- How does an embattled university begin to cope with the reality that it was a party to and some of its officials were potentially part of a cover-up for a massive child sex abuse scandal by a former assistant football coach? Penn State believes it has the answer to that difficult question as it pertains to its embattled football program: donate $1.5 million in bowl proceeds to a pair of sex-crime advocacy organizations in the wake of sex-abuse allegations levied against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. With the first civil suit against Sandusky and the school filed Wednesday by an individual he allegedly molested from 1992 to 1996, Penn State is trying to position its decision to accept a certain bowl bid into a chance to “raise the national visibility” of the issue of sexual assault on children. "This presents an excellent opportunity for Penn State to raise the national visibility of this issue," university president Rod Erickson said. "Our students and fans are focused on a cause to play for, to cheer for." Along with promising to contribute financially to the aforementioned organizations, Penn State officials have vowed to increase transparency and ethical standards. Erickson promised the donation Thursday morning, 24 hours after he and other administrators faced difficult questions about the scandal at a student-organized town hall forum. He seemed mighty proud of the fact that the school’s Big Ten bowl revenue, which usually goes back to the athletic department, will go to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. It’s a nice gesture to be sure, but it doesn’t do a damn thing to erase the school’s culpability for Sandusky’s actions if officials knew what he was doing and turned a blind eye to his crimes. The situation became even nastier after Sandusky was accused in a lawsuit Wednesday of sexually abusing a young boy more than 100 times after meeting him through the former coach’s Second Mile charity. At this point, Sandusky has been charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year span, but rumors of many more potential victims and scores of lawsuits against Sandusky, fired coach Joe Paterno and Penn State have grown louder and louder in recent days. Sandusky’s attorney has hinted that his client may consider a guilty plea under certain circumstances, but that wouldn’t exactly help the school when facing civil suits. Still, everyone has to feel better that Erickson promised the school’s ethics would be raised "to a new level so that everyone at the university understands not just the legal thing to do, but the moral thing to do, so that we learn to do the right thing the first time, every time." Wait…..you have to learn that allowing or tacitly condoning the sexual abuse of children is wrong? Wow…………
- AT&T is cranky and looking to fight the Federal Communications Commission over the commission’s comments regarding its planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA. After the FCC raised several serious concerns over the deal, AT&T quickly lashed out at the commission’s report, calling preliminary analysis “obviously one-sided” and “an advocacy piece, and not a considered analysis.” Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s Senior Executive Vice President of External & Legislative Affairs, wrote the company’s retort in its official blog and in his post, claimed the FCC report “cherry-picks facts to support its views, and ignores facts that don’t” while “where facts were lacking, the report speculates, with no basis, and then treats its own speculations as if they were fact.” From there, he attacks individual points made by the FCC, which the agency had used to express its concerns that the proposed acquisition would not be in the public’s best interest. In its report, the FCC alleges that, AT&T would “expand its LTE deployment from 80 percent of the population to 97.4 even without the merger.” Cicconi’s post pointed out that the report later goes on to argue “that the level of wireless competition in more populated areas of America is so fragile that the merger must be disallowed” and that these points are inherently contradictory. Another major concern about the merger from an FCC standpoint is the spectrum issue, which not addressed much in the report. AT&T seized upon its near-absence by saying it “seems to discount the significant spectrum constraints faced by AT&T, including an 8,000 percent increase in data traffic on our network over the past four years, even though we have submitted volumes of evidence documenting these constraints.” Questioning the fairness or logic of the FCC being able to have a national voice on the supposed spectrum crisis the merger would create is a point AT&T appears set to trumpet loudly and often. Going on to question potential bias on the part of the report’s authors, which Cicconi does in his post, seems like a big reach, but at that point in a rant you may as well go all-in. The company plans to resubmit its bid at some point in the near future and the stage is now set for a very public and extremely heated battle…………
