MUSTA BEEN SOCIETIES FAULT
click on photo
But Lieberman has emphasised his Jewishness, has he not?
15022. CalGal - 10/2/2000 1:32:03 PM
By American standards of behavior, he is extremely Jewish. He's about as far out on the end of the spectrum as could be acceptable in politics.
15023. Raskolnikov - 10/2/2000 1:38:04 PM
Cal: my point is that it is very common for a person to identify with a specific religion, even if they deviate from that religion's official teachings on significant issues, or don't devoutly follow all tenets of the religion. We rarely point this out when it is in regard to religions with which we are very familiar, so why is it suddenly an issue when the guy in question claims to be an Orthodox Jew?
I have this image of a Rabbi questioning whether JJ is really a Christian if he missed Church once last month, didn't drink communion wine because he is a teetotaler (no idea if JJ is - this is just a hypthetical) and didn't tithe.
15024. CalGal - 10/2/2000 1:41:45 PM
Rask,
I wasn't rebutting you; I was agreeing with you.
15025. Raskolnikov - 10/2/2000 1:49:02 PM
I was partially responding to your comment about "cultural Catholics". I think it is more than just culture, which implies a secularization. One can still be, religiously, a Catholic, and use birth control pills. It just isn't a enough of a tenet of the faith to exclude someone based on that particular deviation.
15026. CalGal - 10/2/2000 1:58:09 PM
I don't know that "cultural" means "secularization", although maybe it does. I think many people believe in God, vaguely and non-specifically, but go to a particular church because it makes them feel comfortable. They follow the outline but not the reality.
Since the Protestant faith has so few guidelines that anyone agrees on, most politicians can get away with any behavior provided they just vaguely talk about their belief in God. If they get specific--no matter the reason--I think they are generally called on it if their behavior doesn't match their beliefs.
It just doesn't happen very often, since most RR advocates aren't in office.
15027. bubbaette - 10/2/2000 2:23:33 PM
I'm a whiskytarian.
15028. PsychProf - 10/2/2000 2:27:11 PM
MUSTA BEEN SOCIETIES FAULT
click on photo
15029. CalGal - 10/2/2000 2:58:01 PM
Hmm. My last post seems to have been lost.
That is just disgusting, to sue the parents. Barring specific and detailed knowledge of their child's intent, they weren't responsible. So why waste time with this?
15030. bubbaette - 10/2/2000 3:11:27 PM
An outlet for grief?
15031. bubbaette - 10/2/2000 3:12:00 PM
As in "I'm hurting, someone must be to blame."
15032. CalGal - 10/2/2000 3:13:55 PM
Sure, but when a judge takes it seriously, it goes beyond that.
15033. PsychProf - 10/2/2000 3:16:30 PM
Cal...a loaded gun in the bedroom would clue me in on the subject of intent...I would at least conclude that some thing was gonna be shot at, and I would also ask what that was...aside from the legalities of illegally owning a machinegun-like firearm.
15034. JJBiener - 10/2/2000 3:39:39 PM
Pelle - But Lieberman has emphasised his Jewishness, has he not?
I didn't say he wasn't Jewish. I said he wasn't Orthodox. In Judaism, the designations (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform) are based on how one practices his religion. Orthodox Jews keep kosher, follow strict rules on how they observe the Sabbath, etc. If one does not do these things, he isn't really Orthodox.
I am a Reform Jew and just barely that. I am not being critical of Lieberman for how he practices, I just questioning the people who claim he is Orthodox. Being Orthodox is not compatible with a life in public office. There are too many restrictions on behavior.
15035. JJBiener - 10/2/2000 3:44:37 PM
Rask - I have this image of a Rabbi questioning whether JJ is really a Christian if he missed Church once last month, didn't drink communion wine because he is a teetotaler (no idea if JJ is - this is just a hypthetical) and didn't tithe.
He would be right to question since I am not a Christian. Suppose someone claimed to be Amish and he had an apartment, car, stereo, and he worked for a internet company. You would be a little skeptical, wouldn't you?
15036. Wombat - 10/2/2000 3:44:51 PM
JJ:
Isn't Lieberman a "modern" orthodox? They can and do eschew yarmulkes, and allow themselves a slightly more interpretation of what you can or cannot do on the Sabbath. As a reasonably observant Reform type, I am in no position to criticize.
15037. Wombat - 10/2/2000 3:45:53 PM
"a slightly looser interpretation..."
15038. CalGal - 10/2/2000 4:02:12 PM
PP,
As I recall, they didn't find a loaded shotgun. But that wouldn't make them more than mildly negligent at best.
15039. JJBiener - 10/2/2000 4:07:15 PM
Wombat - How would a "modern" Orthodox Jew then differ from a Conservative Jew?
15040. Wombat - 10/2/2000 4:10:43 PM
JJ:
I really don't know. Do Conservatives (Jews, of course) keep the genders separate? Do they have lady rabbis? Do Conservatives keep kosher? Observe the Sabbath?
15041. Raskolnikov - 10/2/2000 4:16:24 PM
"I didn't say he wasn't Jewish. I said he wasn't Orthodox. In Judaism,
the designations (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform) are based on how
one practices his religion. Orthodox Jews keep kosher, follow strict
rules on how they observe the Sabbath, etc. If one does not do these
things, he isn't really Orthodox. "
There is no latitude given? If you don't wear a beanie, or can't always keep kosher, you get disowned by your synogogue?
"He would be right to question since I am not a Christian."
Now why was I sure you were?
"Suppose someone claimed to be Amish and he had an apartment, car, stereo, and he worked for a internet company. You would be a little skeptical, wouldn't you?"
I grew up near an Amish community. How about if they all claim to be Amish, but have no problem catching a ride in a neighbor's car, or using a neighbor's phone to make a call?
Basically, in almost every religious group I see, save strict cults, there is considerable latitude in the extent to which people adhere to the tenets of the faith without being categorized as apostates, or not "real" members of the faith.
15042. JJBiener - 10/2/2000 4:22:00 PM
Wombat - Do Conservatives (Jews, of course) keep the genders separate?
No
Do they have lady rabbis?
I don't think so. I think that is strictly a Reform schtick.
Do Conservatives keep kosher?
Not strictly. They follow some but not all of the rules.
Observe the Sabbath?
Yes, but again not as strictly.
15043. JJBiener - 10/2/2000 4:33:05 PM
Rask - There is no latitude given? If you don't wear a beanie, or can't always keep kosher, you get disowned by your synogogue?
You misunderstand. Judaism does not have sects like Chrsitianity does. Designations are based on how strictly you follow the tenets of the religion.
Now why was I sure you were [Christian]?
I don't know. You are frequently mistaken. This is just one more example.
Basically, in almost every religious group I see, save strict cults, there is considerable latitude in the extent to which people adhere to the tenets of the faith without being categorized as apostates, or not "real" members of the faith.
There is tremendous lattitude in how Jews practice their faiths. The designation exist to identify where an individual (or a congregation)falls within that spectrum. If a person doesn't keep kosher, doesn't attend services, etc., they don't occupy that part of the spectrum designated as Orthodox. He would fall into the Conservative or Reform areas.
If a politician favors higher taxes, more government regulation, Federal power over the states, expanded welfare programs, etc., you wouldn't consider him conservative no matter what he claims to be.
15044. Raskolnikov - 10/2/2000 4:44:20 PM
"I don't know. You are frequently mistaken. This is just one more
example."
Nah, it is because I always confuse you with Boomerjeff.
"If a politician favors higher taxes, more government regulation, Federal power over the states, expanded welfare programs, etc., you wouldn't consider him conservative no matter what he claims to be."
We aren't talking about ideology here, but behavior. What if a person usually keeps kosher, and observes Sabbath practices *most* of the time (as I understand Lieberman tries to do)?
I really don't know enough about Judaism to argue this point any further, but it seems you are drawing a very fine line around something that Orthodox Jews don't even seem to be doing. Given your tendentious nature toward any Democrat, my skepticism of your take is sensible.
15045. Wombat - 10/2/2000 4:47:14 PM
JJ:
I would imagine, then, that modern orthodox separate the sexes at services, keep kosher more strictly, and observe the sabbath (more strictly).
15046. JJBiener - 10/2/2000 5:04:02 PM
Rask - I am sorry if you got the impression that I was being overly critical of Lieberman. That is not my intention. I was just curious as to why no one mentioned the disparity between his actions and his Orthodox beliefs. With the media and other politicians eager to cry hypocrisy at the drop of a hat, I was curious as to why nothing has ever been mentioned.
Wombat's suggestion is probably correct. Lieberman is probably somewhere between Orthodox and Conservative.
15047. JJBiener - 10/2/2000 5:06:29 PM
Wombat - As I mentioned in my post to Rask, I think you are probably right. I've just never heard of Modern Orthodox. This isn't surprising since I just come in just under the wire on the extreme Reform side of things. Other members of my family are far more religious that I.
15048. Raskolnikov - 10/2/2000 5:17:52 PM
I did a bit of digging. Evidently half of American Orthodox Jews are "modern", which tries to balance Orthodoxy with the ability to function in society - allowing the yarmulke to be optional outside of church if it interferes with work, allowing limited work on the sabbath if necessary (Lieberman's Rabbi was quoted as seeing no problem with him taking the oath of office on the Sabbath, for instance).
15049. JJBiener - 10/2/2000 5:27:53 PM
Rask - Thanks for the info. While I do respect Orthodox Jews for their ability to maintain their beliefs in a world that is openly hostile to them, I think some compromises are necessary to exist effectively in the modern world.
15050. lemwalker - 10/2/2000 7:08:23 PM
First survive, then worry about moral consequences.
15051. Al D - 10/2/2000 8:38:12 PM
J.J
I certainly know you are Jewish, as you have mentioned it several times. I also you were nice enough to answer stamper when he posed the question, "What is a Jew?" The above remarks shows how knee jerk one can be once a poster is pegged, for there is not one word of criticism of Lieberman in your posts, while it is obvious to some you are an anti-democrat/semite.
15052. rubberducky - 10/2/2000 9:09:08 PM
Re: Message # 15033, PsychProf.
Cal...a loaded gun in the bedroom would clue me in on the subject of intent...I would at least conclude that some thing was gonna be shot at, and I would also ask what that was...aside from the legalities of illegally owning a machinegun-like firearm.
this is, pardon me, insane. what you are basically saying is that it's the gun's fault ... if the gun had to be shot at something (which is silly) then why not one of the many target ranges or can of Coke in the back yard with all the other rednecks?
to blame anyone else so entirely misses the point
15053. IrvingSnodgrass - 10/2/2000 10:37:31 PM
I realize I'm weighing in late on this topic, but I just saw it, and as the resident "Mr. Language Person," I wanted to add my two cents...
In Message # 14914, Ace says:
And you forget that people who win Spelling Bees aren't merely "rote memorizers" -- these are the people who know how to spell 95% of all tough words simply by osmosis (from reading) or by an innate, deep understanding of English phonetics; they only have to "rote memorize" the bizarre, obscure words.
He's right. There are something like 12 rules (which I've seen, but can't remember where) which cover something like 99% of all English words. English spelling is not nearly as unpredictable as some people would think.
There are, of course, exceptions which don't follow any rules, but these are rather rare, and often involve borrowed words.
True exceptions in common words (like "weird" or "shoe" or "of") are even rarer, and don't cause many problems for English speakers.
15054. Stumbo - 10/3/2000 12:19:38 AM
Jones, #15006:
The name sounds familiar... I think a fairly long piece by him was posted in the Ed. thread, almost a year ago.
It was complete nonsense, through and through; every paragraph had at least one piece of silliness. One example that I still remember: it can't be the case that U.S. schools are worse than those in other countries, because the percentage of students that graduate and are accepted into college is higher in the U.S. than in those countries!
15055. Wombat - 10/3/2000 8:30:20 AM
JJ:
Perhaps "modern orthodoxy" (oxymoron?) has not made it out to the hinterlands yet. My neighborhood is full of them. The rabbi of such a congregation lives across the street from us. Apparently the sabbath ban on using or operating mechanical devices still exists. Several kids hanging out at his house on the sabbath asked a gentile neighbor if he could move the rabbi's car from the driveway so they could shoot hoops.
Media/Leiberman: I imagine the media is treading lightly on any possible "contradictions" in theory vs. practice lest ignorance be mistaken for antisemitism.
15056. JJBiener - 10/3/2000 12:24:11 PM
Wombat - I imagine the media is treading lightly on any possible "contradictions" in theory vs. practice lest ignorance be mistaken for antisemitism.
Good point. That is not something I considered. I think you're right.
15057. JRoth - 10/3/2000 1:15:50 PM
Wombat,
Are you the local shabbes goy? I've met a fair number of modern orthodox in NYC. As a group they are much more interested in defining how they ARE NOT like the Hasidim than they are in explaining differences with conservatives. I agree that Lieberman is on the spectrum between MO and C. BTW, yesterday's Jerusalem Post carried an article quoting Orthodox rabbis who are upset at Lieberman's pronouncements on Halakha; specifically his squirming around the issue of intermarriage.
15058. PsychProf - 10/3/2000 1:18:53 PM
RubberDummy...insane is a legal term only...I guess you meant I was crazy. Perhaps. In any case, I have no idea what your post is about, and from the tenor of it I don't care to. My intent was to emphasize that parents should be aware of their children's activities, and hence we as a society will have to determine what further responsibilites are theirs to assume. The link was presented in consideration thereof. I suggest now that you proceed to have carnal knowledge of yourself.
15059. JJBiener - 10/3/2000 1:21:45 PM
JRoth - I don't envy the tightrope Lieberman has to navigate. It will be interesting to see if politics or religion win out, or if he is really able to balance the two successfully. Recent reports seem to indicate he isn't doing very well.
15060. rubberducky - 10/3/2000 1:25:23 PM
PP:
oh, i get carnel with others than just myself, thanks though
P.S. if i want to call you crazy i will - i didn't in case, fwiw.
15061. Wombat - 10/3/2000 1:47:44 PM
JRoth:
Not being goyishe, no. I agree with your take on modern orthodox vs. Hasidim, rather than Conservative.
As an American, I--and Senator Leiberman--would discount rabbinical pronouncments from Israel. The last time they got involved was in the debate on "who is a Jew" legislation, which if it had passed, would have devastated Israeli fundraising in the US.
Leiberman does have a tricky dance around intermarriage. My--reform--temple does welcome interfaith couples, which is one of the reasons we joined it. Even there, there are some tensions.
15062. msgreer - 10/4/2000 2:28:04 PM
800-973-2211. Curious? Go to Health Thread.
15063. greystoke - 10/5/2000 11:50:26 AM
Study critical of parental discipline.
The nationwide survey, released Wednesday, found that 61 percent of the parents condone spanking as a regular form of punishment for young children despite research indicating corporal punishment can be harmful.
Fifty-seven percent of the parents said even a 6-month-old child can be spoiled, a belief the survey coordinators said is incorrect.
"If you don't pick up a baby when he is crying, you can build up his levels of stress and distress," said Kyle Pruett, professor of psychiatry at Yale University's Child Study Center. "Responding to your child's needs is not spoiling."
...
However, he was concerned about findings that suggested many parents had unrealistic expectations of behavior -- for example, expecting that a child of 15 months should be able to share toys.
"We're potentially raising overly aggressive children who react to situations with intimidation and bullying, instead of cooperation and understanding; children who won't be able to tolerate frustration, wait their turn or respect the needs of others," Pruett said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone should kick this Pruett guy's ass.
15064. greystoke - 10/5/2000 12:08:02 PM
FBI seeks couple involved in lingerie party rape scam.
According to police, Todd is suspected of approaching women, usually in their late teens or early 20s, on the 16th Street Mall or other locations. She allegedly introduced herself as a representative of Victoria's Secret and asked the young women to attend a party where they could try on and buy lingerie.
The suspect would take the victims' phone numbers, then call a few days later and arrange to pick them up. The three sexual assault victims were taken to a location in Aurora, where they were raped at gunpoint by a masked man.
15065. Ronski - 10/5/2000 4:08:03 PM
15066. EricCartman - 10/6/2000 12:53:10 AM
Football spreads are officially up in the Sports Thread! Get 'em while they're hot....and somebody volunteer to take over for a while, 'cause I'm outta here for a while.
Buenos nachos, cabróns.
15067. JudithAtHome - 10/6/2000 9:58:21 AM
I heard from my friend in Athens that another ferry went down 3 days after the one that made the news; 27 Americans on board the second one and all were saved but one man died from a heart attack after.
He said the first ferry had been red flagged 8 days before. He's told me before how corrupt the government is over there and that brides of officials are the only way to do business. He said the life boats couldn't be launched due to corrosion and many coats of paint on the devices that launch the boats and many life jackets were waterlogged and no good. Also, these ferries travel to numerous small outer islands and the only rescue people are fisherman...it's the equivilent of sending a village volunteer fire department to contain those huge fires out west.
15068. CalGal - 10/6/2000 12:21:18 PM
The wives are holding things up? But it's such a macho country.
15069. robertjayb - 10/6/2000 10:27:41 PM
.
The war on drugs keeps rolling along...
LEBANON, Tenn. (AP) -- A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house.
Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door.
The two officers, 25-year-old Kyle Shedran and 24-year-old Greg Day, were placed on administrative leave with pay.
''They need to get rid of those men, boys with toys,'' said Adams' 70-year-old widow, Loraine.
15070. robertjayb - 10/7/2000 6:37:51 PM
.
Hold the pickles for me, please...
"KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A woman who claims she was permanently scarred after a hot pickle from a McDonald's hamburger fell on her chin is suing the restaurant for more than $100,000.
"Veronica M. Martin claims in a lawsuit filed in Knox County Circuit Court that the burn also caused her physical and mental pain. She is seeking $110,000. Her husband, Darrin Martin, is seeking $15,000, because he ''has been deprived of the services and consortium of his wife.''
"The hamburger ''was in a defective condition or unreasonably dangerous to the general consumer and in particular to (Veronica Martin),'' according to the two-page lawsuit, which was reported in The Knoxville News-Sentinel on Saturday."
15071. Greystoke - 10/8/2000 9:43:46 AM
Red light running revisited.
Law enforcement agencies say cameras are a useful weapon and have reduced red-light violations in cities such as Beverly Hills, Oxnard and San Francisco by at least 40%.
"I expect we will see similar numbers, but I would like to break all the records," said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick. "Photo enforcement is another tool that has proven to be extremely effective in reducing accidents, and I have no doubt it will do the same here."
...
Over the past five years, there have been nearly 12,000 red-light accidents in Los Angeles, police said, resulting in 73 deaths.
More than half of Americans surveyed by the Federal Highway Administration admit to running red lights. And 96% of those polled worry they will get hit by someone driving through a red light.
Mounted on a pole and marked by a sign, a camera is triggered only when a motorist enters an intersection against a red light. Those who enter during a yellow light or exit on a red don't activate the camera.
The cameras are programmed to shoot at least two pictures, which are analyzed by a Lockheed technician before being referred to police. No citation is mailed unless the pictures clearly show the driver's face and front license plate. Between 30% and 40% of offenders escape citation because of unusable photos.
...
Currently, cameras are used in only 10 states.
The state with the worst record of fatal red-light collisions is Arizona, according to an insurance institute study, with Phoenix, Mesa and Tucson ranking among the four worst cities in the country. Los Angeles ranks 14th.
California is viewed as a leader in photo enforcement, with 10 of the nation's 50 participating cities.
15072. Greystoke - 10/8/2000 9:45:16 AM
City officials are supportive. The cameras will cost the city virtually nothing because Lockheed will pay for installation and maintenance. The company will receive about one-third of each $271 ticket for a red-light offense, according to its contract. Its share of the ticket revenue may bring the city more than $5 million during the first year of operation, said the LAPD's Gambill.
...
Citations have also been challenged in court. A San Diego judge threw out a red-light citation in April, noting that the speed evidence documented by the camera was inadmissible under the state's speed-trap law. City attorneys argued that the law didn't apply because the ticket was issued for running a red light, not for speeding. The case was never appealed.
15073. Greystoke - 10/8/2000 9:55:11 AM
Kids use school computers to make counterfeit money; use it to buy cafeteria food.
As many as 10 teenagers in the Antelope Valley are under investigation over counterfeit money allegedly made with their home computers and used to buy food in their middle school cafeteria, authorities said.
The bills, mostly of low denominations, appeared real enough to fool lunch room employees at the Joe Walker Middle School in Quartz Hill. They were discovered only when a cashier was counting the money late last week.
...
Brian Nagel, assistant special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Southern California bureau, said the agency never comments on cases involving minor suspects. The Secret Service is the federal law enforcement agency responsible for investigating counterfeiting.
Nagel said counterfeiting has risen sharply in recent years as more and more technologically savvy people use their home computers, scanners and color printers to make money. Usually, however, it is far inferior to phony bills made with offset printers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"real enough to fool lunch room employees", huh? Wow, high quality stuff.
I'm thinking that this may be a call for help from starving children.
15074. Greystoke - 10/8/2000 11:00:37 AM
Link to robertjayb's article about the drug raid.
John Adams was watching television when his wife heard pounding on the door. Police say they identified themselves and wore police jackets. Loraine Adams said she had no indication the men were police.
"I thought it was a home invasion. I said, `Baby, get your gun!"' she said, sitting amid friends and relatives gathered at her home to cook and prepare for Sunday's funeral.
Police say her husband fired first with a sawed-off shotgun and they responded. He was shot at least three times and died later at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.
Loraine Adams said she was handcuffed and thrown to her knees in another room.
...
"We did the best surveillance we could do, and a mistake was made," Lebanon Police Chief Billy Weeks said. "It's a very severe mistake, a costly mistake. It makes us look at our own policies and procedures to make sure this never occurs again." He said, however, the two police were not at fault.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating. NAACP officials said they are monitoring the case. Adams was black. The two police officers are white.
15075. Greystoke - 10/8/2000 11:04:15 AM
Yes, of course, Chief Weeks. An innocent man is dead, shot in his own home. But its not anyone's fault. Its just an accident.
15076. Greystoke - 10/8/2000 6:04:56 PM
Researcher wants to infect cats, then study them.
A researcher's plan to infect 120 cats with the feline version of HIV and then inject them with methamphetamine to study the effects has outraged animal rights activists and is raising questions about the need for the federally funded study.
Ohio State University professor Michael Podell received a $355,000 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, for the first year of what he expects to be a five-year study costing $1.68 million.
``We want to understand more about HIV and drug abuse in people,'' said Podell, associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences. ``One of the ways to do that is to develop an animal model that has similar characteristics.''
...
Feline immunodeficiency virus and human immunodeficiency virus have similar effects on the immune and neurological systems of their respective hosts, he said. Cats also respond to methamphetamine similar to the way people do. When injected, methamphetamine is a stimulant that can cause a feeling of euphoria and hyperactivity. It's also known to cause such long-term effects as paranoia, hallucinations and strokes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an outrage!
For $1.68 million Podell should be able to infect a lot more than 120 cats.
15077. Jonesatlaw - 10/8/2000 6:31:40 PM
15074 is a good example of why people who don't use drugs should be concerned about the 'drug war.' It is also something that people who plan on using guns for home defense should take a good look at as well.
15078. robertjayb - 10/8/2000 6:42:33 PM
.
Too true, Jonesatlaw. An armed citizen confronting a criminal intruder may bring about a standoff or the bad guy may flee. An armed citizen confronting a cop intruder will almost certainly be killed.
15079. dusty - 10/8/2000 6:50:47 PM
Suppose we accept, arguendo, that an armed civilian confronting an armed cop is more likely to get killed than successfully defend him or herself.
Question: should the response be to encourage citizens to disarm, or take steps to reduce the number of times that armed cops barge into the wrong house?
15080. CalGal - 10/8/2000 6:58:27 PM
I think both should be taken into consideration. An armed citizen responding to an intruder should always take into consideration the possibility that it's the cops. This means that they shouldn't necessarily come out with their guns blazing, because the cops will probably win that battle.
At the same time, the city should pay a huge tab for shooting a citizen due to their mistake--whether the citizen was armed or not being irrelevant--and that will hopefully reduce their errors.
15081. Greystoke - 10/8/2000 8:48:36 PM
Suppose that the following had occurred:
1. the cops burst into the right house
2. the drug dealer didn't realize they were cops
3. he was killed defending his home
4. the cops found a pound of marijuana in his closet
Would that be a good outcome? Should the cops go out and celebrate their victorious battle in the War on Drugs? Is the execution of a drug dealer and the destruction of his home something that law abiding citizens should give a second thought?
15082. CalGal - 10/8/2000 9:01:58 PM
Did the cops get a warrant to burst into someone's house for only a pound of marijuana? If so, then that's just how it works. I would rather they not be given a warrant to do so--in fact, I'd certainly rather they not be given a warrant to bust in at all, but that's a different issue.
If, otoh, they got the warrant based on saying there'd be a zillion pounds of coke in the house and could not reasonably prove that there had ever been such drugs in that house, then it would count the same as barging into an innocent person's house.
But I think anyone should give thought to the fact that the intruders might be cops.
15083. Al D - 10/8/2000 11:04:04 PM
The ultimate fault is the so called War on Drugs. I guess the perfect defense for the policemen would be "We were just following orders."
15084. robertjayb - 10/9/2000 12:19:38 AM
.
Here's a program about the War on Some Drugs...tomorrow night...
Frontline (9 p.m., PBS, check local times) presents "Drug Wars," Lowell Bergman's two-part report on the government's failure to stem the flow of illegal narcotics into the U.S. Concludes Tuesday.
15085. robertjayb - 10/10/2000 12:50:33 AM
.
U.S. Companies Tangled in Web of Drug Dollars...
What are we going to do?" asked Greg Passic, a former drug enforcement agent who now advises the government on the economics of the narcotics industry. "We've got the Fortune 500 involved in our drug- money laundering process."
15086. vonKreedon - 10/10/2000 1:00:20 AM
The botched drug raid is another example of why a gun in your house is most dangerous to you and your family. If there had been no sawed-off (!?!) shotgun in the house the Adams' would now be working on a lawsuit rather than a funeral AND a lawsuit.
But hey! Vote Freedom First!
15087. greystoke - 10/10/2000 7:35:54 AM
vonKreedon
Sure, the guy would probably be alive if he didn't have a shotgun. (I say probably because the cops have been known to shoot unarmed residents during drug raids.)
However, he would also be alive if the police had not broken into the wrong house. And he would be alive if there was no War on Drugs which resulted in jack booted thugs busting down doors.
The man's gun served the valid purpose of defending his home from criminals. And, of course, the gun could potentially be used to help overthrow an tyrannical govenment, as our Founding Fathers intended.
Saying that gun ownership caused his death is like saying that the concept of freedom of speech caused the deaths in Tienamin Square. Citizens should not have to give up their rights and freedoms to avoid being executed by an oppressive government.
15088. PsychProf - 10/10/2000 7:43:23 AM
Von...ya better reread your own post. Greystoke is correct IMO...your totured logic attacks the BOR headon...you and my mom...she always useta say people should just keep their mouth shut and then we'd all be OK. I'm no gun fan, but the BOR is a personal favorite.
15089. rubberducky - 10/10/2000 10:59:18 AM
Amazon Yanomami Tribe to Take on Cybersquatters
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, a chief of a primitive Amazon tribe that inhabits virgin rain forest around the Brazil-Venezuela border, has been losing sleep lately.
News that a Florida woman -- lured by the prospect of a Hollywood movie on the tribe -- had nabbed the Yanomami name for the World Wide Web address http://www.yanomami.com and was auctioning it for $25,000 left Kopenawa stewing.
this "Cybersquatting" B.S. is getting more and more ridiculous.
15090. greystoke - 10/10/2000 11:45:30 AM
Spokane marching band will no longer play Custer song.
A high school marching band's rendition of "The Death of Custer" may be axed after drawing criticism from an American Indian student.
School district leaders planned to decide today whether the Lewis and Clark High School Marching Band will be allowed to perform the halftime show again.
The music for "The Death of Custer" was written in 1905 and depicts The Battle of the Little Bighorn of 1876. The band used it as a centerpiece for a halftime extravaganza that includes Custer dying of an arrow wound and American Indians performing a war dance afterward.
Vickie Countryman, director of equity for Spokane School District 81, said the district received just the one complaint, but that is enough.
...
The show's last stand may have been a band competition in Pasco last weekend, which Lewis and Clark won, band director Larry Jay said. The band hoped to perform it again at a football game on Friday and at the Pacific Northwest Marching Band Championship in Spokane next Saturday.
15091. greystoke - 10/10/2000 11:51:54 AM
Washington woman will be sentenced for plot to kill her husband.
King County prosecutors will ask that Teresa Rose, 46, be sentenced to five years in prison for murder conspiracy.
Her plea of no contest was the latest chapter -- though not the last -- in a stranger-than-fiction case that left a young woman dead and four people behind bars.
...
Police say they stumbled onto the plot earlier that month, when the body of Teresa Rose's 15-year-old daughter, Sarah Starling, was found near Kirkland.
Their investigation revealed that Starling had been helping her mother and Jason McDaniels, a young man the girl had dated, to concoct a plan to kill Starling's stepfather, according to court papers.
Rose told police her 58-year-old husband was verbally abusive to her and Starling, and Starling's friends said the pair would talk about getting rid of him and using insurance money to move back to Hawaii.
Prosecutors say Rose offered to give McDaniels $10,000, two plane tickets to Hawaii and her husband's new sport-utility vehicle to complete the job.
Jerry Rose was not hurt, despite what police say was a botched attempt to strangle him when he came home from work one night in February 1999.
But less than a month later, adding to the mystery surrounding the case, Starling's body was found in Kingsgate Park. She had been badly beaten and stabbed.
Prosecutors say she died at the hands of McDaniels, now 21, and a third friend, Thomas Mullin-Coston, now 20. Both men are in the King County Jail awaiting trial: Mullin-Coston on a first-degree murder charge; McDaniels on charges of murder and murder conspiracy.
15092. greystoke - 10/10/2000 12:01:46 PM
Colorado bar shut down for printing lewd t-shirts.
The Where It's At bar in Rangely will be shut down for five days beginning Wednesday as a penalty for printing up T-shirts that show two cartoon aliens engaged in oral sex.
The Rangely Board of Trustees, acting as the local liquor authority, last week ordered the closure because the T-shirts violate a part of the liquor code that prohibits the depiction of sex acts in materials that advertise or decorate a bar.
Where It's At owner Mark Archuleta argues that town authorities have been unfair in giving him a penalty harsher than that often meted out for serving liquor to minors. Archuleta said he believes it was because the trustees feel he embarrassed the town by depicting a female alien with a beer on her head and her face in the crotch of a male alien, along with the message: "This is really where it's at. Rangely, Co."
...
Town officials have refused to comment. Archuleta showed up at last week's hearing with a stack of T-shirts from other Colorado liquor establishments that he said "made mine look like a nursery rhyme." Most of the trustees refused to even look at the shirts, he said.
15093. JRoth - 10/10/2000 9:39:18 PM
Why should an Indian student object to the Custer piece? Didn't the Indians kick Custer's ass?
15094. Greystoke - 10/10/2000 10:00:23 PM
Sperm smuggling at PA prison.
Two former guards at a federal prison accepted thousands of dollars from inmates to smuggle contraband and sperm used to impregnate the inmates' girlfriends, prosecutors say.
...
Kemmerer, 33, allegedly accepted $5,000 on Oct. 5 from an undercover agent posing as an inmate's girlfriend. The agent asked that sperm be smuggled out of the Allenwood prison in a cryogenic sperm kit.
...
Swineford is accused of being ``very close'' to incarcerated organized crime figures at the prison in White Deer. Among the contraband he allegedly allowed in last year was a package containing a sperm kit.
Investigators said sperm-filled vials were taken from the prison and delivered ``on several occasions'' to the Park Avenue Fertility Laboratory in New York City.
The New York Post, citing anonymous law-enforcement sources, reported Sunday that as many as five New York mobsters fathered children in federal prison.
The paper reported that authorities began investigating two years ago after Kevin Granato, a convicted Colombo family hit man, was seen in the Allenwood visitation room showing off a toddler he called ``my son.'' The incident raised eyebrows because he had been in jail since 1988.
15095. Al D - 10/10/2000 10:56:04 PM
To depict the slaying of Custer with one arrow is quite an understatement. Perhaps more in keeping with todays mode, they could show one of the Indians cutting out the heart of one of the dead soldiers and eating it. Or of the Indian women disemboweling the army officeers. I would think the Native Americans would get a kick out of that.
15096. Al D - 10/10/2000 11:07:59 PM
From an arcicle by Brent Bozell
This was not the story line the national media pressed after the debate, of course. Washington Post reporter Dan Balz began his front page article on Thursday by announcing the debate was "Devoid of memorable moments or crippling mistakes..." Deep inside the paper, on page A18, was the Post's first mention of the fairy tale about James Lee Witt.
The New York Times selected A26 to bury the story. USA Today put it on A15, and implied that Republicans picking on the Witt fib was a personal attack. The furor that ultimately followed does not prove that the media love to pick on Al Gore, as hardcore Gore partisans in
the press like Time's Margaret Carlson suggest. It proved something quite different - that liberal media spin does not always win the day, especially when millions of Americans have seen the politician's spiel for themselves. Instead, the furor and sudden plunge in Gore's polls proved that alternative media outlets, from talk radio to the Internet to newspaper columnists to Republican researchers, have a power all their own to overcome the spin the liberal media prefer.
The important point here is how little control the major media has over information, not always the case in the past.
15097. greystoke - 10/11/2000 11:47:08 AM
Elderly couple chooses death over a nursing home.
Just the possibility of being placed in a nursing home may have been enough to trigger the murder-suicide of an elderly couple who shared a love affair of more than 50 years.
Facing the slow, painful loss of their independence apparently distressed John Unwin Sr. and his wife, Jean, both 78, who died gruesomely last week while alone at their son's house in a quiet section of rural Douglas County.
...
The two bled to death Oct. 4 after Unwin struck his wife with a hatchet, then stabbed himself with a knife, according to the Douglas County coroner.
...
For more than 35 years, the Unwins shared a large, old home in Pittsfield. Their relationship began when they were kids and she threw a snowball at him, Brady said. They married in 1946.
Unwin Sr. served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and owned a land surveying company. Jean Unwin worked in the cafeteria at the local Sacred Heart Catholic School.
The couple's health began deteriorating more than a decade ago, their son said. Both suffered strokes, had difficulty walking, and Unwin Sr. had the front of his left thigh removed because of cancer, he said.
...
The senior Unwin was crazy about his wife and "tended to her wonderfully," Brady said. "She would call him "Dad' and he called her "Mom.' " For the past four or five years in their home, they slept on the first floor because it was too difficult to go upstairs, Brady said.
"He'd make their lunch and they'd sit and play cards together," she said. "He had her in the living room and he had his chair and they watched John Wayne movies."
But in 1998, John Unwin Sr. was injured in a fall and never fully recovered.
15098. greystoke - 10/11/2000 12:00:02 PM
Missouri fourth graders are strip searched.
It started as grade-school show-and-tell.
It ended in a civil rights violation, alleges the American Civil Liberties Union and some parents in Adrian, Mo.
The allegation stems from the temporary loss Oct. 3 of a World War II medal that a fourth-grader had taken to class at Adrian Elementary School.
...
Principal Wallace Henrickson had the boys in the class file into a rest room one at a time, where the pupils stripped to their underwear in front of Henrickson and a male school coach, the parents told the ACLU.
The girls in the class were patted down by a female teacher, said Dick Kurtenbach, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri.
After all that, the medal was found lying on the classroom floor under a desk.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Principal Hendrickson should be fired.
He didn't even check their body cavities.
15099. JJBiener - 10/11/2000 12:06:19 PM
greystoke - I think Principal Hendrickson should be strip searched to find out where he misplaced his brain. I have a suggestion on which body cavity to search in order to find it.
15100. robertjayb - 10/11/2000 3:00:33 PM
DALLAS (AP) - A Republican candidate for county constable is accused of campaigning under a false name to woo Hispanic voters.
After years of trying to get elected as Thomas Wesson, the Dallas man now is campaigning as Tomas Eduardo Wesson.
In January, Wesson filed his candidacy papers for Dallas County constable in Precinct 6 using the traditionally Hispanic names.
Dallas County officials say Wesson has not legally changed his name.
Wesson confirmed recently that he is not of Hispanic heritage.
15101. janjon - 10/11/2000 3:46:49 PM
robt. A slightly longer version of that story was in today's Times.
Weston is quoted as being just very surprised why anyone would question this, because "Tomas Eduardo" is his name.
Well, at least he is alive, which is more than some winning candidates are.
15102. robertjayb - 10/11/2000 6:24:12 PM
.
Fast Eddie Wins One...
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Former Gov. Edwin Edwards was found innocent Wednesday on corruption charges stemming from the liquidation of a failed insurance company. Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown was found guilty of lying to investigators.
It was Edwards' second trial this year. He was convicted in May on charges of taking payoffs in return for riverboat casino licenses and could go prison. He is awaiting sentencing.
Shreveport lawyer Ronald Weems, the third defendant in the insurance-liquidation case, was found innocent on all charges.
Brown was acquitted on most charges but convicted on seven counts of making false statements to an FBI agent.
Edwards, 73, Brown, 60, and Weems, 54, were accused of creating a sweetheart settlement in 1996 for the owner of a failed insurance company.
15103. Dusty - 10/12/2000 10:32:05 AM
Explosive-Laden Raft Rams U.S. Ship in Yemen
An explosives-laden rubber raft rammed a U.S. guided missile destroyer and exploded in the Yemeni port of Aden on Thursday, killing four U.S. sailors and injuring 31, five seriously, U.S. Navy officials said.
15104. Indiana Jones - 10/12/2000 11:14:56 AM
Wow...CNN is apparently reporting that it may not have been an attack at all.
15105. Dusty - 10/12/2000 1:45:25 PM
Initial accounts suggested the likelihood that the incident was a terrorist attack, but Pentagon and Navy sources said it might have been an accident that occurred as the ship was stopped for refueling.
15106. theDiva - 10/12/2000 3:23:03 PM
15107. theDiva - 10/12/2000 3:23:24 PM
oops, didn't see those.
15108. Indiana Jones - 10/12/2000 3:33:17 PM
War in the Middle East.
Sabotage against American ships.
Dow down 300 points.
And Jack Vincennes called away for a time.
It makes you wonder.
15109. Raskolnikov - 10/12/2000 3:39:33 PM
I think the:
1)Bush is perceived as winning the debate
2)Dow drops 300 points...
connection is worth pondering some more.
15110. PelleNilsson - 10/12/2000 3:42:49 PM
Yes. But JRoth was around earlier today so it's maybe not classified as a major crisis. Yet.
15111. labwabbit - 10/13/2000 12:44:31 PM
Big ol' hole in the USS Cole. How will the US react?
...time to take out another tent in Libya? Wipe out another pharmacy?
15112. LohrM - 10/13/2000 4:18:18 PM
The bombing of Libya put Qaddafi back in his hole for years. If we can find anyone connected to the bombing in a fixed location, send in the B-2s.
15113. ecclesiastes - 10/13/2000 9:41:42 PM
JJBiener and Raskolnikov,
I have heard of Modern Orthodox. There was an essay in the New York Times magazine (or something, the New York something) a few weeks ago that mentioned it in connection with Lieberman.
On the subject of female rabbis: both Reconstructionist and Humanistic Judaism allow them, as well as gay rabbis. Both welcome intermarried couples and their children. Humanistic, an agnostic/atheist branch of Judaism, is a minor movement, but Reconstructionism (which allows explicitly for non-theistic personal interpretations of "God") is much bigger. If one counts Orthodoxy as a single movement, then I think Reconstructionist is probably the fourth largest in America. The other two large ones, already mentioned here, are of course Reform and Conservative.
JJBiener is right that one's level of observance determines what flavor of Jew one is. But there are more than a few flavors. Given the politics of the moment, I, too, wish I knew a bit more about Modern Orthodoxy.
15114. Greystoke - 10/14/2000 10:43:58 AM
Paramedics leave dead body in driveway.
On Oct. 2, Bardsley and his 73-year-old wife, Eileen, were home alone when Bardsley began having chest pains. Shortly before midnight, the family called the local volunteer fire station.
Responding firefighters were joined at the Bardsley home by paramedics from Parkland, just south of Tacoma. They began transporting Bardsley to a hospital in Puyallup, about 50 miles away.
A few minutes into the trip, Bardsley died, and the paramedics decided to return his body to his house until it could be removed by a driver from a funeral home in Chehalis in Lewis County.
They said they didn't want to take Bardsley's body inside because his widow suffers from Alzheimer's disease and appeared confused.
15115. Greystoke - 10/14/2000 10:59:21 AM
70 year old Arkansas woman arrested for building code violations.
Her crime? She had refused to remove burglar bars from her 1870s house, in violation of an ordinance governing the historic district where she lives.
Her arrest has sparked criticism of the city for its handling of the matter and put a spotlight on the historic commission and its policies, which some think are too strict.
...
In addition to the bars, the warrant cites Mrs. Deislinger for installing two vinyl windows, instead of wooden ones, and having a heating and air-conditioning unit visible from the street. The ordinance concentrates only on exterior changes.
She has been ordered to appear in Pulaski County Municipal Court on Wednesday afternoon. If the judge rules against her, Mrs. Deislinger could be fined anywhere from $10 to $500 a day until she makes the changes.
...
The MacArthur Historic District isn't crime free. Two teens robbed a liquor store a block from Mrs. Deislinger's house a few years ago. They were shot by the store owner, and one died on a nearby porch.
Mrs. Deislinger said she has seen unsavory characters wandering through the district, which hugs Interstate 30. She said prostitutes had used the abandoned house for a place to sleep before she bought it.
"I filled up two 28-foot Dumpsters with stuff I got out of that house," Mrs. Deislinger said.
Mrs. Deislinger said the commission should be happy that she improved the house.
"Are they glad I upgraded the property?" she said. "They should be. I'd rather have a house with bars on the window next to me than a bunch of prostitutes living there."
15116. Cellar Door - 10/14/2000 11:01:41 AM
"And Jack Vincennes called away for a time."
Where's Jack?
15117. Greystoke - 10/14/2000 11:05:10 AM
Louisiana school is raffling off a shotgun.
Parents in the combined elementary and middle school's PTO group signed up for the raffle at the same time they approved other school fund-raisers to sell cola and candles.
They figured the raffle for the Remington 870 shotgun would draw plenty of interest from the local male population, as it did last year when a gun was raffled to help pay bills for a Beekman pupil's mother who had cancer.
...
Jaquie Algee, southeast regional director for the Million Mom March group against gun violence, said Beekman principal Roy McCoy told her to back off when she called.
"This is none of your business," Ms. Algee quoted Mr. McCoy as saying. "Keep your nose out of our affairs."
Mr. McCoy said he was quoted accurately
...
Opponents of the Beekman raffle fear there's too much support to stop it. The prize is to be handed out Oct. 27.
"We know we can't stop it, but we're trying to prevent this happening at any other school and from happening at Beekman again," Ms. Miguez said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Much ado about nothing.
15118. Greystoke - 10/14/2000 11:10:48 AM
US Marines arrested for smuggling illegal immigrants.
They were arrested early Thursday morning in their 1995 Ford Mustang in Tijuana's Zona Norte, a gritty neighborhood known for drugs and prostitution, by city police who checked their trunk because the Marines seemed nervous, the Mexican newspaper Frontera reported.
The man and woman found in the trunk told authorities they paid between $2,000 and $2,500 each to be smuggled from Tijuana to San Diego by the Marines, according to Frontera. The newspaper said both immigrants were from Central America.
Police turned them over to Mexican federal authorities, who have jurisdiction over allegations of immigrant smuggling.
15119. Greystoke - 10/14/2000 11:19:42 AM
Couple wants $1.5 million because they viewed nude pictures.
A couple that took film in to a national drug store chain for developing has sued the chain and a leading film processor because they got sexually explicit photos back of people they didn't know instead of pictures of their children.
Tim and Veronica Kelley, who live in eastern El Paso County, are asking Longs Drug and Fujicolor Processing Inc. to pay for an unlimited amount of therapy for their daughter, now 6, who saw the photos, and $1.5 million for emotional distress.
In addition, Kelley, who has launched a one-woman campaign against pornography and sexual exploitation, said she wants the film processing industry to develop a quality-control program that prevents such pictures from reaching other families.
An industry legal specialist said it may be the first case of such a suit based on the claim of emotional distress.
...
"The first picture was a closeup of a man's penis fully erected, and that's all that was in the picture," Veronica Kelley said. "I pulled the next one away and it was a picture of sodomy, and then I dropped them on the ground.
"They're filthy, they're absolutely filthy," Veronica Kelley said.
...
Kelley said she chose to file the lawsuit only after she received what she thought was an unsatisfactory response from Fuji. She said the company sent her a check for $12 to replace the film and offered her a free 8-by-10 enlargement and a free transfer of a photograph onto a coffee mug.
Kelley insists she hasn't filed the suit to "make a quick buck," but said it was the only way to send a "wakeup call" to the film processing industry.
15120. Greystoke - 10/14/2000 11:28:52 AM
Ohio man, declared dead 12 years ago, is shot by his ex-wife.
A man missing for 20 years and declared dead about 12 years ago resurfaced mysteriously at the home of his former wife, who shot him after he walked upstairs and lay on a bed, police said.
Ben Holmes, 48, was in serious condition at a hospital Friday night, authorities said.
...
Police believe the man went to his former wife's house after getting wind of her remarriage two weeks ago. She fired six shots, wounding him at least twice, authorities said.
In 1979, Ben Holmes' ranch-style house in Youngstown was leveled by an explosion, police said. Investigators classified the fire as arson.
The next year, Holmes failed to appear for a court hearing, and a fugitive warrant was issued.
About eight years later, Addie Holmes was involved in having him declared dead, The (Youngstown) Vindicator reported. His whereabouts the past two decades were unknown.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Has anyone heard from OhioSTOPAS lately?
15121. OhioSTOPAS - 10/14/2000 11:40:56 AM
Ha!
I've never been declared legally dead, but that's only because being boring isn't grounds for doing so.
15122. Dusty - 10/14/2000 11:51:34 AM
Well, you break the law (after all, he was declared legally dead) and you pay the price.
15123. arkymalarky - 10/14/2000 12:59:26 PM
Schools I've worked in have raffled off hunting weapons several times and no one's ever batted an eye.
And I hope that dead guy lives so we can find out the story behind that.
15124. Cellar Door - 10/14/2000 1:06:44 PM
He sounds like a Bush supporter to me.
15125. rubberducky - 10/14/2000 10:23:25 PM
"This is none of your business," Ms. Algee quoted Mr. McCoy as saying. "Keep your nose out of our affairs."
sounds right to me
15126. ranheim - 10/15/2000 9:13:44 AM
Do any of you know the reasoning behind Clinton & the federal government seizing through proclamation approximately 4 million acres of land - almost all of it west of the Mississippi - in the past 7 years? A reporter named Michelle Malkin - I had never heard of her before - wrote an editorial in the Baton Rouge Advocate Sunday morning. She claims, that with the 4 million acres Clinton has added, that the US Government now owns roughly 1/3 of the acreage of the USA.
Clinton has been, for the most part, using a 1906 statute called the Antiquities Act. This act allows the president, without the consent of Congress, to set aside acreage and buildings of historic and/or scientfic interest. Some members of the administration have been quoted as saying that they are "preventing urban sprawl" as well.
