Grand Theft Arch Diocese revisited.

He should be prosecuted!! While it dosen't rise to this level of theft, I'm sure that the wrong message is being sent here, and that is if you apoligize for theft that it's some how ok and therefore there is no need for you to be punished. That's just wrong.

Priest fired in theft of $10,520

Posted August 31, 2005

Indialantic -- A new Roman Catholic priest has admitted stealing $10,520 from his church's coffers and was dismissed from his duties. But the Rev. Marek Maczynski won't face prosecution because he wrote a letter of apology and returned the money.

Weekly audits showed the discrepancy at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Community, and church officials this month reported the missing money to the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. Bishop Thomas Wenski at the chancery office in Orlando didn't press charges because Maczynski was apologetic, Diocese of Orlando spokeswoman Carol Brinati said.

Maczynski could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Roger Roy, Christopher Sherman, Henry Pierson Curtis and Anthony Colarossi of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Information from The Associated Press also was used.

are you drunk little girl?

BAAHAAAHABHA!!1 A drunk 8 year old. Oh, wait this is Europe were talking about, so this incident shouldn't seem strange. Everyone in Europe is drunk all the time, even this 8 year old.

31 August 2005
GIRL, 8, DRUNK IN CLASSROOM
'Mother gave her wine and alcopops'
By Robert Stansfield

A GIRL aged eight found drunk at school told health workers she had been given wine and alcopops by her mother the night before. The child was seen by a teacher slumped across her desk, with her head in her arms. The shocking incident - details of which emerged yesterday - again put the spotlight on the drink problem among youngsters.

Action on Addiction warned: "Alcohol consumption is endemic in contemporary culture and it's clear that children are learning about alcohol from a variety of sources." The eight-year-old had arrived for classes at Claremont Junior School, Blackpool, at the end of last term. She smelled of alcohol and her speech was slurred. She complained of feeling sick and said her mum had given alcohol the night before.

The youngster was taken home and welfare officers launched an investigation. It was still continuing yesterday. Blackpool council chief Ivan Taylor said: "Never mind teaching maths and English in the classroom, we are going to have to give lessons on alcohol abuse." Figures released last week showed that girls are drinking as much as boys. Average weekly intake among 11-15s has doubled since 1990 from 5.3 units to 10.7.

Alcohol Concern said: "A more sustained effort to reduce underage drinking is urgently required from the Government."

Upcoming audition for major motion picture

Nicole Kidman will be starring in this remake of "The Invasion of the body snatchers". Get your head shots ready kids.

OPEN CALL FOR "INVASION"

Production begins Sept. 26th in Baltimore continuing until the end of the year. (They will film for three weeks in D.C. as well)

DATE: SATURDAY, SEPT. 3RD

TIME: 10AM TO 1PM

LOCATION: HOLIDAY INN - SELECT CONFERENCE CENTER
2004 GREENSPRING DRIVE
TIMONIUM, MD 21093

Use South/Conference Center Door Entrance

Free Parking

Please do not call the hotel for info

All types of Men & Women age 18 & up are needed (no experience necessary)

Needed to portray “Snatchers” (people infected with a virus), Military, Police, Firemen, Government Dignitaries, Nurse & Hospital Workers, Upscale Party Guests, Lab Technicians, NASA Workers, Townspeople, and Resistance Fighters.

Please bring headshot and resume and/or a recent color snapshot and a pen.

DIRECTIONS: From 95 North or South take 695 West towards Towson. From 695 take exit #24 onto 83 North (signs indicate York, Pa.), then take first exit #16A for Timonium Rd, make right at light onto Greenspring Drive, and then right again at fourth driveway into Holiday Inn - Select entrance. Use the South Entrance.

IF YOU CANNOT ATTEND THE OPEN CALL - Please mail in a headshot & resume, and/or a recent color snapshot. Include your clothing sizes, height and weight, make and color of auto and all contact numbers. Mail to:

Invasion Extras Casting
211 E. Lombard St.
PMB Box 288
Baltimore, Md. 21202-6102

SORRY – NO PHONE NUMBER TO RELEASE AT THIS TIME!!

omg this is retarded.

