truesee's Blog

Clayton police burn $12M in drugs

As part of a scathing indictment of former Police Chief Jeff Turner's management of the department, county Chief of Staff Alex Cohilas cited a narcotics evidence room that was "in shambles."

The burns happened on two different occasions, last week and Tuesday, in an undisclosed, secure location, Daniel said.

"This is just a small part of the police department's aggressive efforts to fight illegal drug use and sales in Clayton County," police chief Timothy Robinson said.

The burn was done with the aid of the Clayton Fire and Emergency Services, the Clayton County Sheriff's Office and the Clayton County District Attorney's Office.

LINK TO PHOTO

http://www.ajc.com/news/clayton-police-burn-12m-273741.html

updated 12:24 p.m. ET, Tues., Jan. 12, 2010  

  A Florida grandmother was arrested for driving on a suspended or revoked license and spent 15 days in jail — including Thanksgiving — before being released, the Miami Herald reported on Tuesday.

The 78-year-old woman, Gabrielle Shaink Trudeau, was initially pulled over in September for driving too slowly. She was then issued a ticket for driving on a suspended or revoked license. After failing to show up for a court appearance, a judge issued an arrest warrant for the criminal charge that carries a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Ten days after the ticket was issued, Shaink Trudeau received a letter from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, saying that her driving privileges were restored pending further review. While she believed her driving troubles were solved, the letter was actually in response to another incident.

In November, police arrested Shaink Trudeau at her home.

"They came on real strong, like I had killed somebody or something,'' she told the Miami Herald of the arrest.

Public defenders failed to appear at her initial court appearance, and no assistant public defender met with Shaink Trudeau at the Broward County Jail, the newspaper reported. On the morning of her initial appearance, the pretrial services division found that Shaink Trudeau was eligible for pretrial release on her own recognizance, but failed to alert the judge of that, the newspaper reported.

Finally, at her arraignment on Dec. 2, 15 days after her arrest, prosecutors dropped the charges against her.

"She's handcuffed like Houdini, for the record. She's got chains around her waist, and she's got handcuffs in front around her hands as if she was some kind of a violent criminal,'' the judge said at her final hearing on Dec. 2, according to the newspaper. "I want her released. I think she's suffered enough at our system's mistakes.''

Prostitute fined $820,000 for unpaid tax

WARSAW

Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:15pm EST     

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's tax office has levied a fine of 2.3 million zlotys ($820,000) on an unemployed woman for failing to pay tax on income worth at least 13.7 million zlotys she said she had earned as a prostitute.

The woman told the tax office in the southern city of Katowice that she had very "generous" customers, the website gazeta.pl, which is linked to leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, reported Tuesday.

One of her clients paid the woman 5 million zlotys during the 1997-2002 period, she was quoted as saying.

The website gave no further details.

(Reporting by Kuba Jaworowski)

Man buying marijuana carjacked in Pittsburg

Roman Gokhman
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 01/11/2010 08:44:54 PM PST

Updated: 01/11/2010 09:55:44 PM PST

PITTSBURG — A man who drove to a Loveridge Road apartment complex to buy marijuana was robbed at gunpoint and carjacked Monday evening.

The man, a 25-year-old Pittsburg resident, drove to the Loveridge Terrace Apartments, off Loveridge Road and near East Leland Road. about 7 p.m., police Lt. Brian Addington said.

He was supposed to meet with someone in the parking lot to buy marijuana. Instead he was approached by two men with a gun who ordered him to give them his wallet and get out of the car.

The robbers then got into the car and drove away south on Leland. The man was not injured.

Addington said it was not clear whether the men who robbed the victim were the ones who were supposed to sell him drugs, or whether the robbery was a coincidence.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/gallery/0,23816,5036296-5007115,00.html

Gwinnett County News

5:37 a.m. Monday, January 11, 2010

Math miscue costs Snellville city attorney his job

Shane Blatt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A numerical blunder has cost the Snellville city attorney his job, officials said.