Among the properties listed by Malkin are :
1.7 million acres in Utah : The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
300,000 acres in the Sequoia National Forest (wasn't that already protected?).
195,000 acres in the state of Washington : Hanford Reach National Monument.
164,000 acres in Colorado : Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.
129,000 acres in Arizona : Ironwood Forest National Monument.
52,000 acres in Oregon : Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
I know the names of some of these places; never been to any of them. I wouldn't characterize this as preventing urban sprawl in these locations. Do any of you live near any of these areas and can explain to me why this land has to be owned by the Government?
15127. OhioSTOPAS - 10/15/2000 10:18:00 AM
Weren't these federal-owned lands before their designation by Clinton as national monuments? I thought the significance of their designation was to remove them from the federal land otherwise available for lease to miners, loggers, etc.
15128. Greystoke - 10/15/2000 10:45:55 AM
Ohio
You are exactly right. All of these lands were already federal land, they simply have more protection from commercial exploitation when designated as National Monuments. Of course it is government bureaucrats who allow such commercial exploitation (Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service), so basically the government is protecting the land from misuse by its own land managers.
All of these new National Monuments have scenic, recreational, and ecological significance. Its not as if the Clinton Administration has been throwing darts at a map and designating what gets stuck.
I believe that Clinton recently became the President who has designated the most National Monument acreage. But his actions are certainly not unprecedented. Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter designated many National Monuments.
ranheim
If Michelle Malkin is claiming that 4 million acres of land have been "seized" by the federal govenment under the Clinton administration, she is lying.
15129. ranheim - 10/15/2000 11:10:54 AM
Ohio & Grey
Thank you.
As one with a definite anti-government bent, I find it somewhat amusing that much of the land set aside as goverment monuments, etc. is in the western 1/2 of the USA.
It is almost as if the powers-that-be said "We have fully developed almost all the land east of the Mississippi PRIVATELY. In order for us and our children to experience nature, we will set this land aside and not permit it to be developed. We will do this under the guise of protecting nature and our 'heritage'."
I would not be surprised if people living in the west had a different interpretation of this approach. How much resistance has there been to these actions that have made this land "untouchable"?
15130. Greystoke - 10/15/2000 11:36:15 AM
ranheim
The reason that the monuments are in the West is because that's where the most federal land is located. The vast majority of federal land in the West has been owned by the government since the Louisiana Purchase, Mexican Cession, Gadsden Purchase, etc. Its not as if the land (for the most part) has been acquired from private owners. (This is in contrast to National Parks and Forests in the East, which were mostly acquired from private owners or at tax sales.)
I don't see where protecting nature and our heritage is a "guise" for anything sinister. Rather, I see it as a valid reason to prevent commercial exploitation. Also, these National Monuments are not "untouchable". Some activities that are harmful to the environment are prohibited, but most recreation is encouraged.
Yes, many in the West are opposed to special designations such as National Monuments. The "Wise Use" movement consists of organizations with this point of view. Most of the groups are funded by commercial interests, with members consisting of ranchers, snowmobilers, ATV riders, loggers, miners, and some hunters.
15131. Greystoke - 10/15/2000 11:53:08 AM
Police seize peyote from Utah church again.
The leader of a self-described American Indian church in Spanish Fork said his church and home were raided last Wednesday by police wielding a search warrant, marking the second time in three months that police in Utah have seized peyote buttons from a high-ranking member of the church.
As many as 15 Utah County sheriff's deputies were part of the afternoon search at the 6-acre Benjamin complex, which is home to the Oklevueha Earth Walks chapter of the Native American Church, according to James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney, the church's leader. Mooney was not arrested, he said.
Mooney said police confiscated a computer and about 12,000 buttons of peyote from a metal vault. That translates into about 33 pounds of peyote, a hallucinogenic cactus plant that is only grown in the United States in Texas and is regarded as sacred by American Indians who use the buttons during their prayer rituals.
[continued]
15132. Greystoke - 10/15/2000 11:57:24 AM
In August, police in Weber County raided the Ogden home of Nick Stark and confiscated $10,000 in cash and 3,500 buttons of peyote. Stark is a self-described medicine man who runs the Ogden chapter of the Oklevueha Church, and says Mooney empowered him to conduct the peyote ceremonies, claiming that Mooney has the authority to do so because he is on the legal peyote purchasing registry in Texas. Stark was charged with possessing peyote with the intent to distribute it, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He is awaiting trial.
Mooney claims Oklevueha has thousands of members, the vast majority of whom are whites with no American Indian ancestry. That has aroused the suspicions of police and prosecutors. Federal Drug Enforcement Administration regulations state that peyote use is legal only in "bona fide" American Indian church ceremonies.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahhhhhhh. So, in this case, someone's ability to practice his religion is based on his racial ancestry. Interesting.
15133. ranheim - 10/15/2000 12:08:11 PM
#15130 Grey
You make it sound very reasonable.
However, I dimly remember reading of Teddie Roosevelt and his man, Gifford Pinchot, in the very last hours of a session of the legislature, pushing through a very large addition to the nation's stock of land. Seems to me that there was a huge outcry then - almost 100 years ago.
Neither Roosevelt nor Clinton felt that they could convince Congress to go along with them. You may not like the word : chicanery; but, both presidents were guilty of devious conduct in the dead of night to get around the wishes of Congress.
My recollection of the TR/Pinchot incident is hazy. But, I recall that their actions were very controversial. Most of what Clinton does is done by lies and deceit.
15134. Greystoke - 10/15/2000 12:12:51 PM
ranheim
Here is an article about Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado.
For Tozer and others, the 164,000-acre monument west of Cortez has become the latest symbol of increasingly stringent federal land-management policies set over the past eight years - an issue on the minds of many Westerners as they prepare to pick a new president next month.
Canyons of the Ancients is rich in ancient puebloan Indian artifacts, relics Tozer calls "just a pile of old rocks" being protected at the expense of his community's rural culture.
...
Tozer's views may be more fervent than most, but they generally are shared by many rural voters bristling over the federal government's management of more than 24 million acres of federal land in Colorado, totaling 37 percent of the state. In addition to monument designations, they're also worried about the future of federal grazing rights, commercial and recreational access to public lands and federal protections of animals, particularly the Canada lynx, the cutthroat trout and the wolverine.
15135. JudithAtHome - 10/15/2000 12:27:25 PM
ranheim:
Your first post on the "seized land" admitted you knew nothing about the subject because you were asking for information on it; now, in 3 posts or less, you have decided Bill Clinton and TR are guilty of lies, deceit, chicanery and trickster behavior in the dead of night...aren't you getting a tad carried away?
15136. Greystoke - 10/15/2000 12:28:30 PM
Man buys his wife a Hyundai Excel as part of his plot to kill her.
The Watkins man sentenced this month to 12 years for soliciting a hit man to kill his wife started planning the act as much as six months earlier by buying her a silver Hyundai Excel, newly released transcripts show.
Real estate agent Tom Mason saw the car as the vehicle for her death, prosecutors said, as tapes of his talks with the "hit man" - really an undercover officer - indicate.
...
The transcripts of conversations in March 1998 show that Tom Mason suggested a wreck staged with a truck loaded with heavy equipment in the industrial stretches of Brighton Boulevard.
"That would be ideal for a truck, in those areas," Mason told Gassman. "And then leave some empty beer cans in it or something."
"Make sure it looks like an accident." Again focused on the tiny car, Mason told the detective he wouldn't be harmed by hitting it with a truck.
"If this thing was ever in a wreck," he said of the sedan, "you ain't gonna feel it, and nobody will survive."
...
The couple divorced shortly after Mason was arrested in March 1998. They reconciled in August 1999 and remarried in April.
Stephanie Mason pleaded with the judge to go easy on her husband, saying he was the sole financial support for the family, including their 12-year-old son, who has Down syndrome.
Prosecutor Diane Balkin told Meyer that Mason wanted his wife, now 43, dead because he was having an affair with another woman and because he needed money.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The two have "reconciled and remarried"? Amazing. I wonder if she is still driving the car. It probably has sentimental value for her.
15137. JudithAtHome - 10/15/2000 12:31:59 PM
I can't believe 2 women would be stupid enough to fall for this bozo.
15138. ranheim - 10/15/2000 12:33:07 PM
#15134 Grey
That was a good article!
It is like every city that has a college or university. There is a "town faction" and a "gown faction".
Voting for Harry Browne may be taking the course in between these factions.
15139. JudithAtHome - 10/15/2000 12:36:05 PM
Over in International, they are betting on a war in the Middle East with Saddam involved....can you rest easy knowing GW Bush may be heading up our country at that time? Hope he brings along his Cliffs Notes to Geographical locations...
15140. Wombat - 10/16/2000 10:48:17 AM
What the ranchers, wood cutters, and miners out West don't complain about are the 19th century rates they get to pay for using Federal land.
15141. Electric Slide - 10/16/2000 10:56:51 AM
...to that old dog, JuDY: Saddam would be foolish to get into another pissing match with America's "Othello," Colin Powell, and chief DOD-winning administrator Dick Chaney.
VOTE BUSH, while you still can.
15142. bubbaette - 10/16/2000 11:00:52 AM
I'm guessin that Rosie got a brand new name.
15143. JudithAtHome - 10/16/2000 11:12:12 AM
New name but same old Rosie.....
Slide:
I think Saddam might have the measure of your man. After all, he was up against Powell before and Saddam is still around....
15144. OhioSTOPAS - 10/16/2000 11:15:58 AM
(Message # 15141): Colin Powell strangled his wife, and I missed it?
15145. bubbaette - 10/16/2000 11:17:40 AM
The bitch was cramping his style.
15146. JudithAtHome - 10/16/2000 11:38:27 AM
Ohio:
Methinks Slidely misplaced his Cliffs Notes.....
15147. Jonesatlaw - 10/16/2000 12:11:16 PM
Land issues in the west are not for tenderfeet from the east. They are extremely complex, but everyone has their simplistic solutions. Large parts of the West have never left federal hands. Most federal lands are under the Bureau of Land Management, or the Forrestry service. Each has a cozy relationship with folks who use federal land for their own profit, ranchers, loggers and miners. The rates they pay for land use come nowhere close to free market value.
The users would defend current policy by pointing out that beef, coal and timber are cheaper for American consumers than they would be without subsidies. Also, through long practice their industries are dependent on these indirect subsidies, and rapid changes would put them at a competative disadvantage. Finally, they argue that they have been good stewards of the land, especially the timber and ranch industry, as they have leases for lengths of time that make it in their best interests to look out for Uncle Sam as they look out for themselves.
The only thing more convoluted and complex is water rights in the west.
15148. Ronski - 10/16/2000 12:22:51 PM
jones,
If interested in the ski industry's take on a land use issue, see post # 45527 in Politics Today.
15149. Electric Slide - 10/16/2000 1:48:21 PM
Advice from a parent of a student at the school
In Boston, a Supreme Court judge ruled that schools do not have the right to expel cross-dressing students. The judge ruled that a school district in the city cannot prevent a 15-year-old male---"who is biologically male but identifies himself as female," in the words of the Boston Globe---from attending school in dresses, wigs and padded bras. To prevent him from doing so violates the 8th grader's right to free eexpression and constituted sex discrimination, according to the judge. One mother of a 14-year-old gave her son permission to beat up the student if he touched him.
15150. glendajean - 10/16/2000 4:46:02 PM
DC residents still have no representation in Congess.
15151. JJBiener - 10/16/2000 5:00:19 PM
Glendajean - Neither do most of the rest of us.
15152. Jonesatlaw - 10/16/2000 5:05:02 PM
Slide- I believe the kid is diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It's a psychological condition that can be viewed as a handicap. But hey, the mom in question probably would tell her kid to beat up other handicapped kids too.
15153. glendajean - 10/16/2000 5:07:38 PM
JJ -- When I moved to DC, I didn't think it would matter that I no longer had a congressman or senator. It does matter alot. When the District was created, they didn't think about what would happen to the citizens that live there, and postphoned making any decisions.
It's a long time oversight. In truth, they should re-draw the District of Columbia to include the Mall, the Capitol, and the White House, and give the rest of the city back to Maryland.
Or at least give citizens of the District a voting representative in the Congress.
15154. Jonesatlaw - 10/16/2000 5:11:17 PM
DC won't get the vote as long as it remains "Dark Country" as Richard Pryor approvingly put it. It's seen as a guaranteed democratic block of three electoral votes as well as an increase in demos for the Congress.
15155. glendajean - 10/16/2000 5:38:22 PM
Jones -- DC's white population has increased over the last few years. A good percentage of the black middle class have moved to the suburbs.
It's a beautiful city and people not worried about the schools like the idea of not spending hours out of the day commuting. And the current Mayor is an improvement over Berry. The federal government has kicked in dollars along with pressure on cleaning up the local government's act.
Frankly, it won't work as a state because it has literally few if any resources outside of its main industry, government. Congress prohibits income taxation by the District government on commuters. We're not set up to fund/run/and provide voting rights to a District.
15156. ranheim - 10/16/2000 6:17:53 PM
Glenda
Are you a federal employee?
There 1 year+ that I was stationed in DC (supposedly to learn Russian), I kept my "home" as Minnesota (It was MN the entire 9 years that I was in the USAF).
MN never once said anything about me voting absentee in their elections. (My parents lived in MN). My wife maintained Louisiana as her "home" druing those same 9 years. LA did not question her right to vote absentee in LA. (Her parents lived in LA).
If you are a non-military federal employee living in the District, could you use another address as your "home"? e.g. your parents? Another relative?
15157. RosettaStone - 10/16/2000 6:20:15 PM
Give DC back to Maryland and add another congressman from the state. Tax wise it would be a drain for the state but that's okay, who pays taxes anymore?
As my old man said when he left me hundreds of acres of mountainside land in South Egremont, Mass., and told me not to sell. Real estate is something they're not making anymore of.
15158. glendajean - 10/16/2000 6:24:16 PM
Ranheim -- I wasn't a government employee during the years I lived in the District.
Rosetta -- Electric Slide, we hardly knew ye
15159. RosettaStone - 10/16/2000 6:38:34 PM
I can't get my laptop to change monikers.
When I get home to home computers I will try to do it again.
Call me Electric.
15160. bubbaette - 10/16/2000 10:04:43 PM
DC won't get the vote as long as it remains "Dark Country" as Richard Pryor approvingly put it. It's seen as a guaranteed democratic block of three electoral votes as well as an increase in demos for the Congress.
Jones at Law
Bingo. The issue that frequently comes up when the issue of DC statehood comes up is why should the residents of DC be given a vote when they'd elect Democrats. Another undercurrent is that the Democrat elected would likely be black. Stan Parris, a former VA congressman who ran for Gov a while back cemented this point in my mind when he ran anti-D.C. ads reasoning that having him as Gov. would halt the army of blacks itching to cross the 14th street bridge and invade the Commonwealth.
Which also confirms another impression that I have of Republicans in general -- they're just fine with denying the franchise to those who don't vote "right" or are of the "wrong" color.
15161. Greystoke - 10/17/2000 11:28:32 PM
Routine strip searches ruled unConstitutional.
A Pomona Police Department policy mandating strip-searches of all felony suspects is unconstitutional, a federal judge declared in a tentative ruling Monday.
U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson made his remarks in connection with a lawsuit by a 48-year-old woman who was strip-searched after being arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.
The $20 bill was later found to be legitimate, but in the meanntime, Eugenia Cazares was taken to the Pomona police jail, where she was forced to remove all of her clothing and submit to a strip-search by a female guard. The search included a visual examination of her buttocks, breasts and genital area.
Cazares' lawyer, Stephen Yagman, said his client was humiliated and traumatized by the experience. He sued, charging that the police violated her constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search.
15162. greystoke - 10/18/2000 11:43:20 AM
At least 8% of all reported rapes are fabricated.
Last year, FBI data showed that 8 percent of all rapes reported to police in the United States were unfounded. The numbers could be even higher because some U.S. police departments -- including a handful in Utah -- forward to the FBI only those rape reports considered legitimate, officials say.
Experts say people who make such unfounded allegations usually are afraid of something, seeking revenge, covering up a sexual indiscretion or simply trying to get attention. And children who make such claims rarely are capable of considering the consequences, said Karen Platis, a licensed clinical social worker at Valley Mental Health.
...
Kevin Gully, a psychologist at Primary Children's Medical Center, agreed that some people -- particularly children -- embellish stories to get attention or sympathy. Some stories have elements of truth, however, and some children retract stories even if they are true, he said.
"Children sometimes have been sexually assaulted, and they recant because they have been threatened, they are scared or embarrassed," Gully said. "There are a lot of factors that will cause a child to recant."
Nor is there only one reason children make up stories, he said. "The bottom line is there is no common denominator, no profile, the cases are so unique. You can think of a thousand reasons why they would lie."
15163. greystoke - 10/18/2000 11:48:57 AM
Seattle's Duke of Detox is dead.
For 30 years, Dutch Shisler embraced a population reviled by others -- down-and-out alcoholics who live and drink on the streets. With his boundless compassion and encouragement, he helped thousands pull their lives together.
Mr. Shisler, who founded and staffed King County's first detoxification van, died Monday from liver failure. He was 69.
Friends yesterday recalled Mr. Shisler in reverential tones. They said he would light up a room and was a source of inspiration.
"The message of Dutch was, you never give up," friend and civic leader Kenny Alhadeff said.
Mr. Shisler would help an alcoholic 10 times, Alhadeff said, and if someone got drunk again, "he'd go back the 11th time. If they got sick on him, he'd wipe himself off and get him again on the 12th time."
...
The youngest of three children, Mr. Shisler was raised in California by his widowed mother, who worked as a taxi driver and waitress during the Depression. He began drinking at age 8 and ran away to the Army at 13, serving 88 days before his mother retrieved him. He served in the Marines from around age 15 to 18.
...
Mr. Shisler had gone through a dozen recovery programs before Alcoholics Anonymous finally brought sobriety, his wife said. Having received guidance and support from recovering alcoholics, Mr. Shisler was compelled to do the same for others.
15164. greystoke - 10/18/2000 12:01:07 PM
Colorado boy skewered by fence post; lives to tell about it.
Doctors and family called it a miracle Tuesday that 17-year-old Ryan Lane survived being impaled through his abdomen by a 6-foot fence post in a car wreck in Highlands Ranch.
...
The post pierced Lane's back and abdomen after a car driven by his friend spun out of control while going 100 mph on Wildcat Reserve Parkway late Thursday night. The car crashed through a fence and into a backyard of a home in the 4200 block of Brookwood Place.
The section of wood entered through the right rear wheel well, went through the passenger's seat and through Lane's abdomen, and came to rest on the dashboard.
The driver, a 17-year-old Highlands Ranch boy, was not seriously injured. No charges have been filed against him, said Douglas County sheriff's spokesman Attila Denes, and his name was not released.
The wood was removed from Lane's abdomen during two hours of surgery Friday at Swedish Medical Center. He was in good condition Tuesday evening.
...
The emergency room staff expected Lane but were not prepared when he arrived with the wood protruding from his back and stomach, Mallory said. He was "pale as a ghost," and in excruciating pain, but conscious.
Then they contacted Littleton Fire Department to return with an electric saw to cut off the wood protruding from his back, allowing Lane to lie on his back for the two hour surgery.
Doctors made a midline incision to open Lane's body to make sure his organs were visible when they attempted to remove the wood.
There was bone and spinal damage, but none to his major organs.
In 45 minutes, they removed the piece of wood. During the surgery, Lane was given nine pints of blood.
15165. joezan - 10/19/2000 9:53:46 AM
Please excuse this intrusion of provincial news, but I am just amazed that of a total of 575 National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists nationwide, 5 are from two local high schools - one of which is in our very small district and the other in the slightly larger district next door. This is from a total of fewer than 3,000 students, around 700 of whom, as juniors, took the PSAT on which scholarship eligibility is based.
What are the odds? I mean, we're talking about a little less than 1% of the total number of qualifying students from two districts which, combined, represent probably less than 1/10,000th of those eligible.
15166. Dusty - 10/19/2000 10:06:03 AM
joezan
The odds are higher than you think, but this is a subject for the slow thread.
15167. OhioSTOPAS - 10/19/2000 10:46:08 AM
Joezan: Certainly an excellent achievement for a small student body (particularly one that no doubt contains many University of Michigan fans). However, I think there are more than 10,000 semi-finalists nationwide (not just 575).
My kid's high school, with a senior class of about 400, had five or six NMS semifinalists.
Alas, not including my kid.
(Genetics claims another victim.)
15168. greystoke - 10/19/2000 11:43:44 AM
I was the only National Merit Scholar in my class of 42 (that's 42 students, not the class of 1942, you smartasses). I don't recall getting any cash or prizes for it. Just a cardboard certificate and my picture in the paper.
15169. Raskolnikov - 10/19/2000 11:47:33 AM
You can get NM scholarships from hundreds of different sources. some colleges directly offer them (it is the only reason I went to the University of Minnesota), and many businesses offer them to eligible children of employees. But it isn't an automatic scholarship. You either have to choose a school which offers one, or be lucky enough to find a private sector sponsor.
15170. Raskolnikov - 10/19/2000 11:49:23 AM
There have to be more than 500 nationwide. There were around 100 from Minnesota alone.
15171. CalGal - 10/19/2000 11:54:34 AM
Semi-finalists? My lord, there were 5 in my school.
15172. greystoke - 10/19/2000 11:59:09 AM
FBI informant defrauds 700 investors.
An Orange County executive at the heart of a massive investment fraud case was once an FBI informant in investigations of organized crime in Southern California, according to federal authorities and others closely involved in the case.
The disclosure comes as the FBI and other authorities are investigating the late Luigi DiFonzo and several associates in the DFJ Italia investment firm on suspicion of running a $44.5-million Ponzi scheme.
When the Irvine firm closed its doors in March, it left about 700 investors with losses in the tens of millions of dollars. The timing and nature of DiFonzo's relationship with the FBI are important because they raise questions about whether federal authorities should have known about the alleged illegalities at DFJ Italia.
DiFonzo, 53, died of a prescription drug overdose Aug. 14, just as authorities were moving to seize his $4-million Laguna Niguel house.
...
The FBI confirmed Wednesday that its agents worked with DiFonzo but say that relationship lasted only three months in mid-1996 before the bureau abruptly ended the arrangement.
"For a limited time period, DiFonzo cooperated with us regarding a separate investigation," said FBI Special Agent Matthew McLaughlin, a bureau spokesman. "At the end of that time frame we terminated any cooperation with him."
...
DiFonzo's widow, however, maintains that her husband's relationship with the FBI was more far-ranging.
"They are so full of it," said Brenda DiFonzo. "I know he had multiple conversations with them after that. I know that he kept [two FBI agents'] business cards in his pocket until the day he died and that he spoke to an agent in New York regularly."
15173. ranheim - 10/19/2000 4:07:29 PM
Are you one of those who thought that the "surplus" was going to "pay down our National Debt". Foget it!
One of LA's representatives received a copy of the Transportation Bill that has yet to be passed. Hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be authorized. Yet our congressman had but two (2) pieces of paper. He called the office of the Secretary of the Dept. An underling there assurred him that the "details were going to be worked out to the satisfaction of all". Needless to say, our man in Washington was not pleased. While not saying that he was going to vote no on the package, he noted "For all I know, the roads in Arkansas are going to be covered in silver plate!"
And this is a Congress that wants to get home to see about their own campaigns! I don't know who is most at fault. As a youngster, the House passed legislation which was then sent to the Senate. The differences in their bills were handled in a Conferance Committee. The bill was then sent to the president for his signature or veto. That does not seem to be the way it works any more. Legislation seems to see light of day first in the Executive Branch. Which is backwards from the way the Constitution is written I believe.
Knowing how the Clinton Spin Machine works, if our congressman sees to it that the Transportation Bill is not acted upon (because he has no knowlege of the details), the Clinton/Gore team will be screaming from the rootops : DO NOTHING CONGRESS!
15174. Raskolnikov - 10/19/2000 4:19:53 PM
ranheim:
1) The President submits the budget, which Congress then tinkers with and votes on. This is how it has been done since time immemorial. Nothing new.
2) You think the President is the one increasing transportation spending? I haven't glanced at the bill but I very much doubt it. The Transportation budget is the heart of Congressional pork barrel spending (Defense spending is the soul). Presidents rarely give a damn about what roads get built where, but for members of Congress it can make the difference between re-election and writing your memoirs.
15175. ranheim - 10/19/2000 4:29:46 PM
Another piece of proposed legislation is a change in the war retirees from the military are to be treated.
I got out of the USAF in 1970. At that time, the serviceman could retire nearly anywhere in the USA and be near a military facility or a VA Hospital. Not so anymore. Remember all the base closures a few years back? Plus funding for the VA Hospitals has been cut. In the past several years I have been seeing increasing numbers of veterans who formerly went to England Air Force Base (now closed down) or the local VA. The common thread in the reason that they are coming to me is "I want to go to a doctor who I can understand."
One of the new proposals would put military retirees in their own retirement plan. The medical portion would have the retiree and his family handled in the same manner as he was while on active duty. ie free care all the way.
Sen. Bob Kerry of Nebraska, he won a Medal of Honor in Viet Nam + lost a limb, put his pencil to this proposal. He came up with $60 billion over the next 10 years. Even with his own handicaps, Kerry thought that this was a bit much!
But, with bills such as this coming out at the very last minute, I don't think you are going to see any surplus.
15176. glendajean - 10/19/2000 6:09:24 PM
I just heard from a friend that Steve Case and his wife (AOL Time Warner pooh bah) have given $8 million to Rev. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge ministries in Florida. Kennedy's evangelistic ministry is one of the more vocally hateful anti-gay organizations. They distributed the so-called "Gay Agenda" video and was a main force behind the "we can cure you" newspaper ads that ran a couple of years ago.
15177. glendajean - 10/19/2000 6:19:50 PM
Here's a story on the Case gift.
They gave the money to the school Kennedy runs that is adjacent to his church. Case's wife attended the school in the 70s.
15178. Greystoke - 10/19/2000 6:46:19 PM
My Dad gives money to those moronic TV preachers -- Kennedy and Robert Shuler. They are nothing more than beggars in fancy suits.
15179. bubbaette - 10/19/2000 6:49:17 PM
Another of the many many reasons not to use AOL.
15180. joezan - 10/19/2000 8:22:16 PM
Dusty, Ohio, Rask, Cal:
Forty thousand high school juniors took the PSAT last fall to qualify as National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists. Only 575 students nationwide achieved that honor. Among them are five seniors from two local high schools.
I should have read this first paragraph more closely. Not quite the achievement I'd thought, but still impressive.
If, as Rask stated, there are many different ways of getting the NMS, then it appears that what the article is saying is that of the 40,000 HS juniors who took the PSAT, only 575 nationwide achieved the honor based on their performance on the test - five of those being from these two local schools.
Grand Haven HS, btw, is the school which has placed in the top 10 of the National Science Olympiad every year for the past decade, winning first place 3 times.
15181. dusty - 10/19/2000 8:36:20 PM
From a semi-random site:
"Out of 1.3-million students tested nationwide and 16,000 semi-finalists, 7,600 students in the United States are now finalists and are eligible to receive a scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Program."
I wonder is they meant 575 statewide?
I'm not trying to diminish the accomplishment; like greystoke I was a NM finalist (it helpd fund my college tuition) and proud of it.
15182. joezan - 10/19/2000 8:57:04 PM
Dusty:
That must be it.
15183. Angel-Five - 10/19/2000 9:32:08 PM
If you're a NM finalist then you have to demonstrate our secret handshake.
15184. Angel-Five - 10/19/2000 9:32:11 PM
If you're a NM finalist then you have to demonstrate our secret handshake.
15185. AytchMan - 10/19/2000 11:07:07 PM
Trendspotting--
Just getting under way: lopsided reverse splits by dot.coms to move their stock price above the $1 minimum listing requirement on NASDAQ. First off: PlanetRX. Bon voyage.
You heard it here first.
15186. CalGal - 10/19/2000 11:28:12 PM
Well, actually, I read it on the Motley Fool first. You're late--where've you been? (g)
Bizarre that they think it would work. Spooky to think that it might.
15187. Greystoke - 10/20/2000 12:48:43 PM
Mother of the Year.
A new secretary at one of the state's most respected high schools stands accused of hosting her 16-year-old daughter's friends as they used beer bongs, smoked dope and had sex throughout her house this summer.
She referred to the kids as "family," and, according to a 13-page arrest affidavit, weekly family gatherings have included illegalities ranging from a marijuana cake she baked to the cable-TV pornography she allowed them to order and watch.
Judy Mandle, 51, was charged in criminal court Thursday with contributing to the delinquency of a minor - a felony - as well as harboring a minor and supplying alcohol to juveniles. Pending an investigation, Mandle is on paid leave from her job as a Cherry Creek High School secretary. She is scheduled to appear in court again Nov. 15, at which time her arraignment will be set.
...
One girl recounted Mandle's supplying plastic sandwich bags of marijuana, keeping cartons of cigarettes in her basement freezer for the students and allowing party participants to drive away from her home intoxicated, according to the warrant. On occasion, Mandle would follow them home in her own car, the teen said.
One party, the girl recalled, was in part a going-away for a teen whose parents were sending him to boot camp. "Mandle told everyone that she had cooked a marijuana cake for the occasion," the affidavit reads, summarizing the girl's account. "Mandle then sat with them in the living room and smoked marijuana as it was passed around."
Photographs of the parties, including the marijuana cake and several pictures of juveniles with alcohol, were passed on to investigators.
15188. Greystoke - 10/20/2000 12:58:07 PM
Ex-cop indicted for stealing $4.8 million worth of jewels.
A sophisticated nationwide jewelry theft ring headed by a former high-ranking Chicago police official carefully picked its targets, studied the traveling salesmen's routines and then struck with precision—nabbing millions of dollars in jewels, sometimes using keymaking equipment to slip into jewelers' locked cars unnoticed, federal authorities charged Thursday.
...
Hanhardt, 71, of Deerfield, used Chicago police officers to run license-plate checks and gather other information about potential victims using confidential law enforcement computers and had a private investigator search out credit reports of targets, according to the charges.
...
In his long police career, Hanhardt had risen to deputy superintendent and had once been chief of detectives, a post in which he was sure to investigate jewelry robberies, Lassar said. The first two heists occurred while Hanhardt was still on the force, authorities said.
...
John Kennedy, president of the Jewelers' Security Alliance, a nonprofit jewelry industry trade group that assisted in the investigation, said this was the first jewelry theft ring case in the country he has heard of that involved police.
"We're always telling our members to go to police, that they're our friends," Kennedy said.
15189. Al D - 10/21/2000 4:03:23 PM
A 29 year old man in Hawaii was sentenced to one year in jail for fathering a child with a 12 year old girl, with whom he has been having sex for some time. Why didn't this fool wait two years, for at the age of 14 he would have been legal.
15190. Cellar Door - 10/21/2000 4:52:46 PM
He was horny, Al.
15191. dusty - 10/21/2000 4:59:30 PM
Al D
29-year-olds willing to have sex with 12-year-olds aren't exactly renown for their decision making prowess.
15192. Al D - 10/21/2000 8:18:30 PM
Cellar/Dusty
I think you both missed the point.
15193. dusty - 10/21/2000 8:30:53 PM
I don't think so.
You wanted to make the point that the age of consent is the tender age of 14.
15194. Al D - 10/21/2000 10:30:57 PM
I should have known better than to say you mised the point.
15195. ranheim - 10/21/2000 11:02:53 PM
I see 'girls' in my office every day that are 14 going on 40.
In several recent local cases, it has been obvious to everyone, even the dense local police, that the girls have been the aggressor. No decision as to how to procede has been made.
In case you are wondering why, each girl has been sexually involved on more than one occasion in the past. There is a question of money changing hands in one case.
15196. Greystoke - 10/22/2000 10:48:38 AM
From The Salt Lake Tribune:
EUGENE, Ore. -- A retired FBI agent who lives in Salt Lake City pleaded guilty to wire fraud in U.S. District Court after admitting he scammed investors out of $2.7 million in an investment scheme.
John Kammerman used his former FBI credentials to gain the trust of those who took part in the scheme, said Kristine Olson, U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon.
Kammerman was with the FBI for 23 years before retiring in 1990. He then began teaching at Salt Lake Community College and started a business that purported to investigate the soundness of investment opportunities. He persuaded clients to send money to a company, but that money was never invested or returned.
Kammerman faces up to 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
15197. Greystoke - 10/22/2000 10:52:58 AM
Teacher's aide arrested for having sex with her 16 year old student.
Karen E. Draper was charged Friday with 10 counts of second-degree-felony forcible sexual abuse and two counts of third-degree-felony unlawful sexual contact with a 16-year-old. If convicted, Draper could spend up to 30 years in prison. Draper remained in the Utah County Jail on Friday in lieu of $5,000 cash-only bail. She is scheduled to appear in 4th District Court on Tuesday.
The alleged relationship between Draper and the 16-year-old boy began two years ago when the pair worked together in a drama production. The relationship progressed as the woman continued coaching the boy in drama and they worked together in church functions.
Family members discovered e-mails allegedly sent between the two on a computer and turned them over to a religious leader who notified police. Investigators then interviewed the woman and the boy and gathered a stack of incriminating e-mail messages.
15198. Greystoke - 10/22/2000 11:18:21 AM
80 year old bank robber sentenced.
Forest ``Woody'' Tucker, whose criminal career dates back to the 1930s and includes an escape from San Quentin, pleaded guilty in May to one count of bank robbery for a holdup at a Jupiter bank that netted $5,600.
...
Tucker has a reputation for prison breaks and boasts he has busted out 18 times. The most publicized escape was in 1979, when Tucker and two other inmates paddled away from San Quentin in a kayak built out of plastic sheeting, Formica, wood and duct tape.
Tucker and an old prison buddy were captured in 1983, and he didn't get out of prison for another 10 years.
15199. greystoke - 10/23/2000 11:43:43 AM
LAPD uses rubber bullets to break up protest against police brutality.
In a scene reminiscent of clashes during the Democratic National Convention in August, police in riot gear fired the nonlethal bullets after protesters began setting fires and throwing objects at officers who were trying to stop the demonstration from encircling the Los Angeles Police Department's Parker Center.
Until then, the march by about 1,000 people had been mostly peaceful. No serious injuries were reported, although two demonstrators were bleeding from minor injuries and eight others displayed welts and bruises.
...
After the rally, protesters retreated to Olympic and Broadway, and along the way a handful turned over trash cans and vandalized newspaper boxes.
When two protesters yelled "Uncle Tom" and "Oreo" at two Latino bicycle officers, one, who identified himself only as Officer Garcia, broke formation and rammed his bicycle into a group of protesters. "Go back to your country if you don't like it," the officer yelled.
Protesters scattered once they reached Olympic. About half a dozen Lawyers Guild observers stayed on the sidewalk, and they were confronted by motorcycle officers. Two of the officers rammed their motorcycles into two of the observers:, former Santa Monica City Atty. Bob Myers, 49, and Starbucks counterman John Martin West, 25. When Myers tried to make a citizen's arrest of the officers, he was shoved.
"I was standing on a public sidewalk," said Myers, noting that the police had not declared an unlawful assembly. "He pushed me and would not allow me to talk to a supervisor. The police broke the law."
15200. greystoke - 10/23/2000 11:48:13 AM
From the Denver Post
BOULDER - A man who police say slashed a friend's car tires with an 8-foot African spear now faces felony menacing and criminal mischief charges.
A Boulder County SWAT team used a hostage negotiator to persuade 37-year-old Eric Paul Arnold to give himself up after the spearing incident early Saturday, according to sheriff's deputies.
It took the negotiator about an hour to talk Arnold out of his Boulder Heights subdivision home, said Boulder County Sheriff George Epp.
Arnold earlier asked two friends to come to his home because he felt despondent and suicidal. Arnold told them he had a "premonition" that their plane was going to crash that day, or something bad was going to happen to them on their way to a vacation in Mexico, according to deputies.
When they refused to change their plans, Arnold allegedly thrust the spear into one of the rear tires of their car. He also pushed the spear through one of the front tires, deputies said.
The two friends fled and called the sheriff's office.
15201. greystoke - 10/23/2000 12:01:16 PM
Clinton signs bill to make the states impose .08 BAC limit for drunken driving.
The new law requires states to implement a 0.08 percent blood alcohol content standard as the legal level for drunken driving by 2004. States that fail to impose that standard would begin losing millions of dollars a year in federal highway funds.
...
A 170-pound man could consume approximately four drinks in an hour on an empty stomach before reaching 0.08 limit, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics cited by Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
...
Opponents of the 0.08 standard, including the restaurant and alcohol industries, say the measure would penalize social drinkers while ignoring the bigger problem of repeat offenders who drink heavily.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia already have 0.08 laws, and in Massachusetts a level of 0.08 is considered evidence but not proof of impairment. Thirty-one states define drunken driving as 0.10 percent blood alcohol content.
...
The transportation bill's overwhelming passage was fueled by its scores of road, mass transit and aviation projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars for districts from coast to coast.
To accommodate that, the measure was $7.3 billion higher than last year's level, $3.3 billion more than Clinton requested and nearly $3 billion larger than earlier versions passed by the House and Senate.
...
There were also separate $100 million projects for West Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi -- home states, respectively, of Sen. Robert Byrd, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee; GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, chairman of the Appropriations transportation subcommittee; and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.
15202. ranheim - 10/23/2000 1:32:46 PM
#15201
Ain't democracy grand?!
15203. Al D - 10/23/2000 2:19:27 PM
Once again we have the Federal Government sticking their nose where it doesn't belong. Let's face it, their attitude is "If we have the power to do it, we have the right." This is where Liberalism has taken us, 180 degrees from Liberalism of 18th and 19th century.
15204. Wombat - 10/23/2000 2:27:37 PM
Al D.:
What's wrong with having a national standard for blood alcohol content?
15205. JudithAtHome - 10/23/2000 2:31:37 PM
(Al...the manapua was great, and we had malasadas, too!)
15206. AytchMan - 10/23/2000 2:37:17 PM
Wombat--
I guess it goes to one's view of local vs. federal control. Otherwise, what's wrong with a national standard for everything?
15207. PelleNilsson - 10/23/2000 2:50:59 PM
Is there, for example, a national standard for electric plugs and sockets? If so, is it considered a useful thing or another example of the Federal Government "sticking their nose in"?
15208. AytchMan - 10/23/2000 3:06:32 PM
Clearly, there are areas in which national standards are useful. But blood alcohol? Where is there a compelling advantage over letting local communities decide?
15209. rubberducky - 10/23/2000 3:10:25 PM
Pelle - Wombat
i can't speak for anyone else, but the issue for me is that the federal government is essentially blackmailing the states to meet its bullshit "standards" with money that is otherwise ear-marked for the necessary building of infrastructure.
i think it's best to let the people in the state deem how they want to govern themselves in this instance. what's the harm? you ask why not and i ask why?
15210. Indiana Jones - 10/23/2000 3:15:20 PM
Wombat: I see no compelling interest for the federal government to decide blood-alcohol content. At any given time, a drunk is within only one state's jurisdiction. I think it's reasonable to expect that states can make a decision like this themselves without any direction from the central authority.
I suppose the federal government could pass a special law covering someone who drives drunk across a state line, but why bother?
Pelle: I'm shooting off my mouth here without checking, but I think standards like that are often set by the manufacturers for compatability purposes. Building codes (I think) are usually local.
I've never understood why hot dog makers and hot dog bun makers can't agree on 10 or 12 as a standard count per package.
15211. mgleason - 10/23/2000 3:18:49 PM
There is, of course, the esoteric use of seven by Hebrew National, makers of my hot dog of choice.
15212. AytchMan - 10/23/2000 3:18:55 PM
Indy--
Clearly, you're an agitator of the worst sort. The hotdog/bun controversy is between 6 and 8, not 10 and 12.
15213. PelleNilsson - 10/23/2000 4:07:16 PM
I brought up the plug in socket issue in jest. Here in Europe we have at least four standards, so if you travel you have to have a set of adaptors. Or you can employ Pelle's universal adaptor:
Cut away the plug. Strip bare 1/2" of each conductor. Insert in socket and secure with matches. In the UK you need a screw driver or similar to unlock the socket.
15214. Greystoke - 10/23/2000 11:35:37 PM
This article suggests that heavy drinkers are responsible for most drunk driving accidents -- drivers with a BAC over .15. No-one has figured out an effective way to keep these drivers off the road, so the bluenosed do-gooders want to go after an easier target --those between .08 and .10.
Now we can arrest and suspend the licenses of thousands more casual drinkers who would have arrived home safely if they hadn't encountered a roadblock run by MADD's stormtroopers.
15215. greystoke - 10/24/2000 11:44:44 AM
From the Salt Lake Tribune:
A 26-year-old Salt Lake County man who caused the death of his uncle while driving drunk went to jail Monday for 45 days.
Randy John Gittins Jr. must also complete an intensive alcohol treatment program while completing 36 of months probation, ordered 3rd District Judge Ann Boyden.
On May 4, Gittins turned left in front of an oncoming vehicle at 5770 S. 300 East, Murray. Terry L. Gittins, 48, who was riding in the passenger seat of the pickup truck, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Randy Gittins -- who admitted drinking four pitchers of beer with his uncle at a tavern -- had a blood-alcohol level of 0.16, which is twice Utah's legal limit of 0.08, according to court documents.
Gittins was initially charged with second-degree felony automobile homicide, but pleaded guilty to a lesser count of class A misdemeanor attempted auto homicide.
Prosecutor Jeff Hall recommended a sentence of 90 days in jail. But Judge Boyden cut that number in half -- an acknowledgement that the defendant had grieved and suffered extensively over the death of his uncle, with whom he had been close.
At the time of the accident, Randy Gittins was on probation for a DUI violation that occurred Feb. 28 in Murray, Hall said.
15216. Dusty - 10/24/2000 11:49:40 AM
PelleNilsson
Is there, for example, a national standard for electric plugs and sockets? If so, is it considered a useful thing or another example of the Federal Government "sticking their nose in"?
In the US we have a national stanrd, but not a federal standard. As it should be.
15217. greystoke - 10/24/2000 11:52:37 AM
Drunken Mexican drivers.
When it comes to safety behind the wheel, Mexican males drink too much and know too little.
In a nutshell, those are the findings of a new study exploring the driving records and drinking habits of a group of 300 Mexican and Mexican American men in Long Beach. Half were drunk drivers interviewed before being released from jail. The other half were residents recruited from the community as a comparison group, matched by education and income.
The study found that these men had something in common, regardless of whether they had been arrested for drunk driving. As a group, they "vastly overestimated" their ability to hold their liquor.
How many drinks would it take to make you an unsafe driver? Average answer: eight to 10. How many before you're plastered? A dozen drinks in less than four hours.
Perhaps it's the machismo talking. Whatever the reason, those numbers from the Mexicans surveyed were double those reported by non-Latino white men.
...
Research shows that Mexicans and Mexican Americans have higher arrest rates for drunk driving. So they are also more likely to die in car crashes caused by alcohol. One study last year found that among Mexican Americans, 65% of all highway deaths were alcohol-related, compared with 46% among whites.
And the problem is getting worse for people of Mexican heritage while other groups are improving. In national roadside surveys, the percentage of Latinos found to be legally drunk at the wheel doubled between 1973 and 1996. At the same time, rates declined for white and black drivers.
15218. greystoke - 10/24/2000 11:59:29 AM
Researchers find Sasquatch body print.
Researchers in the Pacific Northwest believe they've obtained the first clear body imprint of a sasquatch, evidence they hope will spur serious research on the ape of legend.
The imprint was found by a team of researchers in a mud wallow near Mount Adams in southern Washington on Sept. 22, according to an announcement Monday from Idaho State University.
...
But impressions of what appeared to be a large hairy forearm, buttock, thigh and heel recorded in the mud were all roughly 50 percent bigger than a 6-foot tall man, said Jeffrey Meldrum, a physical anthropologist at Idaho State University who's one of the few active academic bigfoot researchers.
Meldrum said the sasquatch appeared to be lying on its side as it reached into the center of the wallow for apples and nectarines the team used as bait.
While it's not definitive proof of bigfoot, the cast constitutes "significant and compelling new evidence" that Meldrum hopes will stimulate further research into the possible presence of these primates in the mountains of the Northwest and elsewhere.
...
The investigative team used a thermal imager loaned by a television production crew to track the animal and found its footprints, according to expedition leader Matthew Moneymaker, an attorney who heads the Bigfoot Field Researcher's Organization.
The team also broadcast tape-recorded calls of a sasquatch into the night - and received replies, said Moneymaker.
One reply was uncomfortably nearby. "The guys closest to it were petrified," he said.
"I'm 100 percent confident of that," he said. "It was clearly a hominid-shaped thing, except that it was 40 to 50 percent larger than a human, and it was covered by hair."
15219. greystoke - 10/24/2000 12:06:36 PM
Colorado and the new federal drunk driving law.
Colorado could lose almost $50 million in highway construction money over four years unless lawmakers lower the state's drunken driving limit to match the new federal standard.
But neither Gov. Bill Owens nor acting House Speaker Doug Dean, R-Colorado Springs, would say Monday that he is confident that legislators will quickly drop the state's drunken-driving limit to a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol content.
Colorado's standard now is 0.10 percent blood alcohol. Thirty other states have levels higher than 0.08 percent.
Owens has supported the 0.08 percent standard, but he "also believes it should be a state-by-state decision without the specter of losing federal highway funds," spokesman Dan Hopkins said.
"We don't know if anyone will be inclined to sponsor a .08 bill" or what interest there will be among legislators in supporting it, but Owens will continue to support a legislative effort to lower the level to 0.08 percent for driving under the influence, Hopkins said.
Dean said the change "presents quite a dilemma for Colorado." "In the past we've tended to tell the federal government where to go" with mandates containing punitive provisions, he said.
Colorado's standard does a good job of catching problem drinkers and lowering it to 0.08 percent may only nab "good people" engaged in social drinking, he said.
If Colorado legislators ignore the new mandate, it won't be the first time they have rejected federal pressure.
Last session's failure to ban open alcohol beverage containers in vehicles means that 1.5 percent of this budget year's federal highway construction funds must be diverted to highway safety programs. Next year, the forced shift rises to 3 percent.
15220. ranheim - 10/24/2000 12:52:42 PM
This is one of the reasons that you have always heard me say that I am for the old Republic.
I think democracy is a pile of crap!
15221. PelleNilsson - 10/24/2000 1:57:23 PM
You prefer a "strongman" do you, Ranheim? One who makes the trains run on time?
15222. Wombat - 10/24/2000 2:08:58 PM
No, he prefers a confederacy called the Disunited States, as we had after the Revolution, and before it became so unworkable that a constitutional convention was called, which gave what we have now.
15223. greystoke - 10/24/2000 2:14:56 PM
Pelle,
You seem interested in the job.
I think the US could benefit from having a dour, yet benevolent dictator.
15224. bubbaette - 10/24/2000 2:25:52 PM
I question the utility in a new more stringent BAC when, as Greystoke noted above, the problem drivers have BAC's much higher than .08.
To me this is just another example of legislators pandering to an interest group who has outlived it's usefulness. When MADD was first established, there was a legitimate concern about drunk drivers. Maybe the previous blood alcohol restrictions WERE too lax. But there is a law of deminishing returns. Why settle for .08? Why not go for a level of .00 so that anyone using listerine before driving can be cited?