How stupid is it to force feed a guy on death row so that he can be kept alive long enough to be tried by the state of maryland? They can't kill him twice!! sheesh...

Sniper Goes on Hunger Strike
Force-Feeding Allowed For Muhammad in Md.

By Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 26, 2005; Page B01

A judge granted Montgomery County jail officials yesterday the authority to force-feed convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad, who has refused to eat or drink since he was transferred Monday from a Virginia prison.

Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge James L. Ryan issued the order after the county's Department of Correction and Rehabilitation filed court papers yesterday saying Muhammad was "in imminent danger of very serious bodily harm, including death, if he does not begin to receive nourishment within the next several days."


Corrections officials said in the court papers that Muhammad, 44, objected to the food at the jail in Clarksburg and to limits on his access to legal documents. The court papers quote Muhammad as directing a correctional officer to tell the warden to "get the IVs ready."

Muhammad's attorney, public defender Paul DeWolfe, argued during a hearing yesterday that the county should resolve the problems with his client rather than force-feed him. Nonetheless, the judge gave the go-ahead to feed him against his will if necessary.

continue reading..

the going out gurus are of no help. at all.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!1! The Washington Post's going out "Gurus" actually printed my slightly tounge in cheek question seeking some 'artsy' event to attend this weekend. I think their suggestion stinks however, and it appears that they put about as much thought into this response as I did while formatting the query. Oh well, garbage in, garbage out. Jessie, if you see this ever, I'm just having a little fun, tee hee. (-:

Washington, D.C.: Is there anything going on in DC this weekend that would impress this liberated artsy chick I'm trying to score with. Also I only have $50. Thanks.

Rhome: Malitz is instigating, trying to have me, the Guru of Controversy step on this potential landmine. Why don't you take her to DCAC then spring for some Burrito Brothers. You can even keep the change!

Funny, but this still leaves me looking for something out of the norm for Saturday night, I'm looking for collaborative interpretive painting set to French jazz or something like that. I'm disappointed in d.c.'s offerings as of yet. Still looking…...

ATM theft sounds like fun

WHAT??!? This article claims that a typical ATM may have up to $250,000 in it at any given time, and that's a lot of money. I have been reading about this spate of ATM thefts in Australia for a couple of weeks now, seems easy enough. Attach cable to back of truck, other end goes on ATM, and then just drive away. Seems pretty easy to the casual observer. I guess some surveillance wouldn't hurt either, to ensure that the ATM has been filled with cash recently. I doubt ATM company employees keep track of the serial numbers of each bill that goes into filling up the machine's hopper. You could use some type of industrial rivet gun to attach the cable to the machine quickly. And you would need to get a powerful truck capable of wrenching the ATM from off its mounts. Seems like the perfect crime.

Of course this could happen too... Bahahahahaha!!!1

The raid follows an incident where thieves tore an ATM from a wall but lost all the money when it caught alight after the machine overheated as it was dragged along the road.

"Hey Roscoe, you smell something funny?"
"I sure do boss, what is that?"
"That's our money burning you numbnuckle!"

Worker attacked in bungled ATM theft

August 26, 2005

A SERVICE station worker was thrown to the ground in a headlock and threatened in the latest attempted theft of an automatic teller machine yesterday.

The attack marks a dramatic switch in Sydney's string of ATM thefts, which now stands at 17. Until yesterday the thieves had targeted machines mounted in walls or at closed shopping centres and service stations. The young attendant was working alone at a Greenacre service station when he was threatened by two masked men about 3.10am. Police said one of the men held the employee to the ground, while a second attached a cable to the ATM and attempted to rip it from the wall.

The machine was torn from its mounting but the thieves were unable to remove the cash box and fled empty-handed. The attendant was unharmed. The raid comes as police investigate 17 ATM raids in Sydney in two months. Police believe at least five separate gangs are targeting ATMs, which contain up to $250,000.

Detectives from strike force Piccadilly, which is investigating the ATM raids, were looking at possible links between yesterday's attempt and the previous raids. A police spokesman said officers were concerned at the escalation in the violence, given that it was the first time someone had been threatened in one of the raids. Neither of the bandits were armed.

