Daily Rotten Archives February 20, 2004 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 Rhode Island governor embraces fascism WJAR-TV 10 Providence | Submitted by: Monkey "Gov. Don Carcieri on Thursday withdrew a homeland security plan criticized by scholars and civil libertarians as a threat to free speech and assembly rights. The bill introduced last week would include acts of terrorism under existing law that makes it illegal to 'speak, utter, or print' statements in support of anarchy or government overthrow. It also would have included terrorism under current law that makes it unlawful for any person 'to teach or advocate' a government overthrow, or display 'any flag or emblem other than the flag of the United States' as preferable to the United States government... The bill, which never had a public hearing, also created new exemptions to open-records laws, including fire-safety records... Carcieri acknowledges he did not read the entire bill before it was introduced and said he'll seek input from civil liberties groups and others before introducing a new version." Read article... Pfizer destroys Canadian drug supply in order to save it Washington Post | Submitted by: A. P. Palled "Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug manufacturer, has cut off supplies to a number of Canadian mail-order pharmacies as part of the escalating battle between the industry and U.S. consumers hunting for bargains across the border. Pfizer sent a letter Feb. 12 to Winnipeg-based Universal Drug Store and a half dozen other companies informing them that 'effective immediately, your pharmacy is no longer approved to purchase Pfizer products from Pfizer Canada's authorized distributors.' ... Pfizer, following the lead of GlaxoSmithKline, said it was limiting supplies to Canadian pharmacies that sell to U.S. customers out of concern that Canadian patients could face shortages. 'The export of pharmaceuticals from Canada represents a violation of our long-standing business terms,' said Pfizer spokesman Andy McCormick. 'We want to ensure that in Canada, medicines developed by Pfizer are in sufficient supply for Canadians.'" [So they're limiting drug sales to Canada to ensure that Canadians have enough drugs. Um, what?] Read article... Cop gets 60 years for fucking daughters Malaysian Star | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "An auxiliary police constable was given the maximum sentence of 60 years' jail after he admitted to three counts of incest with two of his daughters, aged 12 and 21. His brother, a security guard, was jailed for 16 years and ordered to be given six strokes of the rotan after he admitted to committing incest with his 15-year-old niece, another one of the policeman's nine children." Read article... Midddle school teacher of the year accused of molestation WVBT-TV 43 Hampton Roads | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "33-year old William Dean Johnson was arrested last week and charged with six counts of felony sex offenses with a minor. Johnson, who teaches at Manteo Middle School, was named 'Teacher of the Year' at the school last year. He's taught there for the past six years... The Dare County Sheriff says the male victim is a former student at the school, and was an acquaintance of Johnson." Read article... Surprises abound in archived brothel email WMAR-TV 2 Baltimore | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "The newly opened 'black book' of a Frederick County madam reveals how high-tech the world's oldest profession has become. Thousands of e-mails, including date requests, were made public Wednesday as the city of Frederick complied with a court order to release police records of a 1999 raid on the Corporate Affair Escort Service... Some of the e-mails are explicit. A correspondent with a 'house.gov' address, indicating a possible connection to the U.S. House of Representatives, seeks employment as an escort. He is told in a reply that one of the women wants to have sex with him on camera. Frederick is about 45 miles from Washington." Read article... Pornoisseur taken into custody MSNBC | Submitted by: optional "Police say [Andre Gainey] was watching an adult movie called Chocolate Foam [starring Pebbles and Amanda, © 2000 Sunshine Video] on Tuesday night while driving his Mercedes Benz in the town of Schenectady when he was spotted by an officer at a stop light. Police spokesman Pete Frizoni said detectives pulled Gainey over when they saw the movie playing on screens embedded in the car's headrests. When they confronted him, they saw another screen in the passenger-side visor was facing Gainey, allowing him to watch the movie while driving... Gainey was charged with a public display of offensive material, driving with a suspended license and driving while watching a television. He allegedly compounded his legal woes by giving a false name when he was fingerprinted, prompting police to add a charge of forgery." Read article... Houston: home to America's sex slaves KPRC-TV 2 Houston | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Modern-day slavery is a $9 billion a year worldwide industry, and Houston is one of the hubs for this business... It's an epidemic that spreads from the Far East to Houston to all points in between - young women smuggled into this country and forced to work as prostitutes in massage parlors and 24-hour spas... The sex slave problem is so prevalent, the Coalition Against Human Trafficking held its first annual conference in Houston Thursday to discuss the epidemic. The U.S. government estimates that as many as 20,000 people are smuggled into this country every year for forced labor and sexual exploitation. Worldwide, the numbers near a million, according to officials." Read article... Harold Bloom soon to be accused of sexual harassment CNN | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Feminist author [Naomi Wolf] has written a magazine article accusing a noted Yale University professor of sexually harassing her while she was an undergraduate in the 1980s, and alleging a long history of such events at Yale. The article is to appear in Monday's issue of New York Magazine and accuses Harold Bloom, a prominent literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale... Bloom has written more than 20 books about the Bible, Milton and poetry... New York Magazine spokeswoman Serena Torrey said she could not comment on the article because it has not yet been published. But she told the Yale Daily News that Wolf 'will have a story outlining 20 years of incidents of sexual misconduct at Yale and her search and hope for an appropriate response from the administration to these situations.'" Read article... Jane Roe back in court yet again Houston Chronicle | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Armed with more than 1,000 affidavits and 30 years of regret, the woman at the center of the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case is returning to the courtroom in hope of overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that made the procedure legal... [Norma McCorvey] was 22 and pregnant when she began the legal battle to overturn laws banning abortion in 1969. For years a 'poster girl' for the abortion-rights movement, she experienced a religious conversion in the mid-1990s and recanted her former views... Terry Larson, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Houston, said McCorvey's appeal to the New Orleans court came as no surprise. 'They have certainly filed frivolous lawsuits before and likely will continue do so,' she said, expressing confidence the court will uphold the lower court's decision. Read article... Turing Test undermined by porn BBC | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "At first glance spam, pornographic text messages and video games are not contributing much to human development. But a good case can be made for regarding all three as some of the smartest artificial intelligences around. Some may even have beaten the legendary 'Turing Test' by convincing thousands of people that they are human... the best candidate for passing the Turing test is the Natachata program that conducts smutty conversations via text messages. Regular users of pornographic SMS chat may be shocked to find out that they are swapping dirty talk with machines rather than young women and men." Read article... Dead piranha fished out of Thames CNN | Submitted by: f00f "More accustomed to exotic South American climes, the four-inch carnivore appeared in an unlikely new setting opposite the Ford car plant in Dagenham, east London. The Red-Bellied Piranha (Pygocentrus nattereri) is one of the world's most aggressive fish and has been known to attack humans. However, the one found in the Thames was dead. It is believed to have been released into the river by its owner and died of the cold before being picked up and later dropped by a seagull." Read article... Electronic voting opponents not giving up Wired | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Activists in two states launched campaigns to urge voters to cast paper absentee ballots in their March primaries, warning that the electronic, paperless voting machines used in those states are open to fraud and may not count votes accurately... Maryland activists sent a letter to their state and county boards of elections to demand that officials give voters the option of using paper ballots on Election Day. Unlike California, where voters can request a paper ballot if they feel uncomfortable voting on electronic machines, Maryland voters cannot vote by paper... Voters in California have until Feb. 24 to mail in their request for an absentee ballot. Once they receive the ballot in the mail, they can either mail it back or hand-deliver it to polling places on Election Day." Read article...