MADD would be much better off if they concentrated on strictly enforcing the laws that exist.
15225. Wombat - 10/24/2000 2:27:06 PM
Hmm. I have heard that argument before...in another context.
15226. bubbaette - 10/24/2000 2:31:10 PM
Wombat
If the concern is for impaired drivers, then why not go for other types of behavior that make drivers at least as impaired as a .08 BAC? The reaction times of many elderly drivers is slower than that of a 30 year old who's had a drink. But the elderly are a protected class, regardless of how poorly some of them may drive.
There should also be a citation for "stupid behind the wheel", which would get a good many really bad drivers off the street.
15227. CalGal - 10/24/2000 2:49:37 PM
I do think the standard is horseshit. The BAC is kept low for money, not safety.
15228. PelleNilsson - 10/24/2000 2:56:04 PM
You know, 0.08 is not a question of having had a drink. At that level you are seriously drunk.
15229. CalGal - 10/24/2000 3:13:17 PM
No, you're not seriously drunk. You are drunk. And as Grey points out, the DUI accidents aren't caused by those at that level. I don't have any real issue with them being ticketed, but your life is fucking ruined if you're an average citizen who gets a DUI. And if you're an alcoholic, you don't give a fuck and keep on driving.
It's all politics and money. No big deal, but I do get annoyed when people are moral about it.
15230. PsychProf - 10/24/2000 3:13:53 PM
.08 is about 3-4 drinks in an hour on an empty stomach...not too far from the two large beers many(me) have before dinner. Nobody wants someone drunk on the road...but is this the solution?
15231. PsychProf - 10/24/2000 3:15:37 PM
Pelle would sponsor Happy Dour all across the USA...
15232. PsychProf - 10/24/2000 3:17:34 PM
But then again, when was my stomach ever empty...
15233. greystoke - 10/24/2000 3:19:13 PM
Hell, at .08 BAC I can talk on my cell phone, change the CD, pick my nose, and flip off the idiots who are driving too slow, while still remaining in my own lane. I think .15 is a more realistic standard.
15234. bubbaette - 10/24/2000 3:24:35 PM
I had understood that a .08 can be less than two drinks for someone of my size.
15235. PsychProf - 10/24/2000 3:30:36 PM
Haha...could be bubba.
15236. greystoke - 10/24/2000 3:39:32 PM
After 10 drinks, many women think I look like Mel Gibson.
Oh, wait, that's Rosetta Stone's line of bull.
15237. bubbaette - 10/24/2000 3:45:00 PM
Prof
I ain't no tiny frail flower.
Doesn't matter too much afaic -- two drinks is my limit anyhow.
15238. JJBiener - 10/24/2000 4:22:57 PM
Bubbaette - Even for someone of your size (which is pretty small), I don't think 2 drinks in an hour would get you to .08, depending on your metabolism of course. If you did 2 drinks an hour over the course of 4-5 hours, that's a different story. Like you 1-2 drinks over the course of an evening is my limit, so it really of little concern to me.
The only objection I have to law, is that it comes from Washington and it uses highway funds and a bludgeon to ensure compliance. I think this is an issue which should be decided by the states.
15239. PelleNilsson - 10/24/2000 4:34:44 PM
What I would like to know is what empirical evidence you (the general 'you') have of what 0.08 means? Have you taken blood tests at various level of intoxication?
15240. rubberducky - 10/24/2000 4:36:02 PM
no, but what a great drinking game suggestion!
15242. JJBiener - 10/24/2000 5:11:28 PM
What happened to Pelle's post #15241?
15243. PelleNilsson - 10/24/2000 5:16:23 PM
JJ
Sorry. I think I hit "Cast Your Mote" by mistake. That results in an empty post that shows on the front page but not in the page thread. We should perhaps talk to Alistair about it.
15244. CalGal - 10/24/2000 5:31:25 PM
Pelle,
One piece of suggestive evidence might be the fact that very few accidents are caused by people who have BAC levels less than .015.
15245. PelleNilsson - 10/24/2000 5:44:26 PM
CalGal
Where is that fact? And I guess most accidents are caused by people who have 0.0.
15246. CalGal - 10/24/2000 6:09:21 PM
Pelle,
Grey linked this in earlier, but we've discussed this before as well. I'll see if I can find the studies I'm thinking of.
15247. ranheim - 10/24/2000 6:28:14 PM
Pelle
Something like Switzerland would suit me.
Several year ago the Central Government in Bern passed some legislation in favor of joining the EU (I think I am correct). The cantons held elections and they were overwhelmingly against joining the EU. So Bern's will was overset.
It would be great if we, as individuals, had this power in the USA. Those fools in Washington would have to step much more carefully than they do now if we could overset their decisions as I believe can be the case in Switzerland.
15248. CalGal - 10/24/2000 7:43:34 PM
Now a Majority: Families With 2 Parents Who Work
According to a new Census Bureau report, based on data from 1998, both spouses were employed at least part time in 51 percent of the married couples with children, compared with 33 percent in 1976.
Even married or single mothers of very young children were likely to work at least part time: 59 percent of the women with babies younger than a year old were employed in 1998, compared with 31 percent in 1976.
And the numbers are even higher for those with older children. Of the 31.3 million mothers ages 15 to 44 whose children were older than a year, 73 percent worked in 1998, and 52 percent worked full time.
...
In past years, women with infants were substantially more likely to be employed if they had only one child than if they had two or more. But that gap has almost closed.
In 1998, the report found, 61 percent of mothers with one infant held jobs, compared with 57 percent of those with two or more children, one younger than a year old.
15249. Al D - 10/24/2000 10:34:59 PM
Wombat
The thing that is wrong with the Federal Government forcing States to conform to a national alcohol level is that they have no controlling legal athority to do so. That is just a joke, Wombat, because they do have many precedants for their action. Nixon did it when he forced States to adopt 55 mile speed limit. The Consitution does not permit the Federal Government to be engaged in these things. But the horse is out of the barn, and my not liking what they do cuts no ice. I believe it was Jefferson who said that a Nation that exists for 200 years is probably living under tyranny.
15250. greystoke - 10/25/2000 11:47:49 AM
Former student sues his "molester".
The suit, filed Monday by attorneys for Stuart Bolton, names as defendants the district; former teacher, Lori Hunter Nichol; her ex-husband, Steven Nichol; Granite High School Principal Diane Hesleph; former Vice Principal Douglas Bingham; and 10 unidentified district employees.
The suit accuses Lori Nichol of kidnapping, sexual abuse of a child and custodial interference, among other acts. It says the district and administrators violated Bolton's constitutional rights, failed to properly supervise and discipline faculty and acted with "deliberate indifference" to a case of sexual assault. It asks for a jury trial and seeks unspecified damages.
...
Nichol is one of more than 70 teachers who have had their certifications revoked for sexual misconduct in the past eight years, according to state data released earlier this year. The case is also the second this month involving allegations of a female teacher having sexual contact with a male student.
Bolton claims in the suit the abuse began when he was 15 and assigned to Nichol's 10th-grade English class at Granite High School. After hearing reports that students and teachers saw the two kissing, Hesleph confronted the teacher in November 1995, the suit says, but Nichol denied any misconduct. Shortly afterward, Bolton left school and moved into Nichol's home, according to the suit.
Bolton claims in the suit the sexual abuse continued while he was living in Nichol's home, from late 1995 until January 1996. She also allegedly introduced him to alcohol, bought it for him and encouraged him to drink.
15251. greystoke - 10/25/2000 11:48:18 AM
At least once, Steven Nichol witnessed his wife kissing and fondling Bolton, the suit says. He filed for divorce, according to the suit, but never reported his wife's behavior.
...
Today, Bolton struggles with substance abuse and remains withdrawn, disoriented and "paralyzed with feelings of worthlessness," the suit says. He is also unable to maintain appropriate relationships and continues to require medical and psychological care.
15252. greystoke - 10/25/2000 11:53:16 AM
For the first time, a man has been arrested on a warrant that identifies his DNA only.
A Sacramento man has been charged with a 1994 rape in what is believed to be the first arrest in the nation to be made with the use of a warrant that identifies a suspect by his DNA only.
Paul Eugene Robinson, 31, was arrested last month after state computers matched his genetic code to the no-name warrant. He was charged with five counts of sexual assault.
Such DNA warrants are increasingly being filed as a way to get around the statute of limitations for bringing charges against a suspect.
The warrant in the Sacramento case was issued in August as the six-year statute of limitations on the rape was about to run out. The August 1994 rape was one in a series of five rapes by a man police and newspapers called the Second Story Rapist for his penchant of attacking women who lived on the second floor of apartment buildings.
...
Robinson's DNA was collected by police on an unrelated criminal matter, Willover said. Willover would not give details on that matter.
Robinson's attorney, Johnny Griffin, said he will ask that the case be thrown out. He said the statute of limitations has run out because his client was not identified by name in the warrant.
Also, Griffin said he will try to get the DNA evidence thrown out because Robinson's genetic code should never have been entered into the law enforcement computers. Under the law, the DNA of a suspect under arrest can be entered into the computer only for certain offenses.
...
Beginning in January, a new state law will nearly eliminate the six-year statute of limitations in rape cases where DNA evidence is available.
15253. greystoke - 10/25/2000 12:01:28 PM
Seinor citizens and sex.
"Many seniors feel it's important," says Kevan Namazi, associate professor and chair of the gerontology department at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. "Many still want and seek orgasms in sexual experiences when they're in their 70s and 80s."
...
Patrice Blanchard, a regional manager for the southwest region of AARP, regularly gives talks on sexuality. On Nov. 20, the Alzheimer's Association of Dallas will hold a seminar, "Sexual Expression, Intimacy and Dementia." (Call 214-827-0062.)
...
Case in point: Muriel (who also asked her real name not be used), age 69, and her 89-year-old companion. They've dated for about four years and enjoy a frequent and satisfying sex life.
"My kids call him their idol because all he wants is sex," she says. "Of all the men I've ever had anything to do with, he is probably the most sensual, the most concerned about satisfying me.
"It surprised me he was still capable. ... This man has never taken Viagra. He has had prostate cancer and radiation, and it still does not bother him."
...
• From The AARP/Modern Maturity Sexuality Study of 1,384 men and women older than 45:
About 30 percent of men and 24 percent of women ages 60 to 74 reported having sex at least once a week. About half of 45- to 59-year-olds did.
More than 70 percent of the men and women surveyed who have regular partners engage in sexual intercourse at least once or twice a month.
More than half of men older than 75 admitted to being moderately or completely impotent.
15254. greystoke - 10/25/2000 12:09:11 PM
Sheriff returns woman's pot and paraphernalia.
Four days after deputies arrested Moorpark resident Jenny Lipson for growing a marijuana plant for what she said was treatment of constant migraine headaches and nausea, O'Hanlon returned the plant Tuesday and Lipson's related paraphernalia.
Lipson greeted O'Hanlon with a tearful smile and a hug.
"In 20 years of law enforcement I never thought I would be returning marijuana, but times are changing," O'Hanlon said as he left Lipson's home.
O'Hanlon had the approval and support from the top of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department when he stood in Lipson's open door, his right hand extended for a shake and his left hand clutching various pipes, matches and stash boxes.
In the last four days, Lipson had been taken to jail, strip-searched by female deputies and then released on $1,000 bail.
Sheriff Bob Brooks and O'Hanlon said they decided to return the plants and paraphernalia because of ambiguities created by the passage of Proposition 215 by California voters in 1996. That law made it legal for Californians who are ill to use small amounts of marijuana if they have doctor's permission, which Lipson did not have.
15255. Greystoke - 10/25/2000 6:15:38 PM
Man charged with manslaughter after letting his friend drive drunk.
A man who picked up his drunken friend at the police station and allegedly let him get behind the wheel was charged with manslaughter Wednesday after the friend got into a deadly wreck.
...
Authorities said Pangle, 37, had been charged with driving under the influence less than three hours before the accident. Pangle's blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit when he was arrested by state police. He was released into Powell's custody.
Authorities said Powell returned Pangle to his truck, and Pangle got behind the wheel.
15256. rubberducky - 10/27/2000 9:42:48 AM
state infringes on rights again:
Suffolk County [Long Island], home to the Hamptons and other playgrounds of the wealthy, has banned drivers from using hand-held phones.
...
After Jan. 1, violators will be fined $150. Emergency calls are exempt.
15257. bubbaette - 10/27/2000 9:55:00 AM
Good for them! I'm getting sick of the menaces on the road who pay more attention to their phone conversations than to the road. Either hang up and drive, or pull over if you want to jabber.
15258. theDiva - 10/27/2000 10:34:14 AM
and about damned time, I'd say.
15259. theDiva - 10/27/2000 10:34:25 AM
Wish they'd do it here.
15260. CalGal - 10/27/2000 10:38:54 AM
That's absurd. I know! Let's single out one particular type of "not paying attention while driving" just to piss people off!
You can still shave, apply makeup, turn around and rummage in the back seat while going 90 mph--but you can't talk on the cellphone!
Why?
Because cops can see that, of course, and it's an easy ticket. More money for the state.
And it's popular because many folks don't like cell phones and will go Yeah, you get 'em! and not realize that they've just given the state another easy way to collect money without making the cops work harder and without making driving any safer.
15261. rubberducky - 10/27/2000 10:43:34 AM
thanks CG
u said it better than i would have
it just boils my blood to see the state get ever more into the taxpayer's business and, more importantly, pocketbook with some bullshit scam that will help absolutely nothing except the state’s income levels.
15262. bubbaette - 10/27/2000 10:51:36 AM
I would like to see the other things Cal mentions ticketed as improper driving as well.
15263. greystoke - 10/27/2000 12:10:04 PM
Ohio will no longer make men pay for children they didn't father.
A new state law that took effect Friday allows a man to sue to end his child support payments if genetic testing proves he is not the father.
``Ohio no longer rewards mothers who lie about who the father of their baby is,'' said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Peter Lawson Jones.
Like most states, Ohio had relied on a 500-year-old English common-law doctrine presuming a man is the legal father of any child born to his wife during their marriage. The doctrine existed because in medieval England a child shown to be illegitimate would have virtually no rights.
...
Opponents of the change argued that judges still should be able to protect the child's interests by maintaining a support obligation even if a DNA test disproved paternity.
According to the National Association of State Legislators only Colorado, Iowa and Louisiana have passed similar paternity laws. Most states have policies like one in California to forbid ``inquiries into the child's paternity that would be destructive of family integrity and privacy.''
...
Critics say the new law will disrupt children's lives and ruin families financially. Officials said it also will cost the government an undetermined amount of money to pay for DNA tests and legal work involved in welfare cases, in which county agencies rely on child support as reimbursement.
15264. robertjayb - 10/28/2000 1:04:27 AM
.
Eat and Shoot...The Houston Press
It's the kind of party you could expect to attend only in Texas. Top executives of federal offices in the Houston area have been invited to "a barbecue luncheon and shoot-off" Monday, October 30, at the FBI's state-of-the-art gun range in Conroe.
Houston Federal Executive Board director Michael Mason sounded positively breathless in his description of the soiree. Mason invited the execs and a staffer to take advantage of "live fire exercises and simulated exercises." "You may bring your own handgun. A barbecue luncheon, at no cost to you and your guest, will be catered."
Mason's RSVP request was also a bit unconventional.
"In order to provide enough food and ammunition (and FBI Firearms instructors), we need to know if you are bringing your own weapon and what caliber it is."
Let them eat lead!
Don't mess with our bureaucrats!
15265. ranheim - 10/28/2000 7:07:33 AM
The BATF tops my list.
But, Federal Marshalls are becoming more intrusive by the year.
15266. Greystoke - 10/28/2000 12:22:20 PM
Pig disrupts US Airways flight.
Sources familiar with the incident told the Philadelphia Daily News for yesterday's editions that two women, the pig's owners, convinced the airline the animal was a "therapeutic companion pet," like a guide dog for the blind.
An internal US Airways incident report said the owners claimed they had a doctor's note that allowed them to fly with the animal.
US Airways and Federal Aviation Administration rules allow passengers to fly with service animals.
"According to (the) Philadelphia agent who talked to passenger over phone . . . passenger described pig as being 13 pounds, so based on this info, authorization was given," the report stated.
Passengers on the flight told the Daily News that the pig actually weighed several hundred pounds.
"All I know is, it was ugly and it pooped," one eyewitness told the Philadelphia paper.
The pig, which spent the flight in the first row of first class, went ape when the aircraft taxied into Seattle, according to the report.
It reportedly ran loose through the aircraft, squealing loudly, and even tried to enter the cockpit.
"Many people on board the aircraft were quite upset that there was a large uncontrollable pig on board, especially those in the first-class cabin," the incident report stated.
The pig made it off the plane but continued to squeal in the Seattle airport.
"Once the pig was off aircraft, another passenger had to push while the two women pulled to get it in the elevator. The whole time, the pig was squealing so loudly everyone in the terminal heard it," according to the report.
15267. Greystoke - 10/28/2000 12:30:22 PM
Justice, Texas style.
In a closely watched Texas death penalty case, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a lawyer who sleeps during trial can be effective – as long as he doesn't doze off during important segments of the trial.
The 2-1 decision of a three-judge panel of the court overturned last year's ruling by U.S. District Judge David Hittner ordering a new trial or freedom for death row inmate Calvin Burdine.
Mr. Burdine was convicted of capital murder in 1984 in the stabbing death of his former roommate in Houston, W.T. Wise, even though his court-appointed attorney, Joe Cannon, reportedly fell asleep two to five times during trial.
...
Judge Hittner, however, ruled last year that "a sleeping counsel is equivalent to no counsel at all," but the 5th Circuit panel reversed his ruling.
The decision Friday, by Judge Edith Jones and Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, said evidence presented to the panel didn't show exactly when Mr. Cannon slept, so "it is impossible to determine whether, for example, counsel slept during the presentation of crucial inculpatory evidence, or during the introduction of unobjectionable, uncontested evidence."
...
A spokesman for the Texas attorney general's office, Heather Browne, said she was pleased by the ruling.
"The issue is not centered around Mr. Cannon's sleeping. That fact has not been disputed. However, there has yet to be an argument presented as to how Mr. Cannon's sleeping harmed Mr. Burdine's defense at trial," she said.
15268. joezan - 10/28/2000 12:30:35 PM
What's all the fuss about? They let Charles Schumer fly all the time...
15269. Greystoke - 10/28/2000 12:35:13 PM
Voter registration, Texas style.
Loving County, with 100 people spread out over 696 square miles in far West Texas, is the most sparsely populated county in the United States. Investigators are trying to find out why 212 people are registered to vote there.
Eight prospective voters wrote down a vacant cafe as their legal residence. Texas Ranger Gerry Villalobos said he went to the old building in Mentone, the Loving County seat, and found no one living there.
"The only resident I saw was a cat asleep in an old sofa," Ranger Villalobos said.
Loving County Clerk Beverly Hanson said her voter rolls listed 146 registered voters in 1999. Earlier this month, when registration closed for the Nov. 7 election, the number had swelled to 212.
...
Some prospective voters have listed vacant lots as their voting address. Others are traced to old trailers hauled onto a piece of property at election time, Sheriff Putnam said.
"We are constantly in arguments about what's legal and what's not," Sheriff Putnam said. "I heard someone involved in this thing say, 'Our illegal votes are more legal than the other guy's illegal votes.' It's got so far out of hand now, it's unreal."
15270. Greystoke - 10/28/2000 12:37:25 PM
To the best of my knowledge, Charles Schumer doesn't poop on the floor. He does do a lot of squealing, however.
15271. Greystoke - 10/28/2000 12:44:13 PM
Brain disease passed to other patients via surgical instruments.
A patient who died after brain surgery had an incurable disease that may have been spread to eight other patients through tainted instruments, hospital officials said.
Tulane University Hospital and Clinic took the instruments out of service and destroyed them as soon as officials realized the first patient had died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, said Dr. Alan Miller, a Tulane vice president.
The surgical instruments were put through normal washing and sterilization procedures before the other eight brain operations, but those do not kill the agent which causes CJD, he said in a statement.
...
The disease was diagnosed in an autopsy in May, but patients apparently were not told until this week, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The disease strikes about 1 person in a million – about 6,000 worldwide per year – usually between the age of 50 and 75. It causes a rapidly progressive dementia and loss of physical functions, turning the brain spongy and full of holes. Patients usually die within a year of the first symptoms.
The original patient had "classic" CJD – not the form which may be caused by eating meat from a cow which had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow disease," said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control in Atlanta.
It was not known how the patient contracted the disease. Because it is so rare, striking about 280 people a year in this country, and because it takes years, even decades, to develop, it is almost impossible to trace, Mr. Skinner said.
15272. Greystoke - 10/28/2000 1:00:24 PM
From The New York Times:
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- A 7-year-old boy modeling pro wrestling moves he had seen on TV bounced off his bed and tumbled out a second-story window.
Casey Sabalsa sustained minor cuts and bruises after smashing through the bedroom window and tumbling two stories onto a cushion of grass.
After falling, the boy walked into the house to tell his mother about the broken window.
``He was jumping from the dresser and doing like a back-flip thing to the bed and he missed the bed and went straight out the window,'' said his mother.
The boy was treated for cuts, bruises and minor internal injuries and hospitalized in satisfactory condition Friday.
``Sometimes it hurts to wrestle,'' he said. ``I'm not doing any more wrestling moves.''
15273. robertjayb - 10/28/2000 6:09:07 PM
.
School suspends girl on witchcraft charge
Reuters News Service
OKLAHOMA CITY -- An Oklahoma high school suspended a 15-year-old student after accusing her of casting a magic spell that caused a teacher to become sick, lawyers for the student said Friday.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tulsa on behalf of student Brandi Blackbear, charging that the assistant principal of Union Intermediate High School in Broken Arrow, suspended her for 15 days last December for supposedly casting a spell.
The suit also charged the Tulsa-area Union Public Schools with repeatedly violating Blackbear's civil rights by seizing notebooks she used to write horror stories and barring her from drawing or wearing signs of the pagan religion Wicca.
"It's hard for me to believe that in the year 2000 I am walking into court to defend my daughter against charges of witchcraft brought by her own school," said Timothy Blackbear, Brandi's father. His daughter is now a 10th-grader.
Joann Bell, executive director of the ACLU's Oklahoma chapter, said the "outlandish accusations" had made Blackbear's life at school unbearable.
"I, for one, would like to see the so-called evidence this school has that a 15-year-old girl made a grown man sick by casting a magic spell," Bell said.
The ACLU is seeking an undisclosed amount of punitive and financial damages for Blackbear.
15274. ranheim - 10/28/2000 9:38:21 PM
Robert
Please tell me that you, cleverly, made this up for us. If it is actully true, I have to wonder if the year is actually 2000!
15275. ranheim - 10/28/2000 9:39:32 PM
Beam me up, Scottie!
15276. CalGal - 10/28/2000 9:49:56 PM
BobbyJ,
No shit. That's pretty funny. There's been entirely too much inbreeding in flyover country.
15277. Greystoke - 10/29/2000 8:34:56 AM
Park Service to let Hopis capture, smother eaglets.
The Interior Department has decided that Hopi Indians should be allowed to use golden eagle hatchlings collected at a national monument in Arizona in an annual ancient rite in which the birds are smothered.
Department officials say they are trying to tread a difficult path to protect wildlife, the park system, the rights of American Indians and religious freedom.
Critics say the legal reasoning used by the agency to justify its position, detailed in a rule the agency plans to propose next month, is so broad that it could open the way to much wider hunting and trapping by Indians in parks from Alaska to Florida.
National Park Service officials defend the draft proposal, saying it would be applied only to a few clans in the Hopi tribe that have a clear, historical link to the few eagle nests that dot the windswept plateaus in the 56-square-mile park, Wupatki National Monument, which was long tribal territory. For generations, young men have scaled cliffs each spring to gather eaglets, which are considered messengers between the physical and spiritual worlds. The eaglets are reared until July, when they are sacrificed to send them to their spirit home.
15278. JudithAtHome - 10/29/2000 8:46:29 AM
I guess we should be thankful they don't have a ritual of smothering baby children....
15279. Greystoke - 10/29/2000 8:47:53 AM
LAPD officer impressed by man's acting ability.
A Los Angeles police officer responding to a loud Halloween costume party at a Benedict Canyon mansion early Saturday morning shot and killed an actor, who authorities said pointed what turned out to be a fake handgun at him.
Anthony Dwain Lee, 39, of Van Nuys, who appeared in the movie "Liar, Liar" and on such television shows as "ER" and "NYPD Blue," was shot at multiple times by Officer Tarriel Hopper, who fired from outside through a window, authorities said.
Scores of costumed party-goers, many of them actors and other entertainment industry professionals, were inside the mansion--known to some as "the Castle" for its extravagant design, spires and stained-glass windows--when the shooting occurred about 1 a.m.
...
Police said Hopper and Officer Natalie Humphreys were attempting to locate the owner of the home after neighbors complained about the noise. The officers were walking along an exterior walkway at the rear of the house when Hopper looked into a small room that appeared to contain three people, police said.
...
It was not clear whether the victim knew that Hopper was a real police officer. One guest said some party-goers were dressed as police officers.
...
Another party-goer, Robert Hull, 28, who works in movie production, said he did not see the shooting because he was in an adjacent hallway. "It was a shock that an officer would shoot at such a party," he said.
"This was an exclusive party with security," he said. "Some of these people are making six figures, and this officer saw a toy gun at a Halloween costume party and opened fire."
15280. Greystoke - 10/29/2000 8:56:34 AM
Judith
"I guess we should be thankful they don't have a ritual of smothering baby children."
The Park Service is undecided about how to handle such a request. I hear that the Hopis would like to smother some Italian-American babies as a protest against Columbus Day. Only those who are fully 1/64 Hopi blood would get to participate.
15281. Greystoke - 10/29/2000 9:09:24 AM
Minera Yanacocha, perched atop mountains as high as the Rockies, has since become South America's largest gold mine, one of Peru's top taxpayers and the jewel in Denver-based Newmont's crown. An unprecedented economic boon to Cajamarca, a city of 100,000 located south of the mine, the operation pumps an estimated $60 million a year into the economy and employs up to 6,000, far more than the oncedominant dairy industry ever did.
But instead of celebrating, Marin is fuming. He says Yanacocha, which uses cyanide to extract gold, contaminates the streams that farmers use for drinking and irrigation as well as the water that flows to Cajamarca. A mercury spill near the mine in June - which sickened more than 400 people and contaminated 80 homes - further angered Marin and others.
...
From the tower at Yanacocha, the highest point at the mine, an observer can see mountains being reduced to rubble in every direction. Dynamite blasts ore from the mountains, which is then scooped into 50-ton dump trucks and hauled to the leach pad. Cyanide solution dripped onto the ore is captured by drains that direct it to large retention ponds.
The "pregnant" cyanide and gold solution is stored in the ponds until being piped to the processing plant, where gold, silver and other metals are separated. The cyanide returns to the leach pad and a combination of gold and silver, after being baked and smelted, is sent off in 90-pound coneshaped "buttons" to be refined elsewhere and poured into bars.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm so mad I just might sell my Newmont stock.
Nahhhhhhhhhh.
15282. Greystoke - 10/29/2000 9:11:05 AM
Here is a link to the previous article.
15283. JudithAtHome - 10/29/2000 9:30:52 AM
Grey:
re: Message # 15280
Sounds fair to me....
15284. joezan - 10/29/2000 9:06:44 PM
Wow! - great news here:
Scientists in England report cure for arthritis
15285. JudithAtHome - 10/30/2000 8:44:50 AM
How many years will the FDA take to approve this drug? And I wonder if Americans could go to Britian and get it for themselves? Also, It said you could be pain free for up to a year...that will probably change by the time the pharmaceutical guys get their hands on it; something that doesn't have to be taken day after day brings in less money for them.
15286. Jonesatlaw - 10/30/2000 6:27:19 PM
In defense of the Hopi- it does sound cruel, but the Hopi have been doing this for centuries, and have done far less to harm eagle populations that we all have as a society (Hopis included). I am not an expert on Hopi religion and traditions by any means, but they see themselves as being responsible for insuring balance in the world, not only for Hopi, people but for everyone. I think that traditional Hopis would tell you that they honor the animals that they send as messengers to the spirit world, and they are well cared for until they are sent to perform their duty. They would see this as the natural role of these eagle chicks. Since we as a society have so many other animals that we claim to love killed each year because we tire of them, abandon them or fail to control their breeding, I really don't think that Hopi traditions are out of touch with the way we treat animals. The most common method of killing dogs and cats in the pound is to essentially smother them as well.
15287. robertjayb - 10/31/2000 1:45:36 AM
.
Well, at least they weren't dragging the dogs behind pickup trucks...
JASPER, Texas (AP) - At least 47 people were arrested as Jasper County authorities broke up a dogfighting operation in the Mount Union area of the East Texas county.
State troopers and sheriff's deputies made the arrests early Sunday, stopping a dogfight that had been going on for several hours and rounding up people who had fled into the woods.
In addition, police seized what they termed large quantities of cocaine and marijuana along with eight handguns and a sawed-off riot gun.
So many people were apprehended that officers from nearby Tyler and Newton counties had to be called in, along with Jasper city police officers. A prison bus was brought to haul the arrested people to jail, Paul Brister, chief deputy in Jasper County, said.
Eight suspects were still in custody early Monday. At least 21 pleaded guilty to being spectators to a dogfight, paid a fine and were released. Others posted bond and were freed.
Deputies also seized four pit bulls and confiscated videotape shot by one of the spectators just minutes before the raid. Investigators also found a list of bets on the dogfights. Jasper County Sheriff Billy Rowles said some bets were as high as $1,000.
Dogfighting is a third-degree felony.
AP-WS-10-30-00 1854EST
15288. greystoke - 10/31/2000 7:46:42 AM
Jones
First of all, I think that comparing the treatment of overpopulated domestic animals to the treatment of federally protected wild animals is "apples versus oranges." Its not just the smothering I object to, but the fact that the eagles are being senselessly killed at all.
Also, the special status given to Native Americans when it comes to wildlife management rubs me the wrong way. Most Indians live a thoroughly modern lifestyle. Yet, just because someone is, say, 1/16 Hopi, he is a member of the tribe and can violate wildlife laws for which anyone else would be prosecuted.
I wonder what percentage of Hopis live off the land and practice all the rituals of their ancestors. Damn few, I'll wager.
15289. greystoke - 10/31/2000 11:50:31 AM
Chuck Norris, Texas Ranger
Chuck Norris, who plays a Texas Ranger on television, has jumped into the middle of a standoff between real-life Texas lawmen and an anti-government fugitive holed up on his Henderson County farm.
...
Mr. Gray, 51, who espouses a militant combination of Christian fundamentalism and anti-tax beliefs, posted bail on the charges and then retreated to his property near Cedar Creek Lake.
In May, authorities issued warrants for his arrest after he failed to appear in court. He and various members of his family – his wife, children and grandchildren – are heavily armed and have threatened to shoot anyone who tries to arrest him.
...
"There's two people that that family looks up to: Mel Gibson and Chuck," Mr. Cullins said. "This visit didn't mean that Chuck is on their side. It just means that he's trying to get this thing out from under a tree on the bank of the Trinity River and into a courtroom where it belongs."
...
Mr. Gray, 51, has been a member of the Texas Constitutional Militia, an anti-government group similar to the Republic of Texas. He and several family members refuse to maintain driver's licenses, or register and inspect their cars, and they espouse the belief that the government has no right to impose taxes.
...
Mr. Gray's felony charges stem from a traffic stop in Anderson County last Dec. 24. Two state troopers said Mr. Gray was armed with a pistol in a shoulder holster and refused their order to get out of the car. During a scuffle, he bit one officer on the hand and tried to disarm the other one, according to the charges.
15290. greystoke - 10/31/2000 11:58:11 AM
Zero tolerance.
No one seems to doubt G.J. Martindale's story: He forgot that he had a gun in his car when he drove it to school earlier this month.
But residents of this small Panhandle farming community are divided over whether the Clarendon High School senior with the good-guy reputation should be facing criminal charges and school sanctions because of his mistake.
...
Mr. Hysinger said the 17-year-old student has been suspended from extracurricular school activities, including football, and placed in an alternative education program off campus. Mr. Martindale also faces a grand jury Nov. 13, which will determine whether he must stand trial for violating federal and state laws prohibiting guns on school campuses.
The incident began the evening of Oct. 2, when Mr. Martindale said he became ill while dove hunting. He said he placed his gun behind the seat of his vehicle and returned home.
...
G.J. Martindale said he first realized he'd left the gun in the vehicle when school officials asked him to report to the parking lot that morning. A dog trained to sniff out narcotics, tobacco and gunpowder had alerted its handler that one of those substances banned from school property could be inside the student's car.
Once the 12-gauge shotgun was discovered, school officials notified the Donley County Sheriff's Department, and the youth was arrested.
[continued]
15291. greystoke - 10/31/2000 11:58:33 AM
"It's the craziest thing I've ever heard," said Walt Rice. "This is one of those things that can easily happen to anybody. This is a hunting community. Mistakes are going to happen. If they can't understand the difference between a mistake and somebody wanting to shoot up the school, then we really do have some problems."
Mr. Martindale's alternative schooling ends Tuesday, but his problems are far from over. If the grand jury indicts him, he faces a maximum punishment of two years in a state jail facility and a $10,000 fine.
15292. robertjayb - 11/2/2000 3:27:46 AM
.
Penguin Plane Spotters Intrigue Scientists
LONDON (Reuters) - Do penguins fall over backwards when watching aircraft fly overhead?
Two British scientists are traveling to South Georgia in the south Atlantic to find answers to that question and others from a study of the island's 400,000 King Penguins.
Scientists have usually been skeptical about reports of penguins falling over backwards to watch aircraft flying above them.
But a senior officer on the British navy ship HMS Endurance, which is taking the scientific team to South Georgia, said he believed the reports. ''The penguins always look up at the helicopters and follow them all the way until they fall over backwards,'' Stuart Matthews, the ship's operations officer, told the Daily Telegraph.
Dr Richard Stone of the British Antarctic Survey told Reuters that scientists were concerned that low-flying aircraft could cause stress among penguins and affect their breeding performance.
``There may be an increase in heart rate as helicopters fly over,'' Stone said.
``The worst possible effect is that there would be a reduction in their breeding performance. If they were incubating eggs this could be quite devastating for them.''
Stone said helicopters from HMS Endurance would fly at different altitudes over the penguins to help in the research.
15293. ranheim - 11/2/2000 7:04:16 PM
#15284
I would advise any of you who may be thinking about this "triple therapy" for Rheumatoid Arthritis to go slow!
And, Judith, all 3 drugs are already available in the USA; so that won't be a problem. But, due to the type of drugs these are, you should use the utmost caution in finding the right physician to use them. This is and intra-venous treatment; so, you can expect to spend some time in the hospital or one of these new 1 or 2 day care centers.
Prednisolone was available when I graduated from Baylor in 1961. It is one of the many forms of "cortisone"; a steroid.
Cytoxan (cyclophosphyamide), is also an old drug. Currently, it is usually not used alone. It is used as a part of a "cocktail" of anti-cancer drugs. Among the diseases in which Cytoxan is used : breast cancer; leukemias, lymphomas; Multiple Myeloma; ovarian cancer; retinoblastomas. Cytoxan has many significant side effects : depressing certain cells in the blood; kidney and liver damage.
Rituxam (rituximab) is made by Genentech. Its main use is in non-Hodgkins lymphomas. It has several "black box warnings". Drugs with these warnings are to be used only by experts.
If you can find an Oncologist (cancer doctor) who is willing to try this, give it a shot. Anyone in the Orthopedic or Rheumatology fields I would check into much more closely. The two anti-cancer drugs aren't something these doctors use frequently. And your physician, using this trio of Rx, should have "some" experience with all three.
15294. JudithAtHome - 11/2/2000 7:11:33 PM
ranheim:
My son was given the prednisolone as part of his chemo cocktail for Hodgkins back in the 70s...I don't know which part did it but he was left sterile by the treatment.
15295. Al D - 11/2/2000 11:08:44 PM
Big time rain on the Big Island of Hawaii; Pahala, on the south east corner got 36" in 24 hours. Even the Kona Coast was drenched. The storm hit Maui, also. It missed Kauai, with light showers, so we got our golf game in. It seems I'm working on building my handicap.
15296. ranheim - 11/3/2000 12:06:07 AM
Al
You sure building is the word you wanted. It, sort of, implies getting larger.
In golf, that ain't good.
I envy you. I played golf through my sophomore year in med school. A classmate of mine had been a caddy at River Oaks in Houston. As long as we did not get in a member's way, we could play; and free. We would start at about 5:30 or 6 in the AM. Play 18 and be on time for 9:00AM classes. It got to the point that I almost always was in the 80s; best round ever at River Oaks was a 78.
Since then, 1959, I doubt that I have played 2 complete rounds of golf. Just too time consuming.
15297. greystoke - 11/3/2000 11:58:03 AM
Prison guards indicted.
Seven guards at a federal prison in Florence were indicted Thursday by a Denver grand jury for alleged abuses ranging from smashing inmates' heads into walls to mixing human waste in prisoners' food.
Five of the men, Mike LaVallee, Rod Schultz, Ken Shatto, David Pruyne and Brent Gall, belonged to "The Cowboys," a renegade group who roamed the maximum-security penitentiary in 1995 and 1996 administering punishment, according to the indictment. Also indicted were guards Robert Verbickas and James Bond.
The indictment says abuses included dropping handcuffed inmates on their faces, kneeing them in their kidneys, squeezing their testicles and falsifying reports to cover up the guards' actions.
...
According to the indictment, it was LaVallee who got "the green light" from management "to take care of business" in the spring of 1995. LaVallee and Pruyne are accused of throwing a flaming piece of paper into a cell in order to justify spraying two inmates inside with a fire extinguisher.
LaVallee and Schultz are accused of concealing feces and urine in the inmates' food. Schultz allegedly cut himself with a shank in order to justify beating inmate William Turner, whose federal lawsuit launched the investigation.
The indictment alleges that Schultz taught guards how to hit an inmate without leaving marks and held inmate Jamar Phenis while Gutierrez allegedly squeezed Phenis' testicles. Pruyne is accused of choking an unidentified inmate until his eyes began to bulge.
15298. PelleNilsson - 11/3/2000 12:47:11 PM
I'm surprised that nobody has linked this:
PHILADELPHIA - A 300-pound pig flew first class on US Airways, and the company, embarrassed, says it will never happen again.
On Oct. 17, the six-hour flight from Philadelphia to Seattle carried 200 people and one pig, which sat on the floor in the first row of first class.
''We can confirm that the pig traveled, and we can confirm that it will never happen again,'' said David Castelveter, a US Airways spokesman.
More.
15299. greystoke - 11/3/2000 3:26:40 PM
Pelle,
I linked that one on Oct. 28 -- Message # 15266
15300. greystoke - 11/3/2000 3:27:12 PM
toys
15301. PelleNilsson - 11/3/2000 4:04:53 PM
greystoke
I missed it, sorry. In fact 'somebody' was code for 'greystoke' beacuse you seem able to track down the most oddball stories around.
15302. PelleNilsson - 11/3/2000 4:06:17 PM
Horribly mangled English there. Sorry again.
15303. Indiana Jones - 11/4/2000 11:42:55 PM
Speaking of oddball...(don't think Greystoke has linked this):
(Click on Taiwanese chapter of Male Planned Parenthood) 
You know that's got to hurt.
15304. arkymalarky - 11/4/2000 11:52:09 PM
Just to give a little glimpse of how my sick mind works, the thought of expanding feminism and gender equality occurred to me and what the female counterpart to that would have to be in that case. Makes me hurt just to think about it.
15305. arkymalarky - 11/4/2000 11:52:37 PM
Thinking of breasts, btw, in case anyone didn't figure that out.
15306. joezan - 11/5/2000 12:47:15 AM
The ancient art of 'qi gong' uses breathing and meditation exercises to improve health and longevity, and is also used in certain martial arts. (Simon Kwong/Reuters)
I don't even want to know.
15307. Greystoke - 11/5/2000 10:14:38 AM
Oklahoma State University student busted for sharing music.
Scott Wickberg, a 19-year-old Tulsa freshman majoring in graphics design, had been operating a file-sharing Web site that allowed others to log onto it with a password and download any of 10,200 MP3 songs in his collection.
But OSU police received a tip from the Recording Industry Association of America and obtained a search warrant. On Sept. 5, officers seized Mr. Wickberg's computer containing thousands of mostly live concert recordings, a story in Saturday's Tulsa World said.
Mr. Wickberg is featured in the November issue of Rolling Stone magazine, which heralds him as downloadable music's first sacrificial lamb.
...
Legal officials said it is possible Mr. Wickberg could be charged with felony contributory copyright infringement, or knowingly causing another to infringe or contribute to someone else's infringement of copyright law, a charge that carries a fine of up to $250,000 and up to five years in prison.
"On the surface, he appears to have violated copyright laws," said Joey Senat, OSU professor of journalism. "What he did by helping give away thousands of records had a direct effect on the market value of the works and is in violation of someone's intellectual property."
...
A spokesman for the RIAA said Friday that although the organization can't pursue every single student violating copyright laws, it does employ people who regularly monitor Web sites and report suspicious activities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately, the article did not provide an address for Mr. Wickberg's legal defense fund.
15308. Greystoke - 11/5/2000 10:22:19 AM
Update on the Texas boy who brought his shotgun to school.
A review of state law indicates that a high school senior arrested last month for leaving a shotgun in a vehicle parked on school property apparently did not violate any laws, officials said Friday.
Prosecutor Randall Sims said G.J. Martindale's case will still be presented to a Donley County grand jury on Nov. 13 as scheduled, but he would be "very surprised" if formal charges are levied.
...
Mr. Sims said does not know of any law that G.J. Martindale violated by leaving his 12-gauge shotgun in his Chevrolet El Camino following a hunting trip and then driving the car to school with the gun inside.
Mr. Sims said the confusion stemmed from a legal definition of the phrase "premises of a school," which does not apply to a school parking lot in the case of a shotgun left in a vehicle. If the weapon in question had been a handgun, Mr. Sims said, a criminal act could have been committed under the state's penal code.
Mr. Sims said he did not question the arrest until a newspaper reporter's inquiry on Thursday. When he researched criminal laws related to guns on school campuses, he determined no violations had occurred.
Sheriff Thompson said he never expected the grand jury to indict the student because there was no allegation Mr. Martindale intended to harm anyone. He said he doubts his office is the first to make an arrest under similar circumstances because the law is complicated.
"If you think a law has been broken, you do your job," he said. "... We all make mistakes. Every officer does. Do you know what the grand jury is for? It's a buffer between law enforcement and the people."
15309. Greystoke - 11/5/2000 10:32:36 AM
And what about the old bromide that a prosecutor can have a ham sandwich indicted if he wants to?
If both the prosecutor and the sheriff now say that no laws were violated, then why is the case even being presented to a grand jury?
Idiots.
15310. Greystoke - 11/5/2000 10:41:58 AM
Naked rapist.
A naked man in a ski mask burst into a University Hill apartment and raped a 20-year-old University of Colorado student late Thursday.
The woman was alone in her apartment near 12th Street and College Avenue when a white man, wearing nothing but a ski mask, entered and sexually assaulted her around 11:30 p.m., she told police.
She told officers the man was about 6 feet tall and slightly overweight. She said she thought he was in his mid-20s to mid30s.
Police, who were still searching for the suspect Friday, canvassed the neighborhood hoping that a naked man attracted someone's attention.
"The fact that he was naked is very unusual," said city spokeswoman Jennifer Bray. "We're hoping that someone that was in the area has seen something." But residents in the complex said malfunctioning lights have darkened a hallway and stairwell and may have given cover to the suspect.
15311. Greystoke - 11/5/2000 10:55:12 AM
Contract written on napkin ruled invalid.
With that, in a decision rendered last week, Kopriva tossed out the $755,000 sale of a Chinese restaurant and surrounding property, part of a much-coveted spot at an often-clogged Altoona intersection.
...
But the napkin-as-contract case might be appealed to the state Superior Court. Spurned buyer Bruce Thaler and attorney Forrest Fordham of Johnstown said yesterday they haven't made a decision yet.
According to court documents, Thaler and his development group, TEDD LLC, figured on having the restaurant and a national video chain on the property.
...
As interpreted in TEDD's lawsuit, filed in June, the napkin said the group would buy the ground for $755,000 or $762,500, depending on the real estate commission, Chang could rent his restaurant for five years, and the buyers would finance only $300,000 of the sale price.
But a photocopy of the napkin -- now an official court document -- shows terms scrawled in roughly the penmanship of a man sprinting for a cab, written in disconnected phrases such as "commission 4%," "real estate tax 1/2 pay" and "10 year 7.5%."
The problem, Kopriva wrote in her decision, is that the sales agreement doesn't say who's buying and who's selling, or what's being sold or, for sure, what the sale price is.
There's a spot on the napkin where Thaler and Chang were supposed to sign. "It is unclear whether or not the markings ... constitute signatures," Kopriva wrote.
For her ruling, Kopriva reached back before the Constitution to 1772 and a British law called the Statute of Frauds, now incorporated into American law. In effect, the statute barred people from laying claim to property unless they had written agreements to back up those claims.
15312. Greystoke - 11/5/2000 11:29:48 AM
77 year old woman beats federal govenment; gets to keep $82,000.
A 77-year-old woman can keep the $82,000 found in the gas tank of the car she bought at a federal auction, a federal judge said in a ruling that thwarted the government's attempt to seize it.
...
The car was seized by the Missouri State Highway Patrol in 1996.
A trooper stopped the car for speeding on Interstate 44 near Springfield and noticed that some work had been done on the undercarriage.
During the search at the patrol's garage, the trooper found $24,000 in the battery case. No drugs were found, so the driver and passenger, both from Mexico, were allowed to leave.
The driver later filed a claim for the car but never followed through.
The patrol turned the money over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which declared the money and car abandoned three years later, and the car was put up for sale at auction through the General Services Administration.
Last year Helen Chappell bought the car for $5,400.
In the ruling, Laughrey wrote that no one --neither the government nor the Chappells -- knew about the $82,000 when the car was sold, so the first person to find it would be the rightful owner.
Even though the mechanic found the money, the judge said, he was acting as an agent for the Chappells.
15313. CalGal - 11/5/2000 11:35:49 AM
Ha!
The real embarrassment is how the government missed the money.
15314. greystoke - 11/6/2000 11:52:00 AM
Are you chatting on the Mote and getting paid for it?
A growing number of employers are using surveillance software to crack down on personal Internet use at the office. Most cite productivity issues, although many say they want to avoid legal liabilities that could stem from offensive e-mails. Still others say they want to prevent leaks of confidential business information.
An American Management Association survey this year found that 38 percent of the major U.S. companies polled check their employees' e-mail and 54 percent monitor Internet connections.
Of the 2,100 firms responding to the survey, 17 percent have fired employees for misusing the Internet. Twenty-six percent have given workers formal reprimands and 20 percent have issued informal warnings
...
Software that monitors keystrokes -- such as SpectorSoft's -- can be especially intrusive, said Deborah Pierce, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. With such programs, an employer can view all the drafts of an employee's e-mails -- even messages that are never sent.