"It's a bit different from normal in that there was a consul operator on duty," he said. "They usually target ATMs in quiet areas where there is no one around. It's obviously an escalation." The bandits left a stolen Ford Econovan at the scene. It is believed the pair had a second get-away car.

Officers have asked for witnesses to come forward. The raid follows an incident where thieves tore an ATM from a wall but lost all the money when it caught alight after the machine overheated as it was dragged along the road.

boy is this guy dumb.......

Ha ha... Simmons is going to collect on this bet for sure, anyone who has read 2/3 of his book would know this. Methinks this Mr. Tierney hasn't bothered to read Twilight in the Desert. He'd get to about chapter three and would instantly regret this wager. Oh well, we all know what is said of fools and money.

Op-Ed Columnist
The $10,000 Question

By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: August 23, 2005

I don't share Matthew Simmons's angst, but I admire his style. He is that rare doomsayer who puts his money where his doom is.

After reading his prediction, quoted Sunday in the cover story of The New York Times Magazine, that oil prices will soar into the triple digits, I called to ask if he'd back his prophecy with cash. Without a second's hesitation, he agreed to bet me $5,000.

His only concern seemed to be that he was fleecing me. Mr. Simmons, the head of a Houston investment bank specializing in the energy industry, patiently explained to me why Saudi Arabia's oil production would falter much sooner than expected. That's the thesis of his new book, "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy."

I didn't try to argue with him about Saudi Arabia, because I know next to nothing about oil production there or anywhere else. I'm just following the advice of a mentor and friend, the economist Julian Simon: if you find anyone willing to bet that natural resource prices are going up, take him for all you can.

Julian took up gambling during the last end-of-oil crisis, in 1980, when experts were predicting a new age of scarcity as the planet's resources were depleted by the growing population. Julian had debunked these fears in "The Ultimate Resource," the bible of Cornucopian economics, which showed how human ingenuity had kept driving down the price of energy and other natural resources for centuries.

He offered to bet the pessimists that oil or any other resource they chose would be cheaper, in real terms, at any date they picked in the future. The ecologist Paul Ehrlich, author of "The Population Bomb" and "The End of Affluence," took up his offer and chose copper, tin and three other metals worth $1,000 in 1980.

When the famous bet was settled 10 years later, the value of the metals had declined by more than half. As usual, people had found new ways to get the metals as well as cheaper substitutes, like the fiber optic cables that replaced copper telephone wires.

After collecting his winnings, Julian expanded his challenge, offering to bet anyone on any other resource price or measure of human welfare. Julian, who died in 1998, never managed to persuade Mr. Ehrlich or other prominent doomsayers to take his bets again. But now we have a braver prophet in Mr. Simmons.

I proposed to him a bet using what Julian considered the best measure of a resource's value: how it compares with the average worker's wage. I offered to bet that the price of oil would not rise faster than the average wage, meaning that future workers would be able to afford oil more easily than they could today.

Mr. Simmons said he favored a simpler wager, based on his expectation that the price of oil, now about $65 per barrel, would more than triple during the next five years. He said he'd bet that the price in 2010, when adjusted for inflation so it's stated in 2005 dollars, would be at least $200 per barrel.

Remembering a tip from Julian, I suggested that we use the average price for the whole year of 2010 instead of the price on any particular date - that way, neither of us would be vulnerable to a sudden short-term swing as the market reacted to some unexpected news. Mr. Simmons agreed, and we sealed the deal by e-mail.

The first person I told was Julian's widow, Rita Simon, a public affairs professor at American University. She was delighted to see Julian's tradition carried on and thought the bet sounded so good she wanted a piece of the action herself.

With Mr. Simmons's approval, we arranged for Rita and me to split the wager, with each of us putting up $2,500 against Mr. Simmons's $5,000. (Note to accounting department: I'm aware that my expense account doesn't cover gambling. I'm using my own money.) All the money is being put into escrow in a joint account; the winning side will collect the $10,000 plus any accrued interest on Jan. 1, 2011.

