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Feds start seizing homes of child pornographers

Revenue to be put in fund for victims

Peter Hermann

The Baltimore Sun

April 21, 2010

Orlando Sentinel

Woman who escaped Florida prison 34 years ago is recaptured

Paula Eileen Carroll had been living under the name ‘Sharon Brown.’

Anika Myers Palm

Orlando Sentinel

6:07 PM EDT, April 20, 2010

It's a script straight out of "Law & Order": A woman escapes the prison system, vanishes without a trace and gets captured more than three decades later — on her birthday.

But this was no television episode. This was Paula Eileen Carroll's life today.

Carroll and another inmate were discovered missing from what is now Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala on Sept. 3, 1975. Although the other inmate was recaptured, Carroll had been at large since her escape.

This morning, Carroll was arrested at her home on Albert Drive in Melbourne.

She told the Brevard County Sheriff's fugitive unit officers who arrested her that she had "been thinking about this day for a long time" and was "glad it's over." Today is Carroll's 56^th birthday.

Carroll had been living under the name Sharon Brown, which was associated with the social security number of a West Virginia woman, according to Paula Bryant, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections.

She had been sentenced to five years in prison on July 18, 1975, on charges of buying, receiving or concealing stolen property before making her escape less than two months later.

Authorities learned yesterday that Carroll was in Melbourne from a tipster who contacted the Florida Department of Corrections, which in turn worked with the Brevard County Sheriff's Office fugitive unit to arrest Carroll at 8:55 a.m. today.

She is being held without bond at the Brevard County Jail.

National Weed Day 

• Originator: Steve Wald   
• Term first used in 1971
• Is not used by police as a code for marijuana in California
• Used symbolically to denote a marijuana friendly environment
• April 20th is known as the "pot smokers' holiday
• First promoted as a stoner holiday by Grateful Dead fans (deadheads)
• Bolinas Ridge sunset spot on Mt. Tamalpais is a popular 420 destination
• California Senate Bill 420 (2004) does regulate the use of medical marijuana
• Hitler was born on April 20th
• The Columbine school massacre took place on April 20th
• National Weed Day is an informal sub-culture holiday that takes place on April 20th annually, in honor of the marijuana buzz term 420.
• Also known as 'National Smoke Day', this holiday gained popularity following the publication in the 1970s of a background story surrounding the term '420'.
• While it is not clear how many countries have individuals that participate in celebrating this date, it is believed to number in the tens of thousands in the United States alone.
  
  

Marijuana Facts

1. Slang words for marijuana include Mary Jane, reefer, weed, grass and pot
2. Hemp plants look similar to marijuana plants but hemp plants contain very little THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in marijuana
3. Hemp can be made into fabric, rope and food
4. Contains at least 60 chemicals called cannabinoid
5. Marijuana as Medicine
6. Marijuana smoke is often inhaled deeper and held longer than tobacco smoke which increases the lungs' exposure to carcinogens
7. Marinol is a pharmaceutical product with similar properties and medical benefits as marijuana
8. Some marijuana users show signs of dependence
9. Has been illegal in the United States since the early
10. TGI Friday's in New York City's Wall street district closed down for selling cocaine and marijuana

Potential Medical Uses

1. Nausea: Research has indicated that Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol(THC), a component of marijuana, may help treat nausea and vomiting associated with a variety of medical conditions and therapies
2. Pain: Studies have found analgesic effects
3. Multiple sclerosis: Studies have had mixed results on the effectiveness in the treatment of the tremors, muscle spasms and pain
4. Glaucoma: Smoking marijuana decreases pressure in the eye, which is a primary symptom of glaucoma

Potential Health Risks

1. May increase the risk of contracting testicular
2. Impaired thinking, problem-solving skills
3. Reduced balance and coordination
4. Increased risk of heart attack
5. Heightened risk of chronic cough and respiratory
6. Potential for hallucinations and withdrawal
7. Marijuana smoke contains 50%-70% more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke and has the potential to cause cancer of the lungs and respiratory

BIN LADEN FACEBOOK PAGE

April 19, 2010 

iPad Thieves Rip Off Part Of Man's Finger

DENVER (CBS4)

 

Bill Jordan talks with CBS4's Tom Mustin

A brazen theft in the Cherry Creek Mall left the victim with a permanent injury to his hand. He had just bought an iPad as a favor for a friend.