...
The 1986 Electronic Communication Privacy Act grants employers the right to review stored communications -- such as e-mail -- on the company's computer system, he said.
15315. greystoke - 11/6/2000 12:12:34 PM
Supreme Court upholds ruling that prosecutors cannot claim different versions of the same events.
The Supreme Court will not clarify whether prosecutors may claim different versions of the same events at the criminal trials of separate defendants.
The court, without comment, on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that said prosecutors were out of bounds in a Missouri murder case that involved six defendants.
The 8th U.S. Court of Appeals overturned Jon Keith Smith's conviction in the 1983 robbery and killing of an elderly couple, saying in effect that Missouri prosecutors could not have it both ways.
State prosecutors pointed to Smith as a chief culprit at his 1987 trial, which included testimony from an alleged accomplice.
The alleged accomplice had told authorities that all six people were involved in the killings, but on the stand at Smith's trial he said only two people were killers. He admitted being part of a burglary ring but said he and Smith arrived at the scene after the killings.
The prosecutor produced the earlier statement, argued that all six were involved from the start and won murder and armed robbery convictions against Smith.
A few months later the same prosecutor put the alleged accomplice on the stand during the trial of another of the six defendants. The defendant was one of the two that the alleged accomplice had named as the killers at Smith's trial.
This time, the prosecutor did not object when the alleged accomplice repeated the allegation that only two people were involved in the killings.
15316. rubberducky - 11/7/2000 9:07:11 AM
only in California
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal appeals court panel overturned a death sentence passed against a convicted murderer on Monday, saying prosecutors should not have argued that God sanctioned capital punishment.
...
The defendant, a former gang member, had been convicted of four murders in Los Angeles in 1984. In the penalty phase of the trial, the prosecutor repeatedly invoked God's authority as a rationale for imposing the death penalty, telling the jury that they would not be playing God but "doing what God says" by sentencing Sandoval to die.
"This might be the only opportunity to wake him up," the prosecutor said. "God will destroy the body to save the soul. Make him get himself right."
The jury, which had initially deadlocked on the question of the death penalty, returned a death sentence.
...
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, siding against the California Supreme Court in the case, said the prosecutor's line of argument was "improper and highly prejudicial" and created the possibility that jury members could disregard the legal questions before them in favor of "an asserted higher law."
"This is strong medicine," the court's majority opinion, by Justice Mary Schroeder, said. "The message was clear: those who have opposed the ordinance of God should fear the sword-bearing state, whose task, as an avenging minister of God, is to bring wrath upon those who, like Sandoval, practice evil."
That implication, the justices argued, was enough to deny Sandoval his right to a fair trial in the penalty phase of the case. The appeals court justices vacated the death penalty and remanded the case to the lower court, where state prosecutors may seek to retry the penalty phase of the case.
deny him a fair trail? puh-fuckin-lease
15317. greystoke - 11/7/2000 11:52:26 AM
rubberducky
That's a gas.
15318. greystoke - 11/7/2000 12:00:07 PM
David Brower is dead.
David Brower, who transformed the Sierra Club from a small hiking group into a political powerhouse during his nearly 70 years of environmental activism, died of cancer at his Berkeley home. He was 88.
Brower, who died Sunday, became the club's first executive director in 1952, when it had 2,000 members. When he left in a dispute with the board in 1969, it had 77,000 members. It now has more than 600,000 members and substantial influence in Washington and state capitals.
Brower also founded other groups, including the League of Conservation Voters.
...
Brower was an avid mountain climber and skier who dropped out of college as a sophomore after studying butterflies. He served in the 10th Mountain Division during World War II and had an outdoor adventure career that took him around the globe.
Brower joined the Sierra Club in 1933 and led efforts to pass the Wilderness Act, block construction of two hydroelectric dams in the Grand Canyon and create Kings Canyon, North Cascades and Redwoods national parks, as well as Point Reyes and Cape Cod national seashores.
...
He went on to found Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters, which have become respected environmental groups. He resigned from the board of Friends of the Earth after a battle for control in 1986. He also founded the Earth Island Institute.
"David Brower was the greatest environmentalist and conservationist of the 20th century. He was an indefatigable champion of every worthwhile effort to protect the environment over the last seven decades," said Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader.
15319. greystoke - 11/7/2000 12:06:04 PM
Washington state police loosen up on car impounding.
Under a revised State Patrol policy, people who own cars and lend them to friends with suspended driver's licenses will get a second chance in the event the cars are impounded.
Last week, a King County district judge became the second Washington jurist to find unconstitutional a law that calls for impounding cars driven by suspended motorists.
Judge Mary Ann Ottinger ruled that the Washington State Patrol did not treat every person equally because it allowed some owners to get their impounded vehicles back early, but did not extend the courtesy to some registered owners who lent their cars to suspended drivers.
...
Under the law, which has been effective for a year, state troopers were required to impound cars for 30, 60 or 90 days if the drivers were found to have multiple suspended driving violations.
According to the patrol policy at the time, only owners who were the driver's spouse, rental agency or employer could get the car back early.
...
The patrol remains adamant about holding registered owners responsible for lending their cars because police need to keep bad drivers off the roads, said Trooper Tom Foster, patrol spokesman.
"Look, whoever was driving knew they were suspended," Foster said. "They're suspended and they were arrested before. So these are very bad drivers."
Still, Foster said he could understand why car owners would be upset. The patrol has received plenty of complaints since the law took effect.
He suggested that people get into the habit of checking the background of drivers before lending their cars. Anyone can call the state Department of Licensing and ask if a person has a valid license.
15320. greystoke - 11/7/2000 12:07:16 PM
You can impound my car when you pry my cold, dead hands from the steering wheel.
15321. robertjayb - 11/7/2000 1:19:28 PM
.
Great Dome Robbery Foiled by Brits
"Police have foiled a diamond heist at the Millennium Dome which detectives say would have been the world's biggest robbery.
The Metropolitan Police flying squad sealed off the south east London attraction as an armed gang attempted to steal 12 diamonds on display there - including the priceless Millennium Star.
"Unknown to the gang the real jewels were replaced on Monday with replicas."
15322. greystoke - 11/8/2000 11:58:58 AM
Jealous man sends bomb to rival; blows up his father.
Investigators say Goff planted the bomb that seriously injured 59-year-old Barry Hornstein on Sept. 27 after he kicked a small bag near his car.
Police believe the bomb was intended for Hornstein's 17-year-old son, Jack.
A dummy bomb was delivered to the house of Jack Hornstein's girlfriend in Kennewick on Oct. 8, while the teenager was visiting, Law said.
Law said Goff and the 14-year-old girl met in an Internet chat room last year and eventually met and had sex before she broke up with Goff and began dating Jack Hornstein.
Police say Goff became jealous of Jack Hornstein and placed the bombs. Investigators also believe Goff played a role in posting fliers attacking Jack Hornstein that were placed around his high school in Portland.
...
Goff is charged with rape of a child in Kitsap County, and is being held on $650,000 bail in the Kitsap County Jail, Portland police spokesman Lt. Mike Hefley said.
Goff is charged in Oregon with attempted aggravated murder, assault, arson and the manufacture and possession of a destructive device, Hefley said.
Barry Hornstein, Jack's father, had surgery on his right leg and foot after the bomb exploded.
He has been released from Legacy Emanuel Hospital, a spokeswoman said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Let's see ... I predict that the girl will dump Hornstein and return to Goff now that he has proved how much he loves her.
Another plot for a TV movie on the Lifetime channel.
15323. greystoke - 11/8/2000 12:06:17 PM
Girl reunited with her loving mother.
For 15 years, Fallon Marie Hodges had no idea who she was.
She moved from town to town -- sometimes more than once in a single day.
On Friday, Hodges, now 18, wandered into a sheriff's office in Nevada, ending a saga that began at age 3 when she disappeared with her baby sitter.
...
From there, they linked the girl to her mother, Eveleen Strempel, who lives just west of Eugene in the town of Veneta, Ore.
But the circumstances surrounding Hodges' disappearance remain shrouded in uncertainty.
Authorities, for example, still don't know whether Hodges was kidnapped by her baby sitter or if she was abandoned.
...
Strempel said she had left Fallon and her brother, Dustin, with her baby sitter, Marcella Whitehead, while she sorted out her financial problems.
She returned for Dustin, and said she would be back soon for Fallon.
But Whitehead and the girl were gone when she returned, Strempel said.
A few weeks ago, Whitehead and Homenyk left Hodges in Lovelock, Nev., a small town about 90 miles northeast of Reno. They told her they would contact her once they were safely away and tell her about her true identity.
Hodges waited a month before going to the sheriff's office.
She needed help finding her true identity, she said. And she told authorities she never attended school or visited a doctor.
Strempel has said she never reported her daughter missing because she was going through a difficult time, didn't have a home and was involved in drugs.
But she says she never stopped looking for Hodges, and claims she was misled by Whitehead.
15324. greystoke - 11/9/2000 12:03:17 PM
Child care, California style.
A San Jose woman who allegedly locked her sons in the trunk of her car while she worked has been charged with child endangerment, a police spokesman said.
The woman, 30-year-old Rosemarie Barcelona Randovan, is being held on $30,000 bail after her two boys, ages 5 and 7, told police that she would sometimes keep them in the trunk of her 2000 Honda Civic while she attended her job at a Santa Clara circuit board manufacturing plant, said Sgt. Steve Dixon of the San Jose Police Department.
Dixon said investigators visited the woman's house after receiving a call from one of her co-workers who thought he had heard a child's moans coming from the rear of Randovan's car.
...
.
The co-worker told several others that he suspected Randovan was keeping a child in the trunk of her Honda.
"They didn't believe it," Dixon said. "They thought she was a nice girl. He did confront her and said what he thought. She showed him her car and opened the trunk. There was no one there, but he saw a Pokemon blanket and a cereal bowl."
Both boys said Randovan sometimes would keep them in the trunk of her car, Dixon said.
15325. greystoke - 11/9/2000 12:19:10 PM
Rancher defies BLM.
In a scene out of a Western B movie, a group of Utah and Nevada ranchers, with the blessing of the county sheriff, on Tuesday took back a herd of cows impounded last month by the federal government.
"I went up there and took my cattle home," said Mary Bullock, a Kanab rancher who has locked horns in recent months with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over grazing privileges in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Tuesday's event set the stage for a legal showdown that will pit the federal government against the ranchers and the local law enforcement officers who assisted them.
The drama began three weeks ago, when BLM wranglers began rounding up Bullock's cows after monument manager Kate Cannon determined Bullock had failed to comply with repeated orders to remove the animals from the drought-stricken monument.
...
The U.S. attorney appears to be most disgruntled with Sevier County Sheriff Phil Barney, who made the ultimate decision in Salina to turn the cows over to Bullock and her entourage.
Barney previously said he would help the BLM with its impoundment and auction, telling the U.S. attorney it did not need to send any federal police to Salina for Tuesday's auction, Rydalch said.
"When you give your word to the U.S. attorney, that ought to stand for something," she said.
Barney, a cattleman, could not be reached for comment and did not return phone calls from The Salt Lake Tribune on Wednesday.
...
Tuesday's events in Salina have attracted the attention of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, whose staff Wednesday contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office, Utah Attorney General's Office and the Kane County sheriff.
15326. rubberducky - 11/9/2000 12:32:37 PM
what a load of
.....
heh
bull
15327. robertjayb - 11/9/2000 11:32:10 PM
.
The Tampa Tribune
Mayor gets the boot...
Mayor Dick Greco fought back a few weeks ago when his car was booted in an Ybor City parking lot. Rather than pay the $70 fine, Greco found two city police officers, who ordered the parking lot attendant to remove the boot.
The Tampa City Council now plans to consider an ordinance to avoid similar conflicts at private parking lots.
Greco said he never saw the sign warning that his car could be immobilized unless he paid the $3 parking fee.
He said he didn't see an attendant, but he intended to pay the fee after he and his guests finished their dinner.
``My office had received complaints, but I really didn't know it was a problem until it happened to me,'' Greco said.
Isn't that always the way?
15328. greystoke - 11/13/2000 11:53:42 AM
Striptease for trees.
It's midday in California redwood country, and the cool, misty calm is unbroken save for a whisper of wind and the gravelly rumble of an approaching logging truck.
Suddenly, a woman carrying a battered red megaphone steps onto the muddy road. She whips off her black stretch top and advances, forcing the big blue truck to stop.
The driver has just encountered La Tigresa, otherwise known as Dona Nieto, poet, performer, conservation crusader and the new, nude thing on the eco-protest scene.
...
"The traditional means were getting us nowhere fast," Nieto says. "We have to move rapidly, and we have to move efficiently. I think that what I've been doing is both rapid and efficient."
Rapid, indeed. Since she started her protests in mid-October, Nieto has been written up by several newspapers, seen on German TV, and talked about by conservative broadcasters Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh.
Nieto goes bare-breasted to represent nature and put a human face on what is happening to the Earth.
She sometimes demonstrates alone, sometimes with a few other women, against clearcutting, the practice of removing every tree from a logging tract rather than selecting only some trees.
...
With her broad smile and wicked chuckle, Nieto can be very funny. She calls her actions the "striptease for the trees." A documentary in the making goes by the name the "Bare Witch Project."
15329. JJBiener - 11/13/2000 12:04:03 PM
I am sure the media will want to keep abreast of this as the story develops. It is good to see an activist who confines herself to the bare necessities. This is somethine not even the Lorax thought of. "I am Nieto, I strip for the tress."
15330. greystoke - 11/13/2000 12:09:05 PM
JJ
With all that wordplay, I think you could have a future in journalism
15331. JJBiener - 11/13/2000 12:12:12 PM
Grey - I promised my mother that I would always make an honest living. That leaves out journalism, politics, law, etc.
15332. mgleason - 11/14/2000 10:19:37 AM
Man Bites Dog
Furniture mover Steven Maul, 24, allegedly forced his 80-pound (36 kg) Labrador puppy "Boo" to the ground on two separate occasions to administer nips to the neck as part of an unorthodox discipline system.
"Nothing here was cruel or hurtful," Maul's attorney, Jasper Monti, told Tuesday's San Francisco Chronicle after a judge ordered Maul to stand trial on the charges. "My client in fact has French kissed his dog. My client is very oral."
15333. mgleason - 11/14/2000 10:25:41 AM
Sorry, that should be:
Man Bites Dog
15334. greystoke - 11/14/2000 11:07:16 AM
The guy's name is actually "Maul"? Seems like an amazing coincidence.
BTW, Jasper the lawyer doesn't sound too bright. "My client french kisses his dog" is supposed to generate sympathy for the defendant?
15335. mgleason - 11/14/2000 11:11:58 AM
I love that story, Greystoke; it has all the elements of great farce (in direct competition with the election, I might add).
15336. mgleason - 11/16/2000 2:36:38 PM
Irish Author With Sheep Tale Aims For Bad Literary Sex Award
He might have missed out on the Booker Prize, but Irish author Brian O'Doherty has received a much greater accolade by being nominated for the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction prize. His novel The Deposition of Father McGreevy depicts scenes of a man having sex with a sheep.
The scene reads: "When I passed him he turned to look at me, and I saw those fine white lashes long enough to catch flies. Strange that a beast should have such beautiful lashes around eyes with as much expression as two marbles." O'Doherty's publishers, Arcadia Book, told The Guardian. "It's great news, isn't it?" he said. "I think he'll be absolutely delighted. We've already distributed 12,000 copies in England and Ireland, and this should sell a lot more of them. You know some Kerry councillor was so outraged he has declared a sort of fatwa on him? This should really get them going."
15337. Indiana Jones - 11/16/2000 3:27:43 PM
Monkey Brain Controls Distant Robot Movement
15338. AytchMan - 11/16/2000 4:53:11 PM
Indy--
Way, way too many possibilities on that title.
15339. JudithAtHome - 11/18/2000 9:24:27 AM
This opens A Whole New Can Of Worms
15340. CalGal - 11/18/2000 8:42:23 PM
Saying Income Tax Is Illegal, Business Owners Quit Paying
Arguing that the federal tax laws do not apply to them, these small companies are thumbing their noses at the I.R.S. in a very public way: they have not only stopped withholding taxes and turning them over to the government, they are also bragging about it on Web sites and radio talk shows, and organizing seminars to promote the gospel of defiance.
And they are boasting that they must be right because the I.R.S. has not come after them, even though it knows what they are doing. Mr. Thompson noted that he had not sent a weekly tax payment to the I.R.S. since July, yet "I have not been drug off to jail."
Indeed, the I.R.S. has not only failed to pursue these businesses, it has in some cases given refunds after they claimed they did not owe taxes paid earlier. In at least two cases, the businesses say they even received apologetic letters from the I.R.S. for not rescinding penalties and issuing the refunds sooner.
Many tax experts express astonishment that the I.R.S. is aware that legitimate businesses are cheating yet has not even written to ask why their tax payments stopped, let alone begun action to make them pay. This undermines the principle on which the American tax system is based, they say: people who do not pay their taxes will pay the consequences.
15341. rubberducky - 11/20/2000 12:58:55 PM
online rights assaulted again by those bastions of liberty - The French:
PARIS (Reuters) - In a landmark ruling with potential implications for Web users around the world, a French court on Monday ordered U.S. Internet giant Yahoo (YHOO) to bar French users from sites selling Nazi memorabilia.
Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez confirmed a ruling that he first issued on May 22 ordering Yahoo to prevent people in France from accessing English-language sites that auction Nazi books, daggers, SS badges and uniforms.
fucking French morons
this kind of shit just gets my chad a swingin'
15342. mgleason - 11/20/2000 1:07:17 PM
this kind of shit just gets my chad a swingin'
Please, RD, this is a family thread...
15343. rubberducky - 11/20/2000 1:29:09 PM
pardon me, MG
i shoulda said this kind of shit really dimples my chad
15344. PsychProf - 11/20/2000 3:21:44 PM
RETALIATION
click on GAZA 
15345. PsychProf - 11/20/2000 3:26:09 PM
An Israeli soldier walks past a school bus damaged by a bomb blast as it
was taking children and teachers from the Jewish settlement of Kfar
Darom, in the Gaza Strip, to an elementary school in Gush Katif,
Monday, Nov. 20, 2000. Two adults were killed and nine passengers
wounded, among them five children. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito) 
15346. greystoke - 11/21/2000 11:52:52 AM
Elderly Colorado woman shoots intruder.
The woman allegedly shot the intruder with a.38-caliber revolver after he broke in through the back door.
The suspect, Anthony Peralez, 44, who police say got into a hit-and-run accident as he drove away from the woman's home, was moved out of intensive care Monday at Memorial Hospital.
Peralez's condition, which resulted from multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the chest, has been upgraded from critical to fair condition, a hospital spokesman said. Lt. Skip Arms of the Colorado Springs Police Department said investigators are planning to take evidence from the crime scene, including DNA samples, to see whether it matches evidence collected at the scene of two sexual assaults that occurred in the same area this year.
Those assaults took place in August and September and involved two women, one 56 and the other in her 70s. Both lived alone near Memorial Hospital.
...
Police said the home showed signs of being broken into. The state's "Make My Day" law permits use of deadly force against intruders if the occupants of the home believe they may be harmed.
...
Several seniors who gathered at Colorado Springs Senior Center, several blocks north of Memorial, lauded the woman's courage.
Though several of them said they own guns and would not hesitate to shoot an intruder, others were not so sure.
"She was brave, but I'd be reluctant to handle it that way. I'd probably lock myself in the bedroom and call 911," said Wilma Nau.
Nau and her husband, who have been married 57 years, said they were held up three times when they ran a small hotel on North Nevada Avenue.
15347. greystoke - 11/21/2000 12:08:19 PM
From The Dallas Morning News:
VAN BUREN, Ark. – Four teenagers have been accused of stealing 13 vehicles and totaling almost all of them, sometimes staging deliberate crashes.
Crawford County Sheriff's Deputy Aaron Beshears said the youths took the vehicles for fun.
"They stole the cars with intentions of going out joy-riding. They totaled a lot of cars. They've crashed them, run them into each other," he said. "They had a demolition derby with them."
Some of the vehicles were pushed off embankments or into ditches, Deputy Beshears said. The total loss is believed to be between $20,000 and $30,000.
Deputy Beshears said two of the suspects are 15, one is 16, and the other is 17. Two have criminal records, he said. The four face charges of vehicle theft, felony criminal mischief, criminal trespassing and breaking or entering.
15348. robertjayb - 11/21/2000 2:12:52 PM
.
Whooping cranes found slain on Florida Farm...
ST. AUGUSTINE -- Two whooping cranes -- of only 300 known to live in the United States and Canada -- were found shot to death in a farm field in northwest St. Johns County over the weekend.
The male birds were a part of a federal project to reintroduce the endangered birds to the Southeast.
Jan Brewer, environmental manager of the St. Johns County planning department, said she found the birds shot when she was taking her 9-year-old daughter Katie to see them near the World Golf Village. The birds had been feeding there for the past several weeks.
15349. robertjayb - 11/21/2000 4:05:51 PM
.
No wonder he didn't pay the taxes...
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- A man making his first visit to a house he bought at a sheriff's auction found skeletal remains believed to be those of the former owner.
Police said there was no evidence of foul play, but the county coroner was to examine the remains. Authorities said the man may have been dead more than two years.
Police said the remains apparently were those of Eugene Bearringer, who would have been 50. The skeleton was found on the living room floor Monday by William Houttekier of Temperance, Mich.
The house was sold last week at auction because taxes weren't paid on the property for several years. County authorities had tried to contact Bearringer and out-of-state relatives through mailings.
15350. greystoke - 11/22/2000 11:47:22 AM
Study says many smokers are mentally ill.
Nearly half of all cigarettes purchased in the United States are smoked by people who suffer from mental illnesses, according to Harvard Medical School research.
Mentally ill people are roughly twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as those without mental illnesses, according to the research published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. Not only does the habit put them at greater risk for serious ailments such as heart disease and lung cancer, but in some cases, it can interfere with the effectiveness of medications to treat their disorders.
Smoking is often used as a form of self-medication because nicotine can have a powerful impact on mood, according to previous research. And because people with mental illnesses tend to be more cut off from mainstream society and less able to motivate themselves to quit, it may take specially targeted educational efforts to reduce the smoking rates in this group, experts say.
...
The numbers, though striking, are less surprising given that drug and alcohol dependencies were among the mental illnesses studied -- smoking rates are high in such groups. In addition, in any given year, one in five U.S. adults is estimated to suffer from some form of mental illness. One in 20 suffers from a severe mental illness.
...
From the survey, the scientists estimated that 44.3 percent of the cigarettes smoked in the United States are smoked by the mentally ill.
15351. greystoke - 11/22/2000 11:56:21 AM
Man kills boss.
A man convicted of killing his boss should be executed despite a difficult childhood as the son of a prostitute and topless dancer, a Pierce County Superior Court jury has decided.
The six-man, six-woman panel decided Tuesday to reject pleas for leniency for Covell Paul Thomas, 23, after three hours deliberations that followed a weeklong penalty phase hearing.
...
The same jury previously convicted Thomas of killing Richard Geist, his boss at a janitorial service company, on March 27, 1998. Geist died of four gunshots to the head after being robbed of about $5,000, and his body was left beside a road.
...
His mother and others testified she made her living dancing in topless bars and working as a prostitute in Hawaii and Alaska.
Steward said she struggled with addictions to alcohol and drugs while rearing Thomas and often relied on pimps and other prostitutes as babysitters in hotel rooms and apartments, moving every few months.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
It's illegal to kill your boss?
I guess that explains why mine is still alive.
15352. greystoke - 11/22/2000 11:59:33 AM
From The Seattle Post Intelligencier:
A man awaiting trial on a charge of first-degree murder was subdued by pepper spray after he took another inmate hostage and held a slightly sharpened toothbrush to his neck in a cell at the Yakima County jail.
The inmate was ordered to drop the toothbrush twice, but refused. A jail supervisor grabbed the man's wrist and slapped his face before corrections officers sprayed the man with pepper foam, authorities said yesterday.
The toothbrush had been rubbed on the concrete but wasn't sharp enough to inflict any damage.
15353. greystoke - 11/22/2000 12:01:50 PM
From the Dallas Morning News:
Cash was scattered all over Interstate 35 near Hillsboro on Tuesday after a southbound mail truck slammed into the rear of an armored car.
No one was injured seriously in the 9:15 a.m. accident, although both guards in the armored car were taken to a Hillsboro hospital for treatment, said Cpl. Charlie Morgan of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The accident happened at the I-35 split northeast of Hillsboro as the mail truck rounded a curve and struck the armored car at rush hour, splitting it wide open and sending its cash flying, Morgan said. The armored car had been stopped by a traffic jam caused by a chain collision in the northbound lane, he said.
Some motorists made a dash for the cash, but they were identified and the money retrieved, Morgan said. No decision was made immediately on whether they will be charged, he said.
15354. greystoke - 11/22/2000 12:06:51 PM
From the LA Times:
A 20-year-old Utah man has been sentenced to either 30 days in jail or 20 days on a work crew after pleading no contest to dumping four tons of horse manure in front of the Democratic National Convention headquarters, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Sean McKinney Diener was sentenced Monday after pleading no contest to a charge of illegally dumping a commercial quantity of a noxious substance.
Police said Diener, wearing a pink pig costume, was arrested Aug. 12 after he drove a rented truck to the front of the Wilshire Grand Hotel and dumped the manure on the sidewalk.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan gave Diener the choice of jail time or work on a Caltrans crew, a graffiti-removal crew or a Hollywood Beautification crew.
The judge also ordered Diener to pay $1,350 in fines in assessments, plus restitution to the hotel for the cost of cleaning up the mess.
15355. Greystoke - 11/23/2000 8:26:03 PM
From the LA Times:
Astronomers have discovered two more moons around Saturn to go with four announced last month. That brings the total number of Saturn's moons to 24, making it the planet in the solar system with the most known satellites. Before the new discoveries, Uranus held the record, with 21 known satellites.
The six moons were discovered by a team working at the European Southern Observatory at La Silla, Chile. Further information is available here.
A separate team working at La Silla and at the Keck Telescope in Hawaii has discovered what appears to be a brown dwarf only 13 light years from Earth. The dim object is less than a tenth the size of our sun, with a mass between 60 and 90 times that of Jupiter. Further information is available at the ESO Web site.
15356. joezan - 11/23/2000 10:58:05 PM
15357. greystoke - 11/24/2000 11:36:27 AM
joe
That guy got hosed.
Obviously the firemen could have put it across his roof, trunk or hood rather than through his passenger compartment.
15358. greystoke - 11/24/2000 11:41:46 AM
Washington woman turns 105.
The year was 1895. Grover Cleveland was well into his second term. "The Red Badge of Courage" had just been published. And women's skirts were being shortened -- just an inch or 2 from the ankle -- to make it easier to ride a bicycle.
On Nov. 24 of that year, Isabelle Doyle entered the world.
She will be the first to tell you it was a simpler time.
...
There are about 50,000 Americans in their 100s, according to the New England Centenarian Study, a little more than 1 per 10,000 population.
That compares with the turn of the 20th century, when 1 in every 100,000 could expect to live that long.
Like Doyle, 90 percent of today's centenarians are women.
During Doyle's party, held two days early because of the holiday, her 14th great-great-granddaughter, Heather, bobbed on her lap. The Stilly Singers, a choir from another senior center, filled the room with song, including one of Doyle's favorites, a hymn called "In the Garden."
Doyle seemed to love every minute of it.
...
What's her secret for a long life?
No tobacco. No alcohol. And always, always, say your prayers.
Each night, before turning in for bed, Doyle recites a few whimsical words.
"Now I lay me down to sleep. I wish I had a man to keep. If there's one beneath my bed, I hope he heard all I said."
During her long life, Doyle married three times. Each of her husbands worked for the railroad, and Doyle jokes that she never had to pay to ride the train.
Her first husband died on Halloween night in 1918 from a flu epidemic. She married her third husband when she was in her 80s.
She outlived all three.
15359. greystoke - 11/24/2000 11:50:57 AM
Paternity suits file against the estates of Alaska Airlines crash victims.
Families of four men killed in the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 have been stunned by word that six Guatemalan children are claiming to be the men's offspring.
The children are filing claims as heirs to the men's estates and to any damages paid out in the crash by the airline's insurer, Associated Aviation Underwriters of Short Hills, N.J.
...
Two girls are claiming to be daughters of two Seattle-area men who died with their wives and children in the Jan. 31 crash in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California. The plane was en route from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and Seattle.
The mothers of both girls have died, Parks said.
...
The Washington state residents targeted by paternity claims are print-shop owner Terrence Ryan, 55, of Redmond, whose wife, Barbara, and two grown sons also died; and Dr. David Clemetson, 40, of Seattle, who was killed with his wife, Carol, and their four young children.
"We think, of course, it is a complete fraud," Ryan's brother, Jay Ryan of Southern California, told the Union Record, an on-line publication of striking reporters employed by The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
...
The other two men targeted, both believed unmarried with no heirs, were firefighter Renato Bermudez of Granada Hills, Calif., who is alleged to have left a widow and two children; and Juan Marquez of San Francisco, said to haveleft a widow and two sons.
Marquez's family and longtime partner contend he was gay, the family's attorney told the Union Record.
15360. greystoke - 11/24/2000 11:57:40 AM
From the LA Times:
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has approved a program that will allow a Northern California county to give government-grown marijuana to 60 AIDS patients in a study to assess the drug's potential health benefits.
The 12-week study in San Mateo County could begin as early as January, county Supervisor Mike Nevin said. The DEA approved it Wednesday.
"What we could end up with is scientific proof that this is a medicine that should be prescribed by doctors," Nevin said.
In 1996, Californians passed Proposition 215, which allows possession, cultivation and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Implementation of the measure has proved difficult, however, as lawmakers struggle to agree on prescription and distribution guidelines.
Dr. Dennis Israelski, chief of infectious diseases at the county's hospitals and clinics, will oversee the study. The San Mateo County Health Center will provide marijuana to HIV and AIDS patients who suffer from neurological disorders.
Supporters of the study hope it will determine whether marijuana relieves pain and increases appetites, as many users say. Those who support marijuana's benefits say the drug also settles the stomach, builds weight and steadies spastic muscles. They also say it relieves PMS, glaucoma, itching, insomnia, arthritis, depression, childbirth pain and attention deficit disorder.
Nevin opposes decriminalizing marijuana, but said its medicinal value needs further evaluation.
"To disallow the drug to people who need it is a crime," he said.
15361. greystoke - 11/24/2000 12:00:58 PM
From the Dallas Morning News:
A North Carolina woman will serve time in a Texas prison after admitting she lured a Houston-area teenager, whom she met on the Internet, into having sex.
Tara Hulin, 32, pleaded guilty this week to criminal solicitation of a minor and sexual assault of a child. She was sentenced to two years in prison for the solicitation charge and was placed on five years probation for the assault.
Other conditions of the probation require she not contact the victim or his family, not be around children other than her own and have no access to the Internet. She also must register as a sex offender, among other conditions.
The family of the victim from Humble agreed to the terms of Ms. Hulin's plea agreement, but the boy's father said he wished Ms. Hulin had received more prison time. The boy was 15 when he was victimized.
"I'm just glad it's over with," the boy's father said in Thursday's editions of the Houston Chronicle. "As long as she doesn't contact our family, we'll be satisfied."
Ms. Hulin cried when state District Judge Jan Krocker read terms of the probation forbidding her from being around other children.
Ms. Hulin, a former postal worker from Thomasville, N.C., is married and is the mother of an elementary-school-age daughter and a teenage stepson.
She met the victim during an online chat, according to court documents.
She showered him with gifts and professed her love for him, authorities said, even though the boy's mother told her to stay way.
On May 19, Ms. Hulin flew to Houston and checked into a hotel, where she had sex with the teenager several times, according to court documents.
15362. vw - 11/24/2000 12:15:14 PM
Obviously the firemen could have put it across his roof, trunk or hood rather than through his passenger compartment.
Of course they could have, but then the fine citizen who didn't give a crap about interfering with the fire department in their attempt to save lives wouldn't have gotten the message.
Now if we could only find something as effective to communicate to morons that don't pull over for an ambulance.
15363. CalGal - 11/24/2000 12:28:24 PM
On Ms. Hulin,
When will folks finally accept that women can be pedophiles, too? Nice to see in this case that the parents weren't welcoming her with open arms.
15364. greystoke - 11/24/2000 12:49:51 PM
CalGal
But two years in prison for one night in a hotel room? Is that justice?
15365. ElliottRW - 11/24/2000 1:10:52 PM
Greystoke, CalGal,
If it were a 32-year-old man and my 15-year-old daughter, I'd have pressed for the death penalty.
But, since I'm safely removed from events, I can honestly say that this kind of sentence makes sense to me. It's harsh enough to be a deterrent, but not so harsh as to equate this kind of paedophilia (nonviolent, with a sexually mature victim) with the really bad stuff.
Frankly, I think paedophilia is actually a wrong term for this thing. It's statuatory rape.
15366. CalGal - 11/24/2000 1:44:43 PM
Elliot,
I dunno, I think female pedophiles might act out on older victims than men do.
15367. PelleNilsson - 11/24/2000 1:53:17 PM
Can you really speak of pedophilia when the "victim" is 15?
15368. Cellar Door - 11/24/2000 1:54:45 PM
Yes.
15369. Greystoke - 11/25/2000 12:11:22 PM
"... where she had sex with the teenager several times, according to court documents"
No doubt the rape victim had trouble getting another erection after the third or fourth sex act.
15370. Greystoke - 11/25/2000 12:22:02 PM
From the LA Times:
A 2-year-old girl playing in her frontyard suffered critical head injuries when her family dog attacked her and two siblings Friday, officials said.
Police said an elder sibling was cleaning the dog's kennel outside the family's duplex and did not know the two other children were playing on a slide and swing set in the yard. Police said the dog, a 4-year-old Rottweiler that weighs about 80 pounds, then attacked the three children. "It [the dog] just snapped," said Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Al Reyes. The dog, he said, had been kept in a kennel and had no history of biting anyone.
Reyes said the mother ran out of the house and was bitten while prying the dog off the girl. She then grabbed the injured girl and led the dog into the house, away from the other two children. Then she called 911 and locked herself in the bathroom, Reyes said. The three children and the mother were taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Police used a fire extinguisher to corner the dog in a room; it was later taken away by Animal Control officers, Reyes said. A similar dog owned by the family, which was kept in an adjoining kennel, also was taken into Animal Control custody as a precaution.
15371. Greystoke - 11/25/2000 12:24:05 PM
From the LA Times:
An off-duty Los Angeles police officer was arrested Friday on suspicion of drunk driving after he ran a red light and injured another driver, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The crash occurred about 3:30 a.m. at Wilbur Avenue and Sherman Way. Police found Officer Humberto Najera, 27, in his car about half a block away and arrested him, said Officer Eduardo Funes, an LAPD spokesman. The driver of the vehicle Najera allegedly collided with, a 66-year-old man, was treated at a hospital for minor injuries.
Najera is assigned to an LAPD narcotics unit, Funes said. The LAPD is investigating the accident.
15372. msgreer - 11/25/2000 4:24:55 PM
Calling all lawyers!I'm not sure which thread to post this in. I don't see the Legal Thread.
My deposition in the case regarding the
man who held me up at gunpoint in my car is set for this Tuesday.
After much help from fellow Moties I did re write my feelings re sentencing. The judge has it now.
The DA representing me gave me
a rough time when I changed my original letter to the court. She says
he is a habitual criminal and needs to be put away for life. I saw his rap sheet. Yes, he has a history of robbery. This was the first time
he used a firearm.
The worst part for me is this is his third strike. In Florida it is three strikes and you are out. Out meaning you are jailed for life.
Granted he has not been convicted yet. The trial is set for the week of December 4th or December 11th.
I can't live with the thought this guy could get life. Florida has virtually tied the hands of judges when it comes to sentencing. If he is convicted I will have my day in court to address the judge and jury.
mgleason has been kind enough to come with me when it goes to
trial.
What I want to know is can I tell the DA to offer this fellow a plea bargain?
15373. Al D - 11/25/2000 5:38:03 PM
msgreer
If the man in question got a light sentence due to your pleading, and when released murdered an innocent woman, would you feel some sense of responsibility? You are a loving, gentle person, I feel sure, but your sympathy, at least in my mind, is misplaced.
15374. dusty - 11/25/2000 6:35:13 PM
msgreer
I won't presume to offer you legal advice; I have no idea what the laws are regarding your proposal.
I'm glad to hear that mgleason will be with you; I know this is a tough issue, and I'm sure she can help.
15375. msgreer - 11/25/2000 7:37:45 PM
Al
I agree with you. I never want this man to do what he did to me to anyone else. Who knows, next time he may fire that gun. I wrestled
with this. I did address this very issue in my papers to the court.
I have learned something about myself throughout this ordeal.And this is hard to admit. I do feel like a liberal Democrat when it comes to this issue. This has made me review many many other attitudes I have regarding the judicial system. This is not easy for me to admit.
It has been a good learning experience for me.
15376. msgreer - 11/25/2000 7:39:59 PM
Dusty
Thanks for your kind words. I am very lucky mgleason is willing to support me through this process. I am sure I will post after the deposition on Tuesday.
15377. CalGal - 11/26/2000 2:33:55 AM
For a stirring example of a high puke-factor column:
Should My Tribal Past Shape Delia’s Future?
When I left Nigeria at 18, I had no doubts about who and what I was. I was a woman. I was only a woman.
All my life my mother told me that a woman takes as much in life as she’s given; if she’s educated, it’s only so that she can better cater to her husband and children. When I was Delia’s age, I knew with absolute certainty that I would marry the Ibo man my family approved for me and bear his children. I understood that receiving a good education and being comfortable in both the Western and the traditional worlds would raise the bride price my prospective husband would pay my family. My role was to be a great asset to my husband, no matter what business he was engaged in.
I understood all of that clearly; I was, after all, raised within the context of child brides, polygamy, clitorectomies and arranged marriages. But then I married and had my own daughter, and all my certainty, all my resolve to maintain my Ibo beliefs, collapsed in a big heap at my feet.
First, my daughter’s ties to Ibo womanhood are only as strong as the link—meaning me. Therein lies the problem. I haven’t been half the teacher to my daughter that my mother was to me.
She's been living in California for twenty six years and still thinks that she's "only a woman" and wonders if she has done right by her daughter.
This isn't for real. I submit she's just looking for people to tell her what a good job she's done, that she has overcome her tribal roots to allow her daughter's self—actualization. This is the only explanation that takes the California factor into account.
Still, it's more than a tad disgusting.
15378. greystoke - 11/27/2000 11:51:12 AM
Bomb explodes in Oregon lab.
A chocolate Labrador playing fetch with a tennis ball died Saturday when a bomb hidden inside the ball exploded.
A Portland man, whom police did not identify, had found the tennis ball wrapped in tape next to a sidewalk on a walk with the dog just east of Eastmoreland Golf Course.
The 58-year-old man and the dog played with the ball for about 30 minutes when the dog clenched the ball in its mouth and it exploded, said Henry Groepper, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman.
...
Police bomb experts say explosive devices in tennis balls have become more common in the city.
The explosion was so powerful it roused residents four blocks away from the scene.
15379. JudithAtHome - 11/27/2000 12:00:13 PM
I guess tennis is no longer the Love game in Oregon? (Sad about the dog, tho...)
15380. rubberducky - 11/29/2000 1:58:31 PM
interesting story in the NYT:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — Police roadblocks aimed at discovering drugs violate the Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled today in an important decision reaffirming the Fourth Amendment prohibition against searches and seizures that are not based on a suspicion of individual wrongdoing.
"Without drawing the line at roadblocks designed primarily to serve the general interest in crime control, the Fourth Amendment would do little to prevent such intrusions from becoming a routine part of American life," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the 6-to-3 majority.
...
The majority agreed with a ruling last year by the federal appeals court in Chicago, holding that the City of Indianapolis had violated the Fourth Amendment rights of motorists whom the police stopped at drug- interdiction checkpoints that were set up on city streets six times in 1998.
...
Taking those precedents together, Indianapolis argued that adding a drug-sniffing dog to a checkpoint could not convert a lawful police practice into one that was unconstitutional.
But Justice O'Connor said the purpose of the checkpoint made all the difference. While sobriety checkpoints served to protect the public from an "immediate, vehicle-bound threat to life and limb," she said, roadblocks for drug detection primarily served the ordinary law enforcement interest in crime control.
...
In a separate dissent, Justice Thomas said he doubted that the Constitution's framers would have regarded any roadblocks as acceptable but that since the court's precedents were not open for re-examination in this case, "I believe that those cases compel upholding the program at issue here."
i agree completely with Justice Thomas. if it's lawful, then it's lawful in all cases. how ridiculous
15381. greystoke - 11/29/2000 9:16:52 PM
rubberducky
I agree with this ruling by the Supreme Court, and disagree with their previous ruling that sobriety checkpoints are Constitutional. The two rulings would seem to be inconsistent.
I think I understand O'Conner's argument about the "immediate, vehicle-bound threat", but I don't remember seeing that exception to unlawful searches and seizures written into the Fourth Amendment.
Either stopping a car without probable cause is un-Constitutional or it isn't. Splitting hairs in one's reasoning in order to come up with the desired result is less that what we should expect from the nation's highest court.
BTW, putting up sobriety checkpoints so the cops can nail drivers with a .08 BAC can hardly be considered an action that will save the public from an immediate threat to life and limb.
15382. msgreer - 11/30/2000 8:23:44 AM
I had the deposition for my case on Tuesday of this week. Alot of the case hangs on the length of this guys hair. When he held me up his hair was long but above the shoulder, brown and greasy. Yet when I picked him out of odddlesss of pictures he had light hair and seemed to be balding. The DA told me the guy is 25 years old. He has worn his hair long before and they have other pictures of him which were never shown to me.
The PD asked me if the gun every touched me. It was close enough to my cheek that had I taken a deep breath it would have touched me. I told him no. The gun in my face did not actually touch me. It seems you get an extra 10 years if the weapon touches the victim.
I posted my trial begins a week from today. 12 people jury because if there is a conviction he could go to jail for life.
I am still having great problems with sending him away for life. I could live with 15-20 years. This is his third strike and in Florida it is three strikes and you're out
Yes, I rewrote the court about my personal feelings about sentencing. But the questionnaire asks "how have you been affected by this". I had plenty to say about that. I was so frightened he would find out where I lived and his friends would come and kill me so I could not testify.
15383. msgreer - 11/30/2000 8:31:53 AM
cont. As the DA told me he doesn't have friends who would come out of hiding to kill me. But that was not and is not my biggest fear. It is my daughter. I was on my way to celebrate her birthday when I was held up. Now she will soon be home for the holidays. I sit here shaking at the thought someone may come to the trial who is a friend of his. I have to give my name and address...standard first question. Until now the DA's office, understanding my need to protect my daughter, kept my name and address out of the paper.
So no I don't want to see him get life but as I sit here I remember the feeling I had when the gun was in my face. All I could think of was my daughter. I wasn't ever going to see my baby again. What would happen to her if I was dead? Who would hold my girl and love her like I do? Who would take her to get her EEG's and help make medication decisions. So you see dear Motie friends there is a very real intimate side to this for me. Anyone who knows me, Diva are you in there, understands my relationship with my daughter.
Yes, I was not hurt. But I also had alot of money to give him. What happens if he does not get the drug rehab he needs, gets out of jail and puts a gun in another's face?
15384. theDiva - 11/30/2000 8:44:44 AM
MsG
My gut tells me this: he's the one who took the risk in being put away for life when he decided to do what he did to you. It is not on you to worry about the consequences of his actions for him. Screw that lowlife. I hope they lock him up and throw away the key.
15385. msgreer - 11/30/2000 8:47:31 AM
Gee Diva, don't hold back your feelings. Yes, I know he did it.
He will get his day in court. He is entitled to that.
Thanks sweets.
15386. theDiva - 11/30/2000 8:51:02 AM
hahahaha
Seriously, I feel very, very strongly about people who hurt those I love, especially when life hung in the balance.
15387. AceofSpades - 11/30/2000 9:05:58 AM
Boy Scout leader admits to child rape
By KAREN JEFFREY STAFF WRITER
BARNSTABLE - A former honor student and Boy Scout admitted yesterday that he had sex with a 14-year-old boy during a Scout-sponsored camping trip at Scussett Beach in Sandwich in May 1999.
Jonathan D. Ralton, 21, of Marshfield, pleaded guilty in Barnstable Superior Court to two counts of child rape. Sentencing has been scheduled for Dec. 20, when a probation report will be in the hands of Superior Court Judge Patrick King. By that time, cases involving the same victim and similar charges in Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Brockton will have been resolved.
15388. greystoke - 11/30/2000 9:14:05 AM
msgreer
I agree with Diva.
I don't like the three strikes laws because someone can get life in prison for a relatively petty crime. But, in this case, its not a petty crime and the guy deserves a stiff sentence.
15389. greystoke - 11/30/2000 9:14:49 AM
Texas archaeological find.
Crouching in a 15-inch-deep trench beside a creek running into Lavaca Bay, Jeff Durst carefully scraped away dirt clinging to the skeletons of at least two people believed to be among the first European settlers of Texas, massacred by Indians more than 300 years ago.
Archaeologists say the skulls, bones and teeth discovered earlier this month at the site of Fort St. Louis almost certainly are the first remains found of the first European settlers in the state. They were French colonists who built the fort south of present-day Victoria in 1685 but were wiped out on Christmas Eve 1688.
...
It's the most important discovery in the 14 months since the commission began a $1.8 million archaeological dig on the west bank of Garcitas Creek, officials said. It further confirms that the French led the way in settling Texas, a fact obscured by Spanish and American activity that followed.
Written records suggest identities for the remains, and DNA testing may enable the team to link them to descendants who have been located in France and Louisiana, said Jim Bruseth, director of archaeology for the commission.
...
Diaries of Spanish soldiers who happened upon Fort St. Louis four months after the settlers were massacred by the Karankawa Indians in late 1688 lead archaeologists to believe that the grave contains the decomposed and animal-gnawed bodies of a man and one or two women, hastily buried by the Spanish.
Because there were so few women in the settlement, archaeologists believe that they can identify the female remains. DNA linkage to descendants would provide confirmation, Dr. Bruseth said. Mr. Newfield is a descendant of Isabelle Talon, who is possibly buried in the grave.
15390. JudithAtHome - 11/30/2000 9:32:03 AM
If the French got here first, I wish they'd stayed around long enough to have more influence on our cuisine...TexGallic, anyone?
15391. robertjayb - 11/30/2000 9:58:43 AM
.
Good idea.
How do you say chicken-fried steak in French?
15392. JudithAtHome - 11/30/2000 10:00:35 AM
Pollo Frits Boeuf?
15393. JudithAtHome - 11/30/2000 10:02:58 AM
Poule Frit de Boeuf? I don't know......help!!!
15394. Indiana Jones - 11/30/2000 10:18:20 AM
Nasdaq Nosedives on Earnings Warnings
Jobless Claims: Highest in Over 2 Years
Incomes Drop 0.2 Percent in October
Americans' incomes fell for the first time in nearly two years in October while a rise in consumer spending pushed the rate of saving to its lowest level on record, the government said on Thursday.
Who wants to be a President?