Mike Williams, who was hired in 2008, won’t be reappointed at tonight’s City Council meeting. In late September, he miscounted the number of days required between the call of a Sunday alcohol sales referendum and the actual vote.

“We need a city attorney who can count to 40,” said Councilman Tod Warner, noting that Williams’ miscalculation meant the city was three days shy of the state-mandated time period. “He screwed up.”

The blunder led to the council changing its liquor laws by council vote, rather than referendum. Although Williams told the city it was on firm legal ground to do so, the vote prompted a lawsuit and temporary restraining order against Snellville. The matter is being heard later this month.

Williams offered his resignation after the Sept. 28 mistake, but Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer wouldn’t talk about it until after the November election. The city appoints or renews the contract for the city attorney each January.

“I thought Mike did a good job as the city attorney,” Oberholtzer said. “The issue in my book was we needed someone who understood the politics of Gwinnett County.”

But, Oberholtzer added, he knew the city needed to make a change after the miscount.

Williams, who is managing partner of a law firm in Jonesboro, did not return phone calls Friday seeking comment.

Although Williams’ numerical mistake was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” there were other issues, Warner said.

Namely, Warner said, the city attorney took part in crafting a group homes ordinance that cost the city about $10,000 in legal fees but couldn’t pass constitutional muster.

Williams also had trouble standing his ground against a divided City Council, officials said.

“I’ve enjoyed working with Mr. Williams,” Warner said, “ but we need somebody who will champion what’s right, and not what the council wants. He just wasn’t forceful enough.”

Although Williams won’t be the city attorney, he’ll still be on the payroll handling the city’s ongoing battle over Sunday liquor-by-the-drink sales.

Three weeks ago, an attorney working on behalf of eight residents requested a temporary restraining order against Snellville. He argued that city leaders acted unlawfully Dec. 14 when by council vote rather than referendum, they opened the tap on Sunday alcohol sales to help struggling restaurants.

A magistrate judge on Dec. 28 issued the order, which temporarily prevents the city from handing out any additional Sunday alcohol licenses.

Tonight, Oberholtzer said he will recommend Tony Powell, Lawrenceville’s once-longtime city attorney, as Williams’ replacement.

Powell recently led an investigation into allegations that Lawrenceville Mayor Rex Millsaps violated the city’s ethics code 18 times, mostly by presiding over deliberations or voting on contracts involving a local architectural and engineering firm where he works. Last week, the Lawrenceville City Council absolved Millsaps of any wrongdoing.

Lee/APSarah Palin signs with Fox News as a contributor.

Sarah Palin is becoming a TV star.

The former Alaska Governor has signed a multi-year deal to serve as a contributor to Fox News, effective immediately.

"I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News," Palin said in a statement. "It's wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balance news."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Joining Fox News, the top-rated cable news network, is the latest twist in Palin's meteoric rise to fame after being named Sen. John McCain's vice presidential candidate for the 2008 election.

Since then she's left her job as governor, saying she can do more out of office than in, and written a book "Going Rogue: An American Life."

"Gov. Palin has captivated everyone on both sides of the political spectrum and we are expected to add her dynamic voice to the Fox News lineup," Bill Shine, Fox News' executive vice president of programming said in a statement.

Palin has been no fan of the media, either. She slammed CBS' Katie Couric and ABC's Charles Gibson for the way she was treated in interviews during the presidential race.

She's also been in the middle of a tabloid squabble with Levi Johnston, the father of her daughter's child, over parental visitation.

As a contributor to Fox News, Palin will offer political commentary and analysis for all of the network's platforms, as well as special event political coverage for Fox Broadcasting.

She will also host periodic episodes of FNC's "Real American Stories," a series looking at inspirational real-life tales set to launch this year.

Palin joins an on-air team that also includes former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who hosts a weekend show, and Fox News analysts Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove.

