News at the hip? Thumbs down.

CliffNotes have traditionally been a guide to help students understand complex works while others, especially teachers and professors, often think they allow students to avoid reading assigned materials, this is similar to the way I feel about receiving and interpreting the news on my mobile device.

I have been a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) aka Blackberry user for nearly a year now and I love it. Receiving and writing emails from my phone has been beneficial when I don't have access to a computer and the ability to scour the internet has settled many disagreements between my friends and I. All and all I have been thankful to have such a device in my pocket because I truly think it makes my life a little easier, and for that I am thankful.

When I was asked by my instructor to go and get the news on my mobile phone I was pretty excited because I figured it would be easier than scouring my RSS for updates and happenings around the world.

Boy, was I wrong.

I first tried to go to news sites (Google and Yahoo) and set up a text or email notification system that would keep me informed without having to turn on my computer. I encountered two major problems after I set up this "service".

1. My inbox was flooded with news stories. So many stories that I couldn't focus on one, let alone one issue that I selected when setting up the news alerts. This was annoying because I was spending more time sifting through which news stories I thought were relevant than the time I would spend reading stories that I already knew were relevant on my RSS, which was also easier to set up.

2. Reading the stories on my phone is chore. Since I have the Blackberry the page that I see on my screen is quite small and only shows about a paragraph of reporting. Scrolling back and forth is not only distracting, but for someone that sometimes needs to read things twice to fully understand what is being said, frustrating, to say the least.

I will continue to use my PDA for checking my email and texting with friends, but I found that trying to read, and better yet understanding the full context of the news stories quite difficult. I think that trying to stay properly informed using only only a PDA or mobile phone would be like reading the Cliffnotes version of the news, you might get the idea, but you're never going to fully understand the context of the story. I would advise anyone to set up an RSS over receiving mobile updates.

O'Reilly Declares War

Outspoken conservative Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has declared war on the New York Times after what he called, "a vicious piece of propaganda," written by Times Editorial Page Director Andrew Rosenthal.

Rosenthal's piece titled, "The Nativists are Restless" published on January 31st, aimed at O'Reilly and other "harsh" Republicans who Rosenthal believes have been continuing a relentless campaign against immigrants who are now being exposed that the Republican tide has gone out.

The war of words started last week when the National Press Club, a Washington group that speaks for the future of the Republican Party reported that its November defeats in Congressional races stemmed not from having been too hard on foreigners, but too soft. The group released a report, "arguing that anti-immigration absolutism was still the solution for the party’s deep electoral woes."

Marcus Epstein, Executive Director at the American Cause is another one of the "extremists" and is responsible for putting together the conference in question, wrote today on Vdare.com, “My analysis made very modest claims. I merely reported, in their own words, the stated positions on immigration of the Republican and Democratic candidates in each seat the GOP lost.”

"This is nonsense, of course," wrote Rosenthal, "Americans have rejected the cruelty of enforcement-only regimes and Latino-bashing in opinion surveys and at the polls." Rosenthal believes that this sect of the Republican party is racist and white-supremacist, "Google the words “Bill O’Reilly” and “white, Christian male power structure” for another YouTube taste of the Fox News host assailing the immigration views of “the far left” (including The Times) as racially traitorous."

O'Reilly responded harshly to these accusations on his program last night, "I could post that Andrew Rosenthal completely distorted Bill O'Reilly's view on illegal immigration, because Rosenthal is a dishonest far-left zealot who uses hateful tactics, like implying people with whom he disagrees are racist. I could post that, and then you could Google "Rosenthal" and "illegal immigration" and it would be there -- uncensored. Now if Rosenthal doesn't know that, he's stupid. If he does know it, then he's dishonest and intentionally misleading Times readers.”

Crooksandliars.com, a progressive website, supports the Rosenthalian ideology about right wing racism and immigration, the website heralds the editorial piece as "superb".

Check out O'Reilly debunk the calims made by Rosenthal here.

Reversal of Injustice

Newly minted President Barack Obama signed his first bill into law on thursday, approving an equal pay legislation act that he said will, "send a message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody."

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act singed by the president effectively cancels the Supreme Court ruling last year that declared plaintiffs had to file wage claims within 180 days of a company's decision to pay a worker less than a counterpart doing the same work.

The person whose name appears on the bill, Lilly Ledbetter, was a worker at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden, Ala., discovered when she was nearing retirement that her male counterparts were earning more than she was.

"I'm so excited I can barely stand it," She said after the bill passed the Senate.

Last year a jury found her employer guilty of pay discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In a May 29, 2007 decision the Supreme Court threw out the case, ruling 5-4 against Ms. Ledbetter. The Supreme Court ruled that she was obligated to file her suit within 180 days of the date that she was first paid by Goodyear Tire and Rubber.

The Ledbetter legislation is aimed at expanding workers rights to sue in this kind of case restarting the six-month clock every time the worker receives a paycheck.

Ms. Ledbetter will not see any money as a result of the legislation that President Obama singed into law today.

Time for Change!

Winning Coach Fired, Losing Team Rewarded

For the past week news sites have been all over this story out of Dallas, Texas...and it keeps getting legs.

On January 13th the Covenant School ladies basketball team defeated Dallas Academy.

Normally, a story involving a girls high school basketball game would barely make regional headlines.

The reason for all the attention?

The Covenant School was up 59-0 at halftime, the game ended with a score of 100 for Covenant and 0 for Dallas Academy. The one-sided result has sparked nation-wide outrage and response.

Yesterday, Coach Micah Grimes of The Covenant School was fired for his unapologetic stance on the result and his team now has blowout remorse and wants to forfeit the game.

"We played the game as it was meant to be played and would not intentionally run up the score on any opponent. Although a wide-margin victory is never evidence of compassion, my girls played with honor and integrity and showed respect to Dallas Academy." Said Grimes.

Perhaps one of the reasons the story is drawing so much attention is because Dallas Academy only has 20 girls in their entire High school, only 8 of which play hoops. The Academy is geared to girls with learning disabilities, like ADD and dyslexia.

The Dallas Academy Lady Bulldogs are void of a win in the last four seasons, and what do they get for their lack of W's?

The Bulldog's appeared on ABC's World News, the team also appeared Saturday on ABC's Good Morning America Weekend and CBS' Saturday Early Show.

Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, has invited the team to be his guests at a Mavericks game and even Nike has called about sponsoring a team trip to the Feb. 15 NBA All-Star Game in Phoenix.

On the Dallas News Web site a story about the game attracted 665,000 page views. The most page views attracted by any Dallas Cowboys story at the Web site this season was 300,000 -- in November when Dallas Cowboys pro-bowl QB Tony Romo took a homeless man to the movies.

The Covenant School released a statement about the game in which they regret the incident.

Members of the Dallas Academy team have expressed no hard feelings toward the team that beat them.