15395. bubbaette - 11/30/2000 11:14:50 AM
Hmm
I just got a press release from the Gov's office that says that Va.'s 2.3% unemployment rate is the lowest figure in 31 years. Northern Va. rates (including Diva City) average 1.5%.
15396. Indiana Jones - 11/30/2000 11:18:34 AM
bubbaette: I don't think we're there (recession) yet. At least not to the unemployment part.
But I think it's likely we're going to have one this year (2001).
15397. theDiva - 11/30/2000 11:26:07 AM
Bubb
and boy, are we feeling the crunch. We can't fill our vacancies.
15398. bubbaette - 11/30/2000 11:43:04 AM
Deev
This press release says that the rate in Fairfax is .5%!
The tight job market has certainly told in the service industry. Last time I went to the local supermarket it looked like everyone was glassy-eyed and moving in slow motion.
15399. greystoke - 11/30/2000 11:43:25 AM
Indy
The Fed will eventually lower interest rates and the economy will be booming again. Don't sweat the day to day fluctuations in the markets or ephemeral earnings reports.
Clintonomics, baby.
15400. bubbaette - 11/30/2000 11:43:26 AM
not "everyone", just the staff.
15401. theDiva - 11/30/2000 11:50:41 AM
.5%!!! Good God. That's probably because of the concentration of IT jobs. That's just incredible.
15402. greystoke - 11/30/2000 11:51:48 AM
Oakland cops beat, harass, and falsely arrest.
Officer Keith Batt was a 23-year-old rookie just three weeks out of the academy. He went straight to the night shift, where most officers start their careers.
There, on patrol in west Oakland, one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods, Batt met The Riders.
For three weeks in June and July, prosecutors say, the rookie watched his fellow officers beat, harass and falsely arrest at least 10 people. Then, on July 3, he allegedly saw a man arrested on trumped-up charges that he was seen discarding 17 rocks of cocaine.
Batt had seen enough.
The rookie reported what he saw and quit the force, setting in motion a police corruption scandal that has led to the arrest of four officers and the dismissal of scores of cases.
15403. Indiana Jones - 11/30/2000 11:57:46 AM
grey: I attribute our economic boom to four factors (in no particular order)...
Government gridlock preventing either party from screwing things up
Cheap, stable energy
Increased productivity from technological advances (computers)
Fed fiscal policy
15404. greystoke - 11/30/2000 12:01:42 PM
Spade stunned.
Actor David Spade, star of TV's "Just Shoot Me," was attacked with a stun gun in his Beverly Hills home on Wednesday, after discovering one of his employees there without permission, police said.
The comic actor called 911 at 6:22 a.m. to report a burglary in progress, Sgt. Brad Cornelius said, but the intruder had fled by the time the first officers arrived a minute later.
Spade, 36, told police that the man had attacked him with an electric stun gun and that there had been a struggle.
15405. greystoke - 11/30/2000 12:04:11 PM
From the LA Times:
A Huntington Park middle school teacher who allegedly tried to suffocate a rabbit in front of his special education students was removed from the classroom on Wednesday, school district officials said.
Godwin Collins Onunwah, a seventh-grade teacher at Gage Middle School, was reassigned to district administrative offices a day after he was charged with a misdemeanor count of animal cruelty, district spokeswoman Hilda Ramirez said.
"District policy is clear; we've phased out dissection of animals," she said. "Basically, you can't kill a rabbit on campus, or injure one. Also, all teachers must endeavor to impress upon students the humane treatment of animals."
The incident occurred Sept. 29, a few days after Onunwah, 47, asked his students to bring in animals to dissect them in class, officials said.
A 13-year-old boy bought a black and white rabbit at a pet store and delivered it to Onunwah, who put it in a plastic bag, tied the end shut, and then waited for the animal to die, officials said.
But the rabbit was still alive when the last bell rang on a Friday afternoon, officials said. Onunwah put the bag with the live rabbit inside in a cabinet and left for the weekend.
On Monday, the rabbit was dead and Onunwah called authorities to dispose of the carcass, officials said.
Responding to complaints from irate parents, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals investigated and then presented its finding to the district attorney's office.
Onunwah, who joined the district in 1998, is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 18 in Huntington Park Superior Court. He faces as much as a year in jail and a $20,000 fine if convicted.
15406. greystoke - 11/30/2000 12:06:49 PM
Indy
That sounds like a good analysis to me.
I thought you were a just computer geek and baseball expert. I didn't realize you are an economist, too. (g)
15407. greystoke - 11/30/2000 12:07:30 PM
a just = just a
15408. Indiana Jones - 11/30/2000 12:41:40 PM
grey: I'm basically a dabbler at a lot of things and master of none.
15410. greystoke - 12/1/2000 11:58:12 AM
SAT inequities.
A disproportionate share of white students from wealthy families are getting extra time on the SAT college entrance exam, including some who may not deserve it, while less-affluent minority students with learning disabilities may not be getting the assistance they need, the California state auditor reported Thursday.
The audit found "wide demographic disparities" among 1999 high school graduates who claimed a learning disability and received longer time--usually 4 1/2 hours--to take the three-hour test that weighs heavily in admissions decisions to the nation's most selective colleges and universities.
...
Yet in six of seven school districts in wealthy areas, including Beverly Hills, Palo Alto and Encinitas, auditors found questionable and potentially unwarranted cases of students receiving special treatment. In addition, auditors found that students at private schools received special accommodations at a rate four times higher than that of their public school counterparts.
...
The 49-page report of the auditors was critical of the College Board, which owns the SAT, for relying so heavily on high schools to determine whether students qualify for extra time. The board hears appeals but grants only about one out of five.
College admissions officers and high school counselors have been horrified to watch some parents shop around for a psychologist who will supply them with the documentation they need to prove their son or daughter has a previously undiagnosed learning disability that warrants testing accommodations.
15411. greystoke - 12/1/2000 12:01:33 PM
Lame duck National Monument?
President Clinton has named four new national monuments in Arizona this year, and he may not be done yet.
Less than two months before leaving office, his interior secretary inspected another Sonoran Desert candidate Thursday.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt led an entourage onto a remote, pristine hilltop in the Sand Tank Mountains on the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range to see why environmentalists, Indians and government officials want him to recommend that Clinton create the Sonoran Desert National Monument.
Babbitt declined to commit himself immediately to saying he would recommend that Clinton designate another Arizona monument in his 51 days left in office.
...
This year alone, Clinton has created 10 national monuments, including four in Arizona: the million-acre Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument on Arizona's Shivwitz plateau; the 293,000-acre Vermilion Cliffs National Monument north of the Grand Canyon; the 129,000-acre Ironwood Forest National Monument near Tucson, and the 72,500-acre Agua Fria National Monument near Phoenix.
15412. greystoke - 12/1/2000 12:16:08 PM
LAPD blinds mother of four.
A 38-year-old mother of four is expected to lose her eye after an officer from the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division shot her three times with a beanbag shotgun early Monday because he mistakenly thought the woman was reaching for a weapon hidden in her jacket.
Annette Amoroso of Westlake Village said in an interview from her hospital room Thursday that officers ordered her to the ground as they investigated a report that the sport utility vehicle in which she was a passenger was stolen.
"I was on my knees, with my hands up, and my back to them," said Amoroso, who is expected to have her right eye removed today. "First, they shot me in the shoulder. As I started to turn around, they shot me in the eye."
...
Amoroso, who owns a beauty salon in Woodland Hills, agreed that she was reluctant to lie face-down on the pavement, saying she was dressed in a suede skirt that she did not want to ruin. She said she also had no idea that her friend's car had been reported stolen and therefore did not understand why officers had their guns drawn and were shouting orders at her.
She denied, however, that she made any type of "movement."
...
Kevin Patrick, the presumed owner of the vehicle in which Amoroso was riding, said the car was reported stolen by his wife because they had been fighting and he had failed to pick her up at the airport as he had promised. The car was registered in her name, he said.
"I assume she didn't tell the cops we were married when she made the report," said Patrick, 31, of Agoura Hills.
15413. robertjayb - 12/1/2000 3:56:37 PM
.
CAMILLA, Ga. (AP) - Is it any wonder they say alligator tasteslike chicken?
Across the South over the past few years, chicken farmers have
begun raising alligators, too, as a source of extra cash and a
cold-bloodedly efficient way of getting rid of the many birds that
die before they can be sent for slaughter.
15414. rubberducky - 12/1/2000 4:11:25 PM
Re: Message # 15381, greystoke.
agree with the no check point position
Re: Message # 15412, greystoke.
moral of the story: ruin the suit
15415. Greystoke - 12/2/2000 12:33:25 AM
rubberducky
"moral of the story: ruin the suit"
Hindsight is 20/20.
15416. Michael Mele - 12/2/2000 12:34:38 AM
moral of the story: ruin the suit
Alternative moral: If he's married, use your car.
15417. CalGal - 12/2/2000 12:36:56 AM
Well, there you be. Where you been?
15418. Greystoke - 12/2/2000 12:08:04 PM
Cops arrest man who faked his death.
Three years ago, says James Bigler Clark's attorney, the Idaho man's life was spinning out of control due to depression, unemployment and heavy drinking.
Then Clark made a "grave" mistake --faking his own death to avoid paying a fine to a Salt Lake City court for a misdemeanor drunken driving conviction.
That 1998 hoax came back to haunt Clark when he was arrested this year in Davis County on a second DUI. On Friday, he went to jail for 60 days.
...
Clark's troubles started in 1997, when he was charged in Salt Lake City with driving under the influence of alcohol and three counts of carrying concealed weapons. He pleaded guilty to the DUI and the other counts were dismissed. A judge fined him $1,300 and his guns were confiscated.
...
Clark created a clean slate for himself by forging an Idaho death certificate and, posing as his own brother, hiring an attorney to submit it to the court. Clark was declared legally dead on Feb. 11, 1998.
Later that year, Clark obtained a court order for the release of his three handguns from a Salt Lake Community College Police evidence room and brazenly collected the weapons himself.
Clark's deception was uncovered this year because of the new DUI conviction in Davis County. A court clerk who was preparing a report of Clark's criminal record for a March sentencing hearing noticed the man was supposed to be dead.
Clark, 48, was charged with a handful of felonies for forging his death certificate and deceiving police into releasing his handguns. Last month, as part of a plea bargain agreement, he pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree felony attempted evidence tampering.
15419. Greystoke - 12/2/2000 12:14:30 PM
I deleted the other one because the picture changed.
15420. Greystoke - 12/2/2000 12:28:00 PM
LAPD will not be allowed to harass skid row bums.
Officers would be prohibited from stopping homeless people at random, demanding their identification and threatening them with arrest, according to a draft of U.S. District Judge Lourdes G. Baird's pending order.
Police would also be prevented from seizing homeless people's belongings, which are sometimes left unattended on sidewalks, and discarding their possessions.
...
The ACLU filed a civil rights suit last month on behalf of 26 homeless residents and social service workers who complained that a recently launched crime-fighting drive in the 50-block skid row area had turned into a campaign of harassment against the homeless.
Police officials deny those allegations.
"I don't think the homeless won today," said Lt. Paul Geggie of the LAPD Central Division, which patrols skid row. "What's going to happen is, it's going to be more dangerous and dirtier."
...
Officials estimate about 11,000 people are living in transient hotels and on the streets along skid row.
So far this year, at least four homeless people have been killed in the Central Division area and 32 others were victims of rape or sex crimes, said Geggie. About 40 homeless people are robbed, assaulted or victimized each month, he added.
Since September, Capt. Stuart Maislin of the Central Division has ordered his officers to cite the homeless for occupying sidewalks and other public nuisances. Arrests, citations and drug arrests have gone up while crime has decreased, police said.
15421. CalGal - 12/2/2000 12:29:53 PM
Grey,
I keep meaning to tell you that I love the weird articles you find.
The LA case should be interesting. In a contest between money and the civil rights of annoying people, money usually wins.
15422. Greystoke - 12/2/2000 12:38:45 PM
Bullet from road rage dispute hits baby.
Police said the shot that hit the baby went through the wall of the trailer, ricocheted off a wrought-iron terrarium frame, then went through the swing's canvas seat, the child's pants and his diaper. The bullet hit him in the leg but did not break the skin.
"When it hit the wrought-iron frame, it literally deflected it 90 degrees and slowed it down," said Division Chief Doug Abraham.
...
The shooting happened about 3:30 p.m. at the Trailer Haven mobile home park after two cars - a Ford Taurus and a Buick - followed each other north on Potomac Street from East Sixth Avenue.
Each time the Buick got close, the driver of the Taurus would slam on his brakes, then speed up until both cars stopped in the street in the 13400 block of East 13th Place near the trailer park, Abraham said.
After an exchange of words, one of the occupants of the Taurus retrieved a shotgun from the trunk and fired at the three men from the other car. The round missed them and went through a fence into the ground, Abraham said.
The occupants of the Buick then pulled into the trailer park, and someone from the other car fired two shots from a handgun, wounding the Buick's driver and injuring the baby, Abraham said.
15423. Greystoke - 12/2/2000 12:48:11 PM
CalGal
Thanks the kind words. I do appreciate the feedback on these articles so that I know Moters are reading them.
Yes, the LA case will be interesting. Its good that the ACLU stands up for the rights of the downtrodden and all, but it would be nice if they came up with some solutions once in a while.
Putting the mentally ill in a treatment facility against their will violates their rights, and trying to get them off the streets violates their rights. I agree with the ACLU on both counts, but what is society supposed to do about the problem?
15424. dusty - 12/2/2000 1:13:38 PM
Michael Mele
I'd thought we'd lost ya.
15425. CalGal - 12/2/2000 1:19:10 PM
Grey,
In all fairness, solutions aren't the ACLU's problem.
But in the end, the city will find a way to get rid of them. There has been a real move towards that in most places, because the public simply doesn't want the hassle.
Speaking as someone who occasionally trips over legs when walking down SF sidewalks (SF does not do much with their homeless), I'd rather they be put away. It's not a matter of them not having jobs--they're addicts or they're mentally ill.
I don't know that trying to get them off the street violates their rights. You can make it illegal to sleep on the streets.
15426. Greystoke - 12/3/2000 6:48:44 PM
CalGal
"You can make it illegal to sleep on the streets."
But they are still homeless, penniless, and mentally ill. Is it worth the effort to simply keep them out of sight?
(Of course I don't have a good solution either.)
15427. Greystoke - 12/3/2000 11:45:34 PM
Polio is back.
A mutated strain of polio traced to a vaccine has infected at least three people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, causing the first cases of the disease in the Western Hemisphere since 1991, a regional health organization said.
...
The cases have been traced to the same oral vaccine that experts have used to eliminate the disease in many countries. Epstein said the standard vaccine still works against the mutated strain, and that health officials are organizing vaccination efforts in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Polio is a highly infectious disease that usually strikes children under 5. It damages the spinal cord and brain, causing paralysis and sometimes death.
The vaccine, known as Sabin 1 oral poliovirus vaccine, uses a weakened version of the virus to teach the body how to identify and fight active viruses.
None of the three patients had received the vaccine, and Epstein said doctors believe they caught the mutated strain from someone else. That person may have received a standard vaccination that mutated within them, then the person passed it on.
...
The last case of polio in the Americas was diagnosed in Peru in 1991.
The organization said tests had confirmed two cases in the Dominican Republic and one in Haiti since July. Doctors were investigating 16 other patients suffering polio-like paralysis. None of the patients has died.
The only other known case of an oral vaccine mutating into a virulent strain was in Egypt between 1983 and 1993, he said. More than 30 people were infected with that strain.
15428. CalGal - 12/3/2000 11:46:56 PM
Is it worth the effort to simply keep them out of sight?
Ask any city resident and they'll give you an earful. The ordinances are quite successful, even if they only move the homeless around some.
15429. CalGal - 12/3/2000 11:49:04 PM
Grey,
Just read the SAT inequity piece. I've always thought the time extension based on disabilities was horseshit. But it's idiotic to claim that it's "white kids" getting more time. It's rich folks playing the system--regardless of color.
15430. Greystoke - 12/3/2000 11:55:13 PM
The Native American Equal Rights Act
The Native American Equal Rights Act sounds like it would be good for Indians, like a bill that would protect native people from discrimination in housing, education and employment.
But the bill is not what it seems. The measure, introduced in Congress by Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., would repeal federal Indian-preference laws dating at least to the 1930s.
These laws give preference to qualified Indian candidates for jobs with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service. They also cover some federal contracts and grants and allow employers on or near reservations to hire Indian applicants over non-Indians.
...
Weldon submitted his bill, H.R. 5523, on Oct. 19. Addressing the House, he said: ``Most Americans believe that ours should be a color-blind society in which an individual's merit, not his or her race, is the determining factor in whether that individual climbs the ladder of success to achieve the American dream. Most Americans, therefore, oppose any racial preferences in our nation's laws.''
...
Between 1934 and 1972, the percentage of Indian employment in the BIA rose from 34 percent to 57 percent.
The preference is available to members of a federally recognized tribe, descendants of members who were living on a reservation as of June 1, 1934, or people who are one-half - or more - American Indian.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the preference policies in 1974 in Morton vs. Mancari, a case that originated in Albuquerque. Non-Indian BIA employees brought a class-action suit claiming that Indian preferences violated the anti-discrimination provisions of the Equal Employment Opportunities Act of 1972 and the due-process clause of the Constitution.
15431. Greystoke - 12/4/2000 12:03:44 AM
CalGal
"Ask any city resident and they'll give you an earful."
I must admit that I haven't encountered very many homeless people, so I will defer to city dewellers who have.
15432. Greystoke - 12/4/2000 12:07:18 AM
Perhaps the cities could pass a "three strikes and you are involuntarily institutionalized for a bath, evaluation, and treatment" ordinance.
15433. joezan - 12/4/2000 12:35:57 AM
Hear, hear!
15434. AytchMan - 12/4/2000 12:40:20 AM
Greystoke 432--
My guess is that the civil libertarians would still consider that extreme, which is to say unacceptable.
15435. AytchMan - 12/4/2000 12:42:57 AM
btw, even though I don't often comment here, I also appreciate greystoke's keen sense of the weird for all of his newsclips from that alternate universe.
15436. CalGal - 12/4/2000 12:47:58 AM
Aytch,
It will be interesting to see if the LA ruling gets used elsewhere. For all the civlib objections, most cities have done quite a bit to restrict or eliminate street people. But it might have been a pendulum that's gone as far as will be allowed.
15437. AytchMan - 12/4/2000 1:01:07 AM
Most big cities have done quite a bit and I support that (notwithstanding New York which has gone a tad over). Nevertheless, most NY residents support the ordinances, I think. Reverend Al notwithstanding.
15438. Greystoke - 12/4/2000 7:06:56 AM
OK. How about if, after three arrests for sleeping on the street, the person is taken to an institution for 48 hours for evaluation.
If he is determined to be mentally ill, he is still free to leave, but is encouraged to stay for treatment by offering bribes -- free cigarettes maybe. (I posted an article the other day that said a realatively high percentage of smokers are mentally ill.) I would draw the line at free crack.
15439. greystoke - 12/4/2000 7:36:48 AM
Or maybe offer to put drug implant under the skin for extended treatment --sort of a Norplant for phsychotrophic drugs. Offer a carton of cigarettes and brand new cardboard box in exchange for a signature on the consent form.
Who could object to that?
15440. joezan - 12/4/2000 7:55:35 AM
Greystoke for HUD Director!
15441. CalGal - 12/4/2000 9:12:08 AM
Grey,
That doesn't cover the addicts, who are physically ill.
Besides, if people are a danger to themselves or others, why should they have a choice? Good lord, we deny dads legal custody of their children for no other reason than the divorce courts get tired of them agitating for more time--surely we can deny nutjobs the right to live in a cardboard box.
Of course, I doubt that will ever happen because no one will spend the money. Instead, cities will continue to have ordinances that hassle them for begging and keep them in local jails for a few days at a time, and make sure the ones who stay out of trouble are forced into shelters at night.
15442. PelleNilsson - 12/4/2000 11:50:46 AM
We, too, have problems with the homeless. It started when we followed an American fad and closed down most institutions for the mentally ill.
15443. greystoke - 12/4/2000 11:56:12 AM
CalGal
"That doesn't cover the addicts, who are physically ill."
True. That's a tough one to solve. Some are both mentally and physically ill. Perhaps, in some cases, treating the mental component of their illness will make them more co-operative in getting help to treat the addiction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"surely we can deny nutjobs the right to live in a cardboard box."
There is a thin line between treatment and punishment. Holding someone who has committed a petty crime against their will for an extended period of time seems a lot like punishment. That's why I prefer bribery. If the state has the power to involuntarily commit the homeless to jail or a treatment facility for an undetermined period of time, that power will surely be abused.
Its a fundamental principle that people should be punished for what they have done, not for what they might do. This may seem naive in the case of crazy homeless people, but they have rights, too.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Of course, I doubt that will ever happen because no one will spend the money. "
Yes, this is the unfortunate reality of the situation. And if we give the cops the power to hassle the homeless so that they stay out of sight of polite society, we can be sure that nothing will change.
But perhaps the state can be forced into the more expensive alternative of voluntary medical treatment by removing the cheaper option of using only brute force law enforcement techniques.
15444. greystoke - 12/4/2000 11:58:19 AM
Pelle
What does Sweden do about the homeless? Same as US?
15445. CalGal - 12/4/2000 12:07:01 PM
Grey,
I'm up for bribery. In a world where there is significant resistance to paying female crack addicts $200 to get sterilized, though, I'm not sure that's going to cut it.
15446. greystoke - 12/4/2000 12:11:05 PM
CalGal
You have a point. However, sterilization is permanent. Drug treatment for mental illness can be discontinued at any time, or within a short period of time in the case of "under the skin" medication.
15447. PelleNilsson - 12/4/2000 12:16:00 PM
Grey
There are many efforts to help these people. They are not many, maybe 100-200 here in Stockholm. The problem is that they are dysfunctional and should be institutionalised. I'm not alone in this opinion but it would mean that the authorities would have to admit that they were wrong in letting them out on the streets in the first place. That will perhaps take another decade until the then and current decision-makers have retired.
15448. CalGal - 12/4/2000 12:21:07 PM
Grey,
You know, I'd be all for slapping a norplant into a crack addict's arm. That's five years, and god knows their life expectancy is less.
I actually think there is a reasonable middle ground for the mentally ill. Namely, that they must show up every day at a clinic to take their meds. If they don't show up, a warrant is issued; they must be put in an institution for two weeks.
15449. greystoke - 12/4/2000 12:31:46 PM
CalGal
"I actually think there is a reasonable middle ground for the mentally ill."
That does sound like a reasonable approach. OK, its agreed then.
Next problem?
But what about the free cigarettes? I have stock in RJ Reynolds, you know.
15450. greystoke - 12/4/2000 4:14:28 PM
Pelle
"They are not many, maybe 100-200 here in Stockholm."
That doesn't sound like much of a problem compared to the 11,000 that LA has.
Do the police handle your homeless, or is it considered to be more of a public health issue?
15451. CalGal - 12/4/2000 4:18:06 PM
So does anyone think that a man who impregnates a woman should be given the ability to "opt out" upon notification of the pregnancy?
15452. rubberducky - 12/4/2000 4:23:10 PM
CG:
explain
15453. CalGal - 12/4/2000 4:26:21 PM
Woman gets pregnant. She can abort the pregnancy as she desires. If she wants to, however, she can inform the guy that she's pregnant (or has to tell him if he asks). Guy says either yes, I accept responsibility for the child or no, I will not be responsible for the child. Woman can still decide to abort based on either answer. If she decides to go ahead with pregnancy, then she does so on her own (if he says no) or with his involvement (if he says yes). She can't refuse his involvement if he says yes, and she can never ask him for support (nor can he change his mind later) if he says no.
15454. greystoke - 12/4/2000 4:29:57 PM
According to this site, Stockholm has a population of 736,113 versus LA's 3,597,556.
So LA has 5 times the population but 55 to 110 times as many homeless.
Maybe the cold weather keeps the homeless population low in Stockholm.
15455. CalGal - 12/4/2000 4:33:20 PM
Grey,
Rather, Stockholm has a far lower addiction rate, as well as family resources that keep the rest of the mentally ill from hitting the homeless count.
That said, 100 to 200 sounds quite low.
15456. greystoke - 12/4/2000 4:33:50 PM
Or maybe the superior Swedish gene pool results in fewer mentally ill citizens.
15457. greystoke - 12/4/2000 4:36:48 PM
CalGal
crosspost.
Your explanation sounds plausible.
RE: the pregnancy
I would allow the guy to opt in or opt out, but if he opts in the woman should not be able to abort without his consent.
15458. CalGal - 12/4/2000 4:42:14 PM
Grey,
Naw. Can't have that. So you balance the power in other ways. The woman can always abort, but she can never decide to raise the child without the father should he want in. Likewise, a guy can never be forced to pay for a child he didn't want to have. This gives both parties the right to "abort" without the others permission.
Slight advantage always goes to the woman, in that she will never need permission to abort or be forced to abort. But it's very slight, and it is offset by the fact that she can never decide to push the guy out if she does have the child.
15459. ChristinO - 12/4/2000 5:11:21 PM
I imagine that the weather is one of the main reasons we have such a large homeless population. We're also a gigantic city in which it is extremely easy to be overlooked, fall through the cracks etc. Because of the wealth of the city it's also very good for scavenging.
Re: Medication
Not all mental illness can be sucessfully treated with medication and even those that respond well to medication often don't respond well enough to go without psychotherapy as well. If we're going to provide free psychiatric treatment to the indigent of California I'll stand up and cheer, but we can't even get the good taxpayers here to fund public schools every year without a fight so I'm not sure where the money is going to come from for this project.
These are the same taxpayers that turned the mentally ill out into the streets for a tax cut back when we shut down all the state mental hospitals.
15460. CalGal - 12/4/2000 5:16:32 PM
Christin,
A fair chunk of the mentally ill on the street are just refusing to take their meds. I agree that this isn't the problem with all of them.
15461. ChristinO - 12/4/2000 5:35:35 PM
CG,
Yes, but what are the profiles of most of those who refuse to take meds? It's usually meds like Lithium or Prozac or anti-psychotics and the like. Without regular psychotherapy these people will almost always tend to go off their medication. It's a symptom of the disease they suffer.
My uncle is a perfect example of this. He's a pretty normal guy when he takes his drugs, but unfortunately the side effects for his drugs make him lethargic with a tendency to gain a lot of weight and they significantly decrease his sex drive. IOW he's sane, but he feels like a disgusting slug of a human being. He starts to think that he can maintain his sanity if he takes a lower dosage and then pretty soon he's not taking any at all and then he thinks that the doctors were trying to poison him and that it's part of a government plot to control his mind because he's a threat to their world domination.
He's currently in an institution because he got picked up for vagrancy and just happened to be armed so they had cause to lock him up. The State wants to stabilize him and eventually graduate him to a halfway house. Of course that will just start the whole cycle all over again because my uncle cannot be rehabilitated. Unless they find some magical new drug or he gets struck by lightning or abducted by aliens and his brain chemistry is changed he will always go off his meds. He's not rare. I see three or four guys just like him on the Promenade whenever I go to Santa Monica.
It's easy to say "Well, just take your meds," but the reality of psychotropic medication is far more complex than that. It's not like vitamins. If it were I think your solution would be a workable one, but these people are so far outside the system it might as well be another planet for the most part.
15462. CalGal - 12/4/2000 5:38:00 PM
Christin,
But that is my point. If they don't take their meds, then they can be locked up. If they show up daily for meds, no locking up.
Don't get me wrong; I don't think it will fly. But that's a reasonable option.
15463. ChristinO - 12/4/2000 5:53:08 PM
CG,
Yeah, but you'll just have to keep locking them up and letting them loose to lock them up again. So at best all you've done is provide them with housing, showers and food on the city's dime for two weeks however often you catch them. Why not just open up the state mental facilities and house them permanently?
15464. CalGal - 12/4/2000 6:11:20 PM
Christin,
Not necessarily. They are generally sane once they've been on their meds for a while. It's when they stop taking the meds that it's a problem. So you just make sure they know, when they are sane, that they need to show up to take their meds every day. A good percentage of them will continue to take their meds under those requirements.
15465. ChristinO - 12/4/2000 7:28:40 PM
There are thousands of people who won't take these medications even when it means they'll lose their jobs and families and homes. It's part of what makes them "crazy". Only a crazy person would throw his life down the toilet just to keep from taking a pill, right?
It isn't just the wildly crazy who are resistant to medication, however. As a functioning depressive I've had plenty of my own battles with resistance to medication. I'm sure I'll have more even though I KNOW the meds are good for me. Even though I KNOW they help me. Part of me wants to fall down on my knees and thank modern medicine for psychotropics but there's a large part of me that wants to pour gasoline on these little pink pills and set them on fire as well, and I'm a fabulously FUNCTIONAL depressive. I'm functional even without meds. Miserable but functional.
We're talking about people who are not. Some of them will play along a few of them maybe even forever, but the majority will either hide and run or be caught up in the endless cycle of detain and release. You might as well just forcibly institutionalize them since it's far more dangerous for them and for others to "criminalize" them.
15466. CalGal - 12/4/2000 7:30:07 PM
Christin,
You're right. But the ones who keep going on retain and release can eventually be institutionalized. I still think that some percentage of them will keep on meds with that approach, and if nothing else, they will have the opportunity to prove it.
15467. ChristinO - 12/4/2000 7:37:09 PM
I think I just don't like the idea of making not taking good enough care of one's self a punishable offense simply because you're an eyesore.
I mean, no cop is going to break into a private residence and arrest an unwashed, 300lb paranoid schizophrenic for not taking his Thorazine. But this same guy sitting on a kerb is going to get busted.
It makes the aesthetic sensibilities of one class more important than the civil liberties of another and provides too much room for abuse. These laws are too easily used to persecute individuals for other things entirely.
15468. CalGal - 12/4/2000 7:39:35 PM
I think I just don't like the idea of making not taking good enough care of one's self a punishable offense simply because you're an eyesore.
Well, that is actually reason enough. But it's more than that. They are often dangerous, and there's no reliable way to know which unmedicated folks are dangerous only to others and not themselves. And the fact that they are dangerous to themselves is reason enough, too.
I mean, no cop is going to break into a private residence and arrest an unwashed, 300lb paranoid schizophrenic for not taking his Thorazine. But this same guy sitting on a kerb is going to get busted.
If he's in a private residence, paying for himself and said residence, then he is sufficiently functional for society to allow him to remain unmedicated. It's not our problem until they occupy the public space.
15469. Slackjaw - 12/4/2000 7:39:56 PM
Christin,
I see three or four guys just like him on the Promenade whenever I go to Santa Monica.
What does a long time Angeleno see in that infernal tourist trap? Isn't it just one big "Spencer's Gifts meets Planet Hollywood"?
15470. ChristinO - 12/4/2000 7:55:08 PM
CG,
The danger posed by the homeless is almost exclusively posed to themselves or to other homeless rather than the general public. Skid Row isn't a residential area where nice suburban soccer moms are in danger of being accosted by bums. Homeless guys get rousted out of the doorways of abandoned buildings in the dead of night because they're an easier bust than gangsters in south central and the cops can say they're cracking down on crime.
I'm not saying nothing should be done or even that the mentally ill should be allowed to wander around, but I'm extremely hesitant to treat mental illness as a crime against society.
Slack,
The occasional excellent street performer, a Landmark movie theater and three other large first run movie theaters with food nearby. Its certainly not a place I go to shop or just hang out, however, it's far more tolerable than any of the Malls or Gallerias in town with the possible exception of the Westside Pavillion.
I'm not much of a mall shopper though. I get overwhelmed by the smell of all the perfumes and dyes and then my eyes itch and I get cranky and security has to escort me out.
15471. greystoke - 12/5/2000 11:46:17 AM
Olympic windfall.
Raouf Scally didn't ask for the money. He didn't do anything for it. And bid executives said they are not certain why they were paying him.
But for three years, Scally was on the payroll of the Salt Lake bid committee -- for reasons still not fully explained. Other Olympic VIPs and hangers-on took a bigger haul from Salt Lake City's tainted bid effort, but Scally's was the most improbable, and it may have been the result of mistaken identity.
And it wasn't a bad windfall. In February 1993, when Scally was an engineering student at Georgia Tech, he got his first $500. It was followed by another check, then another, $14,500 in all.
"I have no idea why," said his uncle, Atlanta restaurateur Rafih Benjelloun. "It could be considered a grant, maybe."
The Salt Lake ethics panel said Scally stands out in a large cast of Olympic VIPs, relatives and consultants for "the almost complete absence of documentation relating to the origin or purpose of [his] payments." No bid official could explain it, even the ones who signed his checks.
...
Federal investigators interviewed Scally and determined he was paid for one reason: He was related to an IOC member.
15472. rubberducky - 12/5/2000 3:46:38 PM
Search for Real Killers Continues
MIAMI (Reuters) -O.J. Simpson is in trouble again just months after starting over in Miami.
A motorist told police Simpson suffered a fit of road rage after the former football star ran a stop sign. The man, Jeffrey Pattinson, said Simpson berated him then ripped his eyeglasses off his face, according to a report filed with Miami-Dade police on Monday.
Simpson called Miami Fox television affiliate WSVN early Tuesday and denied acting aggressively, saying instead that Pattinson's behavior was out of line.
Pattinson told police he was driving home in the suburb of Kendall, where Simpson has recently bought a house, when a black Lincoln Navigator coming from another direction ran a stop sign and cut him off as he was turning left.
Just down the road, the Navigator stopped and a man who Pattinson recognized as Simpson got out.
``So I blew the stop sign,'' Simpson allegedly shouted at Pattinson. ``What are you going to do? Kill me and my kids?'' After Pattinson replied ``What the hell is the matter with you?'' Simpson, according to the police report, reached through Pattinson's window and pulled off his eyeglasses, scraping his face.
Pattinson told police he could hear a young girl's voice coming from the Navigator saying ``No, Daddy. No Daddy.''
what a fuckin' psycho
15473. mgleason - 12/5/2000 3:57:30 PM
Well, I'm glad that's settled...
LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - The European Union's top court settled it on Tuesday -- it is the holes that make Emmenthal cheese, not the rind.
The European Court of Justice struck down a French law decreeing that Emmenthal, a hole-pocked cheese known to many simply as Swiss cheese, must have a hard outer layer.
France, whose cheesemakers make their own version of the Swiss product, can not ban cheese from being called Emmenthal for not having a rind if it had been made and marketed under that name in another EU country, the European Court of Justice said.
15474. mgleason - 12/5/2000 4:01:08 PM
Watch your step
LONDON (Reuters) - Christmas shoppers visiting London's Oxford Street, home to Selfridges and other famous stores, could find themselves fined for dawdling, if plans for new pedestrian fast lanes are approved.
Traders at the famous street, one of the country's busiest shopping areas that is usually jammed with pedestrians, are calling for the pavement to be divided into two lanes, one with a minimum walking speed of three miles per hour to keep the crowds moving.
15475. mgleason - 12/5/2000 4:20:06 PM
Finally
PARIS (Reuters) - Oscar Wilde has finally got even. The wallpaper in the Paris hotel where he died 100 years ago has been replaced.
Shortly before he died, the famed Irish writer quipped to a female friend: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go."
15476. greystoke - 12/6/2000 11:49:48 AM
Use a rubber.
U.S. syphilis rates reached an all-time low in 1999, suggesting that it may be possible to virtually eliminate the disease from the American scene, but gonorrhea rates reversed a two-decade trend by rising 9%, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.
The syphilis decline was the result of natural cycles of the disease and an aggressive federal program of testing and education. The gonorrhea increase was primarily the result of gay men's returning to unsafe sexual practices in the belief that new AIDS treatments had lowered the risk of that deadly disease, said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri of CDC.
The syphilis data was the only good news in the CDC report, released at a conference in Milwaukee on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. Chlamydia remains the most commonly reported STD in the country, with 660,000 new cases in 1999--but the actual number of new cases may be as high as 3 million per year, CDC researchers estimated.
Human papilloma virus infections have also been growing, with an estimated one in five Americans now infected.
...
The major concentrations of gonorrhea and syphilis are in the Southeast United States and in certain urban areas. Dr. Judith Wasserheit of CDC said half of all new cases of syphilis in 1999 occurred in just 25 of the nation's 3,115 counties, and 75% occurred among African Americans.
...
There is no effective treatment for papilloma virus, and if the body does not clear an infection on its own, the virus produces a sharply increased risk of cervical, penile and anal cancers. An estimated 95% of women with cervical cancer have a papilloma virus infection.
15477. greystoke - 12/6/2000 11:58:06 AM
George Washington's whiskey distillery.
Archaeologists at George Washington's historic home at Mount Vernon, Va., down the Potomac River from the capital, uncovered the foundation of Washington's 75-by-30-foot distillery during a 1997 survey.
For two summers, archaeologists have excavated at the site, almost two miles from the tourist-filled main house. With an infusion of new money, a four-year project is to begin soon to complete the excavation at, then renovate, the site.
Specialists from Virginia's state government discovered the still when it bought the property in 1932, in the waning months of Prohibition. The site, almost two miles from the main house, went undeveloped and was largely forgotten.
Records show Washington built the distillery in 1797, two years before his death, and it produced 11,000 gallons of corn and rye whiskey between 1798 and 1799. The whiskey was sold or traded to farmers and prominent local families. Ledgers show the Lees, Randolphs and Fitzhughs were regular customers.
...
``Washington thought it was a very good idea and it certainly proved to be -- it was very profitable,'' said Esther White, director of archaeology at Mount Vernon.
She said the distillery is about twice the size of most distilleries of the time. It had 50 mash tubs, five worm tubes, a boiler and five copper stills.
White said stones for the foundation came from the falls of the Potomac River, and the sandstone for the walls came from quarries at Mount Vernon.
15478. robertjayb - 12/6/2000 2:10:01 PM
.
Woman bit off friend's husband's testicle...
NEWCASTLE, Dec 6 (AFP) -
A mother of two admitted Wednesday to biting off her best friend's husband's testicle after a night out erupted into violence, although the injured man did not realise at the time.
The court in Newcastle upon Tyne, northeast England, was told the trouble flared after the two women returned home after a night out to their husbands, who had been babysitting.
Denise Carr, 32, leapt to the defence of her friend Shelley Hutchinson when the latter's husband Neil began attacking her.
Neil Hutchinson then fought with Denise Carr, sitting on her.
The court was told Carr began biting her attacker "in order to get him off her."
"The defendant was not aware that she had bitten his testicle until after the incident," prosecutor Stephen Duffield said.
It was only after police arrived at the house in Gateshead, near Newcastle, that the missing testicle was discovered under a picture frame in the sitting room.
Carr was originally charged with wounding with intent but that was reduced to affray, which she admitted.
The hearing was adjourned until January 8 for sentencing.
Speaking after Wednesday's court case, Denise Hutchinson said her husband had not realised how seriously he had been injured.
She said they had been married only three weeks when the incident happened on October last year but were now divorced.
15479. Indiana Jones - 12/6/2000 2:12:02 PM
"although the injured man did not realise at the time"
Personally, I would have noticed.
15480. Wombat - 12/6/2000 2:23:05 PM
How drunk was Neil Hutchinson? Was Neil Hutchinson dressed when all this happened? How can one bite off a testicle if the victim is dressed? How did the testicle end up behind a picture frame (particularly if the victim was dressed)? Inquiring minds wish to know...
15481. robertjayb - 12/6/2000 4:07:47 PM
.
As a farm boy I have heard of people castrating baby pigs with their teeth. Never saw it done.
15482. robertjayb - 12/6/2000 4:38:46 PM
further on testicles:
Dear old Dad was very adept at neutering newborn bull calves. He would whip out his trusty pocketknife, slice off the tip of the scrotum, pull out the testicles and cut the attaching cords.
Then, invariably, bless his heart, he would say to the calf, "Well, you were Mr. McNut, but now you are just plain Mac."
15483. labwabbit - 12/6/2000 4:48:13 PM
...another reason your mom didn't warn you about wearing clean underwear.
As a farm boy I have heard of people castrating baby pigs with their teeth. Never saw it done.
My grandfather used to wade-in amongst the sows grab a piglet by the hind legs, throw it over a saw-horse that had a bucket of rock salt next to it, cut open the scrotum, grab a hanful of salt, and grind it in for a second or two. The poor piglet would head for the mud crying and squealing with the others for what seemed like an eternity.
I think that was the first time I yelled at an adult and tried to hit him.
Man...I still can't stand even thinking about it.
15484. rubberducky - 12/7/2000 10:14:32 AM
15485. Indiana Jones - 12/7/2000 11:51:22 AM
Who said English women were all "prissy"?
A more determined 20 percent said they would be prepared to have sex with their male boss "regardless of whether or not they fancied him if it meant certain promotion".
15486. Ronski - 12/7/2000 12:16:15 PM
Christmas Ghouls
(temp. link)
15487. iiibbb - 12/7/2000 9:46:35 PM
Message # 15474
Man I'm glad we don't have them running things over here.... sheesh.
15488. Greystoke - 12/9/2000 2:51:17 PM
From the Seattle Post Intelligencier:
The owner of a veterinary hospital, tipped that two men were planning to burglarize a local clinic for "date-rape drugs," shot and killed an intruder, deputies said.
Ken Coleman, owner of the Coleman Veterinary Hospital near Shelton, shot at two men who allegedly broke in about 2 a.m. Thursday, Mason County Undersheriff Gary Crane said.
"I don't think he had any choice," Crane said of Coleman's actions.
Robert Inman, 18, of Shelton, died of an apparent gunshot wound, Crane said. Inman's body was found in a ditch a short distance from the clinic.
The second suspect fled but was arrested later Thursday at his home, where police found two guns, Crane said. The man was identified as Otis William Dahman, 25, of Shelton.
Deputies learned Wednesday that two men were planning to burglarize a local veterinarian office. The information revealed that the suspects would be armed, would cut phone lines and were looking to steal drugs like Ketamine, one of the drugs referred to as a date-rape drug, Crane said.
Officers advised area veterinarians to make sure alarm systems were activated and doors were locked.
Coleman told investigators that he decided to stay overnight at his clinic because the building does not have an alarm system.
Dahman was held on several outstanding warrants and faces a burglary charge, Crane said. He also could be charged with felony murder if a court finds him culpable, Crane said.
The investigation so far shows Coleman was justified in shooting Inman, but prosecutors will have to make the final decision, Sheriff Steve Whybark said.
15489. AytchMan - 12/9/2000 3:02:06 PM
Some Holiday Spirit, Eastern-Style:
From ABC News:
Fed up with having shoppers leave his clothing store empty-handed, Akira Ishiguro, 38, had put up a sign at the entrance of his shop in Yokohama, near Tokyo, prohibiting entry to those who had no intention of buying, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported today.
The sign read: “Entry strictly prohibited to shoplifters, browsers, and teasers.”
Many customers didn’t notice or paid no heed to the warning, but Ishiguro meant business.
“Didn’t you see the sign outside? Do you take me for a fool?” Ishiguro allegedly shouted at a 26-year-old woman when he discovered she wasn’t interested in buying a coat she had handled.
He then proceeded to force her to get down on her knees and apologize — considered the ultimate form of humiliation in Japan — and coerced her into handing over the 3,000 yen ($27.12) she had in cash as down payment for the coat, priced at 42,000 yen, the report said.
A shopping mall association said it had in the past received several similar complaints about Ishiguro, who was said to have, in one instance, kept a customer locked in his store until she agreed to purchase something.
Police said Ishiguro denied having made the woman get down on her knees, according to the newspaper.
15490. Greystoke - 12/9/2000 3:02:25 PM
Marcus Allan arrested for torturing a 12 year old girl.
Stunned child abuse investigators said Friday that a Burbank couple kept a 12-year-old girl in a "slave setting" for at least two years, beating her and feeding her only table scraps.
Erlinda Reyes Allan, 37, and Marcus Allan, 42, admitted physically abusing and neglecting the girl, Burbank Police Lt. Don Brown said, after authorities found her hiding near her home.
Brown, a 40-year police veteran who heads the juvenile and gang unit, said he has never seen such an abused child survive.
"There was not a part of her body that was not bruised, cut or split open," he said.
The couple were charged earlier this week with one count each of torture, child abuse and corporal injury to a child. They are being held at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility near downtown pending a Jan. 4 arraignment in Burbank Superior Court. Bail is set at $630,000 for Marcus Allan and $600,000 for Erlinda Allan.
If convicted, Brown said, the couple could be sentenced to at least 20 years in prison.
Police are still trying to determine whether the girl is the couple's daughter. Three teenagers, two girls and a boy, also lived with the couple, but Brown said police weren't sure of their relationship to the adults or the girl.
Brown said the couple also abused the teenagers, particularly when the older children secretly passed food or gifts to the 12-year-old.
"It was really cruel and hateful," he said.
...
He said she was so malnourished that she appeared to be 7 or 8 years old.
"When we see people in this condition, they are usually dead," he said.
15491. Greystoke - 12/9/2000 3:05:53 PM
AytchMan
Mr. Ishiguro has a future as a car salesman. He's a real go-getter.
15492. Greystoke - 12/9/2000 3:16:20 PM
LAPD hassles bums.
A Los Angeles Police Department task force patrolled the heart of the downtown skid row area Friday, arresting and citing scores of homeless people for jaywalking and other violations.
Police said the intent was to target rising crime and show that officers will not back down in the wake of a temporary restraining order issued last Friday.
...
The restraining order states that officers cannot stop the homeless without reasonable suspicion, demand identification on the threat of arrest, search possessions without reasonable suspicion, confiscate the property of a homeless person if it has not been abandoned or issue citations for loitering.
...
About 30 members of the LAPD Central Division and state parole officers took to the streets at 9 a.m. Friday, focusing on a three-block area around San Julian Street and 5th and 6th streets, which is known for high crime.
As of 6 p.m., police had written about 70 citations and made about 15 arrests. Most tickets were issued for jaywalking, but arrests were made when outstanding warrants or drugs were discovered, or when someone ran from officers.
...
Pedestrian deaths have been relatively high this year in the Central Division, which includes skid row and the downtown area, compared to other areas. And many of those killed in the Central Division were homeless people, police say.
Violence, robberies and drug use have increased on skid row, a 50-block area with about 11,000 transients, since the lawsuit was filed two weeks ago and police limited their enforcement actions, Mathes said. This year, four homeless people have been killed in the Central Division and 32 homeless people have been victims of rape or other sex crimes.
15493. Greystoke - 12/9/2000 3:32:11 PM
From the Denver Post:
A Denver judge refused to dismiss an animal-cruelty case against a radio disc jockey Friday and ruled that a profanity-laced email can be used against him at trial.
KBPI-FM on-air personality Steven Meade, 32, is scheduled to go on trial Dec. 18. Meade, known as Willie B. on air, allegedly had a station intern drop a live chicken from the second- and third-floor balconies Feb. 3.
Meade was on the air telling his audience about the bird's reaction.
Cathy Brown, a veterinarian who specializes in the care of injured birds, testified Friday that the stunt left the chicken dehydrated and with injuries to its right foot and leg.
Meade's lawyer, Michael Thynne, asked Denver County Judge Alfred C. Harrell on Friday to dismiss the case because officials had denied the defense access to the bird.
Meade Thynne also tried to keep a profanity-laced email Meade sent to an upset listener from being allowed as evidence.
Harrell refused to dismiss the misdemeanor case and said the e-mail will be allowed.
