Liberal_in_LA
Liberal_in_LA's JournalBernie Ward was released from prison recently. remember.him?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_WardA hero of progressives until he was arrested for child pornography
Texas State Representative, Jason Villalba introduces bill to limit filming of cops
At a time when the entirety of Western civilization is focused on eliminating police corruption and ending the suffering that unlawful police departments inflict upon citizens, a Texas State Representative, Jason Villalba (R-Dallas), is ramping up his crusade against civil liberties, seeking to diminish public oversight of police action.
This month, Representative Villalba introduced a bill that would prohibit:
filming, recording, photographing, or documenting the officer within 25 feet of the officer; or
filming, recording, photographing, or documenting the officer within 100 feet of the officer while carrying a handgun
(thereby criminalizing basic rights enumerated in the first and second amendments to the US Constitution.)
Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/is-this-texas-republican-enabling-police-brutality/#5TsFcjiT0JSgXDHr.99
Lying Yelp reviewer exposed as having spent only 22 SECONDS in restaurant he gave bad review
Caught on camera: Lying Yelp reviewer exposed as having spent only 22 SECONDS in Chinese restaurant he gave bad write upUser known as Dan W. uploaded one-star appraisal of wonderful
Said staff at establishment in Millbrae, California, refused to seat him
Owners spotted the scathing assessment and decided to investigate
Dropcam footage shows him walking in and not talking to any staff
After surveying the seating area, he turns around and walks out
Management have since banned him from returning - saying if he did it would be 'trespassing'
fabrication: He claimed that staff refused to seat him. But the clip shows he doesn't speak to anyone else and only peers into the seating area of the restaurant
Dan. W then responded in another Yelp review, claiming the man in the footage was not him and ordered it to be removed as he was being harassed online and it was 'damaging his federation's
It read: 'Aftermath: the owner put an inflammatory response with video of someone else claiming it was me. I also did not give you permission to put video of me on the internet.
'After that people start harrasing [sic] me and threatening to tarnish my reputation online if I did not remove this review.
'I'd love a ceasefire, take down your BS and I'll gladly take down this review (which again is not fake). That response and situation of only further shows you character. Perhaps they cyberbully and threaten anyone who rates less than a 3?'
The restaurant responded again, saying: 'In the interest of being fair to what you said, I am posting video of our service from 18:45 to 19:30 on 18 March 2015.
'If at any time you see yourself walk in and talk to the server, let me know, and I will gladly post a large banner that says 'I'm sorry Dan for calling you a liar'.
'Otherwise, you must be hearing voices, because I sure don't see you talking to anyone in the restaurant. '
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3013078/Chinese-restaurant-owners-catch-lying-Yelp-reviewer-surveillance-footage-showing-restaurant-22-SECONDS.html#ixzz3VXYIw7xr
Another source for daily mail haters
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/calif-restaurant-video-disprove-1-star-yelp-review-article-1.2162943
Why aren't Italians fat? It's a question of pasta portion size
That’s a question Elizabeth Minchilli, an American who has lived in Rome for years, is constantly asked. Full disclosure: The food writer happens to be on the slender side herself.
Her answer comes in the pasta chapter of her new book coming out April 7, “Eating Rome: Living the Good Life in the Eternal City” (St.
“Yes, we do eat pasta every day. And yes, even I can manage to eat a pasta course followed by a meat course,” she writes. Here’s the secret — and it doesn't involve a Never Ending Pasta Pass at the Olive Garden.
“The pasta we are all eating comes in a very controlled portion. When it comes to eating pasta, Italians are very measurement conscious. And it’s a very easy formula to follow: 100 grams (3-1/2 ounces) or less of pasta per person. It is never a heaping portion like one you would expect in the States.”
In the ‘90s, Los Angeles Italian restaurants routinely served pasta in giant bowls, each portion enough to feed three or four. That’s what people wanted. And if the portions at Buca di Beppo are anything to go by, many people are still enthralled by that abbondanza.
http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-why-arent-italians-fat-20150323-story.html
kids climbing on Vietnam memorial sparks debate
http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2015/03/25/photo-of-kids-climbing-on-vietnam-womens-memorial-sparks-debate/http://m.imgur.com/ct2tJRX
photograph of children treating the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, D.C., as if it were a jungle gym is blazing across the social media universe and raising questions around how children should act around monuments honoring the deceased.
An artist named Matthew Munson was visiting the memorial when he captured the moment.
Munson told WHNT-TV that initially there weren’t a lot of people at the site and “then a big group of people showed up just as the kids were treating the memorial more like a jungle gym and the parents were laughing . . . Then the veterans showed up, and they looked hurt more than angry. They were quiet.”
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Graphic designers say Ted Cruz's logo looks like a burning flag
The logo Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) selected for his 2016 presidential campaign has left some graphic designers baffled.
Cruz unveiled the symbol on Monday when he announced his White House bid and immediately social media lit up with posts comparing the image to either a tear or an upside down burning flag.
Others pointed out the similarity of Cruz's logo to the symbols for the Al Jazeera news service, the satiric Onion newspaper, and the flame representing the Tinder dating app.
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Graphic-designers-say-Ted-Cruz-s-logo-looks-like-6156493.php
University of Phoenix has lost half its students, stock tanks
The University of Phoenix probably wishes the students were just cutting class. But many aren't even enrolled anymore.
