… ! PILL BABY PILL ! …

New Arizona Law Will Allow Employers to Fire Women for Using Whore Pills

On Thursday Sheriff Joe Arpaio held a press conference to announce the “results” of his investigation into whether the Democratic current President of the United States was really born in America at all or whether it was a decades-spanning plot to do (something) because (something) and because, obviously, the first non-lily-white American president cannot possibly be legitimate on the merits, especially in those nooks of America that, like Arizona, have recently rededicated themselves towards race-based paranoias of all sorts.

As near as can be determined, the primary conclusion of Sheriff Joe and his Insane Clown Posse is that scanned documents are scanned. Rather than Arpaio actually having any investigation at all, he simply outsourced it to a passel of conspiracy cranks from World Net Daily and the like who had already reached their “conclusions” years ago, put the Sheriff Joe name on the top of the thing, and called it done. This is the kind of dedicated, not-at-all-asinine work we have come to expect from America’s worst-run sheriff department. The only non-asinine thing about any of it was, as Arpaio so earnestly assured us all, that the hard work of repackaging old conspiracy theories was financed from gullible donors. He did not siphon public money in order to “investigate” anything.

That was the story on Thursday, anyway. Now? Maybe not so much:

Arpaio told radio talk show host Mike Broomhead on station KFYI that the [purported results of his insane hunt for zebras by an outsourced group of zebra-hunters] “takes it into a different level.”

“I’ll have to decide how to go with this and get some more help from our detectives that we should pursue,” Arpaio said. “When you get information about a criminal violation, I think it’s incumbent on somebody to look at it and do something about it.”

Two things jump out, obviously. One, that he is so taken with this ‘scanned documents are scanned’ theory he is now contemplating having his sheriff department spend actual money following up on it. Two: he says “get some more help”? More? Is this jackass saying he hadprevious help from his own paid sheriff’s staff, despite denying it mere hours beforehand?

While I am sorely tempted to donate money to Sheriff Joe to have him “investigate” other things (and really, Sheriff Joe Investigates sounds like a damn fine Fox News program—I can hear the theremin-heavy opening credits already), I would be damn peeved to hear that this nut has or might use taxpayer-funded employees to pursue his little pet theories. Still, I expect now that Sheriff Joe will want to get cracking on investigations as to whether we ever really landed on the moon, whether the Loch Ness Monster really exists, and what really happened on 9/11. I am sure he will be able to find volunteer “investigators” on the internet for each of those things; all that is required is that he plaster his name up there at the top. This is a man that raids suspected cock-fighting operations in an armored tank with his name prominently displayed on the side, and with Steven Seagal in tow for good measure, so self-promotion would seem to be this conspiracy crank’s core skill.

Courtesy of Hunter for the Daily Kos

Last week, an Arizona House Committee approved a bill requiring even the poorest students to pay a minimum of $2,000 per year to attend public university in the Grand Canyon State.

Arizona Republicans took up the measure, HB 2675, after hearing that nearly half of students at Arizona State University did not pay tuition in the 2009-10 school year, whether due to financial aid need or scholarships. In reality, “[t]he most current figure is closer to 25 percent, said Christine Thompson, the regents’ vice president of government relations.”

Though approximately 100 Arizona college students showed up at the committee hearing to voice their concern that HB 2675 would make it harder to graduate, Rep. Michelle Ugenti (R) had pointed words for them: “welcome to life.”The Arizona Republic has more:

About 100 students signed in to oppose the bill, and a handful spoke out against it. James Allen, UA student-body president, told legislators that by passing the bill, legislators would make it harder to achieve a higher-education degree.

Rep. Michelle Ugenti, R-Scottsdale, replied, “Welcome to life.”

.

A few minutes later, Rep. Matt Heinz, D-Tucson, admonished his colleagues for their comments.

.

“I feel these students are being greeted with open hostility,” said Heinz, who later voted against the bill.

Despite the students’ protest, the House Appropriations Committee narrowly passed the bill on Wednesday, 7-6. It did not earn a single Democratic vote.

Tuition at the three public universities in Arizona is already above the national average, thanks to recent “sharp tuition increases.” Nevertheless, the University of Arizona voted last April to raise tuition rates again, this time requiring students to pay an additional $1,800 during the 2011-12 school year.