I realize this isn't a sure thing, because the price of oil has risen before - it quintupled in the 1970's. But then it dropped, thanks to new discoveries and technologies, validating the Cornucopians' optimism.

So I figure the long-term odds are with me. And while I'm at it, I'll extend Julian's challenge and consider bets from anyone else convinced that our way of life is "unsustainable." If you think the price of oil or some other natural resource is going to soar, show me the money.

Email: tierney@nytimes.com

CzechTek organiser off the hook

Wow, I hope Trudy Childs and the guys from UpRock get as lucky. Although these are surely different circumstances, not to mention a whole different country.

State attorney cancels accusation of CzechTek organiser

PLZEN/TACHOV, West Bohemia (PDM staff with CTK) 24 August - The Tachov State Attorney's Office has cancelled its prosecution of Vaclav Sroub, organiser of the recent CzechTek rave near Tachov, as it did not find Sroub's activities unlawful, Sroub's defence lawyer told the Czech News Agency yesterday. The state attorney has returned the case to the police for further investigation, Sroub's lawyer Klara Slamova said. Milan Pozl, the state attorney in charge of the case, decided that the accusation had fundamental shortcomings.

"The state attorney's office decided that the accusation neither describes Sroub's action sufficiently nor does it prove his intention, and [the office also] said that he cannot be responsible for the damages caused by other people," Slamova said. In his verdict Pozel wrote that Sroub's action, as described [in the police accusation] can be qualified only as an offence of negligence.

Sroub was accused because of the material damage which CzechTek caused land in Mlynec and which the police estimated at 200,000-300,000 crowns. Sroub leased a plot in Mlynec in late July to organise CzechTek. The police, however, forcibly terminated the rave on July 30. They dispersed the techno fans with the aid of tear gas and water cannons. Dozens of people were injured on both sides. To explain the crackdown, they said that CzechTek participants had damaged the adjacent land.

Sroub was accused over the damage but Slamova lodged a complaint against the accusation, pointing to essential mistakes in it. The Tachov State Attorney's Office launched prosecution in eight cases involving CzechTek participants, and another eight cases are still being investigated. The State Attorney's Office in Plzen is investigating the police action.
(USD1=24.078 crowns)

CTK news edited by the staff of the Prague Daily Monitor, a Monitor CE service.

Ecko party to go ahead

Well, at least there is some justice in the world. If you have heard about the busted rave in Utah, you know what I am talking about.

Judge rules New York can't ban graffiti party

Aug 24, 1:50 PM (ET)

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday overturned a ban imposed by city officials and ruled in favor of a fashion company's right to hold a street party featuring graffiti artists painting mock subway cars.

The party, scheduled for Wednesday by designer Mark Ecko, had raised the indignation of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said the plan for 20 artists to put graffiti on mock subway cars would incite vandalism.

But in Monday's ruling U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said the mayor's view went against the First Amendment.

"By the same token, presumably, a street performance of 'Hamlet' would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder," he said in federal court in Manhattan. "As for a street performance of 'Oedipus Rex,' don't even think about it."

The judge said he was not suggesting the "actual painting of graffiti on subway cars is to be condoned" but that any heavy-handed censorship would fall hard on artists, "who frequently revel in breaking conventions."

Outside the courtroom, Ecko, 32, a former graffiti artist and founder of fashion company Ecko Unlimited, described the decision and the judge as "kinda cool."

"It (the event) should not be dismissed as easily as vandalism or inciting crime and was born from the fabric of the streets of New York," he said, while inviting the billionaire mayor to the party.

Alan Ket, 34, one of those who will paint one of the mock subway cars, said the street party, which will be open to the public, would be "an opportunity to see some of the artists people around the world call folk heroes."

Officials initially approved the event but pulled the permit last week when it drew Bloomberg's ire.

New York City spokeswoman Kate O'Brien Ahlers said the ruling was disappointing.

"We believe that the city's denial of a permit to an exhibit which glorifies criminal activity was proper and should have been upheld," she said.

Ahlers said officials were considering an appeal.