Man accused of trying to ship illegal drugs through mail 

January 11, 2010 8:21 AM

Michael Stewart

Florida Freedom Newspapers

CRESTVIEW — A Crestview man faces a felony charge of possession of methadone, with intent to deliver within 1000 feet of a school.

Jack Anthony Houle, 26, of the 100 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, was released from the Okaloosa County Jail on a $5,000 bond.

Police allege that on Wednesday, Houle attempted to mail 100 methadone pills to Nederland, Texas at One Stop Mail Service in Crestview.

According to a Crestview Police Department arrest report, employees at the mail center said Houle entered the store and asked that a package already wrapped be sent immediately and requested it not be opened.

“The reporting party suspected Houle might be trying to ship illegal drugs,” the report states. “…Due to the shipping store having the right to open and inspect all packages before shipping them, they opened the package.”

Employees alerted police after discovering the pills, the report continues.

Houle was arrested and told police he was shipping the pills to a man in Texas, who had been staying with him, who has a valid prescription for the pills.

“Houle stated he did take ‘a few’ of the pills, and further stated he sold some because ‘times are tough,’” the arresting officer states in the report. “Houle insisted if (the man in Texas) was contacted, he would be able to claim the pills as his, however, Houle would not provide (the man’s) information.”

Engman/GettyIn 'Game Change' (below), Sarah Palin is portrayed as having an erratic personality.

The gossipy new campaign book that has the political world buzzing portrays Sarah Palin not just as an ignoramus who believed Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 but also as possibly mentally unstable.

"Game Change," the 2008 deconstruction, says the stress of vaulting onto the national stage caused Palin to have wild mood swings.

"One minute, Palin would be her perky self; the next she would fall into a strange blue funk," the authors write.

The morning of her ill-fated CBS interview with Katie Couric, Palin - "her eyes glassy and dead" - was unresponsive to attempts to prep her as she was being made up.

"As they were about to set off to meet Couric, Palin announced 'I hate this makeup' - smearing it off her face, messing up her hair, complaining she looked fat," the book relates.

Palin went on to give answers to Couric that were so incoherent the interview permanently damaged her.

Palin went into a tailspin. She stopped eating or sleeping, and drank only a half a can of diet soda a day, recounts the book written by John Heilemann of New York magazine and Mark Halperin of Time magazine.

"When her aides tried to quiz her she would routinely shut down - chin on her chest, arms folded, eyes cast to the floor, speechless and motionless, lost in what those around her described as a kind of catatonic stupor," the book says.

"If I had known everything I know now, I would not have done this," the book quotes Palin as saying.

She talked often about her baby, Trig, who spent most of the time in Alaska, and some John McCain aides thought she might be suffering postpartum depression.

When the campaign took her to Arizona to prep for the veep debate, McCain's staff made sure a doctor friend was on hand "to observe her," the book says.

Palin's spokeswoman Meg Stapleton has dismissed the book's allegations as inaccurate gossip from people who weren't there.

"The governor's descriptions of these events are found in her book, 'Going Rogue.' Her descriptions are accurate," Stapleton said in a statement Sunday night to 60 Minutes."  "She was there. These reporters were not."

"Game Change," which features priceless images like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mike Huckabee in a line at a pre-debate urinal, making fun of the absent Mitt Romney - also up contains many other revelations:

The book says aides feared Bill Clinton was jeopardizing his wife's run by having an affair in 2006. The book says a trio of Hillary's top aides formed "a war room within a war room" to counter gossip about her husband and were able to discount all philandering rumors but one.

Bookie refuses to pay out $11 million on snow bet

Girish Gupta

LONDON

Fri Jan 8, 2010 1:38pm EST        

LONDON (Reuters) - Bookmaker Ladbrokes is refusing to pay out more than 7 million pounds ($11 million) to a man who gambled on a white Christmas across the UK, as the bet was accepted by mistake.

Cliff Bryant, 52, had placed two 5-pound accumulator bets that snow would fall on 24 towns and cities across the north of England on Christmas Day.

