The Land of Ozz

Some high school students from the local Charleston, SC area are one step closer to receiving settlements from several lawsuits that stemmed from a 2003 drug raid.

“There would be two classes under the proposed settlement. The first class would be comprised of students who sued or required medical or psychological treatment.

The second class would be other students who were in the hallway at the time of the raid. Jekel estimated that those in the first class would receive $11,370 while those in the second would receive $6,025…

…Fourteen officers and a dog took part in the sweep in Goose Creek, a bedroom community of about 29,000 about 20 miles northwest of Charleston.

The case drew national attention as a result of the videotapes. The Rev. Jesse Jackson led a protest march amid accusations blacks were unfairly targeted…(Source)

Stratford High School is one of two public high schools in Goose Creek, SC. The school principal resigned a few months after this raid.

Today a Charleston TV news WCBD 2 reported that approximately 140 students will actually receive compensation from this settlement. This count is much different from the initial reports that every one of over 2500 students on campus at the time of the raid could receive compensation.

Read my previous post on this story.

It appears that Dateline NBC is about to stage some kind of sting on NASCAR fans. Dateline is said to be “Looking for Muslim Males to participate in NBC Dateline Segment” to draw “discriminatory comments or actions while being filmed.” There are copies of a couple of emails that are said to be moving between Dateline producers and possible actors for the sting. The content contains a couple of hilarious comments. One says the “Nascar event (and other smaller events) in Virginia” are possible targets. LOL!!! These folks obviously have never been to a NASCAR race. The head count at a NASCAR race can reach far into the six figure range. The other funny item in these emails is the following statement:

“I have been talking with a producer of the NBC Dateline show and he is in the process of filming a piece on anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination in the USA.”

I am no English major, but “anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination” implies that they looking to build a story on people who take action (discriminate) against bigots (those who are anti-Muslim). LOL!!! They are having a hard enough time writing an email. Their sentence is a double negative. I believe they meant to say they want to do a piece on people who are anti-Muslim. They could have said they are filming a piece on discrimination against Muslims and Arabs. Oh yeah there’s one more. NASCAR is an acronym, not a proper noun. I know, I am not one who should be correcting anyone else’s English. I just couldn’t resist.

I got wind of this from Michelle Malkin’s blog here and here.

I have an idea as to what NBC might be up to. It is no secret that many long time NASCAR fans grew very unhappy with Sunday afternoon race coverage when NBC took over coverage of half the season in 2001. Here’s a little poll that I found of 439 people responding to how displeased they were with the NBC coverage of one particular race in 2003. You can do a Google search on “NBC NASCAR coverage ____” and fill in the blank with your own slang verb. It would be hard for NBC to admit that they just couldn’t cover NASCAR the way the other networks did it for years. Maybe NBC is trying to gather some dirt to use to justify distancing themselves from the NASCAR scene at the end of the 2006 season.

A December story said, “NBC has withdrawn from negotiations to continue as a NASCAR television partner beyond the 2006 season, opening a door through which ABC/ESPN may walk to return to the sport, The Charlotte Observer has learned.” (Source)

I found an interesting article on Tony Stewart. I am a big fan of Stewart and have been for a while. His handling of the media today gives me even more reason to like him. Thanks to Jerry Bonkowski for a great article on Stewart.

An entry on her blog says that “Somebody at Google doesn’t like me”. Maybe Malkin should take a minute to consider the mainstream media style of writing that she has been feeding her readers into. Many of the recent Google stories in the blogsphere are a spin of partial truths much like the stories that she so often criticizes in the MSM.

You and Michelle can read HERE, HERE, and HERE for more on this story.

UPDATE: Most bloggers and MSM covering the Chinese censorship subject focused on the images.google.cn site when wrting stories concerning filtered searches on things like “Jesus Christ” or Christian”. Why not report on the hits on these searches on the main Google.cn site as compared to the Google.com site? The results were remarkably different, but no one including Michele Malkin is acknowledging that fact.

There were 27 Sources reporting on the condition of ABC news anchor Bob Woodruff and his camera man on Topix.net this morning. The “Woodruff War Injuries” story comes in second for the most sources reporting only to the “Sheen for Senate Circus” which had 31 sources reporting as of the time of this post.

It would be nice if there was this sort of concern over our troops when they were injured.

Today we feature a case of making a mountain out of a mole hill. The Washington Post released a story about how a Windows Wireless Flaw a Danger to Laptops. I have a news flash for you WaPo. This is a functionality of hard wired Windows based laptops and computers anywhere. Yes, you can gain access in more unsuspecting places like on airplanes via wireless, but this is not a new idea. The types of additional tools required to hack a laptop via a wireless connection as described in this article can also be used to hack a hard wired computer over a dial-up, cable modem, LAN, or DSL. Simply having an IP address on the same IP segment does not constitute hacking a computer as this article suggests. The meat of the story was skipped to satisfy the fear of the general population. In order to gain access to the target Windows computer remotely you must also gain user rights on that computer which requires using software that is not included on Windows computers. Computers plugged in via a standard network cable to a hotel, office, or home network are susceptible to the same kinds of attacks if they are not taking measures to “try” to stop hackers.

This news story is not really that big of a story after all. The most interesting portion of the article found below was where they are talking about hacking a laptop while on a plane over international waters.