Further, the judge said he would allow the prosecution to call KBPI listeners as witnesses who allegedly heard Meade urge them to bring animals to the station so they could be released across I-25.
Meade allegedly told listeners there would be an early spring if the animals survived, but there would be six more weeks of winter if they did not. He reportedly offered a prize to pet owners whose animals survived the crossing.
15494. Greystoke - 12/9/2000 3:33:20 PM
Mr. Meade is one sick puppy.
15495. Greystoke - 12/10/2000 11:02:52 AM
Colorado agencies pay off problem employees.
One Colorado government worker slurred a black man, and the state gave her $14,400 and a new job. Another state employee got $35,000 after popping a coworker in the head.
The state also paid $65,725 to a manager investigated for cooking the government's financial books and $20,000 to a psychiatric worker required to apply ointment to the scrotum of a mentally troubled patient who wrote her daily love letters.
Then there were the four University Hospital employees who pocketed checks for $105,000 to $250,000. State officials refuse to say why they were paid.
Welcome to the little-known world of state government's legal settlements, where managers sometimes pay significant sums to make some employees go away.
In the past two years, Colorado taxpayers have been charged more than $4.8 million to settle 136 disputes in state agencies. Details of most legal settlement agreements had remained off-limits to taxpayer scrutiny until The Denver Post filed a request in October under Colorado's Open Records Act.
...
The state also paid $20,000 to a mental-health worker who tried, but failed, to distance herself from a patient who sent her daily love letters, gave her a red condom and tried to buy her a Lycra body suit.
In a federal lawsuit, state worker Florence Marez said the patient also touched her breasts and buttocks. Marez said she repeatedly complained to bosses about the arrangement, but she was "required to rub ointment on the client's scrotum."
15496. robertjayb - 12/10/2000 11:47:54 PM
.
Another state employee got $35,000 after popping a coworker in the head.
If $35K is a standard rate, I predict an outbreak of head popping of coworkers.
15497. rubberducky - 12/11/2000 8:42:21 AM
that’s a very courageous prediction.
15498. greystoke - 12/11/2000 11:41:04 AM
No opinions on the scrotum ointment?
I predict that, sooner or later, Ms. Marez will be writing a "how we met" letter to Ann Landers.
15499. greystoke - 12/11/2000 11:48:57 AM
Police brutality.
At 3 p.m. on that last Saturday before Christmas, two strangers were sifting through the clearance rack in the women's department at a super-sized thrift store. Both spotted the pale blue blouse at the same time and pulled on the hanger. The blouse fell to the floor. The two rivals bumped heads as they went down after it.
A grapple for possession ensued. Wicked words were exchanged. When the store manager stepped in to intervene, he was pushed out of the way and told to "get lost!"
Frustrated, the elderly man requested help from the police. I rolled on the call.
...
After reminding the foul-mouthed pair there were children present and to watch their language, I demanded a reasonable explanation.
"Look, I saw the blouse first, so it's mine," insisted the shorter woman in her early 30s, clinging to the left sleeve of the guilty garment.
"In your dreams, girl," argued the older one, who had a death grip on the right shoulder pad.
...
[continued]
15500. greystoke - 12/11/2000 11:49:19 AM
Sick and tired of the nonsense, I asked the manager if he had a similar blouse in stock. He shook his head, "No." Both women laughed when I suggested a compromise. Even the idea of a coin toss was nixed. You would have thought they were fighting over something important, like a rich boyfriend, a big property settlement or those 25 electoral votes in Florida.
"All right ladies, enough is enough," I said at the end. "Hand over the merchandise."
Neither one of them moved. When I repeated the command, they looked to the crowd and screamed, "This is police brutality!"
The manager offered to assist me. It was now two against two. We applied three quick tugs and a mighty pull and took the blouse into protective custody. In the line of duty, I held the dumb thing over my head and requested a price check.
...
The two women were livid. They threatened me with a lawsuit if I didn't return the article of clothing that, according to their rules, belonged to them.
I slipped the manager a $5 bill to cover the cost and advised him to stand by. I secured a good grip on the neck of the blouse then ripped it straight down the middle and gave each woman half.
15501. mgleason - 12/11/2000 11:51:48 AM
If only NASA calculated the odds of winning the lottery...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. space scientists put the odds at nearly 1 in 250 that debris from the proposed burn-up of the world's first global satellite telephone mesh would hit someone on Earth.
The prospects of a casualty from the now-averted mass "de-orbiting" of the system known as Iridium were spelled out in a previously secret study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The analysis was done in April as a government task force weighed fears that a hurry-up, 14-month schedule for bringing back cast-off hardware might trigger "widespread anxiety."
"With the information currently available, the probability of someone being struck by surviving Iridium debris is assessed to be 1 in 18,405 per re-entry and 1 in 249 for all 74 spacecraft combined," NASA calculated.
15502. greystoke - 12/11/2000 11:56:23 AM
From the Salt Lake Tribune:
A judge will hold a hearing today on a 6-year-old boy who was removed from his mother's custody because she was still breast-feeding him when he was 5, allegedly against his wishes.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services took the child in July after a baby sitter called a child-abuse hot line.
Champaign County Circuit Judge Ann Einhorn is scheduled to hear the case.
DCFS investigators said the boy told them he no longer wanted to breast-feed, but the mother, 32, said her son never indicated that he wanted to stop. She denied any allegations of abuse.
Authorities did not identify the woman to protect the child's privacy.
The agency also contended the woman shared a bed with her son. The mother said there is not enough space for the boy to have his own room. "My child was weaning himself," the mother said.
Although it is rare for an American child to be breast-fed at such an advanced age, physicians and anthropologists said it is not unheard of.
15503. greystoke - 12/11/2000 12:01:16 PM
mgleason
Good article.
I find it hard to believe that the odds for such an incident can be calculated with any degree of accuracy (1 in 18,405 ? what, no decimal points? ).
I suspect wild guessing is at work here.
15504. rubberducky - 12/11/2000 12:04:45 PM
Grey:
wild hopes would be my guess
15505. greystoke - 12/11/2000 12:10:55 PM
DNA evidence frees the innocent.
That was the man who tried to rape her; she was sure of it.
She had seen him before, around the apartment complex where they both lived. But her most vivid memory was of William Gregory breaking into her apartment and attacking her.
Now Gregory was sitting right across the courtroom. A lawyer was asking if she could identify the man who had assaulted her.
She could. So could another victim, a 71-year-old neighbor who was raped a month later.
With both women swearing that he had attacked them, the case against Gregory was overwhelming. He was convicted and served eight years of a 70-year sentence before DNA evidence proved he couldn't have committed either crime.
"My life was snatched away from me," Gregory says. "I had a house, I had a car, I had a business. I had everything."
A decade ago, experts thought that cases like Gregory's were extremely rare. But since 1987, at least 76 men have been released from jail in the United States because DNA evidence proved their innocence. Eyewitness testimony played a major role in almost every one of their convictions.
It is difficult to determine how many people are doing time for crimes they did not commit, though estimates by Professors Brian Cutler and Steven Penrod in their 1995 book "Mistaken Identification" put the error rate at 0.5 percent, or 5,000 of the 1 million convictions a year.
"It's the major cause of wrongful convictions," says Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist at the University of Washington. "I'm pretty sure of that."
15506. greystoke - 12/11/2000 12:14:28 PM
More on mistaken identity from the article:
An Associated Press review covering more than two decades of psychology research indicates that eyewitness testimony could be sending innocent people to jail with distressing frequency. Countless experiments show that human memory is fragile and malleable, but our justice system often treats it as an indelible record of past events.
Researchers have learned in the past few decades that this system can be fooled. Other people can convince us that we saw things that were never actually there. Things that never even happened can be remembered just as vividly as actual events. And the most confident witness can simply be wrong when identifying the perpetrator of a crime.
...
Other experiments have shown that the effect translates to witness identifications of perpetrators. In one, Gary Wells and Amy Bradfield of Iowa State University showed people a grainy surveillance video of a man and told them that he had later shot a security guard. Then they presented their subjects with five mug shots and asked which one was the perpetrator.
It was an impossible task, because none of the five mug shots really matched the man in the video. Nevertheless, every one of the 352 subjects identified one of the mug shots as the man they had seen.
15507. greystoke - 12/11/2000 12:15:02 PM
toys
15508. marshame - 12/11/2000 12:24:18 PM
greystoke
You do come up with some interesting current events!! I particularly enjoyed the King Solomon and the Blue Blouse story. And the 5-year old still breast feeding has a sick sort of fascination. But rubbing ointment on scrotums of anyone over the age of 2 does seem like it should be be worth at least $20k!
15509. marshame - 12/11/2000 12:27:43 PM
Oh yes, I forgot the Japanese store keeper who badgers his customers! I believe I have met a few of his relatives! But then again, the opposite seems to be what I find these days: I'm ready to pay and can't find anyone to take my money, or if I ask any question, like "Doesn't the tag say $24.99, not $29.99 which you just rang up?" they are then riveted into paralysis status and must go into a black hole to find someone who has a key or knows anything at all about how to conduct a sale.
15510. greystoke - 12/11/2000 12:29:02 PM
marshame
"... should be be worth at least $20k!"
I agree. And she could have received a Lycra body suit out of the deal if she had played her cards right.
15511. marshame - 12/11/2000 12:30:14 PM
I myself would only apply scrotum cream while wearing a lycra body suit, gloves and hood.
15512. marshame - 12/11/2000 12:31:02 PM
I hate to be tacky, but exactly what is the purpose of scrotum cream? Is it akin to "beauty cream"?
15513. JudithAtHome - 12/11/2000 12:32:24 PM
...and using your famous feather at the same time, marsha?....might run it up to 25k!
15514. JudithAtHome - 12/11/2000 12:33:13 PM
Gosh, where did that come from? Must be the fever....
15515. labwabbit - 12/11/2000 12:34:07 PM
I hate to be tacky, but exactly what is the purpose of scrotum cream?
I second that question. Yet I doubt the "beauty cream" theory is headed in the right direction.
15516. mgleason - 12/11/2000 12:36:42 PM
Thanks, Greystoke. I always check out this thread for material to use on my husband on our late-evening walks.
Marsha, you ought to think about demanding a bee-keeper's hat, as well. You can't bee too careful.
15517. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 12:38:05 PM
exactly what is the purpose of scrotum cream? Is it akin to "beauty cream"?
Don't get me wrong -- I do like men, but you could gold plate a scrotum and it still wouldn't be beautiful.
15518. PsychProf - 12/11/2000 12:40:32 PM
Scrotum cream prevents shrinkage and promotes healthy looking tissue, as if you didn't know...a little dab will do ya, my mom always useta say..
15519. rubberducky - 12/11/2000 12:41:24 PM
i thought "beauty cream"? was to reduce (i.e. shrink) wrinkles, yes?
if so, then i am i highly suspicious of a cream for the male scrotum would have anything in common with it.
15520. mgleason - 12/11/2000 12:44:21 PM
I do like men, but you could gold plate a scrotum and it still wouldn't be beautiful.
Not enough scrotum cream in your life, Bub.
15521. ElliottRW - 12/11/2000 12:45:21 PM
Re: NASA
Interesting article. Especially the part about the Pentagon (in essence) bailing out the system. I wonder if Iridium has some special functionality, if you get my drift. I also found it amusing that NASA sees the 74 re-entries and identical, independent random events (which means they did not take into account orbital trajectory in assessing the probability of an accident).
15522. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 12:45:26 PM
maria
I
15523. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 12:45:29 PM
maria
I
15524. labwabbit - 12/11/2000 12:46:52 PM
Shrinkage???
Hahahahaha.
...a little dab and a coupla minutes PP??
15525. joezan - 12/11/2000 12:46:59 PM
When I got my first job in my chosen field, at a huge State Hospital in NY, I had to do what amounted to a broad-ranging, paid internship at several different units within the hospital - most of which was by that time comprised of geriatric wards, even though I was working exclusively with adolescents.
One of these units - the Geriatric ICU, was in the Medical/Surgical Building. And in that ICU was a sub-unit of seriously ill diabetics - bound for the cutting table.
Anyway, my first day there, they tell me I have to prep this 80 y.o. Irish guy, Charlie, for his surgery - a hip replacement and, while they were at it, cutting off three gangrenous toes on one foot. Now, this was 1978, so Charlie was casually puffing on Pall Mall non-filters while I attempted to shave him from his "letters" all the way down to his feet.
When I got to Charlie's, uh...family jewels, he became obviously aroused. I spooked, dropped everything, and told the Charge Nurse, "Fire me -I'm not doing this shit!"
...to which she replied, "Oh stop - you should be honored! That's the most fun Charlie's had in 20 years."
Then, she threatened to take me up on my dare if I didn't finish - which, of course, I did.
I was traumatized.
I think that was worth at least $20,000.
15526. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 12:47:16 PM
Woah! how did that happen?
as I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted, I know that reasonable people may disagree, but I don't think that either male or female genitalia are very attractive. Why do ya think they call it "bumping uglies"?
15527. JudithAtHome - 12/11/2000 12:47:48 PM
There is a beauty cream which promises to plump the tissue and thus reduce the appearance of wrinkles...maybe there's a market for this plumping cream, re: the subject.
15528. marshame - 12/11/2000 12:48:39 PM
"and using your famous feather at the same time, marsha?..."
Judith, yes, you must be feverish. I don't believe I've ever posted the word "feather" around these parts, unless it was in the "ilk" context (you know, people of your "ilk", "birds of a feather", etc.)
I also think it would be difficult to apply scrotum cream with a feather, especially with gloves and aforementioned bee-keeper's hat. Perhaps a putty knife would do the trick? Or, if it were me, I would look for the scrotrum cream in an aerosol can variety, and just stand back and spray the thing.
15529. labwabbit - 12/11/2000 12:49:21 PM
J@H
Oh stop it...! :->
15530. greystoke - 12/11/2000 12:49:43 PM
"I myself would only apply scrotum cream while wearing a lycra body suit, gloves and hood."
I've been trying to figure out what to get my wife for Christmas.
Boy is she going to be surprised.
Thanks for the idea.
15531. PsychProf - 12/11/2000 12:50:19 PM
I wonder how one would purchase such...certainly an order of a small amount would not be impressive...more like "Gimme a large bottle of scrotum creme"...economy size if ya got it"...now that sounds ok...probaby should be carried only at Big Men/Tall Men shops...or Price Club, in huge milk bottle type containers.
15532. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 12:52:08 PM
There is a beauty cream which promises to plump the tissue and thus reduce the appearance of wrinkles
Or, as Ball Park Franks say, "They plump when you cook em!"
15533. JudithAtHome - 12/11/2000 12:53:30 PM
Psych:
Industrial strength barrels, maybe.
marsha:
Hey, I wasn't inferring you use the feather for applying the stuff. There's a lot more you can do with feathers than just dust, you know....
15534. mgleason - 12/11/2000 12:54:30 PM
I'm pretty sure Kathie Lee Gifford markets SC, Prof, or will, as soon as she discerns the possibilities.
Then she'll hire Marsha and her outfit for an infomercial. Now we only need a male volunteer from the studio audience.
15535. labwabbit - 12/11/2000 12:54:53 PM
I've been trying to figure out what to get my wife for Christmas.
Boy is she going to be surprised.
Gives gives a new twist on last year's "Tickle-Me-Elmo" popularity.
A simple change from "Me" to "My" would provide a whole new marketing strategy.
15536. greystoke - 12/11/2000 12:56:01 PM
Joe
"I think that was worth at least $20,000."
To you or to Charlie?
15537. joezan - 12/11/2000 1:00:01 PM
Grey:
No matter how you look at it, me.
15538. mgleason - 12/11/2000 1:01:27 PM
Bub, for a minute, I thought I'd left you speechless...
15539. PsychProf - 12/11/2000 1:02:26 PM
Maria..."Come on down" seems unseemly...
15540. mgleason - 12/11/2000 1:04:56 PM
Joe, your story reminds me of when I had my appendix out at nineteen. The nurse began to prep me by shaving what I took to be an entirely inappropriate area, and alarmed, I sang out, 'Gee, I had no idea the doctor went in through there.' She nicked me.
15541. mgleason - 12/11/2000 1:05:29 PM
OUCH, Prof.
15542. rubberducky - 12/11/2000 2:16:04 PM
sure to be a hot after-market collectable:
Man Puts World-Record Fingernails on Auction Block
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A retired Indian photographer who has grown his fingernails for almost half a century is finally calling it quits and will auction them off to the highest bidder.
Shridhar Chillal from Pune, near Bombay, has been a permanent fixture in the Guinness Book of World Records for the last 20 years as the man with the world's longest nails.
...
``When I was 14 in 1952, I read about a Chinese priest who grew his fingernails till they were 22 inches,'' he said.
``I was amazed and I decided I would do that, and I could beat that. My family said it was not possible but I made up my mind.''
...
But Chillal says he is now exhausted.
Constant vigilance has meant he has not had a single night of proper sleep in almost 50 years and cannot risk being in crowds or hug his grandchild for fear of breaking his nails.
...
Chillal, who was in Hong Kong to announce the sale of his nails, wants at least $200,000 for all five combined.
``I prefer a museum or a curator preserve them and I also get reimbursement for all those years of inconvenience,'' he said, caressing his nails. ``I'll miss them. But I'll be happy knowing they are preserved and that my name will carry on.''
the most interesting thing to me?
Worse, the weight on his left hand has meant constant pain in his left wrist, elbow and shoulder, and not using his left hand has killed off vital nerves and left him deaf in one ear.
``I've lost 100 percent hearing in my right ear. My nerves there are dead because my left hand is unused,'' Chillal said.
i had no idea that just not moving the hand could do that amount of damage to the brain
15543. mgleason - 12/11/2000 2:19:33 PM
This is an amazing story, RD. If only I had known about this when I bit my nails as a child, I could have reassured my mother that it was merely preventive medicine on my part.
15544. marshame - 12/11/2000 2:22:39 PM
Of all the disgusting things... Maybe as rehabilitation on his hand, he could be the geriatric scrotum cream applier at the local VA hospital.
15545. rubberducky - 12/11/2000 2:23:19 PM
too true, MG
the story was a real ....
sorry in advance
... nail biter
15546. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 2:28:09 PM
Eeeeeewwww!
Who in the hell would want to buy his fingernails? You couldn't give em to me.
Why does this fool think that he should be compensated for 48 years of his own idiocy?
15547. JudithAtHome - 12/11/2000 2:29:52 PM
Maybe he's related to the Bushs...
15548. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 2:30:53 PM
HaHaHaHa.
Well he should be elected president immediately in that case!
15549. Jenerator - 12/11/2000 2:38:14 PM
Lond dead fingernails, entirely too gross!
Marsha,
Why would you start applying scrotum cream? That's something only Shimmy Marm would do, or need to, anyway.
15550. JJBiener - 12/11/2000 2:52:28 PM
Bubbaette - I know that reasonable people may disagree, but I don't think that either male or female genitalia are very attractive.
I disagree, at least where female genitalia is concerned. I think it is very attractive. Some are an absolute work of art.
15551. PelleNilsson - 12/11/2000 3:23:36 PM
Scrotum Care? I see a new expansive niche market for the House of Waxes and Wedgies.
15552. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 3:26:56 PM
Wax your scrotum, sir?
15553. mgleason - 12/11/2000 3:29:48 PM
Bubba! I thought for sure that this would be one service you'd out-source.
15554. labwabbit - 12/11/2000 3:33:13 PM
Don't think a lighted candle that close to...nah, he'd prefer the aerosol.
15555. bubbaette - 12/11/2000 3:38:49 PM
Maria
One of the things about scrotum waxings is that we get so little repeat business.
But a job is a job.
15556. rubberducky - 12/11/2000 3:38:51 PM
at least with those nails, you could apply the wax from a good, safe distance!
15557. greystoke - 12/12/2000 11:47:52 AM
Do you like shopping way too much? Take drugs instead.
Although it's classified as an impulse-control disorder, compulsive shopping (actually compulsive buying) often has been associated with depression.
"This chronic impulse, often used to relieve feelings of anxiety and depression in a patient, can be difficult to treat," said Dr. Lorrin Koran, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University Medical School who's heading an ongoing study of the drug.
The disorder is marked by preoccupation with buying unneeded items to an extent that it causes distress, social or occupational impairment or financial problems, with many sufferers running up huge credit-card debt, taking out second mortgages on homes or divorcing a spouse.
Estimates of the extent of the disorder range from 2 percent to 8 percent of the adult U.S. population, with women making up more than 90 percent of the sufferers.
A preliminary test of the drug Citalopram (brand name Celexa) in 19 women and two men showed that 80 percent of those taking it had a positive response, based on scores from two standardized measures of compulsive behavior taken before and during the 12-week study, which was sponsored by the manufacturer of the drug, Forest Laboratories.
"They reported feeling less anxiety, less depression, less impulsiveness," said Koran, who also heads the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Clinic at Stanford. "The women in the study reported they stopped thinking about shopping."
15558. joezan - 12/12/2000 11:51:44 AM
Grey:
A preliminary test of the drug Citalopram (brand name Celexa) in 19 women and two men showed that 80 percent of those taking it had a positive response.
You know, this could mean that it only worked on women...
(Kinda makes sense, if you think about it).
15559. greystoke - 12/12/2000 12:02:30 PM
FTC and federal court shut down fake id web site.
The Federal Trade Commission brought a complaint against the site's proprietors earlier this month, saying fake IDs made from the site can be used not only for underage drinking and voter or passport fraud but also for identity theft.
The complaint alleges that Jeremy Martinez of Tarzana, Calif., sold 45 days of access to fake ID templates for $29.99. The site, identified in the complaint as 'newid,' contained ``high quality'' templates for the creation of fake driver's licenses for several states, including California, New York and Florida, the complaint says.
...
The templates can be used with a passport-sized photo and a computer printer to create a valid-looking license. The site also offered birth certificate templates, regulators said.
The case against Martinez is before the U.S. District Court for central California. The court shut down the site pending a judgment.
FTC spokeswoman Claudia Bourne Farrell said that she believes regulators just hit ``the tip of an iceberg'' with their latest action.
A Web search by The Associated Press yielded many sites offering templates to make ``replacement'' but still authentic-looking IDs, including driver's licenses, diplomas, military and police identification and Social Security cards.
15560. JudithAtHome - 12/12/2000 12:05:28 PM
My cousins are deeply in debt due to compulsive spending when he was out of work for almost 14 months...both became severely depressed and so they bought a new TV, antique bedroom set, new fridge and washer/dryer, many many new clothes, rented cars and went on several trips. Now that he's gone back to work, they are stuck with paying only the minimum on their credit cards and the interest on each months bill continues to be more than the payments. They may never get out of debt.
15561. greystoke - 12/12/2000 12:06:31 PM
Joe,
You may be right. And why did they even bother testing on men if they only used two subjects?
I don't know very many men who like shopping at all, let alone ones who are obsessive about it.
15562. greystoke - 12/12/2000 12:08:33 PM
Judith
Wow. What were they thinking?
How old are they?
15563. joezan - 12/12/2000 12:12:30 PM
Grey:
Hey - I've gotten probably a dozen of those newid messages in my Hotmail inbox over the last month or so - even after continually putting them on the Block Sender list. That's one of the reasons I got rid of my Hotmail account.
15564. CalGal - 12/12/2000 12:14:06 PM
Grey, Joe,
I think that women are more likely to spend in a depression because women are more likely to disassociate themselves from money than men are, if that makes sense.
So it's possible that men who are compulsive spenders aren't depressed.
15565. JudithAtHome - 12/12/2000 12:16:19 PM
Grey:
That is the truly sad thing...she is 50 and he is 46. She is obsessive/compulsive and he is very easily swayed by her. Luckily, they have no children but they do have a mortage. They went through their savings and then ran up credit card debt.
I begged her sister and mother to do an intervention (this is a small family) and they just laughed at me, saying it was their business. I told my cousin a few months ago that I had wanted to do that and she said she wished I had. But given their ages, I felt foolish suggesting it and am not sure it would've helped, anyhow.
To show you how out of control they got, they saw the same play (a long running musical review) 37 times!
15566. joezan - 12/12/2000 12:17:56 PM
Could be.
It appears this drug is a SRI, which afaik work just as well for men as for women in treating other OCDs, like smoking.
15567. greystoke - 12/12/2000 12:25:23 PM
Judith
50 is certainly old enough to know better. I doubt if confronting them would have changed their behavior.
I bet its tough to be sympathetic to someone whose problems resulted from their own stupidity.
15568. CalGal - 12/12/2000 12:29:37 PM
Joe,
I should have said that it is possible that they aren't obsessive. Depression is usually what is underneath the anxiety that causes obsessive behavior.
Of course, we don't even know that it is the men who didn't get better.
15569. labwabbit - 12/12/2000 12:38:31 PM
...practically need to take drugs to GO shopping.
15570. ChristinO - 12/12/2000 12:42:34 PM
Grey,
That's a special kind of stupid. I'd argue that it's not a kind of stupid at all but rather a depressive malady. It isn't a rational behavior. They don't go out and spend the money because they think they have it or because they think they will have it. There's a complete disconnect between the getting and having of things and the bank account.
It's the allure of shiny new things. Unused, unworn, undamaged, pristine and just waiting to remake the user into a new and faultless version of themselves. It isn't about consumption of product it's about renewal of self-----an attempt to escape the rut one has fallen into and the daily habits that depress or disgust and degrade.
15571. JudithAtHome - 12/12/2000 12:52:39 PM
Christin:
That is exactly how my cousin explained it so it's not as though they didn't know what they were doing. However, now they are having to pay the piper and that has made them even more depressed about the future...it's like they thought the risk to feel momentairly better was worth taking until they woke up and now they are just down all the time.
I gave them 4 tickets to use any time at a local theater because we have season tickets to it and I'd thought they would enjoy a night or two out. They have let the time limit run out on the tickets without ever using them...at first, this really ticked me because the tickets weren't FREE but I've just reconciled it as a donation to the theater.
But Grey is right...it is difficult for me to be sympathetic.
15572. joezan - 12/12/2000 12:53:04 PM
This computer is getting rather old...
15573. greystoke - 12/12/2000 1:07:54 PM
Christino
"There's a complete disconnect between the getting and having of things and the bank account."
That's something I cannot relate to. If I was broke and depressed, I just cannot fathom how going (further) into debt is going make me feel better.
I realize that it happens a lot, but how can seemingly rational people spend money they don't have for any length of time without waking up and smelling the coffee? What happens when the bills start arriving?
15574. ChristinO - 12/12/2000 1:16:17 PM
Judith & Grey,
Please understand that I'm not trying to excuse their behavior only explain to you why they do it. No it isn't rational. That's why it's called a disorder. Rational people do not behave this way. If you behave this way you have a problem that needs medical attention. Certainly professional counseling and quite likely medication.
If you suffer from depression it isn't the sort of thing that you can talk yourself out of. Staying in your house not bathing doesn't make you feel any less depressed, but because you're depressed you are incapable oftentimes of doing anything else. It is a cyclical, progressive disease. The worse it gets the worse it gets.
You don't have to enable people in their depression but there's no sense in being angry at them for it. It's frustrating and heartbreaking for those who live with and around depressives to deal with because it's so hard to understand. You really can't do much to help because the things that seem perfectly rational to you are quite simply beyond the comprehension of a depressive going through a serious melancholic cycle.
That's why they call it "crazy".
15575. ChristinO - 12/12/2000 1:20:25 PM
Greystoke,
When the bills start arriving many of those people end up on the street. You probably wouldn't be surprised at how many of the homeless suffer from depressive disorders.
Particularly interesting are the bi-polars or manic-depressives who build and lose multiple fortunes. In a manic phase they build a multi-million dollar business then they hit a depressive phase and lose it all.
15576. JudithAtHome - 12/12/2000 1:22:02 PM
My cousin has been in therapy and used medication in the past. She refuses to do so again. I think she needs meds but you can't force them on a person.
I talk to her now and then and usually just end up listening to her; it seems to help her, I guess. I don't know of much else to do...
15577. greystoke - 12/12/2000 1:25:13 PM
Christino
I do know how it feels to think I am doing something completely rational and have those around me insist how foolish I am. Its very discouraging.
So, from that perspective, I can see how difficult it must be for a depressed, and possibly obsessive, person.
You certainly are eloquent in describing the agony of depression. My heart goes out to you.
15578. Raskolnikov - 12/12/2000 1:31:17 PM
The show is very much an exaggeration anyway. As such, stretching one of their escapades out into something like National Lampoon's Vacation could potentially work.
It isn't something I am going to care much about anyway. As Ace says, the vast majority of movie comedies aren't funny anyway, so I see no particular reason for singling this one out for scorn. But I don't know why they would bother - sit com humor is much better suited to the small screen than the movie screen. Take 3 episodes of your favorite sitcom, and it probably has 3 times as many laughs as the best movie comedy you have seen this year.
15579. Raskolnikov - 12/12/2000 1:32:03 PM
Damn. very much the wrong thread. Please delete.
15580. CalGal - 12/12/2000 1:34:47 PM
You do that more than anyone. Not a complaint, just a weird quirk.
I do think Christin is right about depression, etc, but I was speaking more specifically as to why it might be that women might be more likely to act out around money.
15581. ChristinO - 12/12/2000 2:03:06 PM
Judith,
Yeah, that's one of the toughest things----med resistance. Makes you wanna whack 'em with a hammer doesn't it? My uncle is like that. He could take meds and live a mostly normal life. Off meds he has to be institutionalized. It's very sad.
Grey,
Thank you. I'm actually pretty lucky. I'm a highly functioning depressive. I tend to sabotage small. This whole topic today is like a small scold to me because I went on a spending spree last night at the Rite-Aid. I went in for Cold remedy stuff and came away with a pharmacy and lots of little containers that I will now have to find things to put in. All in all not a very big deal, but I still recognize it as compulsive to the tune of about $25. I called my mother and told her : "I did it again" and she asked "Was it containers or square things this time?". I like square and rectangular things because they stack well in the cupboards and are easy to put away. I used to have palpitations walking down the Rice-A-Roni aisle at the grocery.
Now I just dream about office and school supplies. I aspire to organization!
15582. Raskolnikov - 12/12/2000 2:06:28 PM
"You do that more than anyone. Not a complaint, just a weird quirk."
I just think you notice more when I do it. This time it was a function of having two Mote windows open.
15583. JJBiener - 12/12/2000 2:07:23 PM
Grey - I do know how it feels to think I am doing something completely rational and have those around me insist how foolish I am. Its very discouraging.
I suspect most Democrats feel the same way.
15584. ChristinO - 12/12/2000 2:07:57 PM
CG,
Haven't there been studies done about the way women and men relate to money differently? I seem to recall something a few years back but I don't remember any specifics or even whether it was reputable or one of those incendiary fly-by-night kind of jobbies.
15585. ranheim - 12/12/2000 2:21:27 PM
I have a brother-in-law who is very outspoken. Gets him in trouble from time to time. He owns his own business so the trouble is never fatal.
He said this very recently about the state of CA and your "rolling brown outs" : "You want pristine beaches (no off-shore drilling); you refuse to build new power plants preferring buy to your electric power from other states? I hope you bastards start paying $5.00 a gallon for gas and when you turn your air conditioners on next summer, nothing happens. As there is not enough power to run them!."
Admittedly, LA is one of the states highest in pollution. Along the Mississippi from Baton Rouge to New Orleans there is refinery after refinery. Remember "ethyl" for higher octane and performance? Their plant was just out of Baton Rouge.
And, as all of you know, much of the domestically produced crude oil comes from platforms in the Gulf off Louisiana's coast.
We find it passing strange that a state that refuses to permit off-shore drilling and makes it exceedingly difficult to build new power plants, has a Governor that is complaining to the Feds that the citizens of CA are being gouged when they buy their power from other states.
What in the world did you expect? To pay 1/2 price?
15586. CalGal - 12/12/2000 2:24:28 PM
Rask,
Oh, that would explain it. It's not that you do it that often, it's just that I've never noticed anyone doing it more than once or twice except you, and for some reason that stuck with me. Truly, it not only wasn't a complaint, it wasn't even a negative comment at all.
Christin,
I think so; I remember it vaguely as well.
Anyway. It just seemed to me that it would be easier for women to disconnect themselves from the finances than it would be for men, due to social norms and so on.
15587. PelleNilsson - 12/12/2000 2:50:37 PM
joezan --- Message # 15563
I have a Hotmail account I want to get rid of because all I receive there is spam, but I haven't found out how to do it. Any hints?
15588. marshame - 12/12/2000 3:44:05 PM
I'm trying to figure out how to turn this conversation about depressed compulsive shoppers back to the topic of scrota care.
15589. stostosto - 12/12/2000 3:50:48 PM
Um... scrota care..?
15590. labwabbit - 12/12/2000 3:51:44 PM
...more than one sto.
15591. labwabbit - 12/12/2000 3:56:14 PM
Gotta like the implied attitude though.
15592. labwabbit - 12/12/2000 4:02:42 PM
Yeah, that's one of the toughest things----med resistance. Makes you wanna whack 'em with a hammer doesn't it?
I believe pain-killers, (for after the numbing), and anti-depressants have severely dangerous drug-interaction consequences.
I guess when one stop taking anti-depressants it would not feel near as good as when one stops being whacked with a hammer.
15593. greystoke - 12/12/2000 4:07:34 PM
JJ
"I suspect most Democrats feel the same way."
Ouch.
I looked around and thought it was safe to bare my soul. And what happens? Biener comes out of nowhere to zing me.
That was a good one, but sooner or later I will get even.
15594. greystoke - 12/12/2000 4:12:11 PM
Stostosto has more than one scrotum?
Wow, I knew there was something different about those Danes.
15595. mgleason - 12/12/2000 5:19:25 PM
Winnie the Pooh suffering from OCD
TORONTO (Reuters) - Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger and Christopher Robin are "seriously troubled individuals" living in the "disenchanted" Hundred Acre Wood and are in dire need of psychoactive drugs, said Canadian researchers on Tuesday.
The characters in A.A. Milne's famous children's stories suffer from unrecognised and untreated problems including attention deficit disorder and chronic depression, said a tongue-and-cheek study by paediatricians at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Sarah Shea, lead researcher on the study, told Reuters that her team of modern neuro- developmentalists wanted to participate in the trend of analysing famous works of art, and remind people that wonderful people can have disorders.
"The world is full of wonderful people who have quirks and we love them. How dare anyone say there is anything wrong with someone diagnosed with attention deficit. I would also remind people that we are kidding around," said Shea.
Winnie the Pooh, himself, could benefit from a low-dose stimulant to help him overcome attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as obsessive-compulsive tendencies that include repetitive counting and an insatiable lust for honey.
"Pooh needs intervention. We feel drugs are in order. We cannot help but wonder how much richer Pooh's life might be were he to have a trial of low-dose stimulant medication," the article states.
Pooh demonstrates impulsive behaviour, as witnessed by his poorly planned attempt to get honey by disguising himself as a rain cloud, and may eventually develop Tourette's syndrome defined by involuntary body twitching and vocal tics, it states.
15596. JJBiener - 12/12/2000 5:47:17 PM
I looked around and thought it was safe to bare my soul. And what happens? Biener comes out of nowhere to zing me.
Sorry, Grey. Some opportunities are just to precious to pass up.
15597. arkymalarky - 12/12/2000 7:49:12 PM
"I suspect most Democrats feel the same way."
Yes, every time they try to get into a political argument with JJ.
(just attempting to help Grey get even)
15598. Toenails - 12/14/2000 11:27:50 AM
I've come in late on the discussion of people with possible mental disorders who grossly overextend on credit cards...
I wonder whether there is a possible legal remedy available (aside from bankruptcy) for people whose poor credit history was known or knowable to the card issuers, but who nevertheless were actively encouraged to incur more high-interest, low-monthly-payment debt.
'Seems to me that if the lender knowingly and purposefully contributes to the overreaching of customers whose weaknesses and limited resources are known to the lender in advance, the lender lacks clean hands when he comes to a court and demands that the debt obligation be enforced.
I wonder if this has ever been tried as a defense in debt litigation?
15599. rubberducky - 12/14/2000 11:30:51 AM
how is a credit card company supposed to know your medical history?
15600. greystoke - 12/14/2000 12:10:15 PM
Miami Herald, others seek to count the ballots.
Lawyers for The Herald and three other news organizations are headed to court this morning to try to gain access to the 10,750 contested ballots in Miami-Dade County -- part of a larger effort by journalists nationwide to find and count tens of thousands of disputed ballots from 67 Florida counties.
A hand count of those so-called undervote ballots was stopped this week when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it would violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Attorneys for Miami-Dade County say they won't block access to the ballots, but the effort by The Herald and others is generating controversy.
The president of Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that also wants access to the ballots, said no one should try to count votes for Vice President Al Gore or Republican George W. Bush.
``We are not going to be in the business of assigning votes to Bush or Gore. Nobody should be in that business, said Thomas Fitton of Judicial Watch.
...
Al Cárdenas, chairman of the state Republican Party, could not say Wednesday whether the party would object now that the Supreme Court has ruled. But he said he would have concerns until the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration.
Unlike the Broward ballots, all the Miami-Dade ballots -- including the 10,750 undervotes that showed no vote for president -- remained in the custody of the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The Herald filed a public records request on Nov. 27 seeking access to them. The county denied the request the same day, saying they were part of a legal challenge filed by the Gore campaign.
15601. greystoke - 12/14/2000 12:12:34 PM
I think the Republican should vigorously fight any effort to count the ballots.
It could break up that sickening lovefest we all saw on TV last night. I hope all those politicians had their fingers crossed while they spoke.
15602. greystoke - 12/14/2000 12:13:46 PM
oops. wrong thread.
15603. CalGal - 12/14/2000 12:27:42 PM
Toe,
I disagree. For one thing, if creditors tightened up credit, they'd instantly be hit by complaints of discrimination 15 ways to Friday.
15604. PsychProf - 12/14/2000 2:18:16 PM
Hope this link works...it requires acrobat reader...
RESULTS OF TIMSS: INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE AND MATH ACHIEVEMENT
15605. PsychProf - 12/14/2000 2:18:48 PM
Would someone please let me know if the link works...
15606. CalGal - 12/14/2000 2:19:19 PM
You know, I still wonder if there isn't a better explanation for our drop than "our schools suck".
15607. Toenails - 12/14/2000 2:41:05 PM
Link works. Thanks.
15608. AytchMan - 12/15/2000 2:22:16 AM
"Why do people write computer viruses?" is a question I've never been able to answer satisfactorily.
Here's An Interesting Take On It
Someone please explain to me the thought processes of "Evul" near the bottom of the first page.
15609. CalGal - 12/15/2000 2:38:40 AM
"Evul" is one who says he stopped spreading viruses once he saw himself in his victim's shoes. Now 30, he began coding six years ago after a hiatus and unleashed several programs with his e-mail address embedded in the code. He felt a bit chastened when recipients wrote to him and described the data they'd lost because of his creations. But he didn't stop until an Internet service provider terminated his Web site account for posting viruses at the site.
"The first thing I yelled was, 'What gives you the right to destroy my hard work!'" Evul recalls. "After a moment of reflection, it hit me like a brick wall ... what gives me the right? I decided I don't have the right to tamper in anyone else's hard work."
I think that's a sociopath, wouldn't you? Not only the need to create mayhem, but the desire for recognition and attention (negative attention equating to power over others), lack of concern for others, ant that pure outrage when his desires are thwarted. I'm not sure if I believe in his newfound empathy. More likely, he realized he could go to jail, so he started his website as a way to get off on helping others without risking anything himself. That assumes, of course, that he really did stop.
I think there are plenty of *iopaths (socio, psycho, whatever) who just don't cross the line into personal interactions with violence--no doubt there is some sort of spectrum.
I don't think there is much difference between the different "types" she describes. They probably all get off on the same things; some of them just have different fantasies and self-images plastered over the empty core.
15610. AytchMan - 12/15/2000 2:48:40 AM
You've hit on the confusing/troubling thing about Evul. He (apparently) didn't recognize that what he was doing was harmful until it happened to him. Fair enough (sort of), we all fail to consider consequences sometimes. But then, he continued to write viruses and maintain his site anyway. All the while saying he now realized viruses hurt others.
Sociopaths know the difference between right and wrong, don't they?
15611. pogie - 12/15/2000 3:10:13 AM
Some do, in a theoretical way, and don't care. Others don't really.
15612. mgleason - 12/15/2000 3:19:05 AM
Antisocial Personality Disorder
SYMPTOMS
This disorder is characterized by a long-standing pattern of a disregard for other people's rights, often crossing the line and violating those rights. This pattern of behavior has occurred since age 15 (although only adults 18 years or older can be diagnosed with this disorder) and consists by the presence of the majority of these symptoms:
15613. AytchMan - 12/15/2000 3:21:54 AM
Well, as I said, it's a phenomenon I've never really understood. I understand bank robbery, even murder. But the appeal of screwing up a total stranger's computer when you're never going to know about it just escapes me.
15614. AytchMan - 12/15/2000 3:29:24 AM
Thanks mgleason.
I certainly understand from an intellectual standpoint that some people are prone to antisocial behavior. But it's the apparent lack of benefit and feedback that I don't get.
Is it the NFL syndrome? Even though the odds are long, some people hope to make it to the big leagues and get all of the recognition that they're not currently getting?
15615. CalGal - 12/15/2000 3:35:40 AM
Aytch,
Yes, they know the difference between right and wrong. They just don't care.
ASD, as Maria notes, is the new name for it. Psychopath was the first term, the shrinks switched to sociopath in the early 50s, and then antisocial personality disorder became the term in the late 60s.
It's not antisocial behavior. The new name for it is misleadingly mild. Personality disorders are, by definition, serious problems and by and large, none of them have cures.
He (apparently) didn't recognize that what he was doing was harmful until it happened to him.
He knew that it was harmful. He just didn't give a fuck about "harmful" until it hurt him.
The most easily identifiable trait is the utter lack of empathy. Something went wrong early on with object relations and/or attachment--or it may be a physiological abnormality that just requires inordinately perfect parenting to ensure the baby can bond.
They are pathological liars, usually charming and believable, and you will often see the term "flat emotional affect" used to describe them, meaning that while they can fake a variety of emotions, they rarely feel anything at all.
I've always thought that their inability to connect or feel explains the other key aspect of these folks, which is their continual need for excitement and thrills to fend off a constant state of boredom. They need a huge amount of stimulation, and this is where the buzzwords come in handy again ("lack of impulse control").
Like I said earlier, there is no core. They're all shell. Using that "paradigm" (ha!), Evul wasn't emotionally upset or harmed, he just remembered the incident because he couldn't get immediate gratification.
15616. CalGal - 12/15/2000 3:36:19 AM
Not all that much is known about what causes sociopathy--not everyone with attachment disorder becomes a sociopath, so it's not as simple as that. Maybe the brain functions are different and it is the cause of the attachment disorder that is also linked to the sociopathy.
I found this definition in a book I have on battering (generally, batterers are not psychopaths, btw):
They are, in fact, manipulative, pathological liars who have no qualms of doing injustice and harm to another if, in the end, it provides some modicum of personal gain. They have no conscience and can only think in terms of themselves. Cleckley (1976) said that egocentricity is always a factor in psychopathic individuals-they know of no other way to think, and in that way, they are truly selfish individuals.
Anyway. I'm only an interested lay-geek on the subject, so take all this with a grain.
But I know that the notion that hackers and virus creators are sociopaths has been floated before. It's certainly believable; I find it quite likely that any new technology would attract these sorts as a means of ensuring further attention.
15617. mgleason - 12/15/2000 3:39:29 AM
From what I've read, a person with antisocial personality disorder is rather like a SimCity player: a god in his particular universe. A lack of affect is generally the defining characteristic, and when one exists at a remove from others, there is a disconnect between actions and consequences; a person with antisocial personality disorder simply doesn't think in those terms.
Why does this sort of person do the kinds of things an Evul does? Because he can.
15618. AytchMan - 12/15/2000 3:47:14 AM
He knew that it was harmful. He just didn't give a fuck about "harmful" until it hurt him.
I guess that's it. In my life, I've known one pathological liar (which is, I suppose, a branch of the tree). I was astounded by the logical flip-flops and contortions she went through to cover up painfully obvious lies.
15619. mgleason - 12/15/2000 3:48:32 AM
I was a psych major for two years. I love the stuff, but was seduced away by philosophy, the jewel in the crown.
15620. AytchMan - 12/15/2000 3:56:56 AM
My cheeky side erupts:
Psychology is why we can't do stuff. Philosophy is why we don't want to.
All due apologies.
15621. mgleason - 12/15/2000 4:03:48 AM
No apologies necessary; you've described me to a T.
15622. greystoke - 12/15/2000 11:47:48 AM
Man who died on death row has been cleared by a DNA test.
An inmate who died of cancer on death row 11 months ago has been cleared by DNA in the 1985 rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl, and an aide to Gov. Jeb Bush said Thursday he is planning similar tests for other condemned prisoners.
Frank Lee Smith died at age 52 after 14 years on death row for the slaying of Shandra Whitehead, who was raped, beaten and choked in her bedroom in Fort Lauderdale. Smith was scheduled for execution in 1990 but won a stay.
"If the FBI data is accurate, clearly this man should not have been on death row," said Bush spokeswoman Katie Baur.
"Over the last several months the governor's office has been in the process of researching a method to provide DNA testing for all death row inmates in which that DNA test would prove their innocence," she added.
Baur said Bush had been working closely with lawmakers and the state attorney general's office and planned to make an announcement about the testing plan soon.
...
The girl's family has been told, and the investigation has been reopened, McCann said, adding: "We have suspects that the defense has been presenting all along."
15623. greystoke - 12/15/2000 11:53:53 AM
Colorado Wildlife Commission proposes shooting coyotes from the air.
The Colorado Commission will decide in January whether to propose shooting coyotes from the air. The Legislature would have final say on the experiment, intended to determine whether coyotes are responsible for declining mule deer herds.
Drops in the number of deer have raised concerns throughout the West, in part because hunting is big business, especially in rural areas.
State officials acknowledge aerial gunning of animals is controversial, but say it would be the most effective way to control coyotes in the experiment. Breeding pairs of coyotes would be targeted only when and where fawns are born.
Trapping and poisoning are outlawed in Colorado. Shooting coyotes on the ground would likely be the only alternative.
...
Jerry Hart said he suspects there are many reasons for the decline. But Hart, head of United Sportsmen's Council, a statewide hunting group, said hunters want a sound scientific study to determine what part predators play.
Hart's group supports aerial gunning because it is seen as more precise. He said in the past, environmentalists complained poisoning and and trapping were too indiscriminate and shooting was more merciful.
15624. mgleason - 12/15/2000 11:56:17 AM
Hey, Grey, take that DNA story back. No state governed by a Bush ever has these sorts of problems.
15625. greystoke - 12/15/2000 12:01:42 PM
Utah polygamist cleared of child rape charges.
A wife of admitted polygamist Tom Green testified Thursday that statements she made to a juvenile court official that she was molested by Green in 1989 when she was 13 were false.
LeeAnn Beagley said she made the false accusations on the advice of her stepmother.
Beagley, who later married Green, told prosecutors that her stepmother, Nelda Johnson, took her to see Chuck Sullivan, a juvenile court official in St. George, and tell him a story that Johnson "hatched up'' about her having been sexually molested by Green.
Green is charged with child rape for having sex with his first wife, Linda Kunz Green when she was 13 years old in 1986.