Bill Jordan told CBS4 he moved his family to Colorado from New Jersey 15 years ago to get away from a crime there. Now after the iPad theft, he said his life and the life of his family will never be the same.

"I saw just a bone, all the skin and tendons and everything were off," Jordan said, describing the violent robbery that tore off part of his finger.

"It's like a bad dream," he said.

Last Thursday afternoon the 59-year-old Aurora man walked into the Apple store to pick up an iPad for a co-worker.

"I had been asked by one of my colleagues in Canada to pick up an iPad for someone who is being promoted."

Jordan left the store with his iPad bag tied around his hand. Unreleased surveillance film shows two young men following him.

"The film shows them walking right behind me down the stairs as I was going out the store."

A few feet from the doors to the parking garage Jordan felt a violent tugging at his arm. He looked down and saw a young man trying to grab his bag.

"He was almost sitting on the ground he was pulling so hard and it was still tied around my fingers; and it wouldn't come off and then finally he gave it one big jerk; and that's when he stripped the skin off my pinky and it went right down to the bone."

The robber grabbed the iPad and ran out of the mall.

Jordan said he went into shock and used napkins from a food vendor to try and stop the bleeding. Paramedics rushed him to a hand surgeon who told him part of his left pinky would have to be amputated.

Now with his hand covered in bandages and his life changed forever, Jordan has a message for the brazen criminals who changed his life forever.

"I hope you understand what you've done to my life and my family's life for a simple piece of apparatus that'll be junk in a couple of years."

Legalize Pot? Poll Shows Most Americans Against Legal Weed, Except Medical Marijuana

GREG RISLING

04/20/10 12:02 AM

LOS ANGELES — Most Americans still oppose legalizing marijuana but larger majorities believe pot has medical benefits and the government should allow its use for that purpose, according to an Associated Press-CNBC poll released Tuesday.

Respondents were skeptical that crime would spike if marijuana is decriminalized or that it would lead more people to harder drugs like heroin or cocaine. There also was a nearly even split on whether government spends too much or the right amount enforcing marijuana laws. Almost no one thinks too little is spent.

Marijuana use – medically and recreationally – is getting more attention in the political arena. California voters will decide in November whether to legalize the drug, and South Dakota will vote this fall on whether to allow medical uses. California and 13 other states already permit such use.

The balloting comes against the backdrop of the Obama administration saying it won't target marijuana dispensaries if they comply with state laws, a departure from the policy of the Bush administration, which sought to more stringently enforce the federal ban on marijuana use for any purpose.

In the poll, only 33 percent favor legalization while 55 percent oppose it. People under 30 were the only age group favoring legalization (54 percent) and opposition increased with age, topping out at 73 percent of those 65 and older. Opposition also was prevalent among women, Republicans and those in rural and suburban areas.

Some opponents worried legalization would lead to reefer madness.

"I think it would be chaos if it was legalized," said Shirley Williams, a 75-year-old retired English teacher from Quincy, Ill. "People would get in trouble and use marijuana as an excuse."

Those like Jeff Boggs, 25, of Visalia, Calif., who support legalization said the dangers associated with the drug have been overstated.

"People are scared about things they don't know about," said Boggs, who is married and works for an auto damage appraisal company.

Americans are more accepting of medical marijuana. Sixty percent support the idea and 74 percent believe the drug has a real medical benefit for some people. Two-thirds of Democrats favor medical marijuana as do a slim majority of Republicans, 53 percent.

Peoples' views on legalizing marijuana or on allowing its use for medicinal purposes were largely uniform across different regions of the country, despite the fact that legal medical marijuana use is concentrated in the West.

Bill Hankins, 77, of Mason, Mich., opposes legalizing marijuana but strongly favors using the drug medicinally. Michigan is among the states that allow medical pot.

"It has been shown through tests to alleviate pain in certain medical conditions," said Hankins, who said he experimented with pot when he was younger. If Hankins fell gravely ill and "my doctor said I should have it to control the pain, I would use it," he said.

California was the first state to approve medical marijuana, in 1996, and has been the hub of the so-called "Green Rush" to legalize marijuana. But a patchwork of local laws in the state has created confusion about the law and lax oversight led to an explosion of medical marijuana dispensaries in some places.

