Image from WikipediaA New York judge ruled that Dell and its financial services unit falsely advertised financing and warranty terms to customers. In an opinion released Tuesday, State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Teresi said that Dell and Dell Financial Services LP engaged in deceptive business practices, fraud, false advertising and abusive debt collection. "Dell has engaged in repeated misleading, deceptive and unlawful business conduct, including false and deceptive advertising of financing promotions and the terms......

Image from RG4N websiteResponsible Growth for Northcross Austin (RG4N) is in court today claiming the city helped Wal-Mart through illegal city planning. They claim the Northcross Wal-Mart development requires the removal of 29 trees (breaking tree ordinances) and that the development breaks a plat note controlling runoff and pollution into Shoal Creek. The Allandale Neighborhood Association had part of their anti-Wal-Mart lawsuit thrown out last week but RG4N remains undeterred. Each group will have 2......

Silicon Wafer by kjetilv on stock.xchng Austin-based chip company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has once again found itself in hot water, and this time it's over something far more visible than damaging the Edwards Aquifer. According to a lawsuit filed with the Travis County District Court on Wednesday, the company is responsible for multiple birth defects in at least one child of a former AMD employee who worked in the manufacturing "clean room." Austin resident......

After being threatened with a lawsuit by "Handsome Dick" Manitoba in 2004, Toronto native, London resident, and Ph.D. mathematician Daniel Snaith was forced to change his recording alias. What was once called Manitoba (not Handsome Dick) is now Caribou, and tonight, this electronic psychadelic dreamy pop outfit (a full band plays live) will be at Club Deville. Snaith's latest album Andorra is maybe his best yet. Streams of orchestral pop closely rivaling that of......

A scandal two years in the making over at Austin City Hall may finally be reaching critical mass. On July 20, one Bill Moriarty, the former head of the Austin Clean Water Program, filed a lawsuit against a virtual who's-who list of local urban developers: Development firms PBS&J, Malcolm Pirnie, Owen Consulting, CH2M Hill Inc., Parsons Engineering Science, K Friese & Associ­ates and Hey Cister! Consulting. Also named is attorney David Armbrust, Moriarty's former legal......

One of UT's more infamous fraternities is in hot water again, this time as the defendant in a civil lawsuit over assault charges. 21-year-old Michael Austin Presley was allegedly assaulted at a Phi Gamma Delta party on July 7, during which he claims he was beaten and kicked by fraternity member Bryan Kniepp. Presley was left with broken bones in his right eye socket and nose. Not much else is known about the case; the......

Save Our Springs Alliance, long-time advocate for Barton Springs and other environmentally-sensitive zones throughout Central Texas, issued a press release yesterday stating that it's being forced into bankruptcy by a court judgment won against it by Central Texas residential developers. In 2004, SOS Alliance filed a lawsuit against Lazy Nine Municipal Utility District, seeking to prevent the district -- which is allegedly just a puppet-agent of Wilshire Homes and Forest City Properties of Cleveland, Ohio......

Good-bye to Texas University. So long to the Orange and White. Good luck to the dear old Texas Aggies, They are the boys who show the real old fight. The eyes of Texas are upon you. That is the song they sing so well, So, good-bye to Texas University, We're goin' to beat you all to -- Chig-gar-roo-gar-rem! Chig-gar-roo gar-rem! Rough! Tough! Real stuff! Texas A&M! Saw Varsity's Horns Off! Saw Varsity's Horns Off!......

Like fake boobs and dyed hair, fake Ohio State vs. Texas tickets are out there to ruin your day. Clay Aiken of American Idol fame just might be President Bush's new pet. Former President Clinton is getting a pimp ride, a custom Mercury Mariner Hybrid surely outfitted with features that rival the Batmobile. Ladies, ladies. Your high heels are a death trap. A man's gun accidentally fired while he was in a Wal-Mart bathroom.......

The director of Woodside Trails Therapeutic Camp, a camp for troubled youth, has sued Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and nine other state officials. [From San Antonio’s Express-News] Betty Lou Gaines, the former director of Woodside Trails Therapeutic Camp in Bastrop County, claims Strayhorn's "Forgotten Children" report was misleading and inaccurate. The April 2004 report was critical of how the Department of Family and Protective Services protects foster children. The camp operated for more than......

A small group of uber-rich political subscribers are reportedly giving about $10 million to Gov. Rick Perry's re-election campaign. As always, the people with the money make the rules. Kinky Friedman's proposed energy plan for Texas calls for 20% of the electricity in the state to come from renewable sources by 2020. Jack Carter, offspring of former president Jimmy Carter, won the Democratic nomination in the Nevada primary and will move on to face......

We'll never smoke look at broccoli the same again- especially if it means that the truck is carrying our next stash. We're getting mixed messages from those astronomers. On Monday, Pluto wasn't a planet, now we have three more to add to our solar system. Tomorrow, the Sun will be cold or something. Apparently water had nothing to do with the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. We don't want to make it a spectacle,......