Courtesy of Scott Keyes for ThinkProgress.org 

Show your support for Arizona State University students and sign the petition to Reduce The Costs Of Education For Arizona State University Students at Change.org.

February 9, 2012:

The recent actions by the ASU administration to block access to the Change.org tuition petition are despicable. Worse, the University’s justification for these actions was a bold-faced lie.

For the University to block an online petition just because it advocates something they may not like is the height of institutional censorship, which is contrary to the most deeply held virtues of the academy.

Does AT&T disconnect your phone call if you’re telling a friend that their service is overpriced? Does your MacBook stop working if you go to download a Linux distribution? Of course not.

Worse, far worse, is ASU’s claim that they blocked access to this website to conserve their network resources. This is a lie, plain and simple. They know it, and they purposefully lied to the University community anyway. This website uses a miniscule amount of bandwidth. Students and faculty transfer tens of gigabytes of data without thinking twice, or stream multi-GB movies from Netflix. Compared to these everyday “acceptable” uses of the network, the amount of bandwidth consumed by Change.org‘s petition is utterly trivial — maybe a few hundred kilobytes. This has nothing to do with the cost of tuition at ASU. It’s about censorship and about using lies to justify it.

Sun Devils, you deserve better. You deserve for your university to foster open discourse, something that has been cherished by academics for a thousand years, and not censor ideas just because they’re afraid of them. You also deserve for your university, to whom you each pay thousands of dollars a year, to not lie to your faces about what they’re doing and why.

Walter Freeman
Ph.D., Computational Physics

Originally published February 8, 2012 at 5:18 pm at statepress.com

Arizona State University infuriated activists when the school decided to block access to Change.org, a popular site that allows people to create and sign petitions in an effort to produce social change.

According to Free Press — a nonpartisan media reform organization — ASU decided to lift the ban after being inundated with “thousands of complaints.”

The school is claiming that the now discarded ban had nothing to do with the content of Change.org, but rather was implemented to protect students and the university’s network from spam and viruses.

“Arizona State University blocked access to the website change.org after it was used to spam thousands of university email accounts in early December 2011,” a university statement says. ”ASU strongly supports the First Amendment and an individual’s or group’s right to free speech.”

But the blog Common Dreams noted that Change.org is currently hosting a petition demanding ASU reduce its tuition rates.

“The corruption and greed that masquerades as Arizona State government must come to this realization now. The citizens of the State Of Arizona and the students at Arizona State University demand better,” the petition states.

A writer for Common Dreams who used to work for Change.org shot back at the university’s claims, saying, “Change.org is anything but spam. It’s a perfectly lawful website that has helped millions take action on a host of important issues.”

The university apparently felt the battle wasn’t worth fighting and announced last week that access to Change.org had been restored.

“The university acknowledges and understands the expression of concern from some members of the community who desire access to Change.org from university computing resources,” the school said in a statement obtained by Free Press. “The university has removed the restriction against site access from university computing resources.”

.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post

.

Eric Haywood, the author of the original petition censored by ASU and also, the publisher of TheDailyShit.com, responded to ASU’s ridiculous claims as follows;

Eric Haywood

377 Fans

 

26 minutes ago ( 8:11 PM)

“Spam is a mass mailing to different email address from one entity, undertaken for the purposes of financial gain. Change.org is the inverse. It solicits the masses to mail just one entity, and the petition is undertaken for the purpose of social change or altering a law or policy, not for for financial gain.”

No spam was ever sent to any ASU student. ASU is full of crap.

As the publisher of thedailysh­­it.com and the author of the petition hosted by Change.org which can be found at;

http://www­­.change.o­r­g/petiti­on­s/arizo­na-­state-­boar­d-of-­regen­ts-r­educe-­the­-costs-­of­-educati­o­n-for-ari­­zona-state­­-universi­t­y-studen­ts

It has been my experience as a student at ASU that ASU is not interested in fostering an environmen­­t that is respectful of the 1st Amendment.­­..Nor am I of the opinion that ASU is concerned about the quality of education that it is tasked to provide. What I do believe is that ASU is far more interested in the financial exploitati­­on of students above all other things…I believe that ASU is failing it’s students and society as a result.

In other words, ASU cares about the money it can generate from the 72,000 plus students that are currently enrolled. We are nothing more than cows to be milked. Sheep to be sheared. We are livestock.