In Los Angeles, the number of dispensaries exploded from four to upward of 1,000 in the past five years. Police believe some were nothing but fronts for drug dealers to sell marijuana to people who have no medical need, and the city recently adopted an ordinance to reduce that number to 70 in coming months.

Among those surveyed, 45 percent said the cost of enforcing existing laws is too high and 48 percent said it's about right. Democrats, men and young people were most apt to say the cost is exorbitant.

With state and local governments desperate for cash, some legalization proponents are pushing marijuana as a potential revenue stream. But only 14 percent of those surveyed who oppose legalization would change their mind if states were to tax the drug.

John Lovell, a spokesman with the California Narcotics Officers' Association, said he wasn't surprised by the poll results because people already are aware of widespread abuse of legal prescription drugs and alcohol.

"Given that reality, we don't need to add another mind-altering substance that compromises people's five senses," Lovell said.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that, since the organization was formed in 1970, there's been a slow but steady erosion of opposition to marijuana.

"Every single metric is pushing toward a zeitgeist in marijuana reform," he said.

Ann Broadus, 58, of Petros, Tenn., strongly opposes legalization and medicinal use, but even she sees the day when the laws will change.

"Probably somewhere down the road it will be legalized, but I hope not," she said. "I think if it becomes legal, these druggies would be worse off."

The AP-CNBC Poll was conducted April 7-12, 2010, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved interviews with 1,001 adults nationwide on landline and cellular telephones. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

_____

On the Net:

CNBC: http://marijuana.cnbc.com

Chicago Tribune

Mayor Emanuel?

White House chief of staff says he’d like the post if Daley doesn’t run for re-election

Andrew L. Wang and Katherine Skiba

Tribune reporters

9:17 PM CDT, April 19, 2010

He has been equivocal on the subject in the past, but on Monday night White House chief of staff and native Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel made no bones about it: He wants to be the mayor of Chicago.

"I hope Mayor [Richard] Daley seeks re-election. I will work and support him if he seeks re-election," Emanuel told Charlie Rose on the host's PBS talk show, in an interview broadcast Monday night. "But if Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor of the city of Chicago. That's always been an aspiration of mine, even when I was in the House of Representatives."

In January, after The Washington Post reported that Emanuel, a one-time Daley aide and longtime supporter of the mayor, was mulling a mayoral run, Emanuel did not deny the report. He instead said in statement that he was "100 percent focused on the job at hand: serving President Obama as his chief of staff."

At the time, Daley himself dismissed the report as gossip.

But on Monday night, Emanuel said he missed the regular contact he had with constituents as a representative of Illinois 5^th District. "You learned a lot," he told Rose, according to a transcript of the interview.

Emanuel has long been rumored to covet the job of speaker of the House, but he said in the interview that aspiration was "over."

Emanuel was a chief fundraiser for Daley in the mayor's first election campaign in 1989 and later served as an aide to Daley. He was a White House staffer during the Clinton administration and, after a brief career in investment banking, was elected to Congress in 2002

LINK TO PHOTO AND STORY:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Female deputy tackles, 'embarrasses' escapee

Chicago Tribune

April 19, 2010 7:42 PM

An Ohio man tried to flee a Cook County courtroom this morning, but was stymied by a female courtroom deputy who tackled him before he could escape.

Robert Biggs, 31, later "did admit to some embarrassment that he was taken down by a female deputy," said Steve Patterson, spokesman for the Cook County sheriff's office.

Biggs, of Dublin, Ohio, had been arrested by Chicago police last week and charged with armed robbery, among other crimes, Patterson said. He was attending an extradition hearing today at about 11:30 a.m. in the Cook County Criminal Courthouse.

In the middle of the hearing, Biggs suddenly broke for the door, Patterson said. The courtroom was separated from the hallway by heavy double-doors, one of which was unlocked, the other of which was not.

"He hit the one that was locked and when he hit it, he did do some damage to it," Patterson said. Biggs bounced back momentarily and just as he tried to get through the other door, the courtroom deputy, who was coming from outside the courtroom, tackled him.

Ohio records show Biggs served four years in prison there on charges including receiving stolen property and escape. He was released on supervision in November 2009.

