truesee's Blog

'Octomom' faces eviction from Southern Calif. home

AP – FILE - This March 9, 2009 file photo shows the house in which Nadya Suleman, mother of octuplets, has …

SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER

Associated Press

Sun Dec 26, 9:15 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – The man who sold his Southern California home to "Octomom" Nadya Suleman said Sunday that he's going ahead with eviction proceedings because she hasn't made a long overdue $450,000 payment.

Amer Haddadin said he'll evict Suleman if she and her lawyer Jeff Czech don't pay the balance on the house by Friday. A balloon payment was due Oct. 9.

"I think they have money, but they are hiding the money," Haddadin said.

Suleman and Czech were served notice on Dec. 2 by mail and by hand, Haddadin said. He expects the eviction to be speedy.

Suleman and her 14 children have lived in the 4-bedroom house for nearly two years, ever since she brought her octuplets home to the quiet cul-de-sac in La Habra, about 25 miles east of Los Angeles. Her father purchased the home for $565,000, including a $130,000 down payment.

Suleman's father, Ed Doud, cut a deal with Haddadin for the house because a traditional bank loan wasn't available to Suleman, who is unmarried and unemployed. She previously lived with her mother in a small Whittier home before that house was foreclosed on.

In April, Haddadin granted a 6-month extension on the remaining balance, and says that as a Jordanian, he took pity on a fellow Arab in a tough spot, and pledged to help Doud, who is Palestinian.

Haddadin said Czech and Suleman became joint owners of the house in August, after her father transferred the deed from his name.

Reached by phone Sunday, Czech said he had no immediate comment except that Suleman has been making $4,000 payments every month.

Suleman already had six small children before giving birth to the octuplets. All 14 children were conceived through in vitro fertilization.

http://www.getspicychicken.com/

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/12/25/pkg.100.grandkids.cnn?hpt=T2

Cops: $450K in drugs found on man passed out in taxi

Frustrated cabdriver delivered passenger to police station

A frustrated cabdriver unwittingly delivered a man carrying a bag that was allegedly filled with nearly a half-million dollars in drugs to officers at the Rogers Park District police station over the weekend.

The driver, who asked not to be named, said he picked up a fare in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Saturday afternoon and took the man to an address in Rogers Park.

The passenger, later identified by police as Joseph Andrew Hoffman, 25, chatted on his phone for about half the trip but was unconscious by the time they arrived at the destination, the cabdriver said.

The cabdriver said he tried to rouse the man for about 10 minutes before driving to the police station. Police searched the man's bag and found bottles of a "clear, crystalline substance" connected by wires to a "power source," which together apparently amounted to a miniature methamphetamine lab, according to a police report.

The street value of the drugs in the man's bag was nearly $450,000, the police report said.

Hoffman, of Vancouver, Wash., was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. Police said he consented to a search of a residence in the 800 block of West Dakin Street, where officers found a gallon jug filled with suspected GHB, the so-called date rape drug; small bags of marijuana; $1,401 in cash; and other drug paraphernalia, the report said.

Hoffman was charged with six felony counts and on Sunday was ordered held on $100,000 bail by a Cook County judge.

The cab that brought Hoffman to police was searched by a Chicago Fire Department hazardous materials team. Police didn't tell him what they had found on the passenger when they returned the car, the cabbie said.

"They said they found a lot of bad stuff. My only concern was to collect my fare," the cabdriver said Sunday. "It was going on and on, and I didn't even get my full fare."

8:01 p.m. CST, December 26, 2010

12/25/10 8:05 PM

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Americans can give thanks in this Christmas season for an end to the reckless and destructive 111th Congress.  This is the Congress that passed Obamacare, against the wishes of a substantial majority of the public, on Christmas Eve of last year. In the dead of night, Democratic lawmakers stuffed the monstrous 2,700-page bill with special-interest goodies and political payoffs like the "Cornhusker Kickback" and the "Louisiana Purchase."  As we have learned since, most members were still ignorant of the bill's contents three months later, when it gained final passage in the House. No surprise that its immediate results -- both intended and unintended -- have been almost uniformly bad.