- Laguna Beach, Calif. is not a place where the non-rich, non-arrogant, non-plastic are likely to succeed. There is a reason MTV once picked the two and some of its upper-class teens for an eponymous reality series about what it’s like to grow up as a rich, privileged SoCal kid. Laguna Beach foisted the likes of Kristin Cavalleri, Lauren Conrad, Stephen Colletti (and by association with Conrad, those tools Heidi and Spencer) on the world, so you know it’s not a place for the lower rungs of society to feel warm, fuzzy acceptance. But like any community, Laguna Beach has its undesirables and those undesirables are now causing an awkward problem for some of the town’s literary-minded citizens. According to a group of Laguna Beach Public Library patrons, there is a mini-epidemic of homeless people watching porn on library computers. The problem came to light after Joseph Clarence Cormier II was put under citizen's arrest by another library patron and subsequently arrested by police when he and seven of his friends were found watching pornography on a library computer. Cormier was arrested because he was allegedly fondling himself while viewing the porn on the screen of his computer. For some odd reason, the fact that the library was overflowing with children on hand for special library children’s programming at the time infuriated many parents. Cormier was arrested for lewd conduct and……wait for it……. possession of marijuana. Not only is he a perv who likes getting off to online freakery with children around, he’s also a stoner. The obvious logic to fixing the problem would be installing filtering software that blocks porn, but the library explained that the First Amendment prevents them from blocking porn sites or monitoring what people research. Porn viewing has become a contentious issue at libraries across the country in recent months, but this is the first time a scene of eight homeless men gathered around a computer watching some kinky video together has been reported. Some parents who witnessed the scene wondered why the library couldn’t use the same standards for Internet access that it does for the magazines it has on its shelves (i.e. no Penthouse or Playboy), but library officials say they only have filters on computers specifically reserved for children’s use…………
- Besides rocking one of the most awesome “Jew fros” known to man for some of his roles, actor Jesse Eisenberg apparently takes his image and career seriously. In other words, he doesn’t like people trying to gravy train off his success. The Social Network star has been in a fair number of big-name movies, but he recently decided to help out the producers of a low-budget movie called Camp Hell by making a brief cameo in the film. Friends of Eisenberg’s were producing and directing the project and paid him a mere $3,000 for his services. With his other projects that actually pay him a real Hollywood salary, Eisenberg probably didn’t give much thought to his quick on-camera appearance in Camp Hell……until studios Lionsgate and Grindstone decided to promote the film as if he were its star. His total screen time was less than five minutes, but that hasn’t stopped Lionsgate and Grindstone from selling the 2007 flick as Jesse Eisenberg’s Camp Hell. He has sued both companies and the lawsuit alleges: “Although Eisenberg appears on screen for less than five minutes, the distributors of Camp Hell are now attempting to fraudulently deceive and mislead the public and reap millions of dollars by capitalizing on Eisenberg's newfound fame. Eisenberg is bringing this lawsuit in order to warn his fans and the public that, contrary to the manner in which Defendants are advertising the film, Eisenberg is not the star of and not appear in a prominent role in Camp Hell."
The lawsuit was filed now even though the project was filmed in 2007 because it received a U.S. DVD release in August and opens in UK cinemas on Dec. 2. Eisenberg believes the studios are attempting to "deceive and mislead" viewers over the significance of his role and is seeking $3 million, which is more than the entire budget of the film. Of course, if all of this drama generates attention for the movie, then Lionsgate and Grindstone will have gotten exactly what they were after all along……………
- Red-tape bureaucracy is infuriating to people all around the world. Sometimes, the bureaucrats you’re forced to butt heads with over and over again to get the proper permit to build, resolve your billing issue or clarify your tax status are so infuriating that you…..you want to…..you want to release a bunch of deadly snakes in their office and let chaos ensue. Unfortunately, most people simply do not have access to several dozen snakes, including four cobras, that they can let loose in the government office of a bunch of tax department workers. But for all who wish they could exact such revenge, one bold snake charmer in northern India has struck a blow for each and every one of you. This hero stormed into a tax office in Harraiya, in Uttar Pradesh, and dumped a plethora of slithering reptiles on the floor because he was upset about a land deal that had not gone through. Workers scattered and jumped on their desks to avoid being bitten, with some shaking table cloths at snakes who rose up with the strike position. It was "total chaos," said Ramsukh Sharma, a worker in the office. "Snakes started climbing up the tables and chairs. Hundreds of people gathered outside the room, some of them with sticks in their hands, shouting that the snakes should be killed," he said. Hundreds of people gathered outside the room, shaking sticks and demanding that the snakes be killed. In the end, no one was hurt and all of the snakes were eventually recaptured by experts. As for the snake charmer, he claimed that he had apparently applied for a plot of land for the snakes but it was rejected because the officials he sought retribution against demanded bribes to approve his application. These corrupt bureaucrats said that they had no record of the filing. The lesson here, as always, is that you should be very careful about infuriating a snake charmer. Well, that and everyone hates corrupt government bureaucrats, as if there is any other kind of government bureaucrat…………
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