Chicago police arrested him Wednesday in a motel near 100th and Halsted Streets after he barricaded himself in a room, police said.

Earlier in the day, officers had stopped a car in the 8600 block of South Halsted Street and the driver -- identified as Eric Rawson, 20, of Columbus, Ohio -- ran.

After officers arrested him, they found he had a handgun with him that authorities believe was stolen in a carjacking in Ohio, police said. Under questioning, Rawson told investigators that two accomplices who robbed a hair salon earlier in the day were staying at a motel nearby.

When officers arrived, they arrested one of the accomplices, Kristina Hickman, 20, of Dublin, Ohio. Hickman has been charged with armed robbery, drug possession, possession of ammunition without a FOID card and criminal trespass, police said.

Biggs barricaded himself in a motel room, and after several hours of negotiations, police forced their way in and arrested him. He was later charged with armed robbery, resisting a police officer, possession of a replica firearm, criminal damage to property and criminal trespass, police said.

Rawson was charged with armed robbery, unlawful use of a weapon, failure to register a firearm, possession of a gun without a FOID card and possession of ammunition without a FOID card.

After he was captured, Biggs reportedly asked if he would be charged with escape or attempted escape, "because I've been through this before," Patterson said.

When told the charge would likely be attempted escape because the deputy foiled his flight, Biggs expressed his embarrassment.

LINK TO PHOTOS AND STORY:

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/04/cook-county-sheriff-court-room-criminal-chicago-police-robert-biggs-ohio.html

"She hits really hard," Biggs reportedly said.

Apr 19, 10:23 AM EDT

Poll: 4 out of 5 Americans don't trust Washington

LIZ SIDOTI
AP National Political Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- America's "Great Compromiser" Henry Clay called government "the great trust," but most Americans today have little faith in Washington's ability to deal with the nation's problems.

Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America's ills, the survey found. 

The findings illustrate the ominous situation President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall's elections. Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.

Released Sunday, the survey found that just 22 percent of those questioned say they can trust Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 percent say they are basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively affects their daily lives, a sentiment that's grown over the past dozen years.

This anti-government feeling has driven the tea party movement, reflected in fierce protests this past week. 

"The government's been lying to people for years. Politicians make promises to get elected, and when they get elected, they don't follow through," says Cindy Wanto, 57, a registered Democrat from Nemacolin, Pa., who joined several thousand for a rally in Washington on April 15 - the tax filing deadline. "There's too much government in my business. It was a problem before Obama, but he's certainly not helping fix it."

Majorities in the survey call Washington too big and too powerful, and say it's interfering too much in state and local matters. The public is split over whether the government should be responsible for dealing with critical problems or scaled back to reduce its power, presumably in favor of personal responsibility.

About half say they want a smaller government with fewer services, compared with roughly 40 percent who want a bigger government providing more. The public was evenly divided on those questions long before Obama was elected. Still, a majority supported the Obama administration exerting greater control over the economy during the recession.

Only twice since the 1950s has public skepticism dipped this deeply - from 1992 to 1995 during which time it hit 17 percent, and 1978 to 1980, bottoming out at 25 percent. The nation was going through economic struggles during both of those periods.

"Trust in government rarely gets this low," said Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan center that conducted the survey. "Some of it's backlash against Obama. But there are a lot of other things going on."

And, he added: "Politics has poisoned the well."

The survey found that Obama's policies were partly to blame for a rise in distrustful, anti-government views. In his first year in office, the president orchestrated a government takeover of Detroit automakers, secured a $787 billion stimulus package and pushed to overhaul the health care system.

But the poll also identified a combination of factors that contributed to the electorate's hostility: the recession that Obama inherited from President George W. Bush; a dispirited public; and anger with Congress and politicians of all political leanings.

"I want an honest government. This isn't an honest government. It hasn't been for some time," said self-described independent David Willms, 54, of Sarasota, Fla. He faulted the White House and Congress under both parties.

The poll was based on four surveys done from March 11 to April 11 on landline and cell phones. The largest survey, of 2,500 adults, has a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points; the others, of about 1,000 adults each, has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points.

In the short term, the deepening distrust is politically troubling for Obama and Democrats. Analysts say out-of-power Republicans could well benefit from the bitterness toward Washington come November, even though voters blame them, too, for partisan gridlock that hinders progress.