Matthew Simmons on Fox News

Matthew Simmons wrote the book, "Twilight in the desert" That I'm currently about half finished with. It's a comelling examitation of Saudi Arabia's ability to supply the world with the crude oil on which it so painfuly depends. The author was recently on Fox New's 'Your World with Neil Cavuto' to promote the book and try to bring this issue to the forefront of popular thought.

Something else I tripped across today, it's possibly evident that production of light sweet crude has peaked.
http://www.vitaltrivia.co.uk/2005/08/26

Transcript: The Heat Is On
Tuesday, August 23, 2005

This is a partial transcript from "Your World with Neil Cavuto," August 22, 2005, that was edited for clarity.

STUART VARNEY, GUEST HOST: High gas and oil prices (search) no surprise for my next guest. In fact, he has been warning that Saudi Arabia (search), among other countries, are running out of oil.

Matthew Simmons is an investment banker who is also author of "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Oil Shock and the World Economy." He joins me from Houston.

Sir, let's focus on Saudi Arabia for a second. You say they do not have the oil reserves they claim to have, and that, instead of raising production in the coming years, they're actually going to be forced to cut it. Correct? Make your case.

MATTHEW SIMMONS, FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN, SIMMONS & COMPANY INTERNATIONAL: Well, the reality is that, over the last 35 years, we built an illusion, encouraged by Saudi Arabia, but it was really an illusion created in the West, that oil in the Middle East (search) was virtually inexhaustible and that Saudi Arabia, more than any other company in the Middle East, had so much oil that was so inexpensive, that, as long as we used more, we could always open their taps.

And we never had any curiosity to say, should we actually have some third-party inspector come in and just make sure that's right?

VARNEY: Well, you're an investment banker. Have you done your homework? Do you know for a fact that Saudi Arabia does not have the oil reserves it claims?

SIMMONS: I don't know for a fact at all, nor does anybody, but I did spend two-and-a-half years doing the most thoughtful, careful research I have ever done in my life before publishing this book, because I knew it was going to be highly controversial book and challenge energy conventional wisdom profoundly. And I really had no intention of making a fool of myself. I spent two-and-a-half years going through about 235 technical papers that had been written within the Saudi Arabian oil company about the technical issues that we're now facing, the five fields that produce 90 percent of Saudi Arabia's oil. And my fear is that all five of those fields, at the current rate of production, are at risk of a production decline or a production collapse.

VARNEY: Well, wait a second. At the moment, Saudi Arabia produces 10.5 million barrels of oil a day. They say they want to produce 12.5 million by the year 2009. Are you saying that's flat-out not possible?

SIMMONS: You can never say something is flat-out not possible. I think the likelihood of that happening is extremely low.

VARNEY: Let's suppose you are right, though.

SIMMONS: Extremely low.

VARNEY: Let's suppose you are right that Saudi Arabia does go down and that we cannot supply the world's demand. I believe you're looking towards oil well in excess of $100 a barrel.

SIMMONS: Well, if Saudi Arabia is now beyond sustainable peak oil production or if they can get to 10 million or 12 million barrels a day, I would assume that, today, they're producing in crude oil terms closer to 8.5 to nine million barrels a day. But if they're close to peak oil or maybe sustained, then so is the world.

So, we have developed a situation where the world needed 120 million barrels a day 15 or 20 years from now, and we might have to get along with only 60 or 50 or even 75 million barrel as day. Therefore, the price is going to go way up.

VARNEY: What about in our own hemisphere? What have you got to say about Hugo Chavez in Venezuela?

SIMMONS: Well, Venezuela intentionally ran off all of their high- quality technical people. They're the oldest major oil producer on Earth. And they're running into very serious oil problems.

Mexico, our neighbor right to the south of us, has one field that's been two-thirds of their production that's now entering irreversible decline. Canada's conventional oil is now in irreversible decline. And the United States is producing in the lower 48 less than half the oil it did 30 years ago.

VARNEY: Is there no chance that new technology could get more out of the ground and find more oil? Couldn't technology bail us out of this?

SIMMONS: You know, when you say no chance, the answer is, there's obviously a chance. The question is, the chance more than 10 percent or 15 percent? I would say that is probably the best case.