Joe Jamail is a household name around Austin. The football field at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and the Texas Swimming Center both carry his name. In his most famed case, Jamail represented Pennzoil in their lawsuit against Texaco, won and was paid somewhere in excess of one billion dollars for his efforts. Joe Jamail is known for being abrasive and straightforward; he was once quoted as saying, "I grew up fighting. I had to.......

Independent goober candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn Rylander Cougar Mellencamp is suing the Texas secretary of state over his refusal to let her use "Grandma" on the Nov. 7 ballot. We're pretty sure the filing of a frivolous lawsuit will do very little to help Carole Cougar gain new supporters. It seems Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is reluctant to release information about his investigation of Tom DeLay. In fact, he is suing the......

Spurred perhaps by the Travis County mother-daughter pair who filed that ludicrous lawsuit against them earlier this week, MySpace today announced that it'll be implementing new restrictions on interactions between "adults" and "younger users." From the Associated Press, via KVUE: The site already prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 years old. But under the new changes, MySpace users who are......

The Statesman just reported that a teenage girl in Travis County, who was allegedly sexually assaulted last month by nineteen-year old Pete Solis, has filed suit against MySpace for $30 million: The lawsuit claims the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 "utterly ineffective." Solis contacted the girl through her MySpace Web site in April, telling her......

Random figures collected over the past two weeks: Number of voter signatures collected by Kinky Friedman's staff: 169,574 [reference] Percentage of Americans who believe that "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track," according to a new Harris poll: 69% [reference] Minimum cost of new sprinkler system to be installed in Zilker Park over the next three years, perhaps eventually rendering ACL Fest actually bearable: $500,000 [reference] Minimum peak computing power of......

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban. Bostonist has its first birthday party and investigates how to attach more gambling dollars to the Red Sox. Benjamin Franklin is celebrated and Johnny Damon is not. Image by Ethan Bagley......

Rick Perry unveiled his school financing plan yesterday and it looks like the smokers get the short end of the stick, again. In his efforts to devise a plan to fund schools and give property tax relief, Perry has suggested cutting property tax by $6 billion, the largest reduction in history, and broaden the franchise tax to apply to more companies and raise cigarette taxes by $1 a pack. Critics of the plan say......

A ruling in the S. O. S. lawsuit against the City of Austin (see our post from February) should be announced later today. AMD fully believes that the city will hold its own in this legal feud and hasn't held off on construction of the new facility. Last week we received a mailing from AMD about how wonderful their project in South Austin is going to be for everybody. We admit to tossing it......

In a recent letter released under the Freedom of Information Act, the National Security Agency (NSA) revealed that it is paying two news agencies - Reuters and the Associated Press - for information. Other government agencies purchase news wire services, but no other agency presents the NSA's level of secrecy and defensiveness with such purchases. Is it possible that the NSA is influencing the media and free speech? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF) has......

Texas has filed its first - and probably not its last - lawsuit against a data broker and his companies for marketing consumers' private phone records. The companies in question are USA Skiptrace, AMS Research Services, Inc. and Worldwide Investigations Inc. Apparently, USA Skiptrace charges its customers $125 to get consumers' phone records, which includes the number of calls made and received, duration of calls, and dates and times of calls. Good grief. Feel......

Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates are named Time Magazine's "Persons of the Year" Britney files a $20 milllion lawsuit against US Weekly for some story involving a secret sex tape. Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, the Mafia don who pretended to be insane for ages to avoid imprisonment, is dead. Like, really dead. Austin classic rock radio station KPEZ-FM finds salvation. Rather, Clear Channel decides it's high time for a contemporary Christian channel. A......

-Yesterday the Senate almost unanimously approved John McCain's bill to set official standards for the military's treatment of detainees. The White House countered that this would "limit the president's ability as commander-in-chief to effectively carry out the war on terrorism." We won't bother commenting on that statement. -Spies from the Philippines may have infiltrated the White House! TomKat are expecting, Kate Moss might be arrested on charges of supplying cocaine upon return to Britain,......

Rejoice, Austinites! One of our most esteemed local entertainment staples has returned after ... a period of time when they were gone. Those wild ‘n crazy guys of the Sinus Show are bringing back their lawsuit-worthy antics (apparently it’s all legal now) this Friday. Join them as they skewer the 1984 relic Red Dawn, starring mega hunks Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen. According to IMDb, this movie is about a group of Midwestern high......

Austin’s hero Lance Armstrong is once again being accused of using steroids. This time, his former assistant is the accuser. Mike Anderson and the six-time Tour de France winner were already involved in a lawsuit which was filed by Armstrong this past December. The suit involved disputes over Anderson’s termination and Armstrong’s alleged promise to help his assistant start a bike shop. Anderson’s now saying when he was cleaning Armstrong’s bathroom almost a year ago......