Loveless said he believes that since the attacks were mostly carried while the plane was over international waters that U.S. law enforcement might have a hard time making the case that he was violating any laws. The real answer to that very interesting question, he said, would probably not be evident until someone gets sued in court for it.

Law enforcement authorities don’t seem to have a problem prosecuting a person for other offences over international waters. What makes computer crime over international waters any different than computer crimes committed on the ground?

The bottom line is that your data is only safe when it is on a computer that is turned off, unplugged from power and network, locked in a safe, and guarded by the US Marines.

La Shawn Barber may just be the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of the 21st Century. Her post today titled Do You Hate Black People? is solid proof that she loves black people. She leaves little room for excuses for blacks who are not willing to first look at themselves before trying to pass blame for shortfalls in their lives. I know many blacks who demonstrate a similar attitude, but they choose not to openly speak out like La Shawn Barber.

I have been waiting for a black person with an audience like La Shawn Barber to say, “I hate “affirmative action” because it’s immoral, unconstitutional, embarrassingly unfair, and undignified.” There are very few white people who dare make a statement like that in a public forum, but La Shawn Barber holds nothing back.

I was impressed to see others post positive comments on other blogs as a result the above mentioned posting over at LBC. Lorie Byrd over at the PoliPundit.com drove some fresh traffic into LBC where one reader the Postmodern Pundit said, “That was a fantastic post. I hadn’t visited La Shawn Barber’s blog before, but now I’ve got it bookmarked.”

One part of La Shawn Barber’s post had to do with an interview she did for The Baltimore Sun. Her comments did not make it into the news story. Mark Tapscott give explains the interaction between a reporter and editor to show how a story gets a slant like the one The Baltimore Sun did this week.

The final two applicants were both stars in Donald Trumps eyes in last night’s finale of The Apprentice on NBC. Trump had a tough decision to make. Trump surprised many viewers by firing more than one applicant at a time on several occasions. It would not have been surprising to see him hire both of the finalist. The unexpected part was when Trump picked one of the two finalist as The Apprentice and then ask the winner if the other finalist should also be hired. That is exactly what Trump did and he seemed very surprised by the answer that he received from Randell Pinkett the season four winner of The Apprentice.

The Apprentice producers did a pretty good job of editing what The Motley Fool reorts:

Booing was audible as Randal turned to acknowledge them. I agree, and not just because Randal backstabbed a colleague he said he respected. More importantly, I believe, Trump turned away serious talent that wanted badly to work for him.

The runner-up to Randell was Rebecca Jarvis. Randall and Rebecca seemed to become pretty good friends in the closing episodes. Rebecca was rumored in some circles to have better odds of winning with her calm, cool, and collective approach to everything and everyone she came in contact with. The final episode of The Apprentice showed that Rebecca could definitely take the heat better than Randell. She sat calm with very little change in her facial expressions or posture as Randell tore her down in response to Trump’s final questions about why Rebecca should not be hired. The same could not be said for Randell. He would shake his head and squirm in his seat every time Rebecca uttered the least little bit of criticism. Randell nailed down any doubts about his loyalty towards his new found fried with his response to Trump’s inquiry about hiring Rebecca. He bailed on his friend and took the wind out of his own sail with his response. Rebecca sat with very little change in her expression as Randell responded to Trump.

It was a final scene that would make a person want feel sorry for Rebecca until her Apprentice finale task sponsor Yahoo! ran a Market Wire story in the Yahoo! Financial section of their web site this afternoon. The story tells of Rebecca getting a chance of skipping right past The Apprentice seat with SYS-CON Media who has been “listed in Inc 500 three years in a row as the fastest growing, privately held publishing company in America..” SYS-CON is a great fit for Rebecca and seems to be offering a pretty sweet deal on the surface.

SYS-CON’s offer to Ms. Jarvis will be to run the events division of the company as president and CEO with an annual salary of $150,000.

There are no reports on whether Rebecca will accept the offer from SYS-CON. There are also no reports on whether Trump is going to skip Randell’s advice and offer Rebecca a job in the Trump organization. It would not be surprising. Randell’s got his title and night of fame. He could have sealed the night by simply saying, “Mr. Trump, I want to enjoy the title tonight as The Apprentice, but why don’t you invite Rebecca back tomorrow morning so that you can discuss an offer for her in the Trump organization.” It did not happen that way. The Apprentice blew a great opportunity to seal a season filled with surprises.

The anti-war movement is getting very old and very ineffective from a political perspective in my opinion. I looked over the breaking news section at topix.net. The cool thing about Topix is that they have this NewsRank system that rates a story on several factors. What I found interesting tonight was the rank of the story titled “Senator Criticizes Administration for Not Leveling With Public About Iraq”. This particular article originally sourced from the Associated Press does not seem to be ranking up there with other stories like the “Oprah and Letterman finally end their feud?” article. See a screen capture below showing the NewsRanks (little number by articles) for the articles mentioned.

I tend to agree with Mark Noonan over at Blogs for Bush when he says:

“it is the so-called “anti-war” movement which is now making this campaign longer and bloodier than it ever had to be. It is the anti-war movement which provides the hope for the enemy and makes us have to fight that much longer and harder.”

Even though the MSM is not likely to make a move away from the story just because of a statement like Mark’s, maybe they will move on once their numbers start to show that they are not attacting a mass number of people with these stories of the anti-war movement.