Enrollment at America's largest for-profit university was about 460,000 students five years ago. Now it's 213,000.
The University of Phoenix's parent company, Apollo Education Group (APOL), announced more losses Wednesday. Its revenues and enrollment both sank roughly 14% in its latest quarter compared to a year ago.
Apollo CEO Greg Cappelli tried to strike an optimistic tone, but investors gave the stock an "F" for falling. The stock tanked almost 30% Wednesday.
"While we faced challenges in the second quarter, we believe Apollo Education Group has the right long-term strategy in place," Cappelli said in a statement.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/25/investing/university-of-phoenix-apollo-earnings-tank/index.html
Rep. Justin Harris (guy who gave adopted daughter to rapist) is sponsoring anti_abortion bill
The news out of Arkansas the last few weeks just keeps getting more horrifying. First it was revealed that state Rep. Justin Harris (R-West Fork) had once employed Eric Cameron Francis, a man accused of raping a 6-year-old girl last year, at Harris’ day care, Growing God’s Kingdom Preschool. Then it was discovered that Harris had actually given the little girl in question over to Francis, after having adopted and then “rehomed” her when Harris and his wife felt they couldn’t care for the girl or her little sister any longer. Then there were reports that Harris believed the girls, who had suffered abuse in their biological mother’s home, were possessed by demons and had subjected them to “exorcism.” Oh yeah, and while Harris loves bashing other people for getting government money, there are allegations that he continued to cash the checks he got for adopting the girls even after they were “rehomed.” And that’s on top of the dazzling stream of money he got—$4 million so far—from the government to run his day care, even though there are strong indications that the facility—which, again, is called Growing God’s Kingdom—was not following rules forbidding religious indoctrination.
Could this story get any worse? Of course! Now it’s been revealed that Harris is sponsoring a bill that could force underage rape victims to bear their rapist’s children. Despite his public statements expressing sadness over his adopted daughter being assaulted by the man he gave her over to, Harris appears not to have learned a single thing about compassion or empathy for rape survivors.
The bill in question, HB 1424, would change Arkansas’s current parental consent law to make it harder for underage rape victims to get abortions. Right now, the law requires minors who want abortions to either get parental consent to do so or subject themselves to the humiliating, arbitrary judicial bypass process. However, there is an exception for girls who have become pregnant through rape or incest. This new legislation would remove that exception. Apparently, Harris and his colleagues don’t think life is hard enough already for these individuals.
To make it worse, this kind of legislation might actually force teenagers to ask their own rapists for “permission” to abort, given, again, the parental consent clause. A lot of sexual abuse of minors happens in the home, often at the hands of people who are supposed to be the child’s guardians. Harris really should know this. After all, not only were the girls he adopted exposed to sexual abuse in their original home, but he handed them over to a man who raped one of them. If he had a lick of sense in him at all, he would know better than anyone how adolescents are sometimes abused at the hands of people who are supposed to be caring for them.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/03/19/rep-justin-harris-wants-make-harder-teenage-rape-survivors-get-abortions/
Texas wasted 10 million dollars drug testing 63,000 student athletes for steriods. defunding progra
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — When Texas officials launched a massive public high school steroids testing program over fears of rampant doping from the football fields to the tennis courts, they promised a model program for the rest of the country to follow.
But almost no one did. And after spending $10 million testing more than 63,000 students to catch just a handful of cheaters, Texas lawmakers appear likely to defund the program this summer. If they do, New Jersey and Illinois will have the only statewide high school steroids testing programs left.
Even those who pushed for the Texas program in 2007 now call it a colossal misfire, either a waste of money or too poorly designed to catch the drug users some insist are slipping through the cracks.
"I believe we made a huge mistake," said Don Hooton, who started the Taylor Hooton Foundation for steroid abuse education after his 17-year-old son's 2003 suicide was linked to the drug's use, and was one of the key advocates in creating the Texas program.
Hooton believes the low number of positive tests doesn't mean Texas athletes are clean, only that they're not getting caught because of inadequate testing and loopholes that allow them to cheat the process.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/high-school/texas-10-million-gamble-catch-hs-steroid-users-bust-article-1.2159207
tenacious residents track down person who dumped construction debris in residential alley
One week ago, Lauri Jutila walked out the back of his Mid-City apartment building and found a sprawling heap of construction waste in the alley: floor tile, trash bags, wood planks and other construction debris stretching more than 100 feet.
By Friday, the 55-year-old retired mortgage banker had gotten a face-to-face apology from a worker who admitted to leaving behind the pile of garbage.
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Jutila, a squeaky wheel in the neighborhood for two decades, called an aide to council President Herb Wesson soon after he found the sprawling pile. But he also combed through the rubble, searching for envelopes or other items that might explain where the trash came from. That's when two boxes, mixed in with the broken plaster and mangled wire mesh, caught his eye.
A name on one box was immediately recognizable: Barry Zito, major league baseball player. The other didn't ring any bells. But both mailing labels listed the same address on Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills. That narrow and winding road, perched high above the city, has million-dollar views and no shortage of construction projects.unset Plaza Drive. Cederquist, he said, was supposed to have taken the trash to the dump but didn't.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-illegal-dumping-20150323-story.html
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