Similarly, odds are that not one member of the 111th Congress actually read the so-called "cap-and-trade" bill before it passed the House in June 2009. Even a speed-reader could not have digested House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's last-second, 309-page amendment, which read as clear as mud: "Page 14, strike lines 1 through 3 and insert the following. ..." It was filed after 1:30 a.m. just before the vote on final passage. There is also serious doubt that any member of Congress understood the 2,000-page financial reform bill that Congress passed this summer. One of its two main sponsors, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., remarked, "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. ..."

And Democrats wonder why Gallup found this Congress to be the least popular in the history of its polls?

After suffering a comprehensive and humiliating defeat in the midterm election, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the unfrocked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led lame-duck congressional Democrats on a last-minute banzai charge for more federal spending, debt, earmarks, taxes and regulations. They unsuccessfully pushed for the biggest tax increase in American history, a yearlong spending bill loaded with pork, and a DREAM Act to award amnesty to certain children of illegal immigrants. We hope that voters will remember these misguided initiatives in two years.

Our Founding Fathers were always wary of those who wanted government to do lots of big things. That's why they created a system that separated powers among three more or less equal branches and provided each of them with powerful checks and balances. When professional politicians become frustrated with Congress, it is a sign that our system is working as intended. Columbia University historian Alan Brinkley told Bloomberg News recently that "this is probably the most productive session of Congress since at least the '60s." When Congress votes on bills that no one reads or understands, it can be quite "productive." Americans have already rendered a verdict on such productivity and elected a new Congress with orders to clean up the mess in Washington.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2010/12/examiner-editorial-closing-books-worst-congress#ixzz19FoCWhnW

Examiner Editorial

12/23/10 8:05 PM

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez MonsivaisIt has probably escaped the attention of all but the few who make it their business to pay attention to such things, so we note here that a subtle but dangerous piece of revisionism about the meaning of the November election crept into the national political conversation this week.

Nowhere was that revisionism more evident than in President Obama's comments late Wednesday in lauding the just-ended 111th Congress, and in particular its lame-duck conclusion: "A lot of folks in this town predicted that after the midterm elections, Washington would be headed for more partisanship and more gridlock. And instead, this has been a season of progress for the American people. That progress ... is a reflection of the message that voters sent in November, a message that said it's time to find common ground on challenges facing our country." A few paragraphs later, it became clear that Obama wants us to believe that voters meant for congressional Democrats and Republicans to find that common ground so they can do more of what made the 111th Congress "the most productive two years that we've had in generations."

No, Mr. President, voters in 2010 did not demand bipartisan cooperation in 2011 to advance Obamacare, increase out-of-control federal spending that drove the national debt to $13.4 trillion and the annual deficit to $1.4 trillion, add thousands of bureaucrats to the government payroll even as private-sector unemployment remains near 10 percent, create hundreds more wasteful, duplicative federal programs that mainly benefit Democratic-favorite special interests like Big Labor, impose thousands more growth-killing environmental regulations, or erect multitudes of additional obstacles to achieving energy independence here at home.

To be sure, voters have lost patience with the endless partisan harangues, elitist arrogance, political corruption, and hypocritical pandering to special interests that long ago came to define Washington and its professional politicians in both parties. That was why Republicans were tossed out of congressional power in 2006. The same factors further coalesced in 2010 with disgust with Obamacare, the failed $814 billion economic stimulus program, the "Always Apologize for America" foreign policy, and exploding spending and debt. The result was that voters tossed Democrats out of control of the House and handed Republicans their deepest midterm election victory since 1938. Only in a liberal fantasy world does such an electoral result represent an electorate demanding bipartisan cooperation for more of the same.

Historians may someday describe the just-ended lame-duck session as the high-water mark of Big Government. Come Jan. 5, the reality of what voters did on Nov. 2 will become incontestably clear as a Republican House majority takes office. Then, as Sen. Tom Coburn said Wednesday, henceforth, "there will be no more big spending bills." The new year cannot come too soon.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2010/12/voters-elected-republicans-end-obamaism-not-expand-it#ixzz19FmOnTCU

Prescription drug abuse is fastest-growing drug problem in country

MONIFA THOMAS

Staff Reporter

Sun Times

Dec 26, 2010 02:36AM

David and Gail Katz thought their 25-year-old son Daniel had finally turned the corner on his addiction to prescription painkillers after a year and a half of sobriety.   Then, over a two-week period in 2007, Daniel’s drug use suddenly “spiraled out of control,” his parents said. 

