Comedy Porn

by twit

This guy is great. The LA Times describes him as:

[Alex] Kozinski, who was named chief judge of the 9th Circuit last year, is considered a judicial conservative on most issues. He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985. He has a national reputation for a brilliant legal mind and has developed a reputation as a champion of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.

So when his online porn stash becomes public in the midst of an obscenity trial that he is presiding over, does he meekly retreat from the appearance of impropriety? Not a chance. Instead he calls for an investigation, inviting an ethics panel to look over his collection. From the Associated Press on June 12, 2008:

The criminal prosecution of a hard-core pornographer turned into a personal trial for the presiding judge, who called for an investigation Thursday into his own conduct over lewd photos and videos stored on his family’s publicly accessible Web site.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asked an ethics panel of the court to initiate proceedings after the disclosure about his trove of sexually explicit material.

“I will cooperate fully in any investigation,” Kozinski said in a statement.

Sometimes having Pooh on your ass isn’t a result of bad Mexican food

by loadz

I’m not necessarily against marketing underwear emblazoned with Disney characters to youth so much as I’m opposed to the placement of the Pooh.

I mean really.

Disney also had this to say about the Miley Cyrus naked back photo:

“Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines,” a network statement said.

As opposed to deliberately manipulating young teens to sell Winnie the Pooh panties, of course.

Photo courtesy of the classy people at TMZ.com.

Gangster lobby makes NH Senate an offer they can’t refuse

by lestro

I have never taken out a payday loan and have only been in a payday lender one time while looking for a money order. I do, however, live pretty much paycheck to paycheck and lord knows i am one family illness or blown gasket from needing a quick couple hundred bucks.

Payday loan establishments are often labeled derisively as “predatory lenders” and while there is some truth to that, the industry is being unfairly targeted across the country.

The idea is simple: Borrowers in need of a quick influx of cash borrow somewhere between $100 and $500 for a short term, usually until the borrower’s next payday. The cost of such two-week loans run between $15 and $30 per $100 borrowed, but if you miss the payment interest and fees really start to pile up, not to mention fees on the bounced check you gave the lender.

But, of course, if you don’t have enough in your paycheck to survive to week’s end, a payday loan can provide a quick influx of cash, but since you are short as it is, paying it back from the next check tends to leave one even shorter for the next pay period, trapping the borrower under continuously compounding mountains of debt.

The commercials show actors, mostly minorities as they industry realizes that, like liquor stores, the best way to drum up business is to put these places into struggling neighborhoods often populated with minorities. The well-dressed actors talk about needing an advance for a new apartment or a couch or a car repair or something and of course shy away from the whole compounded mountain of debt thing.

The practice is legal in 37 states. But because of the revolving door into and out of these establishments, many of those states are seeking to either highly regulate or outlaw the practice, choosing to blame them as a source for continued poverty instead of recognizing them as a symptom of a much larger economic disparity and issue.