Poor Mojo's Newswire

Luis Rodriguez, an immigrant from Ecuador who owns the Los Amigos Grocery, said he was arrested two months ago and jailed for five days after a woman pointed out to police that his 3-year-old son was unsupervised on the sidewalk outside the store. He said police were out for revenge because his wife had been videotaping them. He was charged with child neglect; the case is still pending. Meanwhile, his store is up for sale. Ecuadoreans used to travel from as far as Massachusetts for jalapenos, Ecuadorean sodas and other specialty products. But Rodriguez said police have scared customers away by threatening to alert immigration authorities if they ever saw them in town again. "If I had known the police in East Haven are so much trouble I never would have invested so much money here," said Rodriguez, 41, who has put more than $120,000 into the store. The Justice Department's civil rights branch began investigating the police force in September 2009. It is still looking into alleged discriminatory policing, but it identified preliminary concerns in April over issues including outdated policies and a lack of clear guidance on the use of force. The town's mayor, April Capone, revealed this month that the FBI was gathering evidence for potential criminal prosecutions of some of the officers. Her office declined to comment.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has his own way of getting in the Christmas spirit: he has inmates perform Christmas carols for him "American Idol"-style and serving them a "full turkey dinner with all the real trimmings" as opposed to the usual gruel, which the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office says "vaguely resembles an average Christmas meal" and costs 14 cents. A press release from Arpaio's office says the man who describes himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff" would be holding a caroling contest for pre-trial inmates in "a move likely to make Ebenezer Scrooge smile." The contest was held on Tuesday and included about 50 inmates "held on charges ranging from burglary and DUI to murder." They were judged by Arpaio, Santa Claus, and Elfis, the singing detention officer, who performed "I'll have a blue Christmas without you." The winner and his or her cellmates would be served meals with "real full off-the-bone turkey, real mashed potatoes, and Christmas cookies - a treat not usually served in Sheriff Arpaio's tough but humane jail system." The top three inmate winners were given a "Christmas stocking full of canteen goodies" that the Sheriff asked them to donate to the charity of their choice.

Hackers are increasingly hitting the Web sites of human rights and independent media groups in an attempt to silence them, says a new study released this week by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Based on a survey of 45 groups, the report "Distributed Denial of Service Attacks Against Independent Media and Human Rights Sites" found that a large percentage said they've been targeted by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks from those who disagree with their viewpoints. The Web sites typically have been knocked offline for short periods of time but in some cases have been down for days. Overall, the survey uncovered reports of 329 attacks against more than 815 Web sites going back to 1998. But more recently, in the 12 months from September 2009 to August 2010, the center received reports of 140 attacks against more than 280 sites. That number likely represents only a small subset of all DDoS attacks, according to the center, since most attacks aren't reported in the media.

Dear TIME Magazine, what's the point of asking for votes, if you're going to go ahead and choose an unpopular choice? It's a simply juvenile defense to say, "TIME's editors who choose the actual Person of the Year reserve the right to disagree." And it's no use blaming the 4chan.org /b/tard Anonymous army for stuffing the votes. If you really thought that was the case, you should have disqualified Assange, rather than meekly naming him as runner up, alongside The Tea Party (a political movement that, by the way, is turning the U.S. into an international laughing stock). And why Zuckerberg in 2010? It's hardly a move demonstrating insight or foresight. Last year, or 2008, perhaps. But really, was 2010 the year of Facebook? Of course not: it was just riding the inevitable momentum built up in earlier years.