On June 15, 2007, Daniel, a well-liked former hockey player, died at his best friend’s house after overdosing on OxyContin and cocaine.   “We heard that he had told his girlfriend that he wanted to start again and turn his life around and that night, he overdosed,” Gail Katz said. 

Some think it’s harmless The Katzes think Daniel started abusing painkillers in college after experimenting with marijuana and alcohol in high school.   Though they sought treatment for him several times, Daniel “just couldn’t stay sober,” Gail Katz said.  The Highland Park couple has since made a full-time job of educating teens and their parents about prescription drug abuse, the fastest-growing drug problem in the United States. 

Deaths from unintentional drug overdoses in the United States have increased five-fold over the last two decades, claiming more lives than any other type of accidental injury except car accidents, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this year.   Largely driving the trend is rampant misuse of prescription drugs, particularly painkillers such as OxyContin (oxycodone), Vicodin (hydrocodone) and fentanyl. 

Abuse of prescription painkillers was responsible for more overdose deaths in 2007 than heroin and cocaine combined, the CDC says.   Rates of treatment admissions for abuse of painkillers and other non-heroin opiates also rose 345 percent nationwide between 1998 and 2008, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.  “Five years ago, 70 percent of the people we saw here were heroin addicts.   Today, 70 percent of the people we see are prescription drug users,” said Jake Epperly, president of New Hope Recovery Center in Lincoln Park.

Prescription painkillers, known as opioids, are synthetic versions of opium used to relieve moderate to severe chronic pain.   But in excess quantities, these drugs can suppress a person’s ability to breathe.   They’re especially dangerous when mixed with alcohol or other drugs.  Experts say too many people, especially teenagers, mistakenly think that prescription drugs are safer and less addictive than street drugs, even when used improperly.   “People think, ‘It comes from the doctor.   Mom took it for a toothache or a broken bone.   How bad can it be?’ ” said Sally Thoren, executive director of Gateway Foundation, which provides substance-abuse treatment at locations throughout the state. 

The surge in prescription drug abuse followed a shift in doctors’ prescribing habits that began in the 1990s.   Recognizing that they needed to do a better job of managing chronic pain than they had in the past, doctors started writing more prescriptions for pain drugs.   Greater availability opened the door for more widespread abuse, said Kathleen Kane-Willis, director of Roosevelt University’s Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy.   “In the 80s and early 90s, there was so little pain medicine prescribed,” Kane-Willis said.   “Now, the pendulum has kind of swung the other way.  ”Docs prescribe moreRather than denying pain medication to people who need it, Kane-Willis said more doctors need to have frank conversations with their patients about the dangers of prescription drug abuse. 

Also contributing to the problem are rogue online pharmacies, operating mostly outside the United States, which provide medications to patients who have never seen or talked to a doctor.   Street gangs, too, have become increasingly involved in prescription drug diversion, according to the Chicago field division of the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

Dan, a 30-year-old businessman from Chicago who asked that his full name not be used, has struggled with his addiction to Vicodin for the last eight years.   He was first prescribed the drug after a motorcycle accident in 2002.  Before long, Dan, whose family has a history of substance abuse, was going from hospital to hospital, pretending to have shoulder pain, kidney stones and other ailments in order to score more painkillers.   At one point, he took as many as 60 to 70 pills a day, often with alcohol.   Monitoring program “It’s to the point where you can get pain medication as easily as you can get liquor,” he said.   “All you have to do is say, ‘I’m experiencing pain,’ and automatically, they’re going to give you pain medication to control that.   You can use that doctor for probably a month or two before they catch on.” 

After several failed attempts to get clean on his own, a near-fatal overdose in August led Dan to seek help for his addiction at New Hope Recovery Center. Now, he’s cautiously optimistic that the worst is behind him.   “I can’t say I’m going to be clean for the rest of my life, but I can promise that when I lay my head down on my pillow tonight, I’ll be clean,” he said.   “I’m taking it one day at a time.”

Since 2000, Illinois has had a prescription drug monitoring program that tracks prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies.   But the onus is mostly on health care providers to check the database to see whether there’s a pattern of doctor-shopping with their patients.   Most people who abuse prescription drugs get them from a friend or family member.   

To dispose of unused or expired medications safely, don’t just throw them in the trash or the toilet, said Janet Engle, head of the department of pharmacy practice at the University of Illinois at Chicago.   Instead, remove the medication from its original container, mix it with an undesirable substance like kitty litter or coffee grounds and then throw it out in a nondescript container that can be sealed.