In a democracy built on the notion that citizens have a voice and a right to exercise it, the long-term consequences could prove to be simply unhealthy - or truly debilitating. Distrust could lead people to refuse to vote or get involved in their own communities. Apathy could set in, or worse - violence.

Democrats and Republicans both accept responsibility and fault the other party for the electorate's lack of confidence.

"This should be a wake-up call. Both sides are guilty," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. She pointed to "nonsense" that goes on during campaigns that leads to "promises made but not promises kept." Still, she added: "Distrust of government is an all-American activity. It's something we do as Americans and there's nothing wrong with it."

Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who won a long-held Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts in January by seizing on public antagonism toward Washington, said: "It's clear Washington is broken. There's too much partisan bickering to be able to solve the problems people want us to solve."

And, he added: "It's going to be reflected in the elections this fall."

But Matthew Dowd, a top strategist on Bush's re-election campaign who now shuns the GOP label, says both Republicans and Democrats are missing the mark.

"What the country wants is a community solution to the problems but not necessarily a federal government solution," Dowd said. Democrats are emphasizing the federal government, while Republicans are saying it's about the individual; neither is emphasizing the right combination to satisfy Americans, he said.

On the Net:

Pew Research Center: http://people-press.or

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5113322&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Romney beats Palin, Huckabee in 2012 poll

Mitt Romney continues to look like the early front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

A Public Policy Polling (D) survey shows Romney leading former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in every region except the South, where Huckabee uses his home-field advantage to lead the field.

In the national poll, Romney leads Huckabee 33-27, while Palin trails in third place at 23 percent.

Palin lags behind despite having better favorability numbers than the two leading candidates. While 66 percent of voters like her, 55 percent like Huckabee and 54 percent like Romney. Romney's unfavorables are also the highest of the three, at 24 percent.

Huckabee leads Palin 37-25 in the South, where Romney languishes in third place. That's the same showing Romney had in the crucial South Carolina GOP primary in 2008.

The poll included only those three candidates and not other hopefuls, like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

National presidential polls are instructive, but they mean little when it comes to the actual race. The real polls that count are those in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, as those early states tend to shape the race for the rest of the country.

Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/93009-romney-holds-lead-in-national-2012-poll

April 18, 2010

Barack Obama's Missing Girlfriends

American Thinker

Jack Cashill

The blogosphere abhors a vacuum. So when the mainstream media (MSM) leave holes in a given narrative -- in this case, the biography of the president -- bloggers individually, incrementally, and indefatigably strive to fill in the blanks -- sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. 

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/barack_obamas_missing_girlfrie.html at April 19, 2010 - 09:09:58 AM CDT

3:06 p.m. April 18, 2010

GM offers Detroit church members a Sunday drive

It was a day of praise, prayer and, well, test driving General Motors' new lineup of cars, crossovers and SUVs.

In what organizers said was the first event of its kind in the area, Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit today teamed up with GM and GM Minority Suppliers and Dealers to offer church-goers a chance to test drive more than a dozen cars.

As congregants shuffled out of the northwest-side church at 1 p.m., Pastor Charles G. Adams said the idea was to demonstrate GM's commitment to minority causes, its employment of thousands of local African Americans and to encourage church-goers to buy a new GM car.

"Americans now must support American-made products," Adams said outside the large church with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, who is a long-time member. "We are encouraging our church members to take care of their community by buying locally. This is an ethical purpose that is beyond profit."

After a short cruise in a shiny maroon 2010 Chevy Camaro, Indira Murray, 38, was all smiles.

"It's a beautiful car," the 38-year-old Detroit resident said. "I love it. When I get a job, I might get one."

Her 8-year-old son, Aaron Mahone, Jr., offered his endorsement.

"It was radical," he said. "It was so cool. I want one."

Bing said he saw no problems with GM marketing outside of the church.

"The minority community buys a lot of cars from the Big 3," he said. "This was an out-side-of-the-box idea that I really support."

Why no Chryslers or Ford?

Organizers said it was GM's idea.

PHOTO GALLERY: 

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=C4&Dato=20100418&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=4180802&Ref=PH&Profile=1320&SectionCat=GM-offers-church-goers-a-Sunday-drive

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2010/04/16/white-nbc-reporter-confronts-black-man-tea-party-rally-have-you-ever-fe