Fourth District Judge Guy Burningham has pledged to toss out felony child-rape charges against Green if he can show that police knew about the alleged illegal relationship between Green and Linda Kunz Green.
The child-rape charges allege that Green conceived a child with Linda Kunz Green in 1986. At the time, Utah law required such charges be filed no longer than four years after the crime or up to a year after an initial police report, but no longer than eight years after the crime. Lawmakers altered the statute in 1991, requiring only that charges be filed no longer than four years after the crime was first reported.
In August, Burningham ruled that since the law changed in 1991, three years before the eight-year statute of limitations would have expired on a 1986 child rape, the new statute could be applied retroactively. If Green, however, could prove a police investigation was filed, the charge -- which could put him behind bars for up to life -- would be dropped.
15626. greystoke - 12/15/2000 12:03:12 PM
mgleason
Well, at least the state didn't execute the guy. They "merely" held him on death row for 14 years.
15627. greystoke - 12/15/2000 12:06:01 PM
More on the death row inmate:
At the trial, three witnesses testified against the defendant, including the little girl's mother, who said she saw Smith at the living room window, and a woman who said she saw him in front of the victim's house just before the murder. But that woman later said the man she saw was someone else.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Stories like this shake one's faith in eyewitness testimony.
15628. greystoke - 12/15/2000 12:09:39 PM
From the Seattle Post Intelligencier:
A San Diego man tumbled over the side of a bridge and into the icy Columbia River while trying to avoid a car that was careening toward him.
Richard Zecca got out of his car late Wednesday night to survey the damage from a multicar accident on the Interstate Bridge when he saw another car skidding toward him.
He tried to jump out of the way, but wound up on the car's hood. The vehicle continued until it hit the concrete edge of the bridge, and Zecca slid off and into the river 40 feet below.
"I kept falling and falling and I thought, 'Oh my God,' " Zecca told KGW-TV yesterday.
In the water, Zecca managed to cling to a bridge pylon for about 20 minutes until he was rescued.
"I was hugging the thing on the ledge for a half-hour. I was so cold, I needed someone to come get me," Zecca said.
15629. JJBiener - 12/15/2000 12:21:04 PM
Grey - It is stories like 15622 that have caused me to change my views on capital punishment.
15630. Raskolnikov - 12/15/2000 12:38:28 PM
"Grey - It is stories like 15622 that have caused me to change my
views on capital punishment."
You have? What are they now?
15631. JJBiener - 12/15/2000 12:40:39 PM
Rask - Opposed.
15632. mgleason - 12/15/2000 12:43:10 PM
US court rejects suit claiming airline bias against fat people
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A fat woman who was told to buy an extra plane seat has had her harassment case thrown out by a Los Angeles court.
Cynthia Luther, who according to court papers weighs more than 300 pounds (136 kg, 21 stone), had sued low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines after being asked to buy a second seat on a flight from Reno, Nevada to Burbank, California last May "so as not to inconvenience other passengers seated next to her."
Luther claimed discrimination and harassment by the airline because of her size. But Los Angeles Superior Court judge Marilyn Hoffman on Wednesday agreed with lawyers for Southwest that its policy on overweight passengers and others who may require an extra seat was neither illegal nor discriminatory.
The case was dismissed.
15633. rubberducky - 12/15/2000 12:45:47 PM
MG:
i read that yesterday and thought it interesting. glad to see it went that way.
15634. mgleason - 12/15/2000 12:48:54 PM
Bill soaks it up while he still can
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Bill Clinton enjoyed a pub lunch in London's trendy Notting Hill area -- and then left without paying the bill, newspapers reported on Friday.
"They bloody well did not pay the bill," pub owner Mike Bell was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
"But I have got the address of someone in America I can send the bill to," Bell said.
Clinton chatted to staff and customers at the Portobello Gold pub on Thursday as he and his entourage tucked into a menu that included prawns, smoked trout and pecan nut pate, the newspapers said.
He washed down his meal with half a pint of organic beer before leaving without paying the check -- which came to 24.70 pounds.
But the U.S. leader needn't worry.
Britain's mass circulation The Mirror said it had stepped in and covered his tab.
The Mirror quoted a happier sounding Bell as saying: "I wouldn't quite say he did a runner. I just don't think it occurred to him to pay."
Clinton, who was in London as part of a visit to Britain and the Irish Republic, dropped into the pub after spending the morning having tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
15635. mgleason - 12/15/2000 12:50:03 PM
I agree, RD. That case was a real can of worms.
15636. seadate - 12/15/2000 12:52:23 PM
"I love the stuff, but was seduced away by philosophy, the jewel in the crown."
The seductor/seductress' efforts were apparently well spent.
15637. mgleason - 12/15/2000 12:56:44 PM
Thanks, Seadate.
15638. JJBiener - 12/15/2000 1:05:04 PM
Rask - No comment?
15639. PelleNilsson - 12/15/2000 1:15:29 PM
The fourth and last reactor in Chernobyl was closed down today.
15640. JJBiener - 12/15/2000 1:17:52 PM
Pelle - And in 10,000 years that area may suitable for human habitation again. I heard on the news that there are still 14 similar reactors in operation in the countries of the former USSR.
15641. Raskolnikov - 12/15/2000 1:20:01 PM
JJ: I think that is commendable. I think for too long, support for the death penalty has been taken on faith, as a proxy for being tough on crime rather than on any basis as sound crime policy or social justice.
I think the turnaround on this has been with the GOP IL governor last year. Centrist Democrats are too afraid of appearing "soft on crime", so still support the death penalty (see Gore). "Only Nixon could go to China", and only a high ranking Republican could open the doors to let centrists and conservatives oppose the death penalty (or pragmatic grounds) without being banished to political Siberia. I think it was a courageous stance.
15642. PelleNilsson - 12/15/2000 1:29:23 PM
JJ
Yes, and the one closest to us is in Ignalina in Lithuania. EU is spending untold millions to improve safety there but there is just so much you can do when the design is basically flawed.
15643. JJBiener - 12/15/2000 1:43:20 PM
Pelle - Lithuania? That is way too close for comfort. The EU is dreaming if it thinks it can make any strides in making that reactor safe. They really need to find some other source of energy for that region. Yeccch!
15644. Wombat - 12/15/2000 1:49:42 PM
DNA testing, if applied on a large scale, will confirm far more death sentences than it overturns.
15645. JJBiener - 12/15/2000 1:51:20 PM
Rask - I have never been a strong proponent of the DP. I believed that it was appropriate in certain circumstances, but it has been used far too often and on too little evidence. A conversation with a libertarian friend of mine pushed me to the opposition. She posted here a few times, but I haven't seen her post recently. Hopefully she will come back and participate.
15646. rubberducky - 12/15/2000 1:53:42 PM
Have I Found Out Why Angel-5 Is No Longer Posting?
15647. JJBiener - 12/15/2000 1:57:40 PM
Wombat - DNA testing, if applied on a large scale, will confirm far more death sentences than it overturns.
Undoubtedly. I just don't think most people on death row have committed crimes worthy of the DP. Of course there people like McVeigh, the killers of James Byrd and Matthew Shepard, etc. who have earned their sentence, but they are by far the exception. My need for vengence is not so great as to allow these exceptions to dictate our behavior as a society.
15648. Wombat - 12/15/2000 2:03:25 PM
As an Old Testament kind of guy, I don't have any moral objections to the DP, but I share your views on its application. I also question its alleged deterrent effect.
15649. JJBiener - 12/15/2000 2:11:31 PM
Wombat - I think you are right on the deterrent effect. If a person has sunk so low that taking a life seems to be the only option, he own life has ceased to have any value to him.
15650. Raskolnikov - 12/15/2000 2:22:45 PM
If I were convinced that the overwhelming majority of people on death row were really guilty, I would have little problem with the death penalty. But considering the number that are found innocent after being sentenced to death, I am convinced that the DP is far more error-prone than would be necessary to justify its existence.
15651. Ronski - 12/15/2000 2:31:40 PM
The Thing In The Closet (temp. link)
15652. JudithAtHome - 12/15/2000 2:35:37 PM
"How often does a parent check a childs closet?"
Probably a lot more frequently NOW....
15653. Indiana Jones - 12/15/2000 2:36:27 PM
Ronski: Have you ever seen Bad Ronald?
15654. Ronski - 12/15/2000 2:44:47 PM
Indy,
Yes.
(Cue: maniacal laughter)
15655. PelleNilsson - 12/15/2000 2:58:07 PM
JJ
The EU is under no illusions that Ignalina can be made "safe" in the proper sense of the word, only that it can be made safer. The plant accounts for something like 50% of Lithuania's electricity consumption so there is no easy short-term solution. We hope for the best and that the winds are not easterly should something happen.
15656. mgleason - 12/15/2000 3:00:59 PM
I think my mother went into my closet more often than I did - she was always either putting away my clothes, mending something, or looking for some of her own stuff which I had 'borrowed.' Privacy was not a big thing in our house.
15657. robertjayb - 12/15/2000 3:52:57 PM
.
Gone...but not forgotten...
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. (AP) - A man who escaped from jail was arrested on a boat that police say he stole and renamed the Gone Again.
John E. Darlington, 38, eluded police Nov. 5 when he squeezed through an air vent and escaped a jail in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
In early December, police said, he made off with the Kiki Clipper, a 31-foot Sea Ray worth $150,000 from the Crystal River marina. Police said Darlington was a former marine mechanic who would know how to hot-wire a boat.
Darlington renamed the boat and was apparently heading to Miami, where he wanted to sell it, police said.
15658. robertjayb - 12/15/2000 4:40:26 PM
.
It's ten o'clock...do you know where your cows are?
Science marches on! And on ... and on ... often trampling common sense, and usually propelled by a government grant.
Applying the die-hard American notion that technology is the answer, no matter what the question, some agricultural researchers at Texas A&M and Southwest Texas State have been messing with a great big chunk of technology called "global positioning systems."
This satellite-based gizmo was developed by the military to keep track of troop movements in war. Now some auto makers are putting the technology in their cars -- if you get lost, just hit a button, for your little satellite buddy in the sky always knows right where you are. The Wall Street Journal reports that this gave the ag researchers a sudden thought: Why not use the global positioning system to keep track of grazing cows?
Grazing cows? Most cows are fenced off in a pasture, and what little movement they do is at a mighty slow pace. Well, say the researchers, the satellite system could tell them precisely where in the pasture the cows graze. So, these scientists have been strapping $5,000 satellite receivers around the necks of assorted cows and monitoring each cow's position every 20 minutes, also noting whether said cows are standing up or laying down.
Already, say the researchers triumphantly, they've learned that the grazing cows avoid an area in one pasture where the grass was growing among sharp rocks!
One can only assume that the rocks were sharper than these researchers. Asked how the cows reacted to this high tech intrusion into their grazing habits, the lead researcher said:
"They just shake their heads."
...(Jim Hightower)
15659. greystoke - 12/15/2000 8:38:41 PM
Muslim woman murdered for using makeup.
Naima Melody Johnson removed her traditional Muslim headdress and put on makeup last weekend to serve as maid of honor at a friend's wedding. A day later, she was shot in the face and killed.
Officials said Thursday they charged her boyfriend with murder. And Johnson's family says the boyfriend, Kenneth Earl Tyson Jr., may have killed her because he believed that she had violated Muslim tenets.
Tyson, 23, was arrested Wednesday night and charged with shooting Johnson, 20, of Sacramento, a native of the Oakland area who was in town to serve as her best friend's maid of honor.
...
Johnson, the youngest of six children, had known Tyson since high school. Family members said that Johnson met Tyson at a party and that he introduced her to Islam.
She was found dead in her mother's home the day after the wedding, shot several times in the face.
15660. greystoke - 12/15/2000 8:46:51 PM
I see Ronski's temp link no longer works, so here is another link to an article about the guy in the closet.
A man lived in a 15-year-old girl's bedroom closet for three weeks before her mother found out and had him arrested, a prosecutor said.
The girl's mother discovered the 26-year-old man when she opened the closet to put away some sweaters and found blankets, a pillow and dishes, prosecutor John Baker said Thursday. Her daughter then admitted he had been living there since Nov. 17.
Several pictures of the girl, including one in which she is naked, were also found in the closet, Baker said.
The man, Jeffrey Scott Martin, was arrested and charged with corrupting a minor through sexual contact and illegally using a minor in nudity-oriented material. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 9 1/2 years in prison.
...
Baker said Martin avoided detection by staying in the closet when the girl's mother was at home, but had the run of the house while she was at work.
``You would think that most people would discover this sometime before this,'' Baker said. ``But how often does a parent check a child's closet?''
15661. labwabbit - 12/16/2000 5:51:44 PM
Gee.
I only have a couple of skeletons.
15662. Greystoke - 12/17/2000 9:49:12 AM
Disabled woman sues Garth Brooks for front row seats, loses.
Garth Brooks has no obligation to provide front-row seating for people in wheelchairs, a judge said yesterday, disappointing an advocate for the handicapped who claimed the entertainer unfairly made room for pretty women over people with disabilities.
...
Brooks' contracts with concert venues gives him seating control of the front two rows for any of his concerts. Sheridan claims the singer uses that power to fill the rows with pretty women.
...
Informed by Ticketmaster agents that no wheelchair accessible seating was available on the concert floor, Lawrence, who was stricken with polio in her youth, relented and bought two tickets in row 23, which the arena management had designated as one of several locations for wheelchair seating.
Before the show, KeyArena staff had cordoned off two rows of seats in front of the section reserved for disabled fans. This attempt to preserve an unobstructed view failed as those seats were quickly overwhelmed by concertgoers soon after Brooks took the stage.
...
Lawrence sued in 1993 over a similar incident at a Brooks concert at the Tacoma Dome. As in the KeyArena case, her view was blocked by fans at the concert. In 1997, Lawrence reached an out-of-court settlement with the Tacoma Dome. Tacoma Dome officials agreed to lower a ticket window to wheelchair level and improved parking, seating and restroom facilities for the disabled.
In part because of the publicity surrounding the case against the Tacoma Dome, Lawrence, a community service teacher at Kennedy High School, won the 1998 Carolyn Blair Brown Governor's Trophy, the state's highest honor for a disabled person who has made a difference for disabled people.
15663. Greystoke - 12/17/2000 9:51:09 AM
If I were Garth, I would reserve the front row for women who promised to bare their breasts and throw their panties on stage.
15664. Greystoke - 12/17/2000 10:02:17 AM
Methamphetamine junkies in Texas.
Edward Lee Terry, balding and pudgy, looks harmless enough in his black-and-white jail uniform. He has lived in a cell at the Young County Jail for 10 months, awaiting trial on methamphetamine distribution and possession charges.
Mr. Terry, 40, a convicted thief and forger, has pleaded not guilty to the specific charges against him, but he acknowledged during a recent jailhouse interview that he had submerged himself in the meth culture for more than two years before his arrest in January.
Police allege that he and his associates ran a meth operation in a shack behind his home in Newcastle.
"I started using about two years ago just as recreation and to keep up at work," he said. "I was in the oilfield pulling 12-hour shifts."
Mr. Terry said he and his friends got tired of paying for their dope and decided to make their own. They found recipes for meth on the Internet.
"I may be a country boy, but I ain't stupid," he said. "Right there on the computer, it gave us the formula. We figured it out, and as we done more, it came out better."
...
The ingredients he cites from memory sound like a witch's brew of toxic chemicals.
Nine hundred cold pills containing a stimulant called pseudoephedrine. Nine lithium batteries. Ten cans of starting fluid. Salt. A gallon of anhydrous ammonia. Drain cleaner. Hoses, jars, pots and an electric hot plate. The cooking cost, maybe $100 to $200, depending on how much of the material you steal.
"That oughtta get you four or five ounces and you can sell it for $1,200 or $1,300 an ounce."
...
Young County District Attorney Stephen Bristow says he wants to send Mr. Terry to prison for at least 20 years.
15665. Greystoke - 12/17/2000 10:09:32 AM
More on Texas meth.
The experienced speed freaks, the ones who have been abusing methamphetamine for a long time, look like skinny, nervous ghosts swallowed alive in their own clothes.
They live for meth, an addictive stimulant that has become the drug of choice for many working-class white people in Ranger, a dingy West Texas town on Interstate 20 between Abilene and Fort Worth.
...
In 1999, local law enforcement agencies sent more than 204,000 grams of meth to Texas Department of Public Safety laboratories for the evidentiary analysis that prosecutors need in court. The number had already reached 204,000 grams in the first eight months of 2000, according to DPS statistics.
...
The tired-looking young woman in Ranger, who is 28, could just as easily be 50. All of her upper teeth fell out during five years of meth abuse. At the peak of her addiction, she carried 90 pounds on a 5-8 frame. She says she has been clean for three years.
"I missed out on a lot of food, a lot of sleep and a lot of showers," she said.
The woman said meth addicts believe staying dirty makes them harder to detect and extends their high. The dirt keeps the ether smell from leaking out of the user's pores and locks the drug into the system. Ether, a solvent, is one of several chemicals used to make meth.
Some users smoke, snort or inject the drug. Others dissolve it in coffee and drink it. Others wrap the foul-smelling drug in toilet paper and swallow it. One gram, about a teaspoon of the drug in powder form, sells for $40-$75, depending on the quality and the greediness of the dealer.
"I ate a lot of toilet paper in five years," the young woman said with rueful disdain. "You couldn't give it away to me now."
15666. Greystoke - 12/17/2000 10:20:16 AM
When the casino profits start rolling in, everyone wants to be a Native American.
Tribes are now vigorously checking their rolls and purging people who claim memberships in more than one tribe.
At the same time, thousands more people are trying to become official members of tribes across the United States. There are many reasons, including a resurgence of cultural pride for people who lost track of their American Indian roots. But casino payouts don't hurt.
"It has become very popular to be Indian, especially with the gaming tribes," said Nancy Garcia, director of the Tohono O'odham Enrollment Office.
...
Each tribe has its own criteria for membership, but more tribes are outlawing dual membership, which comes into question when various benefits are handed out.
Tohono O'odham Tribal Vice Chairman Henry Ramon said mixed marriages are lessening the amount of Tohono O'odham blood in some people. Ms. Garcia said the tribe does not have a blood minimum requirement, but applicants must prove that they were born to a member and trace lineal descendants to the tribe's census rolls of Jan. 1, 1937, or Jan. 1, 1940.
"The majority of our members are full-blooded O'odham, but we do have a few people that have blood degrees as low as nd. About 30 percent of our members are half-blooded O'odham, and about 15 percent are a quarter-blood, and one-eighth blood. That leaves about 5 percent that are less than one-eighth," she said.
There are 24,000 enrolled Tohono O'odham members.
Before 1997, when the first casino payout was made, pending membership cases hovered at 700. Since then, pending applications have run at about 2,000, Ms. Garcia said.
15667. Greystoke - 12/17/2000 10:26:13 AM
Oklahoma set to execute a woman in January.
Ms. Allen, 41, was convicted of killing her estranged lover, Gloria Leathers, in 1988 in front of the police station in The Village, a northwest Oklahoma City suburb. The two women had met in prison.
Her execution is scheduled for Jan. 11. She is one of nine inmates set to be put to death in Oklahoma between Jan. 4 and Feb. 1.
A Tulsa bishop recently urged Gov. Frank Keating to impose a moratorium on executions, but the governor rejected the call.
"I will continue to do my duty as governor," Mr. Keating said, "and, lacking any evidence that Oklahoma's capital punishment statutes are applied unfairly in any way, I will not seek or order a moratorium on justice."
Ms. Allen's case has become a cause celebre among death penalty opponents and African-American leaders who contend she is a classic example of what they say is the injustice of capital punishment.
...
"Wanda Jean Allen never got her day in court, but got the kind of defense that proves just how broken the criminal system can be," said Rev. Robin Meyers, minister of the Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, who spoke on her behalf.
...
Mr. Meyers said he fears Oklahoma is poised to cross a threshold by expanding execution from men to women to the mentally retarded.
"Poor, black, female, brain-damaged and lesbian," he said. "That doesn't describe you or me, does it? Neither do we get this kind of justice."
...
Two women have been executed in Texas in the last three years: Karla Faye Tucker in 1998 and Betty Lou Beets last February.
15668. arkymalarky - 12/17/2000 11:56:30 AM
I could almost buy into the Libertarian views of the drug war if it weren't for meth.
15669. dusty - 12/17/2000 11:59:02 AM
arkymalarky
Do you believe that meth usage would increase if it were legal?
15670. CalGal - 12/17/2000 12:01:13 PM
I don't see why meth is any worse than booze, crack, or heroin.
15671. arkymalarky - 12/17/2000 12:06:24 PM
You'd have to have direct experience with crank addicts and the ones who deal it to understand it. I might feel the same way about crack and heroin were I more directly familiar with them. Crank really brings out a lot of aggressions (often exacerbated by alcohol) and extends to neighborhoods and communities more than other drugs around here. I'd by far rather have a neighbor who was an alcoholic than one who was a crankhead.
15672. arkymalarky - 12/17/2000 12:07:06 PM
Dusty--no.
15673. CalGal - 12/17/2000 12:10:13 PM
I suspect that a CBA would demonstrate that alcoholism is far more costly to a neighborhood than most illegal drugs.
I'm sure that alcoholics are quieter neighbors.
15674. arkymalarky - 12/17/2000 12:21:50 PM
I'm sure it's more costly, simply from the fact that there are vastly more alcoholics, if for no other reason.
We had a crank dealer neighbor who's now in the pen and I hope he never gets out. The element he brought into the area, the friends he supplied (and I blame them not him, but let them go get it somewhere away from where I live and when they're off the stuff I'll hook back up with them again), the cougars he owned, the aggressive ways he had, etc--but nothing he could be arrested for except the crank which everybody within a ten mile radius knew he was making (his nickname was Cooker)--made it a joyful day when he got busted, imo. And that was after two years of flaunting his business and daring anyone to do anything about it. Out here, no other drug dealing is done in such an in-your-face, to-hell-with-everybody fashion.
I don't know how he was finally caught. I'm sure they observed him a long time, but neither I nor anyone I know ever reported him. I'd never even seen him and there was nothing to report but hearsay, and what I knew of my friends and acquaintences' supplies was indirect. I know someone who testified against him after the fact to save his own hide, but that's it.
15675. msgreer - 12/17/2000 2:52:21 PM
I went to a graduation ceremony in Tampa last night.To my complete surprise the guest speaker was Katherine Harris. I listened for 2 maybe 3 minutes and quietly left. I went back when she sat finished speaking. Damn,
Florida is an ugly place to live in. I was not the only one who walked out. Atleast I did not heckle her. Alot of the graduating class were yelling to her "every vote counts." I have alot of things I would like to say to her but this was not the proper forum. Quiet civil disobedience.
15676. Greystoke - 12/17/2000 3:10:47 PM
Good for you, msgreer.
15677. JJBiener - 12/17/2000 7:22:48 PM
MsGreer - I like the way you referred to Harris in the email better. So much more expressive.
15678. Indiana Jones - 12/18/2000 9:35:10 AM
What was Harris talking about?
15679. greystoke - 12/18/2000 11:56:49 AM
Peggy McMartin is dead.
Her acquittal on the charges, after the longest trial in the nation's history, provoked searing questions about how to protect children and to guard against the kind of sex-abuse hysteria that can lead to false accusations against caregivers.
Authorities are still groping toward answers for these fundamental questions, which have now outlived Buckey, pronounced dead Friday at age 74 at a Torrance hospital after paramedics found her unconscious in her home.
But her case, and several like it across the country, have left a legacy. They have changed the ways in which alleged victims are interviewed by authorities and the ways in which teachers and day-care providers interact with their young charges.
The case against Buckey and her family was the first in a series of high-profile nursery school sex abuse prosecutions in the 1980s and early 1990s that collapsed for lack of persuasive evidence.
...
The grand jury blamed fallout from a well-intentioned federal effort to bring child abuse out of the closet. A federal law in the 1970s had given states a financial incentive to require teachers, doctors, nurses and police to report suspected child abuse or face punishment. The states had obliged and such reports had quintupled. One result, the grand jury found, was the creation of "a child abuse establishment" whose economic interests had "fuel[ed] a certain amount of sex-abuse hysteria in which an accused individual's constitutional due process protections are commonly ignored."
15680. CalGal - 12/18/2000 12:03:29 PM
Man, that was a tragic case. I don't understand those who think that it had anything to do with being vigilant about child molesters. It was public hysteria, pure and simple. She was the saddest one of the bunch, too.
15681. labwabbit - 12/18/2000 12:19:06 PM
Innocent until proven guilty...proving guilty until innocent?
15682. Jenerator - 12/18/2000 4:48:24 PM
Well, I just won that Guiness book of World Records "Longest Thumb Nail" that the gentleman put on auction last week. I haven't decided how I will wrap it up for Marshame. I sure hope she likes it!
15683. rubberducky - 12/18/2000 4:50:13 PM
you should get some nail polish and finger nail clippers as stocking stuffers
15684. greystoke - 12/19/2000 11:43:32 AM
Drug dealing sheriff is sentenced.
The Frio County sheriff who stole money seized by his department, then tried to cover it up by selling marijuana, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday.
Federal investigators praised the sentence given Sheriff Carl Henry Burris, 53, as a sign that no one, particularly a law enforcement officer, is above the law.
"The corruption of any law enforcement officer is a tragic day for our criminal justice system, particularly when it represents the corruption of a high-ranking officer," FBI Special Agent in Charge Roderick L. Beverly said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge H.F. "Hippo" Garcia ordered Sheriff Burris to serve 10 years and one month in federal prison for his guilty plea of conspiracy to steal federal funds and distribute marijuana. Ten years was the minimum prison sentence possible.
...
Sheriff Burris pleaded guilty in October to a charge of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and one charge of theft of federal program funds.
The two-term lawman was arrested in December 1998 on charges he took $5,900 of $11,700 one of his deputies seized as possible drug money in November 1994 from two motorists after a routine traffic stop.
Sheriff Burris used it for personal expenses, including a trip to Florida.
To cover up the missing funds in reports to the federal government, the sheriff admitted he took 262 pounds of marijuana from his evidence locker and solicited someone to sell it. The sheriff received about $5,300 from the sale.
His partner, however, was working with FBI agents as part of a sting operation. FBI officials said they are investigating the case with Drug Enforcement Administration agents, U.S. Customs Service investigators and the Texas Rangers.
15685. robertjayb - 12/19/2000 6:49:49 PM
.
Divorce for Wife Who Shifted One Chair Too Many
Updated 10:55 AM ET December 19, 2000
LONDON (Reuters) -A British husband who walked out on a 38-year marriage because he could not stand his wife obsessively moving the furniture has been granted a divorce.
John Turner filed for divorce on grounds of unreasonable behavior, complaining he was sick and tired of his wife Pauline shifting chairs, tables, the television -- and anything not fixed to the walls -- every single day of their married life.
The couple, both 62, even swapped their house for a caravan in the hope it would cure Mrs. Turner of her affliction. But on Monday she accepted the marriage had irretrievably broken down, British media reports said.
"Moving furniture about was just something I did and I always will do," she told a divorce court in Middlesborough, in northeast England. "I suppose everybody has their little obsession."
15686. greystoke - 12/20/2000 11:39:57 AM
Drinking coffee is risky for fetuses.
Five cups of coffee per day more than doubles a pregnant woman's risk of a miscarriage, according to perhaps the most rigorous study yet to focus on the possible link between caffeine and miscarriage.
...
Unlike most past research, the latest study looked at women in early pregnancy, when most miscarriages happen. It also tried to account for a separate risk from genetic defects in fetuses and a possible risk from smoking.
The research team in Sweden and the United States, which was to publish its findings in tomorrow's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the equivalent of one to three cups of American coffee increases the risk of miscarriage by 30 percent.
Three to five cups raises the risk by 40 percent. Five cups or more yields more than double the risk.
The study involved 562 women who had miscarriages at between six to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Because they were Swedish, they often drank stronger coffee than Americans. A cup of Swedish coffee typically carries about 180 milligrams of caffeine, compared with the 100 milligrams in a typical American cup of coffee.
...
The study was directed by Dr. Sven Cnattingius of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. In an interview, he suggested pregnant women curtail their coffee to the equivalent of about two American cups per day.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To reduce the possibility of genetic variation, Pelle Nillson, a volunteer, impregnated all 562 women.
15687. greystoke - 12/20/2000 11:40:55 AM
OK. I made up that last sentence. But it could be true.
15688. greystoke - 12/20/2000 11:48:58 AM
Owner of flying pig tries to set the record straight.
"First of all," says Andrews, who gained notoriety after she and her pig flew first-class from Philadelphia to Seattle, "the pig was not running up and down the aisle, and she did not run into the cockpit.
...
The pig's name is Freedom, not Charlotte, a mistake that has made its way around the globe.
Why Freedom?
"I'm a big animal rights person," Andrews explains. "Pigs are usually used for slaughter. But now she's free to live like a normal animal."
Freedom weighs only 150 pounds, not 300, Andrews says.
...
Andrews and Freedom have been together now for five years.
And Freedom isn't only her pet, she's also her companion: She helps Andrews with her physical therapy and functions as a service animal, much like a guide dog.
Andrews, you see, is recovering from an automobile accident and has a heart condition.
She's trained Freedom to bring her the phone in the event of an emergency. Freedom can also play the piano -- "Old McDonald" is her favorite -- and she likes taking walks on a leash.
She even uses a litter box.
...
As for Andrews, she's just hoping to put the whole thing behind her.
"I came here to get well," she says, "And I've been dealing with the story for two months.
"I'm sick of it," she says. "And I'm sick of my pig getting a bad rap."
15689. greystoke - 12/20/2000 12:01:52 PM
Salmon sex change.
Four-fifths of the female salmon spawning in the last free-flowing reach of the Columbia River apparently began life as males, raising troubling new questions about the survival of the Pacific Northwest's signature fish species.
In a study that could provide ammunition in the battle over the massive hydropower dams that traverse the Columbia and Snake rivers, researchers at the University of Idaho and Washington State University found significant sex reversals in the fall Chinook salmon that spawn on the Columbia's Hanford Reach in central Washington.
The research is unsettling because salmon runs in the Hanford Reach--where the Columbia passes relatively unbridled through the vast Hanford nuclear reservation--are the healthiest in a region where many are on the brink of collapse.
The cause of the embryonic gender shift is unknown, but there are suspects. Environmental estrogens are one possibility. They are the chemical byproducts, potentially traceable to pesticides and industrial runoff, that have been linked to issues such as early puberty and infant mortality in humans.
The other potential factor is the hydropower dams, which produce temperature fluctuations in the river of the kind known to cause gender modifications in fish.
If that is the case, it could add fuel to the debate over breaching dams in the West to save the region's disappearing salmon runs. The Clinton administration is scheduled to release its final recommendations on that issue Thursday.
15690. greystoke - 12/20/2000 12:07:30 PM
Giuliani wants to restrict cell phone use while driving.
The proposed regulation, introduced as a council bill yesterday by the speaker, Peter F. Vallone, would not prevent the use of the phones, but would instead require that drivers use headsets or earpieces or voice- activated devices and not try to drive with one hand while holding a cell phone in the other.
The bill would allow drivers to use their cell phones to dial calls from their cars, a procedure that Mr. Giuliani acknowledged in a news conference might distract the driver. Both he and Mr. Vallone said yesterday that drivers who use their cell phones frequently could be expected to electronically program phone numbers, which would simplify dialing, but would not be required to do so.
Violators, easily identifiable by the police as those who are caught holding cell phones to their ears, would be fined $50 to $150, according to Mr. Vallone's bill. Exceptions would be allowed in the case of emergency calls, including those to the Police Department's 911 dispatcher.
...
If adopted, the New York City law would be almost identical to one adopted by the Suffolk County legislature in October. A similar bill was adopted earlier this month by the Rockland County Legislature, but awaits signature by the Rockland County executive. Fewer than 10 small cities across the nation have enacted some form of restrictions on the use of cell phones by drivers.
The laws have provoked harsh criticism from some drivers and auto industry groups, including the American Automobile Association. Robert Sinclair Jr., a spokesman for the association's New York State chapter, said yesterday that restrictions on cell phones have been proposed without clear evidence that the use of phones by drivers is dangerous.
15691. dusty - 12/20/2000 12:59:11 PM
Popocatepetl
Of personal interest, because I climbed it in the late 80's. I remember it was hot at the time; I looked down into the crater, which smelled of sulfur, and spewed smoke and steam, hundreds of feet below the crater rim.
15692. CalGal - 12/20/2000 1:03:10 PM
I reiterate my rant about people who don't attack problems at the meta-level.
15693. greystoke - 12/20/2000 1:04:19 PM
I assume you mean hizzoner and not Dusty.
15694. ElliottRW - 12/20/2000 1:05:25 PM
CalGal (15692)
Please link to rant.
15695. CalGal - 12/20/2000 1:05:48 PM
No, I'm bitching about Dusty. You'd think he could have fixed the damn volcano at the time, seeing how hot it was.
But no, it hadn't reached crisis yet, so he had other things to care about. And now look where we are.
15696. greystoke - 12/20/2000 1:06:36 PM
Hahahahahahaha.
15697. CalGal - 12/20/2000 1:09:07 PM
Elliot,
My lord, I actually found it. It starts at Message # 15256, in response to a similar article.
15698. rubberducky - 12/20/2000 1:18:06 PM
i reiterate my support of Cal's very appropriate rant
15699. PelleNilsson - 12/20/2000 1:47:48 PM
Greystoke --- Message # 15686
Hahaha! Thanks for mentioning my humble role in your dispatch from the research front. It was the least I could do, having narrowly escaped joining the unborn by the fact of being born during WWII when the real stuff was not available to my coffee-gulping mother.
15700. rubberducky - 12/20/2000 2:30:55 PM
a truly moooooomentous monument:
Dec. 20, 2000 | FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) --Developers want to build a 485-foot-long set of horns towering 15 stories above a highway to commemorate Texas livestock drives.
Visitors to the proposed $80 million Great Texas Trails monument and museum could create their own cattle brands at a computer kiosk and take a film trip through Texas history.
"It's a walk back into time," said Greg Smith, a Nebraska developer and member of J. Greg Smith Inc., the group proposing the project. "It allows visitors the opportunity to revisit the Texas trails."
The monument would span Interstate 35 in Hillsboro, about 45 miles south of Fort Worth. It would mark a cattle route that once fed into the Chisholm Trail, which ran between Texas and Kansas in the mid- to late-1800s.
J. Greg Smith Inc. helped build another monument to cattle drives in Kearney, Neb. The group hopes to finance the project through sale of bonds.
On Tuesday, the group asked the Hillsboro City Council to authorize a feasibility study. It will request permission from the state Transportation Department to build the structure over the highway.
15701. ElliottRW - 12/20/2000 3:01:45 PM
CalGal,
Thanks for the link.
While I understand the rant, the larger thesis "solving problems at meta-level" still seems a bit vague to me. But perhaps that's an issue for another thread.
I agree in this case that the general problem (i.e. people don't devote sufficient attention to driving) is not solved by punishing only one specific manifestation (e.g. cell-phone use). I also agree with whoever said that such selective punishment is somewhat unfair.
Do you think that cell-phoning-while-driving is sufficiently discouraged by existing laws?
15702. greystoke - 12/20/2000 4:01:10 PM
Even though the question wasn't addressed to me ...
"Do you think that cell-phoning-while-driving is sufficiently discouraged by existing laws?"
Only if by "sufficiently discouraged" you mean not discouraged at all. At times I look around and see about half the other drivers yakking on the phone. Yes, there are other activities that distract a driver's attention, but none so prevalent and few as distracting as cell phones.
15703. ElliottRW - 12/20/2000 4:14:45 PM
greystoke,
I guess I should clarify: would existing laws--were they properly enforced--sufficiently discourage cell-phone-induced bad driving?
15704. CalGal - 12/20/2000 4:17:46 PM
It is no more or less sufficiently discouraged than putting on makeup, turning to yell at your kids, shaving, or switching CDs. And that is the only standard it has to meet. Unless revenue raising, rather than safety, is the primary objective.
15705. CalGal - 12/20/2000 4:21:19 PM
BTW, Salon just announced they laid off 25 people.
15706. cmboyce - 12/20/2000 4:32:37 PM
That's probably why they couldn't put up the picture of a drawing that surely accompanied that moooonument story.
15707. dusty - 12/20/2000 4:36:55 PM
Salon Stock
15708. concerned - 12/20/2000 5:41:12 PM
SNOWMEN 'REINFORCE GENDER STEREOTYPES', SAYS DOCTOR
Source: LineOne News
Published: 12/20/00
Snowmen on Christmas cards reinforce traditional gender stereotypes by reflecting men in prominent, public roles and women in private, domestic situations, according to new research.
Art historian Dr Tricia Cusack believes the festive figures represent a return to a more conservative, patriarchal view of society than exists today.
The Birmingham University academic, who studies cultural meanings in visual imagery, was prompted to research the topic after shopping for Christmas cards.
"Snowmen in representations on cards were becoming more and more common and a kind of icon up there with Father Christmas, robins and holly. It's become even more marked in the last few years," she said. "I wanted to know why they should be so popular."
In the research, which has been published by cultural history periodical New Formations, Dr Cusack also describes snowmen as reflecting the festival spirit of overeating and excess dating back to Medieval times and beyond.
In promotional literature from the university, she writes: "In both the UK and US, Christmas has been gendered as woman's realm in its emphasis on children and family. "The snowman's location in the semi-public space of garden or field reinforces a spatial-social system marking women's sphere as the domestic-private and the men's as the commercial-public."
She will discuss her work on BBC Radio 4 on New Year's Day at 6.15pm.
So you'd better tell your kids to start making Dolly Parton-style snow-wimmen if they know what's good for them....
15709. robertjayb - 12/20/2000 6:24:48 PM
.
Cancer, booze plague Mantle family...
DALLAS (AP) - Five years after the disease killed his father, Mickey Mantle Jr. died Wednesday of complications from cancer. He was 47.
Mantle Jr. had been in and out of R.H. Dedman Memorial Hospital since about August for treatment, said Dorothy M. Weber, a New York City attorney who represents the family in trademark and licensing.
Mantle Jr., the oldest of the Hall of Famer's sons, is the second to die from cancer.
The youngest of Mantle's four sons, Billy, suffered from Hodgkin's disease, a lymphatic cancer, before dying of a heart attack in 1994 at age 36.
Mickey Mantle died of liver cancer in August 1995 at age 63.
Mantle's father died at age 41 from Hodgkin's disease; his grandfather and an uncle were both 40 when they died of the same ailment.
Born April 12, 1953, in Joplin, Mo., he was the only son who played professional baseball. A switch-hitting center fielder just like his father, Mantle Jr. spent several years in the minors for the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers.
Like his father and brothers, he also became an alcoholic. The entire family shared their battle with the addiction in the book, ``A Hero All His Life.''
Mantle Jr. worked in Dallas and worked with brothers Danny and David at the Mickey Mantle Foundation.
15710. labwabbit - 12/20/2000 8:00:40 PM
rd Message # 15700
Developers want to build a 485-foot-long set of horns towering 15 stories above a highway to commemorate Texas livestock drives.
First college students, now unsupecting motorist.
15711. concerned - 12/20/2000 8:05:55 PM
15712. Indiana Jones - 12/20/2000 8:32:04 PM
Something Aytchman was discussing upthread suddenly re-entered my brain today in light of the Christmas season. He was wondering about the mentality of the people who create viruses. As I recall, some Motiers misunderstood his questioning and thought he was wondering why an antisocial mindset exists at all, whereas I think what he was actually getting at is the motivation for evil when there is no direct payoff at all. That is, virus creators don't even get the evil thrill of seeing the result of their nefarious deeds.
Anyway, it occurred to me today that there is a similar situation on the "light" side as well as the "dark." Think about all the people who make charitable contributions or otherwise do good deeds without ever seeing the result of them. As a specific example relevant to the season, many folks choose names off an angel tree or some such, buy gifts and donate them, and never get to see the face of the child that opens the presents.
So a computer virus is in some ways a Bizarro-world care package.
15713. CalGal - 12/20/2000 8:42:42 PM
I think his question was understood. I don't recall him wondering what the direct motivation was for evil. He was just wondering what sort of person would do this sort of thing. The answer was, IMO, a sociopath. It's very much the sort of thing they would do.
I don't recall answering it in terms of why that sort of mindset exists. At some point, Aytch asked what created them, or something along those lines.
That is, virus creators don't even get the evil thrill of seeing the result of their nefarious deeds.
Sure they do. On a good day, they get national media coverage. Sometimes they just get an entry in McAfee.
15714. Indiana Jones - 12/20/2000 8:48:50 PM
Cal: From a couple of his follow-up posts...
15613: Well, as I said, it's a phenomenon I've never really understood. I understand bank robbery, even murder. But the appeal of screwing up a total stranger's computer when you're never going to know about it just escapes me.
15614: I certainly understand from an intellectual standpoint that some people are prone to antisocial behavior. But it's the apparent lack of benefit and feedback that I don't get.
[Emphasis in both cases mine.]
15715. CalGal - 12/20/2000 8:59:57 PM
Oh, you're right. I had answered his first question, which was about the thought processes of Evul. In it I actually answered his question in much the same way I answered it again for you: negative attention, power over others. He did ask again; I guess he didn't like my answer. (g)
15716. rubberducky - 12/21/2000 10:44:28 AM
another reason to refill that 2000 Flushes:
Singapore Flushes Five Illegals From Bus Toilet
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Singapore immigration officers thought they had seen it all until they found five men being smuggled into neighboring Malaysia in a cramped bus toilet.
At first glance, the pink tourist bus looked empty as it pulled up to the border post at dawn Wednesday. But four Bangladeshis and one Malaysian were huddled inside the locked restaurant -- all without identity papers or luggage.
``If we're talking about illegal immigrants hiding in bus toilets, this is the first case that we have,'' an immigration spokesman told Reuters Thursday.
``Normally, they will be hiding in vehicles, in the car boot or in compartments that are specially built.''
The five were trying to sneak out of Singapore because they had entered illegally or overstayed their visas, he added.
Each man had paid $130 to a syndicate for the unscheduled trip, with the Malaysian driver and his assistant each promised 300 ringgit. All seven were arrested.
15717. Indiana Jones - 12/21/2000 11:21:20 AM
Didn't know whether to post this in Politics or here...
Judge dismisses 'disappointing' porn case
A judge in Texas has dismissed a case brought by a prisoner that a Christmas centrefold of Paula Jones featured in Penthouse magazine was disappointing.
"Minister of Law of the Mandingo Warriors"?
A Kyle Onstott-Lance Horner fan, no doubt.
15718. greystoke - 12/21/2000 11:41:25 AM
Montana cannibal.
GREAT FALLS, Mont. -- It was no secret here that police suspected Nathaniel Bar-Jonah in young Zachary Ramsay's disappearance four years ago. But the grisly details of investigators' suspicions that emerged this week left the community sickened.
According to prosecutors, the former mental patient with a history of assaulting children kidnapped the 10-year-old, raped him, then butchered him and fed his remains to unsuspecting neighbors.
...
Neighbors and acquaintances told police Bar-Jonah served them meals that contained peculiar-tasting meat that he bragged of killing and butchering himself.
Bar-Jonah's history of violence against children dates back decades.
15719. JudithAtHome - 12/21/2000 11:42:28 AM
Labwabbit:
"Developers want to build a 485-foot-long set of horns towering 15 stories above a highway to commemorate Texas livestock drives."
First college students, now unsupecting motorist.
This was so funny, I nearly choked on my Big Red....
15720. greystoke - 12/21/2000 11:45:48 AM
Cell phones and driving.
In simulator tests, drivers on phones tend to veer out of their lanes more often and check mirrors less often than the average driver. They tend to lose track of surrounding traffic and don't maintain proper distance between vehicles.
Alarmed, 14 industrialized countries, including Britain, Germany, Japan, Israel, Spain and Italy, restrict cell-phone use by drivers. But the United States does not, and will not in the foreseeable future, for an array of political, legal, economic, bureaucratic and lifestyle reasons.
The main one is that drivers love their cell phones. Moreover, the hazards of cell phones are offset by their life-saving utility when it comes to summoning emergency aid, reporting reckless drivers, warning of traffic jams or simply relieving stress with a call to say the driver is running late.
But there is a darker side of the picture: Some highway safety researchers, among them Frances Bents, co-editor of the most comprehensive appraisal of cell-phone accident research, implicate cell phones in 450 or more highway deaths a year.
Dee Yankoskie, a spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, the Washington-based trade association for cell-phone and service firms, calls Bents' data "incomplete" and says the real numbers are unknown. If Bents' figures are even in the ballpark, fatalities associated with cell phones would far exceed the 148 U.S. deaths now linked to Firestone tires over a decade.
15721. greystoke - 12/21/2000 11:52:14 AM
Utah still looking for an Obscenity and Pornography Complaints Ombudsman.
Nine months after the Legislature and Gov. Mike Leavitt created the new job of porn czar, the state finally is taking applications. resumes are being accepted through Friday, with only three received by Wednesday afternoon.
While at first blush it may sound like the best job in government, it's not just a matter of thumbing through magazines with nude-model spreads or reviewing the newest releases in adult videos. The porn czar -- officially called the obscenity and pornography complaints ombudsman -- must be a licensed attorney with expertise in prosecuting (not just investigating) violations of law.
The duties of the new position in the Attorney General's Office include drafting a comprehensive moral nuisance law for the state.
...
Other tasks include drawing up model ordinances for local governments to combat smut, advising local officials on strategies to suppress nude-dancing and other sexually oriented businesses, and arbitrating obscenity-based disputes between citizens and flesh firms.
...
Orem resident Andrew McCullough plans to submit his application, perhaps in jest.
"There is nobody in Utah that has more expertise in this area," says the attorney for nude-dancing clubs and a consulting defense expert in the Utah County Movie Buffs obscenity case.
"I may never be able to find pornography, because I'm not sure I believe in the concept," says McCullough, who ran for attorney general as a Libertarian and lost to ShurtAleff. "But I'm willing to spend time looking."
15722. labwabbit - 12/21/2000 12:53:54 PM
J@H
"Big Red..." What??
;->
15723. JudithAtHome - 12/21/2000 12:56:32 PM
lab:
I can tell you haven't hung around Texas long....
15724. labwabbit - 12/21/2000 1:06:27 PM
Ya, you are correct. But I have grabbed a couple of bulls by the horns in my time.
Perhaps it's better I don't know eh?
15725. JudithAtHome - 12/21/2000 1:20:00 PM
Don't say I didn't warn you....
Big Red is a soda that's unnaturally scarlet and tastes like a fizzy strawberry. I'm sure it is nothing but chemicals but it's addicting, nonetheless.
15726. labwabbit - 12/21/2000 1:24:27 PM
Haha...
Thanks Judith. I'm afraid my imagination is my worst enemy at times!
15727. JudithAtHome - 12/21/2000 1:29:35 PM
I'm sure more times than not, it is also your best friend!
15728. JudithAtHome - 12/21/2000 9:22:52 PM
I posted a link to the original story, about fire stations in our city being robbed while firemen went out on bogus calls, in the holiday thread because it mentioned how the robberies had put a damper on the Christmas shopping of the guys who were robbed. Read this link to see the next chapter of this saga...it sounds like something that would make a great TV movie!
