesota wagers forced the linesmakers to move the line to -3.5 or higher. The most likely reality is that someone bet heavily on Minnesota late in the game and similar changes happened at two other sports books for the same game. To further underscore his argument, Voulgaris broke down all of Donaghy’s calls that evening and found that Donaghy made a whopping 17 calls favoring the Timberwolves in the game. His number of calls favoring Charlotte? Zero. The timing of many of his Minnesota-favoring calls is also suspicious: the fourth quarter. He made those calls as Minnesota slipped further and further behind before ultimately rallying in the fourth quarter to cover by a single basket. Those facts seem to contradict his claims and make Donaghy look like even more of a liar than we already knew him to be…………