We, as students, are there for ASU. ASU is not there for us.

.

.

When a person donates to a political figure, they expect that cash to be used towards furthering said politicians’ stated goals. Jan PAC, Arizona Governor Jan Brewers’ fund raising group, has pledged to focus on 4 goals:

• Securing the border & restoring integrity to our immigration system
• Fighting ObamaCare
• Creating jobs – Getting Americans back to work
• Reducing the size of government

Instead, Jan Brewer has used donations to her political action committee to buy her own book (ostensibly to give to donors who contribute $100 or more but happens to have the side effect of putting PAC money directly into her pocket) and to stay at an expensive hotel.

According to a report from Talking Points Memo:

“The governor had raised only about $22,000 for Jan PAC by the end of 2011 and spent nearly a quarter of the cash, buying books from Amazon and paying a bill at the luxurious Waldorf Astoria hotel in Orlando, Fla. The rest of the money is still in the bank.

Brewer spent $3,423 on books and shipping from the online retailer, according to the financial reports. On her fundraising website, she offers a signed copy of her book “Scorpions for Breakfast” to every donor who gives $100 or more.

In early December she also spent $624 for a night at the swank Waldorf Astoria in Orlando, which her financial disclosures repeatedly misspell as “Orlanda.” Another $513 went to airfare on Southwest Airlines.”

It’s the kind of thing Republicans would definitely take Democrats to task over, but as usual, when a Republican is guilty of misusing donations, it’s perfectly acceptable.

.

This report reveals quite a lot about Jan Brewer and her support team. Like the typical Right Wing nut job, she has no intention of actually using money for its intended purposes. Like the typical Right Wing nut job, she is selfish and thinks she is more important than she actually is. Like the typical Right Wing nut job, she abuses the trust of the her constituents. And like the typical Right Wing nut job, she can’t spell. As I said before, if a Democrat was doing this, Republicans would be screaming bloody murder about fraud and waste and would be calling for resignations and investigations. How can the Republican Party claim to be the defenders of what our money is spent on when they can’t even use PAC funds for the purposes they say they’re supposed to be used for?

.

By Stephen D. Foster Jr.

On November 30, 2011, I ( on behalf of a group of ASU students) started the petition titled “Arizona State University: Reduce The Costs Of Education For Arizona State University Students.”

http://www.change.org/petitions/arizona-state-board-of-regents-reduce-the-costs-of-education-for-arizona-state-university-students

This petition requested signatures to support the reduction in the costs of education for ASU students.

And NOW, Arizona State University is BLOCKING ALL ACCESS to Change.org for ALL of it’s over 70,000 students and over 5,000 faculty and employees.

.

As such, students living on ASU campus, using ASU computers or accessing the internet through ASU’s school WIFI are not able to access Change.org.

As a result, Not only can’t ASU students sign the above petition but they are unable to sign ANY PETITION on the Change.org website.

Not only is this outrageous, but it is a violation of the 1st Amendment rights of both ASU students as well the rights of Change.org and those with petitions hosted by Change.org to freely express themselves.

So….Now I’ve started a new petition requesting Arizona State University to STOP CENSORING Change.org;

http://www.change.org/petitions/president-arizona-state-university-stop-censoring-changeorg

Last time I checked this was America, not China, or Iran, or North Korea…..

Support Arizona State University Students.

Support Freedom Of Expression.

Support The 99%.

Sign The Petition.

Arizona State University might need to change its name to Censorship U after deciding to block students’ access to popular petition site Change.org.

.

Change.org happens to be hosting a petition created by ASU student Eric Haywood that protests rising tuition costs at the school.

.

This blocking could be violating the First Amendment rights of ASU students to speak freely and petition government.

.

When challenged about the website blocking, ASU officials claimed that Change.org is a spam site, writing that the blocking was conducted “to protect the use of our limited and valuable network resources for legitimate academic, research and administrative uses.”

.

But Change.org is anything but spam. It’s a perfectly lawful website that has helped millions take action on a host of important issues (disclaimer: I worked there as managing editor from 2008-2009).

.

The fact is, disabling access to any lawful site violates the spirit and principles of Net Neutrality, chills academic freedom and possibly rises to the level of a First Amendment violation. It’s astonishing that ASU President Michael M. Crow would allow this to happen — and that’s why Free Press and Change.org are urging him to stop his school’s censorship immediately.