Crime Doesn't Pay
15729. robertjayb - 12/21/2000 11:05:04 PM
.
Another link to Judith's firefighter/thief story (see above)
15730. JudithAtHome - 12/22/2000 10:15:01 AM
Thanks, Robert...it worked when I checked it for dust.
15731. Greystoke - 12/22/2000 3:06:57 PM
From The New York Times:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- A 7-year-old girl scheduled for eye surgery mistakenly had her tonsils and adenoids removed.
The mix-up at Hasbro Children's Hospital happened Thursday when two girls of about the same age and with similar names were scheduled for surgery. The staff realized the error near the end of the 20-minute procedure when the second girl was being prepped.
The girl, whose name was not released, has been released from the hospital without undergoing the reconstructive eye surgery she was supposed to have.
``Words can never really express how devastated we all are,'' hospital president Joseph Amaral said. ``It is our worst nightmare.''
He said two workers failed to check an identification bracelet and have been disciplined. He would not disclose their names, jobs or details of their punishment.
The doctor involved will undergo a separate review, Amaral said. The state Health Department is also investigating.
Amaral said armbands will now include a barcode or something similar as added protection against mistaken identity. He said the girl's armband was properly checked once but should have been checked again at a second location in the hospital.
15732. Greystoke - 12/22/2000 3:07:16 PM
toys
15733. JudithAtHome - 12/23/2000 12:33:26 PM
They don't mess around in Germany. This is from an unlinkable story from the AP that appeared in my local paper.
DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) — Three American teen-agers were convicted Friday of murder for dropping stones onto passing cars from a highway overpass, killing two women and injuring four.
A Hesse state court sentenced the three, all sons of U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany, to up to 8 1/2 years in prison. Prosecutors had demanded the maximum 10 years.
The three youths hadn't denied dropping heavy stones on passing cars from a highway overpass last Feb. 27. Their lawyers argued it was an ill-conceived contest to see who could hit moving vehicles without consideration of the danger they posed.
Prosecutors said they progressed from small stones and a shovel to rocks as heavy as 18 pounds, climbing on a plastic barrier along a pedestrian walkway. Six cars were hit, injuring four people and killing Sandra Ottmann, 20, and Karin Rothermel, 41.
``They didn't want to kill anyone. They wanted to hit vehicles,'' defense lawyer Ulrich Endres told reporters after closing arguments. The trial was closed to the public because the defendants — ages 14, 17 and 18 at the time of the attacks — are being tried as juveniles.
The oldest defendant, 18, received an 8 1/2 -year jail term, the next oldest, now 18, got eight years in prison, and the youngest, now 15, received a seven-year sentence.
My paper added that under German law, minors convicted of crimes are held in juvenile facilities until they turn 24, when a court may decide to transfer them to an adult prison.
15734. greystoke - 12/26/2000 11:50:17 AM
Missing children charities.
In the past year, three missing-children groups have been placed on "uncharitable charities" lists in South Carolina and Georgia because too little of their revenues went to their programs. A fourth group was ousted from a national coalition because of a dispute over its fund-raising methods. Some prominent groups complain that their data and photographs are used, without credit, by smaller groups seeking to impress potential donors.
Abuses occur in many charitable sectors, from cancer-related groups to law enforcement benevolent associations. But charity watchdogs say an emotional topic such as child abduction is particularly vulnerable to exploitation.
Two missing-children groups were among 10 charities included recently on the annual "Scrooge" list issued by the South Carolina secretary of state.
One of the groups, the Committee for Missing Children Inc. of Lawrenceville, Ga., reported revenues of $2,988,779 in 1999, and spent $159,859 -- less than 6 percent -- on programs, according to South Carolina records.
David Thelen, who runs the group, said he was unable to get grants or government support, and was on the verge of closing down two years ago when he decided to sign up with a telemarketing firm that would keep 90 percent of the donations it raised.
"Anyone who says they like getting just 10 percent is a liar," Thelen said. "But I do so much with that 10 percent." Also on the Scrooge list was Missing Kids International of McLean, Va. South Carolina officials said the organization in 1999 devoted 13 percent of its spending to programs, and paid chairman Don Iverson a $100,000 salary despite running a deficit. "That's considered very little, if you're around Washington," Iverson said of his salary.
15735. greystoke - 12/26/2000 12:04:06 PM
Pet scorpions.
Exotic scorpions are some of the hottest-selling pets in New Mexico, according to local pet store owners. But the arachnid's rise in popularity, however, has some calling for regulation of its trade.
"What we've found with scorpions is they're really a novelty-type pet," said Rick Beaman, manager of Wet Pets in Santa Fe. "They're low-maintenance and feed on small insects."
Some states, such as Florida, require permits for scorpions. But New Mexico doesn't keep track of the importation and sale of exotic scorpions, including the venomous African emperor scorpion, which at 6 inches long is one of the world's largest.
...
David Busse, a sales associate with Pete's Pets in Santa Fe, said he sees no need for the state to regulate the scorpion trade. And he's not concerned that captive, exotic scorpions could escape and establish themselves in New Mexico.
"If you want to worry about finding something in your sleeping bag, I'd worry far more about the local species of centipede. They're far more venomous," he said.
15736. greystoke - 12/26/2000 12:09:12 PM
Fat triathelete.
Here are some numbers on Dave Alexander, triathlete.
Since June 23, 1983, when he entered his first one at age 38, he estimates he's finished 276 triathlons in 37 countries.
In a recent super-triathlon in eastern Hungary, he swam 9.6 miles, cycled 448, and ran what he calls, "a 104.8-mile Bataan death march." His time, he said without hesitation, was 85 hours, 46 minutes, 38 seconds.
Those are pretty remarkable numbers. But Mr. Alexander has a few more: He's 55-years-old, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 260 pounds.
"I am fat," he said. "I was born a big boy, and I'm always going to be big. But I'm healthy."
...
Like many men his age, Mr. Alexander's silver hair is thinning. His bright blue eyes are going bad. His barrel stomach is getting bigger. Other triathletes often mistake him for a race organizer.
"I'm a great bar bet," he said, laughing. "I don't look like I can walk across the street, let alone run a triathlon."
15737. jonesatlaw - 12/26/2000 3:06:47 PM
Seven killed at Edgewater Technologies shooting on job site by fellow employee in Wakefield, Mass. Shooter in custody, Mike McDermot, had to be physically restrained by police. Was heavily armed with an AK-47, a shotgun and a semi automatic handgun.
15738. Greystoke - 12/26/2000 6:25:02 PM
Palm Beach divorce.
When horsewoman Nanette Sexton of Loxahatchee suspected her wealthy husband, investment executive Richard Bailey of Boston, had been fooling around, she did what a practical woman would do.
She took the sheets off the bed.
Then she took them to a lab, for DNA testing.
Now the marital linen is being aired in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, where Sexton has to prove adultery to collect millions under an amendment to their prenuptial agreement.
Bailey's family and lawyers say he has Alzheimer's disease and that Sexton, his fourth wife, tricked or coerced him into signing the amendment. She says his memory loss is caused by alcohol and that his blue-blooded Boston family has kept him under wraps and diverted millions from his holdings to keep her from getting the money.
...
When Bailey and Sexton married, they signed a prenuptial agreement that listed his net worth at $11.1 million and hers at nearly $2.7 million.
In January 1999, they signed an amendment that increased the survivor's share of each one's estate from 20 percent to 33 1/3 percent and obligated Bailey to pay federal income taxes for both of them.
The most significant change said that if he sued her for divorce on any grounds other than adultery, desertion, abuse or nonsupport, or that if she divorced him because of any of those things, he would have to pay her alimony equal to what he spent on her in 1997 -- roughly $180,000 a year. And if he died or became incompetent, his estate would continue paying the alimony until she remarried or died.
[continued]
15739. Greystoke - 12/26/2000 6:25:29 PM
Bailey's lawyers say the amendment can't be enforced because he already was showing signs of Alzheimer's and wasn't mentally competent. They claim Sexton knew her husband's mind was deteriorating and she pushed him into signing it without consulting them.
Sexton alleges that in July 1999, seven months after they made the amendment, she went to Bailey's own horse farm in Vermont and discovered evidence that he'd had a tryst there.
At an August mediation hearing, Weissman said his client "found a few things: a nightgown not belonging to her, a hair in a sink not belonging to her," and suspiciously stained bedsheets.
"So she gathered it up, put it in plastic, took it out of the homeplace and had it analyzed," he said. Her DNA sample, he said, was not present.
But someone else's was, and Sexton alleged the other woman was Bailey's third wife, Anita -- also an equestrian and the person who had introduced him to Sexton. Bailey's lawyers have denied Sexton's allegation, and Anita Bailey has not yet given a statement.
15740. greystoke - 12/27/2000 11:51:14 AM
From the Denver Post:
Aurora police said they believe a 23-year-old man was trying to shoot a cup off the top of a friend's head when he killed him.
Manuel Domenguez-Quintero, 22, was shot to death during the Christmas Eve horseplay.
Police are looking for Adrian Lorenzo Quintana-Galindo in connection with the killing, which occurred about 8:30 p.m. Sunday in the backyard of his home at 1130 Fulton St.
About a dozen friends and family members were at the home for a party, and detectives believe there was drinking, said Aurora police Sgt. Dan Mark.
"At some point, the victim and the suspect go out in the backyard and, while they are out in the backyard, the victim places a plastic cup on the top of his head and the suspect attempts to shoot the cup off the victim's head," Mark said.
But the bullet hit DomenguezQuintero in the forehead. He died at the scene.
Quintana-Galindo dropped the gun, a .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol, and ran, police said. He remained at large Tuesday.
Police recovered the gun. The cup also was found at the scene.
Detectives are trying to determine how many of the partygoers witnessed the shooting and who came up with the idea of shooting the cup from the victim's head, Mark said.
The stunt was similar to the story of legendary Swiss character William Tell, who shoots an apple off his son's head with an arrow to avoid being jailed by an Austrian tyrant.
Mark said the partygoers speak only Spanish, which has slowed the investigation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Quintana-Galindo is believed to be a rocket scientist working for NASA.
15741. greystoke - 12/27/2000 11:56:20 AM
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A FedEx contract driver took packages he was supposed to deliver and gave some of the items to relatives as Christmas presents, authorities said.
Russell Carnes, 29, allegedly stole packages worth about $14,000 from October to November. He pleaded no contest to a charge of grand theft, said Deputy District Attorney Rouman Ebrahim.
Family members tipped deputies after becoming suspicious when Carnes gave them boxes bearing the shipping company's logo.
FedEx launched an internal investigation when packages appeared to be missing and about $6,500 worth of goods were recovered after Carnes' arrest.
In exchange for his early plea, Carnes will serve 180 days in county jail, pay restitution and be placed on probation for five years.
Stolen items included books, about 50 video and computer games and an ultraviolet measuring device intended for Edwards Air Force Base.
15742. greystoke - 12/27/2000 12:01:03 PM
Man buried in the snow for 16 days.
Thomas Wade Truett, 29, was buried in the snow for 16 days in his sports car, in blustery winter weather in central Oregon's Deschutes National Forest. He had uttered his last goodbyes --scrawling a note to his parents in Florida -- after deserting his job as a fuel manager in the Air Force, police said.
He had lost 20 pounds and exhausted his supply of orange juice, a quart of water and a package of almond M&M candies, police said.
``We gave some guy his life and we didn't even set out to do anything remarkable that day,'' June Bloom said. ``I'm not real religious, but somebody was directing all of us up there.''
Truett was in fair condition late Tuesday at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend and recovering from advanced hypothermia, according to hospital administrators.
However, Truett's odyssey hasn't ended.
When the hospital discharges him -- expected within a week -- military police from Fort Lewis, Wash., will return the lost airman more than 800 miles to Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, S.D., on federal desertion charges, said Cpl. Neil Mackey of the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office.
..
Four days after he abandoned the base, Truett's car became stuck on a snowy, rural Oregon road, Mackey said. He survived four days in the woods, using a cigarette lighter to build small fires.
After depleting the lighter fuel, Truett tried hiking out of the forest, but was too weak.
He retreated to the car and consumed his meager rations, remaining there until he was discovered.
``Here is this poor little guy sitting in there with his hand all frosted up like a little claw wearing nothing but a T-shirt. He was so thin and gray in the face,'' said June Bloom.
15743. bubbaette - 12/27/2000 12:09:27 PM
An ultraviolet measuring device for Christmas?! Really, you shouldn't have...
15744. JudithAtHome - 12/27/2000 12:13:33 PM
After this latest workplace shooting, they've coined a new term: Desk Rage; office anger.
I guess if I freak out and start killing the houseplants, it will be called House Rage.
15745. Thoughtful - 12/27/2000 12:25:39 PM
If you shoot up an outhouse, would they call it outrage? A bar, barrage? An awning, coverage? An overpass, overage?
15746. robertjayb - 12/27/2000 6:44:19 PM
.
He is experienced...
ALBANY, N.Y. (Reuters) -New York's Republican Governor George Pataki appeared on Wednesday to reopen the wound of president-elect George W. Bush's past arrest for drunk driving with an unusual remark while introducing a new state commissioner.
As Pataki, who flew to Florida to defend Bush in the election recount impasse earlier this month, appointed Raymond Martinez as Department of Motor Vehicle Commissioner, a reporter asked if his choice ever had been ticketed for speeding or drunk driving.
Martinez replied, "Yes, I have a DWI from 1989, and also a speeding ticket from 1997." DWI is shorthand for a "driving while intoxicated" offense.
"I guess that qualifies you to be President of the United States then," Pataki said.
15747. cmboyce - 12/27/2000 7:02:50 PM
Message # 15740: "Mr. Quintana-Galindo is believed to be a rocket scientist working for NASA."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Luuuuuvvit!
Well, if he really is, I guess we don't have to worry about his being much of a security risk; if this guy tries to steal something, he'll doubtless leave it in a bar, with his business card.
Otoh, let's review his projects for—uh—lucidity, at least.
15748. JudithAtHome - 12/27/2000 7:48:58 PM
Looks like all of Patakis brown nosing in Florida didn't merit any cabinet postions so he's free to crack wise about the President-select. Pataki made me sick with his sucking up in Florida; I'm happy Cheney froze him out.
15749. Cellar Door - 12/28/2000 10:37:07 AM
Remember AIDS? Well it hasn't forgotten YOU!
15750. greystoke - 12/28/2000 11:42:16 AM
Another child abuse witchhunt from the past.
When he got out of prison, Michael Rose hugged his mother and just felt relieved that the ordeal of child-sex-ring prosecution was over.
"I got rid of my anger and bitterness years ago. Had to, or else it would have ruined me," Rose told The Wenatchee World.
The 32-year-old handyman left Twin Rivers Correctional Facility on Dec. 7, two days after a judge vacated his March 1995 convictions on rape and molestation charges involving two boys. Prosecutors gave up any additional moves against him.
Rose was the last defendant imprisoned from a wide-ranging investigation of alleged child-sex rings -- and the 18th person to be released after courts overturned their convictions or because they pleaded to lesser charges after appeals.
"I did not do any of it," Rose said in a telephone interview from his mother and stepfather's home in Tonasket. Although authorities accused him of participating in a child-sex ring, he maintained his innocence during more than six years of imprisonment and appeals.
Wenatchee made world headlines in 1994 and 1995 when police and state social workers undertook what was then called the nation's most extensive child-sex-abuse investigation.
By the time it was over, at least 60 adults were arrested on 29,726 charges of child sex abuse involving 43 children. Many of the accused were poor or developmentally disabled.
In February 1998, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published "The Power to Harm," a series of articles that documented overzealous -- even abusive -- actions by police and social service caseworkers, civil rights violations by judges and prosecutors as well as sloppy work by public defenders.
15751. greystoke - 12/28/2000 11:56:22 AM
Tree frogs invade Hawaii.
The cute green frogs, the size of a dime to a quarter, arrived in shipments of agricultural goods, possibly in potted plants, researchers say.
Instead of croaking, they chirp -- loud and often. Individual males have piercing chirps that reach as high as 90 to 100 decibels from a foot and a half away. That's comparable to a lawn mower, table saw or helicopter, according to the University of Hawaii's Speech Pathology and Audiology department.
From a dozen population sites early last year, the frogs have spread to 150 places on the Big Island, and the state has set up a hot line where residents can call to report their appearance.
...
They don't create a major problem in their native Caribbean, where natural predators control their population. But with an exponential reproduction rate and no enemies other than angry humans, the frog population in Hawaii has exploded.
In some areas, there are more than 8,000 frogs per acre.
``The sheer number here is the big difference,'' said Earl Campbell, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center.
Besides being a nuisance, the frogs compete for food with native birds and wildlife, he said. The frogs can consume as many as 46,000 insects per acre every night.
...
Campbell, who heads a field research station in Hilo, has been working with the state to experiment with a pure caffeine spray to control the frog population.
It is presumed the pure caffeine causes the frogs to go into cardiac failure. It is not believed to be harmful to humans, native plants and wildlife, but the effects are still being studied.
15752. PelleNilsson - 12/28/2000 12:59:10 PM
That's comparable to a lawn mower, table saw or helicopter
What is a table saw?
15753. bubbaette - 12/28/2000 1:06:00 PM
A table saw is a circular saw that's mounted on a table so that a half circle of the saw is above the table. That way, instead of moving the saw (as with a skill saw) you move the wood.
15754. PelleNilsson - 12/28/2000 1:18:00 PM
Thanks. Got it.
15755. Ronski - 12/28/2000 3:31:43 PM
Suicide Six (temp. link)
15756. Fraaankster - 12/28/2000 9:19:09 PM
I was kind of dumbfounded and saddened to hear that Montgomery Wards was shutting down its operations today. I knew that they were suffering from image problems, money losses, and aggresive competition, but I thought for sure that they would only consolidate and perhaps sell off a few stores, but to close all of them like that ?
The timing couldn't be worse. "Merry Christmas" to all you 37,000 employees! Come on, GE ( Its parent company ), you couldn't wait a few months to announce it ?
...I bought my first record album from MW, and only two weeks ago, bought my mom's home stereo there.
15757. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/28/2000 9:42:07 PM
15758. robertjayb - 12/29/2000 7:58:34 PM
.
World Calorie Alert...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - New York and L.A. swooned over Krispy Kreme doughnuts and now the company that refined the simple pleasure of hot, sticky snacks is thinking about going global.
The Winston-Salem company said late Thursday it has hired an executive to plot its global expansion strategy and has entered a partnership to expand into Canada - Krispy Kreme's first foray outside the United States.
15759. CalGal - 12/29/2000 9:32:20 PM
Fraaaaaank,
Me, too. I'm glad you mentioned it. I was in a mall today and walked into a Monkey Ward's just to say goodbye.
15760. Greystoke - 12/31/2000 8:47:47 AM
Fraaank
"I bought my first record album from MW."
Ah yes, record albums. Brings back fond memories of the days of old.
And having to buy music. How quaint.
15761. Greystoke - 12/31/2000 8:54:13 AM
Mexican witchcraft.
Chain-smoking and near tears, Maria de Los Angeles Macedo told her sad story to the witch. After seven years of marriage and two children, her husband ran off with another woman, and she wanted him back for the New Year.
Doctor Aura, a self-proclaimed witch with large eyes and a necklace of little wooden skulls, nodded confidently. She wrapped 10 lemons in black silk, placed them in a plastic bag and doused them with an oil guaranteed to sap any sweetness out of the fruit. That night, she promised, she would visit a graveyard and bury the bitter bag near the tombstone of a woman named Maria, asking her spirit's help to drive a wedge between the wayward husband and the home-wrecker.
"Soon they will be fighting nonstop; If they stay together, I won't let him rest," said Doctor Aura, collecting about $10 to cure Macedo in a cramped little booth deep in the labyrinth of Mexico City's Sonora Market.
...
Fortune-tellers, swamis, shamans and soothsayers of every stripe can be found everywhere from New England state fairs to the bazaars of India, but fewer places can boast a culture of witchcraft as thriving and lucrative as Mexico's.
Witches from all over Latin American hold annual conventions in Mexico, and bookstores are full of stories from the coven and recipes for black magic. Some witches wind up in the official limelight, hired by police departments to help find kidnapping victims or retained by politicians to help plot strategy.
Early last year, many top-ranking witches gathered at the National Press Club of Mexico City to announce they had cast a spell on the presidential election to make it, for the first time in recent memory, clean and fair.
15762. Greystoke - 12/31/2000 8:58:08 AM
From the Seattle Post Intelligencier:
A body found in a shallow grave near the Tulalip Indian Reservation was identified Saturday as the missing Russian mail-order bride of a Mountlake Terrace man.
The Snohomish County medical examiner's office identified the woman as 20-year-old Anastasia Soloveva King, who was last seen at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in September.
Indle King, Jr., 39, was arrested Friday for investigation of first-degree murder. He remained in Snohomish County Jail without bail.
Police were led to the body by an anonymous phone tip. An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday.
Anastasia King was Indle King's second mail-order bride. She was 18-years-old when they were married.
Friends and family reported her missing in September after she didn't return from a three-week visit to her parents in Kyrgyzstan. Indle King told police they had argued in the airport in Moscow and she told him she planned to stay in Russia.
Investigators say they both returned to the United States on the same flight and passed through Customs one minute apart.
Indle King told police he didn't know she was on the flight.
He filed for divorce on Aug. 21. According to court documents, he claimed his wife was hiding from him to avoid being served with divorce papers and being departed by immigration officials.
Court documents say Anastasia King claimed she was the victim of domestic violence and had taken steps to obtain a divorce.
15763. Greystoke - 12/31/2000 9:05:50 AM
Death row inmate freed.
The first of two men who have had their murder convictions overturned walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on Thursday.
Michael Ray Graham Jr., who spent more than a decade on death row, was released about 5 p.m., a day after the Louisiana attorney general's office dismissed charges against him and Albert Ronnie Burrell after reinvestigating the killings of a north Louisiana couple in 1986.
Sentenced to death a year later, Mr. Burrell and Mr. Graham have maintained their innocence all along.
Mr. Burrell's release was expected to take longer and might not happen until next Tuesday, according to the attorney general's office.
Mr. Graham, from Roanoke, Va., is now in his 30s and has spent most of his adult life on death row.
...
The men were found guilty in 1987 in the shooting deaths of William Delton Frost and Callie Frost in the living room of their Union Parish home northwest of Monroe. They were sentenced to die.
Earlier this year, state District Judge Cynthia Woodard threw out the convictions and sentences. Defense attorneys had raised questions about the lack of physical evidence and shaky trial testimony.
Attorney general's prosecutors Frederick Duhy Jr. and Ellison Travis found a "total lack of credible evidence" to connect the men with the crimes.
"In fact, the undersigned prosecutors would deem it a breach of ethics to proceed to trial," in this case, the prosecutors said in their notice of dismissal.
...
As well as reviewing evidence, the attorney general's office commissioned DNA tests from blood at the crime scene which proved the blood did not match Mr. Burrell's or Mr. Graham's.
15764. jexster - 12/31/2000 12:50:16 PM
Genesis Of State's Energy Fiasco
String of bad decisions on
deregulation could end up costing
consumers $40 billion
Christian Berthelsen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, December 31, 2000
Next month, about 10 million Californians may
begin paying as much as 30 percent more for
electricity, in a maddening coda to one of the most
costly public policy mistakes ever made.
When the state's leaders started moving the energy
system toward deregulation six years ago, they
envisioned a brand new day in which utility
companies' long-standing monopoly would be
broken and rates would decline by as much as 25
percent.
Genesis of California Energy Fiasco
15765. jexster - 12/31/2000 9:43:33 PM
Death Trip - The American Way of Execution
15766. Greystoke - 1/1/2001 9:32:29 AM
New California laws.
Here are some of the state's most important--or unusual--new laws.
Most of them take effect today.
Teacher taxes--Schoolteachers can receive income tax credits of between $250 and $1,500 a year, depending on how long they have been teaching.
Teacher pay--The minimum pay for public school teachers is now $34,000, a $2,000 increase.
DNA--As long as certain conditions are met, prosecutors trying to solve a rape case with a DNA sample face no deadline in bringing charges against a suspect, even years after the crime.
Wrongful convictions--The state must pay those wrongly convicted of a crime $100 for each day spent in prison.
Juror pay--The pay for jurors is raised to $15 a day, from $5.
Breast-feeding--Mothers who are breast-feeding a child may postpone jury duty for one year.
Slavery--Insurance companies must submit to the state Insurance Commission any information about slaveholder policies they provided. The commissioner must publicly disclose the information, and hold hearings to determine whether there is a legal basis to compensate descendants of slaves. (SB 2199 by former Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles.)
Pets--Condominiums and mobile home parks must allow tenants to keep at least one pet, subject to some restrictions. Backers of the bill say people with pets live longer and recover more quickly from illness.
Cesar Chavez--State workers get a new paid holiday--March 31--in honor of labor leader Cesar Chavez.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This is just a brief summary. There are many more. Follow the link.
15767. Greystoke - 1/1/2001 9:42:31 AM
Bluegrass festival drug checkpoint.
The organizers of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival are threatening to sue several southwestern Colorado law enforcement groups and the state of Colorado over what they call an unconstitutional drug checkpoint conducted outside of Telluride on the weekend of their festival last summer.
...
Planet Bluegrass's Craig Ferguson said he believes officers are guilty of profiling his customers, some of whom have long hair and drive beatup cars.
"We feel that driving to a music festival, you know, shouldn't be cause to have your car pulled over and drug-sniffed," he said. "Some people said they did nothing wrong, and they were pulled over and sniffed."
...
The notice alleges that a roadblock was set up in Dolores County just south of the border of San Miguel County - Telluride is the seat of San Miguel - and that a sign reading "Narcotics Checkpoint Ahead" was posted in the middle of the highway, Spillman said. A recent Supreme Court ruling declared that kind of checkpoint unconstitutional, reiterating existing law stating that checkpoints may only be used to target drunken drivers and to intercept illegal immigrants on American highways near the Mexican border.
Last week, officials with Montezuma and Dolores counties said they weren't worried about the lawsuit and would likely organize another checkpoint when the Telluride Bluegrass Festival rolls around again next Memorial Day weekend, according to the Cortez Journal.
"The sheriff told me everything was done by the book, and I believe him," Dolores County Commissioner Leroy Gore told that newspaper. "If they are comfortable with doing it next year, then I support them."
15768. Greystoke - 1/1/2001 9:51:10 AM
New York City is losing cops.
Overall violent crime decreased in the city last year. A recent poll shows New Yorkers no longer think crime is the No. 1 problem they face. And tourists are flooding Manhattan, thrilled to be able to walk the streets safely late into the night.
This should be reason for celebration in the New York City Police Department. But within the 41,000-strong force -- the largest in the country -- officers are leaving in record numbers, citing low morale, low pay and the constant pressure to keep those numbers down.
...
In 1990, the murder rate in New York City hit an all-time high of 2,245. It has since declined relatively steadily, with 667 murders reported for 1999. As of Friday, there have been 666 murders in the city so far this year.
Overall violent crime -- murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft -- is down 5.48 percent from last year.
...
The number of officers who are retiring when they reach 20 years of service has increased 44.6 percent; so far this year 1,112 officers have retired, compared with 769 last year. And increasing numbers aren't waiting to reach the 20-year mark; so far this year, 616 officers have quit, compared with 537 last year.
Some officers are leaving to take advantage of recent pension incentives, while others cite pay, morale and pressure to keep crime statistics down.
The starting salary for an NYPD officer is $31,305 a year, or about $2,000 to $11,000 below that of any other major police department. Pay checks rise to $60,000 after five years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Fewer jack booted thugs in NYC? Isn't that just too bad.
15769. mgleason - 1/1/2001 10:40:57 AM
German sex widow deprived of insurance payout
KARLSRUHE, Germany (Reuters) - The widow of a German man who accidentally strangled himself in a bizarre sexual act has no right to claim insurance, Germany's Federal Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
The widow had demanded the payment of 32,051 marks (10,200 pounds) insurance policy her husband arranged before he strangled himself while hanging from a door handle during an autoerotic experience, the court said.
The court rejected an appeal by the widow who had sued an insurance company for refusing to pay out the money. The court upheld the company's argument that it was not liable for self-inflicted injuries.
"The husband of the plaintiff tied his wife's scarf around his neck and pushed it onto a door handle," the court said in a statement.
"As he took this action to limit his supply of oxygen in order to heighten his orgasm, he intended to diminish his bodily functions."
15770. mgleason - 1/1/2001 10:50:03 AM
Drinking champagne at New Year's can be painful
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Just call it cham-PAIN instead of champagne this New Year's Eve.
Two party-pooping California researchers have found that the familiar tingle on the tongue caused by the fizzy drink revellers love to guzzle as they toast the New Year is no pleasure at all. In fact, it is downright painful.
"The tingle you get from a chilli pepper is working on the pain system," Michael O'Mahony, a food scientist at the University of California, Davis, who co-led the study, said. "But it also turns out that the fizz or the carbonation you get from a fizzy drink works on the same system."
The research helps to show that these sensations may be an important part of food flavour, alongside taste and smell, even though they deliver messages of pain to the brain, O'Mahony said.
He added that most cultures had their own foods that hurt, with examples ranging from strong malt vinegar on fish and chips and pretzels crusted with salt to spicy curries.
"The pain is giving you the message, watch out for this stuff, be careful," Mahony said. "We are interested in the mechanisms of how pain and irritation work in the mouth."
...............
One way to avoid the pain, however, was to drink Guinness beer instead. That liquid gets its frothy fizz from nitrogen which produces a different, smoother feel in the mouth, the researchers said.
15771. greystoke - 1/2/2001 11:44:11 AM
Salt Lake City police gun down motorist.
Two Salt Lake City police officers shot and killed a 21-year-old man Monday morning during a traffic stop.
Robert Adam Howard was shot an undetermined number of times after he smashed into a police car and put the officers' lives in danger, said Lt. Jack Rickards.
Howard's sister, who was in the car at the time, told relatives in Tempe, Ariz., that police officers fired at least five shots.
"There were other people in that car that could have been killed," said Jeanine Howard, an aunt who spoke Sunday with Howard's sister, described as "devastated. She sat there and watched it happen."
Howard was dead at the scene of the shooting, Rickards said.
The officers and three other occupants of Howard's car were uninjured, Rickards said.
...
Howard "wanted to bolt" and did not know the car was in reverse, Howard's sister reportedly told her aunt. "She said it was an accident," said Jeanine Howard, adding that his sister said Howard had been drinking on New Year's Eve.
Howard, known to family members as "Adam," has been "drifting" between a relative's home in Arizona and his mother's Salt Lake City home ever since his father, Rusty, died in 1999, his aunt said.
"He was a little bit lost, but he definitely did not deserve this," Jeanine Howard said.
Howard's uncle, Greg Howard, told The Salt Lake Tribune from Arizona that family members may file a complaint against the police department, if only to gather more details about the shooting.
"There are a lot of people here who want to know what went on."
15772. greystoke - 1/2/2001 11:51:33 AM
Police chase leads to accident, deaths.
A man who tried to elude police shortly after New Year's lost control of his car and rolled the vehicle several times, killing his pregnant wife, her unborn child and young daughter, authorities said.
All seven of the vehicle's occupants – including five young children --were thrown from the car.
Two 3-year-old twins were in serious and satisfactory condition in Harborview Medical Center. A 2-year-old girl was in satisfactory condition, and an 8-year-old boy was in serious condition.
Capt. Ted Fehr of the Tukwila Fire Department said the grisly accident scene was difficult for the crews that arrived.
"It was very tough," he said. "These scenes are always hard, but five children in the car -- and they were all scattered on the ground. It was hard for our guys."
...
Twenty-six-year-old Suzie McDowell -- who was the mother of all the children -- died a few hours after the accident. She was five months pregnant. A young girl was also killed. Authorities were unsure of her age.
...
The accident occurred at 12:24 a.m. yesterday when a King County deputy tried to stop a vehicle for reckless driving in the 700 block of Rainier Avenue South, said King County Sheriff's spokesman Bob Conner.
McDowell sped up and headed southbound, entering Interstate 405 at a high rate of speed, Conner said. The deputy lost sight of the small car.
...
McDowell, 26, was taken to Valley General Hospital, where he was treated for a broken leg and minor injuries.
He was booked into the King County Jail and will be charged with vehicular homicide, felony elude and vehicular assault McDowell spent yesterday in the jail infirmary, sleeping while under guard.
15773. greystoke - 1/2/2001 11:57:33 AM
The Civil War had a Pacific theater.
James I. Waddell was hailed in life as a patriot and hero even as he was condemned as a pirate who spread terror worldwide.
But in Washington history books, Lt. Waddell of the Confederate States Navy is little more than an odd footnote -- forever known as the man responsible for the only Civil War military action in the Pacific Northwest.
Waddell was captain of the CSS Shenandoah, a makeshift man-of-war that circled the globe, capturing or sinking 38 ships in a campaign to cripple the economy of the Union states. His yearlong voyage took him to the Bering Sea off Alaska, where he sank two dozen ships.
...
Known for being more stubborn than brilliant, Waddell, 40, took command Oct. 19, 1864. A graduate and one-time instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Waddell resigned his commission the moment he heard that his native North Carolina had seceded from the Union. Undistinguished early in the war, the Sea King was his first command.
He renamed the ship the Shenandoah and set about his mission as a commerce raider. Too lightly constructed to do battle with a real warship, the Shenandoah was to avoid battle while dogging the whaling fleet, a major industry and economic asset of the North.
Civil War historian Bruce Catton once called the Shenandoah and other commerce raiders "a most expensive nuisance to the North . . . they roamed the seven seas almost at will, helping to drive the American merchant fleet out from under the American flag but ultimately having only a minor bearing on the war itself."
[continued]
15774. greystoke - 1/2/2001 12:00:12 PM
Yet it wasn't that easy to find peace. Waddell and his men had been condemned as pirates by executive order of President Andrew Johnson. They were wanted men, subject to trial for piracy and a possible death sentence. Though some still wanted to surrender at the closest U.S. port, Waddell reasoned that it would be better to land in a foreign port than a hostile one.
After dismantling the cannon and painting the ship's smokestack white as a disguise, Waddell and his 130-man crew continued south. In a voyage remarkable even today, they sailed around Cape Horn and across the Atlantic -- circumnavigating the globe and traveling non-stop until they dropped anchor at Liverpool -- the port where it all began -- on Nov. 6, 1865.
...
In a letter asking British authorities to take custody of the Shenandoah, Waddell noted that his ship had fired the last shot of the war, and was the only Confederate ship to circle the globe.
In fact, Waddell had cruised 58,000 miles and hadn't touched land for nearly eight months after leaving Ascension Island in April.
More important, he said that in seizing 38 ships and taking nearly 1,000 prisoners, no one had been killed or injured.
"I claim for her officers and men a triumph over their enemies and over every obstacle, and for myself I claim having done my duty," he concluded.
What he didn't do was surrender to the United States.
The Brits were mortified.
15775. robertjayb - 1/2/2001 12:00:40 PM
.
Jesse James Remains Elusive...
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - Months after the wrong man's body was found in an attempt to recover outlaw Jesse James' remains at a North Texas gravesite, plans are under way for a second disinterment.
Researchers looking for remains of the notorious outlaw this summer were fooled by a misplaced headstone in a Granbury, Texas, cemetery.
But Bud Hardcastle, an amateur historian and car dealer who funded the exhumation effort, wants to return to the cemetery some time soon.
``This needs to happen,'' Hardcastle told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Tuesday editions in an telephone interview from Purcell, Okla. ``History needs to be set straight.''
Researchers, instead of exhuming the skeleton of J. Frank Dalton, unearthed the body of a one-armed man, William Henry Holland, who died in 1927. Dalton had claimed until his death in 1951 to be Jesse James.
15776. jexster - 1/2/2001 1:09:33 PM
California Power Crisis: Real Reality's Revenge
15777. jexster - 1/2/2001 3:23:21 PM
15778. Greystoke - 1/2/2001 11:08:54 PM
MOUNT VERNON, Va. -- Exactly 200 years after Martha Washington freed George Washington's slaves, descendants of the slaves gathered Monday to share their ancestors' stories with tourists at the first president's Virginia plantation.
President Washington, born into a colony that embraced slavery, came to doubt the ethics of the practice and ordered in his will that his personal slaves be freed upon his widow's death.
But she did not wait, granting 123 of the slaves freedom on Jan. 1, 1801, two years after Washington died. She died a year later.
"We are here today to stand up and let people know that theirs is a critical legacy," said Rohulaman Quander, a descendant of a Mount Vernon slave, Suckey Bay.
There were 316 slaves at Mount Vernon when the Washingtons lived there. But not all were freed because slaves that Mrs. Washington had inherited from her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, were owned partly by the children of that marriage.
15779. Fraaankster - 1/2/2001 11:28:57 PM
Cal,
Me, too. I'm glad you mentioned it. I was in a mall today and walked into a Monkey Ward's just to say goodbye.
I hope you weren't too rough on them, and can I do a mall with you sometime ?
Grey,
I keep wondering when it is I will finally get rid of my record albums. They're just sitting there taking up valuable space.
15780. greystoke - 1/3/2001 11:45:38 AM
Welcome to America.
The Chinese and Thai women smuggled into the country were handcuffed, chained or tied with leather restraints behind barred windows in at least three brothels and were forced to have sex with about 15 men daily until each raised $40,000 to pay the smugglers, authorities say. They were not allowed to make phone calls, write letters or leave secret compartments in the houses where they were hidden.
...
Richard Kuniansky, the attorney representing Sriwan "Sonya" Sakyai, a prostitute and ring member, said federal officials are misinformed if they believe the women were exploited.
"What they view as horrible smugglers taking advantage of women, these girls look at it as the break of a lifetime," he said. "These women make less than $1,000 a year in Thailand. Here they make enough money to pay off their $40,000 contract in a year. The government should quit wasting astronomical amounts of money on victimless crimes."
...
In the Houston cases, the extent to which the women were victimized varied.
Most of the Thai women already were prostitutes and understood they would resume their occupation in the United States. Chinese women more often were kidnapped or deceived by smugglers who came to their rural villages promising jobs as waitresses or maids, Mr. Gallagher said.
"We see so many 14- and 15-year-old girls who were tricked into thinking they would work as waitresses or nannies," said Lilian Care, a member of Women Against Global Trafficking at Houston's First Unitarian Universalist Church. "It is so stigmatized, and there is so much shame," Ms. Care said. She plans to start a community center where prostitutes can find safety and rehabilitation.
15781. Indiana Jones - 1/3/2001 12:05:36 PM
RIP in 2000: 200-plus Intenet companies
15782. robertjayb - 1/3/2001 11:43:59 PM
.
AIDS drug?
By Moriba Magassouba, Panafrican News Agency, Jan. 3, 2001
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire
The Polythera Institute, grouping Ivorian researchers at Abidjan's Cocody University, will Saturday officially present to the government an AIDS drug known as "Therastim".
The anti-HIV product, whose research has been underway for the past 15 years, has the capacity to eradicate HIV from the organism of a person living with the AIDS causing virus within 10 days only.
According to Dr. Akenon Seri Bernard, a researcher at the Ploythera laboratory who discovered Therastim, a patient living with HIV/AIDS gets cured after 10 days of daily injections with the wonder drug.
He explained that the injection with the first ampoule eliminates three quarters of the virus. Therastim, which is developed from Ivorian natural herbs and which is also used in treating malaria, was successfully tested in modern hospitals.
It is on the basis of these trials that Dr Zegbeh N'Guessan Desire, who played a key role in the discovery, decided to submit the work done by Polythera laboratory for further examination by the training and scientific research unit at Abidjan's Cocody University.
15784. joezan - 1/4/2001 6:57:51 AM
rjb:
I'd check that article for a little box over the top that says "Advertisement".
15785. joezan - 1/4/2001 7:10:01 AM
15786. greystoke - 1/4/2001 11:55:05 AM
"Environmentalists" shooting themselves in the foot.
Warning "If you build it, we will burn it," a radical environmental group opposed to urban sprawl has claimed responsibility for the burning of three luxury houses under construction on what was one of Long Island's last remaining farms.
A small explosive device was set off over the weekend, causing up to $30,000 in damage to each home. No one was injured.
"This hopefully provided a firm message that we will not tolerate the destruction of our island," the Earth Liberation Front said a statement faxed to The Associated Press on Sunday.
Police say the ELF is responsible for millions of dollars in arson and vandalism to six other unoccupied homes on Long Island over the past month.
...
The ELF, acting at times with the Animal Liberation Front, has claimed responsibility for dozens of actions across the country since 1996, including a 1998 blaze at a Vail, Colo., ski resort that caused $12 million in damage.
The environmental group said the expansion project threatened lynx.
"They want to stop endless devastation of the American landscape by overdevelopment," said Craig Rosebraugh of Portland, Ore., who identifies himself as ELF's spokesman but says he is not a member.
He said the group's leaders communicate with him by a variety of means that preserve their anonymity.
The homes targeted over the weekend at the Island Estates Development were being built on a former peach farm. In 1998, Suffolk County had 34,000 acres of agriculture land. At the current rate of development, land-use experts say, only 9,000 acres will remain by 2015.
15787. greystoke - 1/4/2001 11:57:35 AM
Obviously it is unethical by any standard, and just plain bad public relations, to torch people's houses in the name of stopping development. But to do so to prevent Long Island from becoming overdeveloped? Sheeeeesh! The cow's out of the barn, guys.
15788. greystoke - 1/4/2001 12:08:40 PM
From the Seattle Post Intelligencier:
Carey McWilliams has a concealed weapons permit from the state of North Dakota and isn't afraid to use a gun -- even though he's blind.
McWilliams, a 27-year-old North Dakota State University graduate student, says the permit, issued in September, is for protection.
"If you choose this blind victim, you might end up dead," McWilliams said. "I don't want to shoot anybody, but an assailant's life is not an issue with me."
McWilliams' sight is limited to light perception, which means he can tell night from day. He says he has been blind since he was 10.
In North Dakota, applicants for concealed weapons permits must pay a fee, undergo a background check and pass written and shooting exams, said Pat Healey, a Cass County sheriff's deputy who administers permit tests.
"He completed the background check, so the county and city were comfortable with him getting the permit," Healey said.
------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a legally blind friend who has a PA driver's license and hunting license. I've never ridden or hunted with him.
15789. Ronski - 1/4/2001 1:47:03 PM
15790. Ronski - 1/4/2001 1:48:58 PM
Why I Prefer Downhill to Cross Country
15791. Indiana Jones - 1/4/2001 4:37:18 PM
Robots offer love that can never leave and never die
In this age of alienation, some are turning to less demanding relationships-relationships with robots.
15792. Raskolnikov - 1/4/2001 4:44:02 PM
This is a frequent gripe of mine with environmentalists: fucked up priorities. Of all the things to blow up, protest, or lobby against, why development on Long Island of all places??? And this isn't all that uncommon. Real environmental benefits often take a back seat to high profile symbolic gestures. I still get into arguments with environmentalist friends of mine over pollution trading permits, as they see it as immoral for businesses to reduce pollution for profit.
15793. Ronski - 1/4/2001 5:20:59 PM
Speaking of the Earth Liberation Front, not only were their claims that Vail's expansion creating Blue Sky Basin would endanger the lynx false, according to the environmentally-friendly Clinton administration, but the Vail corporation had the last laugh by rebuilding the Two Elk Lodge (that ELF burned) with fireproof timbers, and making it slightly larger to boot.
What really endangers the lynx in Colorado are the Interstate and the semis which travel on it.
And what really endangers the snowshoe hare, by the way, is the lynx, which eats it.
15794. JJBiener - 1/4/2001 6:09:30 PM
"This hopefully provided a firm message that we will not tolerate the destruction of our island," the Earth Liberation Front said a statement faxed to The Associated Press on Sunday.
What bothers me is their arrogance in believing they have a claim to property they don't own.
15795. joezan - 1/4/2001 7:19:53 PM
I know that peach orchard well - Davis Peach Farm - because it is the only peach farm LI has ever had, at least in my lifetime. The area it's in -Miller Place - has been developing to the max (with mostly very upscale homes) for at least the past 25 years. The death-knell for this once sleepy little summer community arrived about 20 years ago with the completion of Patchogue-Mt. Sinai Road, a 4-lane highway linking Suffolk County's more affluent north shore communities to the LI Expressway.
Before that, sharing the intersection with the peach orchard were a large farm, a Japanese nursery with acres of plantings, and McGovern Sod Farms, which had supplied Yankee Stadium's sod for generations. The others went down fairly quickly, as land values soared to over 250k per acre. Davis' property taxes must have been astronomical - after a certain point, I'm sure he just could not grow enough peaches to support the place.
These ELF idiots were about 20 years and 20 tons of dynamite short.
And, fwiw, I'm sure it wasn't even near to being "one of Long Island's last remaining farms". Last I heard, Suffolk County was still the top agricultural county in the entire state.
15796. DaveM - 1/4/2001 7:58:41 PM
JJBiener-
If you had an even remotely sophisticated understanding or "property," you would realize that the environmentalists do have a property interest in this situation. It is simply not a property interest that should be protected in situations like this by judges.
15797. JJBiener - 1/4/2001 10:45:14 PM
DaveM - Spare me.
15798. robertjayb - 1/4/2001 11:49:27 PM
.
The Duct Tape Chronicles...(continued)
HUDSON, Mass. (AP) — The parents of a child who was duct-taped to a wall at a day care center have sued the owner and several employees, saying the incident was part of a pattern of abuse.
The parents, along with two other families, sued A Place to Grow Inc. claiming their infants were also force-fed, exposed to infectious diseases and spent nap time with blankets over their heads.
Diane Davis, the center's director, and three employees were fired following the duct-tape incident.
According to a report by state investigators, Davis said she had been talking to a parent about the versatility of duct tape and decided to find out if it really did ''work on everything.'' The child was not physically harmed.
15799. jonesatlaw - 1/5/2001 12:26:27 AM
Joezan- right! While LI is hardly pastoral for much of the island, the North Fork was rather rural when I lived there briefly after college. Southold still had a number of potato farms in the area, and I worked one for a season. The creep of development already had the natives restless then and that was nearly twenty years ago. I can hardly imagine what it's like now.
15800. joezan - 1/5/2001 7:41:04 AM
jones:
Last time I was out on the North Fork ('92, I think), Southold was still quite nice - all the potato farms are now vineyards, though -as are many of the old farms on the South Fork. If I'm not mistaken, my first ever bottle of LI wine was from Southold. It was terrible - a cabernet that was produced too early in '85 because of Hurricane Gloria, so they called it merlot.
15801. greystoke - 1/5/2001 11:37:05 AM
British girl to get breast implants for her 16th birthday.
Jenna Franklin is only 15 but she thinks she knows the secret to a successful future -- bigger breasts.
Jenna's parents want their daughter to be happy, so they have agreed to pay for breast enlargements as a 16th birthday present.
The unusual gift grabbed tabloid headlines and filled the airwaves Thursday, as Britons debated what kind of society places such a high value on appearance, particularly for young women.
...
But writing in the Daily Express -- which splashed the story on its front page under the headline "Jenna is pretty and intelligent. So why on earth is her mother buying breast implants for her 16th birthday?" -- Jenna insisted "you've got to have breasts to be successful."
...
"Every other person you see on the television has had implants," she wrote. "If I want to be successful I need to have them too -- and I do want to be successful, though I don't know at what at the moment."
...
Jenna's mother