DI continues to lie about the Dover case

Now the Discovery Institute is claiming (via Michael Francisco, on the DI's EvolutionNews blog, reporting on an American Enterprise Institute article co-authored by former DI policy analyst, attorney Seth Cooper) that the newly elected Dover Area School Board intentionally cost the school district $1 million in legal fees by refusing to rescind the illegal policy in December, after the trial was over and before Judge Jones had issued his ruling. This is at odds with the fact that their rescinding the policy would not have changed the outcome of the trial or the awarding of legal fees, which is why they didn't do it until after the ruling came.

What's worse, they have attributed malice and conflict of interest (now retracted, to the original source's partial credit) to one of the new board members who was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit regarding this decision, even though he was not yet on the board at the time of the December discussion (there was no vote) on changing the policy due to a runoff election.

And further worse--on William Dembski's blog, someone who pointed out the facts had their comment deleted.

There's nowhere to place the blame for the $1 million in legal fees except on the original board who put the policy in place over the warnings and objections at the time that their action was unconstitutional--and perhaps to some extent on the Discovery Institute advisor who they initially spoke with about what policy to adopt, Seth Cooper.

UPDATE (April 5, 2006): Michael Francisco has revised the wording of his blog post, probably to make it less actionable under defamation laws. Ed Brayton points out the specifics of his revisions.

Bitfall: using dripping water to display images

This is really cool, I hope the Quicktime videos come back soon. (Via BLDGBLOG.)

UPDATE (September 18, 2007): Julius Popp's website (the first link) appears to be undergoing renovations... the BLDGBLOG link still has Bitfall pictures and description.

South Florida police expose personal information of reporter who criticized them

A hidden-camera investigation earlier this year that showed South Florida police departments engaging in aggressive tactics to prevent people from filing complaints against police officers has resulted in retaliation by the grossly misnamed Broward County Police Benevolent Association. WFOR CBS-4 investigative reporter Mike Kirsch's personal information--his address, birthdate, and driver's license number--was posted by Broward County PBA president Dick Brickman on the police union's website as a "BOLO"--"be on the lookout." Also posted was information about Gregory Slate of The Police Complaint Center, which assisted with Kirsch's report. Alan Rosenthal, attorney for CBS-4, demanded that the union remove the "BOLO" as a violation of laws prohibiting disclosure of "personal identifying information contained in motor vehicle records." (Via Declan McCullagh's Politech mailing list.)

Kirsch's address and date of birth was apparently removed from the BCPBA website on March 17, but Slate's address, cell phone, and date of birth are still there.

The "BOLO" focuses not on the complaint report investigation, but a related racial profiling investigation, where either a white man (Kirsch or Slate) or a black man (identified on the "BOLO" as Dorian Gibson, age 21) would be driving a red Mustang convertible (its information is also given in the document). In the investigation results, the white driver was never pulled over but the black driver was. According the BCPBA description, the white driver would first drive around, then the black driver in the same car. For a proper study, they should reverse the ordering so that the issue isn't that the police first see one driver, then a completely different driver for the same car, which could produce an inference of a stolen vehicle regardless of the race of the respective drivers.

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