"We have apologized to the customer for any confusion and for mistakenly accepting an accumulator bet when our own rules state that only single bets are available on a market of this nature," said a Ladbrokes spokesman.

"We are happy to void the bets and to pay the customer his winnings on the relevant singles."

They however amount to just 31.78 pounds, rather than the 7.1 million Bryant was expecting.

The graphic designer from Southampton, who told the local Southern Daily Echo newspaper he was "gutted" and would seek legal advice, claims the first accumulator would have won him 4.9 million pounds, with the second adding 2.2 million.

"If I make a mistake in my work like that it costs me dearly and I think the offer should be a lot more generous than they have made," he told the paper.

Ladbrokes should have made their rules clearer, he added.

"They are one of the leading bookmakers in the country and I think they ought to do their homework a bit better in future."

Ladbrokes gave Bryant details of the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS), an impartial adjudicator on disputes that arise between gambling operators and their customers.

Danny Cracknell, a manager of the IBAS, told Reuters that Bryant had been in contact and they would be investigating the issue once he had completed the relevant forms.

Attacked Walmart greeter says he was fired

ASSOCIATED PRESS • January 10, 2010

PALM BAY — A local Walmart greeter seen on video getting punched by a customer says he's been fired.

Ed Bauman told WESH TV his termination notice called the incident an act of "gross misconduct."

A Wal-Mart statement says Bauman violated company policy on how they treat customers, and his actions put other customers' safety in jeopardy.

The 69-year-old Bauman was working at the Palm Bay store on Dec. 26 when 23-year-old Skyler Lowery set off the alarm. Bauman asked to see Lowery's receipt. Lowery showed the receipt quickly and kept walking, and Bauman followed Lowery. Police say Lowery grabbed Bauman's clipboard and punched him in the head.

Lowery was charged with battery.

LINK TO VIDEO

http://www.floridatoday.com/section/videonetwork?bctid=59414080001

Vucci/APTed Kennedy famously endorsed Barack Obama for President, after Bill Clinton (below) reportedly belittled the future president.

 Brose/AP

Bill Clinton helped sink his wife's chances for an endorsement from Ted Kennedy by belittling Barack Obama as nothing but a race-based candidate.

"A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee," the former president told the liberal lion from Massachusetts, according to the gossipy new campaign book, "Game Change."

The book says Kennedy was deeply offended and recounted the conversation to friends with fury.

After Kennedy sided with Obama, Clinton reportedly griped, "the only reason you are endorsing him is because he's black. Let's just be clear."

The revelations in "Game Change" are guaranteed to reopen the 2008 Clinton racial wounds that had been scabbing over amid his post-election public silence and his wife's high marks as Secretary of State.

Laden with potent pass-the-torch symbolism, the January 2008 endorsement of Obama by Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg was a pivotal campaign moment that allowed the Democratic establishment to abandon the Clintons.

Bill Clinton wasn't the only one to bungle handling the Kennedys -  the book says Hillary Clinton managed to alienate Caroline by fobbing off a key request on staff instead of calling personally.

When a group of prominent New Yorkers headed to Iowa to campaign for Hillary Clinton, Caroline "dreaded" getting a call to join them because she "would have found it impossible to refuse," the book says.

When Hillary Clinton's staffer called, someone "who sounded awfully like" Caroline said she wasn't home.

Bill Clinton, whose stock with black voters was so high he used to be referred to as "America's First Black President," severely damaged his rep in his overheated drive to help elect his wife.

Earth 'to be wiped out' by supernova explosion

The Earth could soon be wiped out by the explosion of a star more than 3,000 light years away, according to American scientists.

Ben Leach

9:39AM GMT 06 Jan 2010

T Pyxidis Photo: NASA

The star, called T Pyxidis, is set to self-destruct in an explosion called a supernova with the force of 20 billion billion billion megatons of TNT.

Although the star is thought to be around 3,260 light-years away – a fairly short distance in galactic terms – the blast from the thermonuclear explosion could strip away the Earth's ozone layer, the scientists said.