.

We’re at a moment when threats to online speech are peeking around every corner. Just last month, we beat back SOPA and PIPA, two bills in Congress that would have opened the door to online censorship from big corporations.

.

Now Arizona State University is going after free speech. If it gets away with this, other universities could be emboldened to follow suit. We must defend ASU students’ right to speak online.

.

Josh Levy

Internet Campaign Director, Free Press

.

Follow Josh Levy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/levjoy

.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post

On December 1, 2011 a group of ASU students started the petition titled “Arizona State University: Reduce The Costs Of Education For Arizona State University Students.” at the Change.org petition site.

This petition requested signatures to support the reduction in the cost of education for ASU students.

On the morning of December 7, 2011, Arizona State University BLOCKED ALL ACCESS to Change.org for ALL of it’s over 70,000 students and over 5,000 faculty and employees. 

As of this date, approximately TWO MONTHS later, Arizona State University continues it’s BLOCKADE of the Change.org petition website, in a blatant attempt to prevent it’s current ernollment of more than 70,000 students from viewing and/or signing the petition to reduce college costs.

Clearly, ASU does not want it’s students, faculty, or employees signing this petition and has resorted to BLATANT and UNLAWFUL Censorship in order to block the freedom of expression of it’s students and faculty.

As such, students living on ASU campus, using ASU computers or accessing the internet through ASU’s school WIFI are unable to access Change.org. 

As a result, Not only can’t ASU students sign the above petition but they are unable to sign ANY PETITION on the Change.org website.

In addition, emails sent from any “change.org” email address to any student or faculty email address ending in “asu.edu” are also being blocked by Arizona State University. That means that ASU refuses to allow Change.org or anyone using Change.org to send Arizona State University students or faculty emails regarding petitions facilitated by Change.org.

Not only is this outrageous, but it is a violation of the 1st Amendment rights of both ASU students as well the rights of Change.org and those with petitions hosted by Change.org to freely express itself.

Last time I checked this was America, not China, or Iran, or North Korea…..

What can be done about this?

Well. If you are an ASU Student, Professor, Instructor, or Employee you CAN sign the petition….You just can’t use any ASU computer or WIFI network to do so….

Just go to the  petition at the Change.org site from your computer using ANY WIFI connection that is NOT associated with ASU…..That’s it…..Easy.

.

Support Arizona State University Students.

Support Freedom Of Expression.

Support The 99%.

Sign The Petition.

.

http://www.change.org/petitions/arizona-state-board-of-regents-reduce-the-costs-of-education-for-arizona-state-university-students

.

Last Week, a group of ASU students started the petition titled “Arizona State University: Reduce The Costs Of Education For Arizona State University Students.” at the Change.org petition site.

.

This petition requested signatures to support the reduction in the cost of education for ASU students.

.

.

This morning. Arizona State University BLOCKED ALL ACCESS to Change.org for ALL of it’s over 50,000 students and over 5,000 faculty and employees. 

Clearly, ASU does not want it’s students, faculty, or employees signing this petition and has resorted to BLATANT and UNLAWFUL Censorship in order to block the freedom of expression of it’s students and faculty.

As such, students living on ASU campus, using ASU computers or accessing the internet through ASU’s school WIFI are unable to access Change.org. 

As a result, Not only can’t ASU students sign the above petition but they are unable to sign ANY PETITION on the Change.org website.

In addition, emails sent from any “change.org” email address to any student or faculty email address ending in “asu.edu” are also being blocked by Arizona State University. That means that ASU refuses to allow Change.org or anyone using Change.org to send Arizona State University students or faculty emails regarding petitions facilitated by Change.org.

Not only is this outrageous, but it is a violation of the 1st Amendment rights of both ASU students as well the rights of Change.org and those with petitions hosted by Change.org to freely express itself.

Last time I checked this was America, not China, or Iran, or North Korea…..

What can be done about this?

Well. If you are an ASU Student, Professor, Instructor, or Employee you CAN sign the petition….You just can’t use any ASU computer or WIFI network to do so….

Just go to the  petition at the Change.org site from your computer using ANY WIFI connection that is NOT associated with ASU…..That’s it…..Easy.

.

http://www.change.org/petitions/arizona-state-board-of-regents-reduce-the-costs-of-education-for-arizona-state-university-students

.