Earlier this year, the DEA and Walgreens launched safe drug disposal programs.   Disposemymeds.org is also a resource for finding drug take-back programs in your area.   David Katz said prescription drug abuse will continue to be a widespread problem until the public recognizes that misuse of these drugs can have fatal consequences, as it did for his son.   “Nobody wants to think this could happen to them, but it can,” Katz said.

Link To Photo Of David and Gail Katz

http://www.suntimes.com/news/2989811-417/drug-prescription-abuse-daniel-drugs.html

 

Sanford city hall closed till new year

Updated: Friday, 24 Dec 2010, 10:58 AM EST
Published : Thursday, 23 Dec 2010, 8:17 PM EST

Holly Bristow
FOX 35 News

SANFORD, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - One by one folks showed up to Sanford City Hall trying to take care of business, only to find out it's closed until next year.

The sign on the door reads “Notice: City Hall will be closed December 23rd through January 2nd.”

"Then they don't get their money until after new years," said Gene Strick, who wanted to pay is water bill.

FOX 35 spoke with Sanford's mayor. She says its all part of the city's cost cutting measures.

City hall is already closed on Fridays, so employees would have been off this Friday and next Friday. Monday is the city's Christmas holiday.

Due to tough financial times the city hasn't given employee yearly raises or holiday bonuses in the past three years. So to compensate city leaders voted to give employees Thursday next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off, an extra 4 days. No word yet on how much that is saving the city.

"That's very nice of them, however, I'm here to pay my bill. I feel they already have Friday off. Give me my Thursday, OK?" said James Lee. "That long of a period is a little too much."

The mayor says with city hall shut down, folks might be inconvenienced if they want to apply for a building permit because they'll have to wait until next year. She did say folks like Lee could write a check and leave utility bill payments in the drop off box. "I drove specifically to the bank to get cash to pay my water bill," said Lee in frustration.

LINK TO VIDEO

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/local/sanford-city-hall-closed-for-holidays

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/obsolete-things-decade_n_800240.html#s210848

http://www.usatoday.com/money/2010-12-24-top-stories_N.htm

http://indianapolis.metromix.com/music/essay_photo_gallery/top-10-weirdest-christmas/1591919/content

http://www.nydailynews.com/travel/galleries/christmas_lights_/christmas_lights_.html

http://www.chron.com/life/photogallery/fruitcake.html#24502579

Kmonicek/APJimmy McMillan, who ran for New York governor as a member of the Rent Is Too High party, plans to run again - for President of the United States.

The rent won't be Too High at the White House.

Jimmy McMillan, the quirky character who stole the spotlight during New York's 2010 governor's race, is now setting his sights on a higher office: the presidency.

"I know Barack Obama is an Internet hog. I know he knows that I am out there. But what he hasn't heard yet is that Jimmy McMillan is running for President of the United States of America," McMillan told the online "Revolution Radio."

"If you don't do your job right, I am coming at you," he vowed.

McMillan, a fast-talking Vietnam vet who regularly wears a suit and black gloves, became a Web sensation after stealing the show during the lone gubernatorial debate of 2010.

His catchline, "The rent is too high," caught fire on Twitter, scored him hundreds of thousands of YouTube views and even got him an impersonation on "Saturday Night Live."

In the end, McMillan won about 40,000 votes in the governor's race -- and a job as a pitchman for an Internet auction site.

On the flip side, McMillan was tagged for years of anti-Semitic comments, including linking Jews to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He also admitted lying to various press outlets about his own reasonable rent.

The lion-maned McMillan -- who's given to lengthy diatribes -- says he's registering as a Republican to avoid a Democratic primary.

McMillan, a self-proclaimed "karate master," says he's not worried about taking on the likes of Obama, or Republicans Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

"I can sit here and say how to control the country in 30 seconds, and they can't say it in 30 years," he said.

"Not one of them can sit on a stage and address the issues that concern the American public. Not one of them. The president has not done it."

"I love you, Mitt Romney. I love all of you guys. Y'all can come and bring me some water," McMillan added.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/12/23/2010-12-23_jimmy_mcmillan_rent_is_too__high_candidate_plans_to_run_for_president.html#ixzz191fHJE5l