NY AG sues Direct Revenue for spyware

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has filed a suit against Direct Revenue for secretly installing spyware on users' computers, seeking a restraining order to prevent it.

Direct Revenue was recently chastised by researcher Ben Edelman, who pointed out many large or well-known companies that have been paying them for their services--companies like Citibank, Netflix, Sprint, United Airlines, Blockbuster, Chase, Travelocity, and more.

Coyote Carnival #2

Coyote Carnival #2, devoted to Arizona blogs, is up. Apparently my submission got lost.

Tom DeLay's out!

Tom DeLay has announced that he will not be seeking re-election and in fact will be resigning in the near future. As Talking Points Memo points out, he needs to spend his time trying to make sure he doesn't spend the rest of his life in prison, as the corruption scandal around him takes down his former staff one by one, most recently with a guilty plea from his former Deputy Chief of Staff turned Jack Abramoff co-worker Tony Rudy.

And the Abramoff scandal all got exposed thanks to Michael Scanlon's jilted fiancee...

The ARM ticking time bomb

The last few years have seen a lot of creative financing to purchase homes as prices rose out of control, with a huge increase in the percentage of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) used by first-time home buyers in order to stretch the limits of what they could afford to buy. About 25% of all current mortgages in the U.S. are ARMs. Unfortunately, many of those who got them did not understand what they were signing up for, and one in five subprime ARM homeowners in West Virginia, Alabama, Michigan, Missouri, and Tennessee was more than 30 days late with a payment at the end of last year. The peak of ARM interest-rate resets will occur in 2007-2008, which leads one researcher to predict that up to 1 million of 7.7 million homeowners who took out ARMs in the last two years will end up losing their homes to foreclosure in the next five years, with banking losses of up to $100 billion--painful, but less than the S&L crisis.

The last time interest-only ARMs were popular was in the 1920's, when the fall of home prices caused many of those who had them to lose their homes. In the last few years, they've been pushed hard by sleazy mortgage lenders with things like illegal telemarketing calls and deceptive direct mail pieces that look like they're something important from your current lender, a refund check, or something else highly desirable or urgent in order to get you to open it.

More at Ben Jones' Housing Bubble Blog.

Different rules for children of state legislators in Arizona

Clifton Bennett, 18, son of Arizona Senate President Ken Bennett (one of the many Mormons that exercise control over the Arizona Republican Party) and Kyle Wheeler, 19, were counselors at a Student Council camp last summer in Prescott. At the camp, Bennett and Wheeler assaulted more than a dozen boys--Wheeler by choking them to the point of unconsciousness, and both by pushing broom handles, flashlights, or canes against the camper's clothed bodies until the objects penetrated them anally. (The clothing in at least a couple cases was only underwear or gym shorts.) Although Bennett and Wheeler were arrested in January, it now appears that Bennett will get no jail time under a plea agreement that drops all but one assault charge.

After all, what's a dozen cases of anal rape for a legislator's son? Practice for a future career as a legislator? Or maybe as an interrogator in Iraq or Gitmo?

Carnival of the Godless #37

Carnival of the Godless #37 is up at the Neural Gourmet.

Most generous countries

The March 4-10, 2006 issue of The Economist gives a table of private donations to poor countries by country, as a percentage of GDP (for 2003). The data comes from the OECD, which tracks 22 countries' aid (but only 21 of which are listed). The graph supplied shows the percentage of the giving attributed to tax breaks, which appears to be close to half for the top 14 countries. The top percentage of GDP is 0.20%, for Norway, where somewhere between a fourth and a third is attributed to tax breaks.

The 21 countries, from most to least generous:

1. Norway (0.20%)
2. Ireland
3. Switzerland (just under 0.10%)
4. Netherlands
5. Canada
6. Australia
7. United States (just over 0.05%)
8. Belgium (about 0.05%)
9. Germany
10. Austria
11. Britain (just under 0.025%)
12. Spain
13. France
14. New Zealand
15. Denmark
16. Sweden
17. Finland
18. Japan
19. Portugal (no visible bar on the graph)
20. Greece
21. Italy

Scalia's obscene gesture

After services at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday, March 26, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was asked by a reporter for the Boston Herald, Laurel J. Sweet, how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality based on his worship. His response was to say, "To my critics, I say 'Vaffanculo,'" and made a gesture flicking his hand from under his chin. This gesture was caught by photographer Peter Smith, an assistant professor of photojournalism at Boston University.

The translation of "Vaffanculo" and the Sicilian gesture is loosely "fuck you," but more specifically the language suggests that the recipient of the gesture "take it up the ass."

The photographer released the photo for publication and was promptly fired from his ten-year position as a freelancer for The Pilot, a weekly Catholic newspaper.

The verbal response was apparently not heard by Sweet, only by Smith. Scalia's initial response was to say that he had not made an obscene gesture, and a spokesperson for the Judge released a letter saying that he explained the gesture to Sweet (which Sweet and Smith deny), describing a rather different gesture meaning "I couldn't care less."

(Via Donna Woodka's "Changing Places" blog.)

Youth minister smites dodgeball opponent

In Liberty, Missouri, from CNN:

A youth minister was charged with assault for allegedly knocking down a 16-year-old boy and kicking him in the groin after taking a head shot from the teen in a dodgeball game.

David M. Boudreaux, 27, was charged Wednesday with one count of third-degree assault. According to court documents, the incident happened in February at Crescent Lake Christian Academy.

Authorities said the teen missed Boudreaux with one throw but then knocked the youth minister's glasses off with the next.

The boy apologized, authorities said, but Boudreaux pushed him backward, and when the teen got up again Boudreaux kicked him in the groin and left.

The teen suffered whiplash and post-concussion syndrome and had blood in his urine after being kicked, according to court records.

Boudreaux later apologized, prosecutors said.

Jeanne D. Hewitt, administrator of Crescent Lake Christian Academy, said Boudreaux had been placed on administrative leave.

Big companies funding adware: Netflix, eHarmony, etc.

Ben Edelman has a report on some big or well-known companies that are funding adware on the Internet, this time through the company Direct Revenue. They include Citibank, HSBC, True.com, United Airlines, Sprint, United Online (NetZero), People PC, Sage Software (maker of Act! contact manager software), T-Mobile, and Vonage. They include Cheap Tickets, Howard Johnson, and Super 8 (all Cendant properties). They include Travelocity, eHarmony, Blockbuster, BMG, CarsDirect, Chase, and Netflix.

On Ben's previous report, he listed advertisers paying for adware through 180solutions, which has now also been reported by the Center for Democracy and Technology (PDF). Some of the companies reported there were Altrec, Club Med Americas, eHarmony, GreetingCards.com, LetsTalk.com, Netflix, NetZero, PeoplePC, PerfectMatch, ProFlowers, True.com, uBid, and Waterfront Media.

Ben also notes that the Interactive Travel Services Association has actually come out with a policy promoting the use of adware! ITSA members include Cendant, CheapTickets, Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Orbitz, Priceline.com, Sabre, Travelocity, and Vegas.com.

If you are a customer of any of these companies, let them know that you don't appreciate their paying for advertising through adware and demand that they stop.