Astronomers from Villanova University, Philadelphia, in the US, said the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite has shown them that T Pyxidis is really two stars, one called a white dwarf that is sucking in gas and steadily growing. When it reaches a critical mass it will blow itself to pieces.

It will become as bright as all the other stars in the galaxy put together, they said. The Hubble space telescope has photographed the star preparing for its big bang with a series of smaller blasts or "burps", called novas.

These explosions came regularly about every 20 years from 1890 – but stopped after 1967.

So the next blast is nearly 20 years overdue, said scientists Edward M Sion, Patrick Godon and Timothy McClain at the American Astronomical Society in Washington.

Robin Scagell, vice-president of the UK's Society for Popular Astronomy, said: "The star may certainly became a supernova soon – but soon could still be a long way off so don't have nightmares."

Men think about sex 5,000 times a year

Men think about sex almost 5,000 times a year – but only get down to doing it 104 times, a new study has found

10:33AM GMT 08 Jan 2010

Daily Telegraph

Men think a candlelit dinner is the best way to get women in the mood Photo: GETTY

Researchers found the average male turns their thoughts to sexual intercourse 13 times a day – a total of 4,745 times every year.

Almost a third even admitted it is often the first thing they think about when they wake up in the mornings.

In comparison, women think about sex just five times day – or 1,825 times a year.

But when it comes to actually having sex, men have to make do with it an average of just twice a week, or 104 times a year.

A spokesman for market research company www.Onepoll.com said: ''Men are well-known for thinking about sex a lot, but to find out exactly how often is staggering.

''It seems blokes have sex on the brain whether they are going through a dry spell or jumping between the sheets on a regular basis.

''They can't even get away from the sexy thoughts when they first wake up in the morning.

''So when you catch your man staring into space, you know what he's likely to be thinking about.''

The study of 3,000 people also showed that despite the difference in the amount of times men think about sex and actually do it, almost three quarters claim they are happy about the amount of sex they were getting.

But just 58 per cent of women said the same.

And 43 per cent of couples also admitted arguing over who instigates the lovemaking, with men most likely to make the first move.

Researchers also found one in three guys think a candlelit dinner is the best way of getting a woman in the mood, followed by a relaxing massage.

But women are more likely to play romantic music or cook their partner's favourite meal to try and get them into bed.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

KFC Commercial Pulled After Complaints Of Racism

KFC has been making positive moves with its KGC brand, or its grilled chicken. However, in terms of KFC commercial advertising and political correctness, it appears they have a way to go. In reality, though, it's because of a stereotype that doesn't exist in Australia.

This Australian KFC commercial (below) features a white man surrounded by a group of black revelers. To calm the situation, he hands them a bucket of chicken. The KFC commercial, however, is titled "Cricket Survival Guide," and the Colonel's response is that the KFC commercial was meant to celebrate West Indian Cricket team.

In the KFC commercial, the white man asks if "you need a tip when you're stuck in an awkward situation?" as he's surrounded by the revelers. There's no violence involved, just a bunch of people enjoying themselves.

Still, in America, the image of blacks and fried chicken is known as a racial stereotype. "It is a light-hearted reference to the West Indian cricket team ... The ad was reproduced online in the US without KFC's permission, where we are told a culturally-based stereotype exists, leading to the incorrect assertion of racism." The reference to a "culturally-based stereotype" seems to point to the fact that in Australia such a stereotype does not exist, and thus the company would not have caught how un-PC the KFC commercial might appear, to some.

Of course, that doesn't mean racism does not exist in Australia. It does mean that this stereotype does not resonate there, so to that country, the KFC commercial does not appear to exhibit racism.

At any rate, while the KFC commercial has been pulled, it still lives on (until they remove it for copyright reasons) via YouTube

. Watch the KFC commercial and decide for yourself.

LINK TO COMMERCIAL

http://snafu-ed.blogspot.com/2010/01/kfc-commercial-pulled-after-complaints.html