VARNEY: All right, Matthew Simmons, thanks for being with us, sir. Appreciate it.

SIMMONS: You're very welcome.

Content and Programming Copyright 2005 FOX News Network, L.L.C. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2005 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon FOX News Network, L.L.C.'s and eMediaMillWorks, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.

graffiti party's permit revoked

It sounds like the judge is at least sympathatic if not possibly swayed by ecko's claims.

Ecko sues NYC over graffiti party
22 August 2005

NEW YORK: Fashion company Ecko Unlimited has sued New York City and Mayor Michael Bloomberg after the city barred the company from holding a street party featuring artists spray-painting graffiti on replicas of subway cars.

Officials initially approved the event, then yanked the permit when it drew Bloomberg's ire and sparked fears that the mock vandalism might lead to more graffiti on real subway cars.

Designer Mark Ecko, a former graffiti artist and founder of Ecko Unlimited, an urban design label based in New York, seeks to block off a Manhattan street for the party and art exhibit on August 24.

Ecko, which says its total investment could run close to $US190,000, has sued to get the permit reinstated. But the mayor says the party would send a terrible message.

"When you're encouraging vandalism by having the canvas be a subway car, that's where I think the city should draw the line," he said on his weekly radio show on Friday.

At a hearing on Friday, city attorney Paula van Metre told US District Judge Jed Rankoff that officials were opposed not to graffiti as an art form but to celebrating a criminal act.

The judge questioned the city's argument, suggesting that banning the representation of a criminal act such as graffiti might be the same as banning a play about gang warfare.

"But you wouldn't ban 'West Side Story'?" he asked, referring to the hit musical about feuding gangs set in the city in the 1950s.

Another hearing was set for Monday.

stolen mud

"private, well-hidden smelting plants" ??? Is that sort of thing common. wierd.

Thieves perform dirty deeds in treasure hunt
August 22 2005 at 06:08PM

Belgrade - Security guards protecting what is left of Serbia's once mighty Bor mining and smelting complex are being overrun by thieves stealing mud that contains traces of gold, silver and platinum, a Belgrade newspaper reported.

Bor police have filed charges against persons unknown for the theft of about 700 kilograms of valuable anode mud from the bankrupt, state-owned company in southern Serbia, Danas said in its weekend edition.

The paper quoted security company chief Ljuba Milovanovic as saying thieves stopped at nothing to get at the mud, carrying it off in bags, sacks, bottles, clothing and even in pockets.

The paper said 200kg of the mud would yield about 1kg of gold and 6kg of silver, plus other potentially valuable metals. It was probably processed in "private, well-hidden smelting plants".

yeah, what, WHAT NOW!!??!!1

I didn't even read this story so I sure hope it's good. I'm a cut-and-paste blogger, cause that's how I roll ya dig?

Fugitive alligator becomes local folk hero

Aug 19, 11:44 AM (ET)

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - More than a week after a man-sized alligator stunned authorities by surfacing in a murky Los Angeles lake, the fugitive reptile has already become a folk hero in the gritty neighborhood where he continues to outwit wranglers and elude capture.

Dozens of residents gathered on the shore of Lake Machado on Thursday, sitting in lawn chairs or scanning the water with binoculars as park rangers with nets waited for the 7-foot (2 meter) alligator to rise out of the muck.

"We're pretty confident we'll be able to catch him," park ranger Albert Jedinak said as he stared at the calm surface of the lake. "He was actually in the net once but unfortunately we didn't have the boat ready."

Meanwhile one woman deployed her two young sons to work the crowd, hawking $10 t-shirts bearing an alligator drawing and the words: "Harbor City You Will Never Catch Me."

The alligator -- who was chased around the 53-acre (21-hectare) lake for much of the week by a professional "gator wrangler" from Colorado -- did not make an appearance, having last been spotted on Wednesday night.

The wrangler and his crew returned to Colorado on Thursday morning to secure larger nets but vowed to return next week and bag his prey.

Still waiting for that moment was animal services officer Guillermo Perea, who sat in a pick-up truck designated to drive the reptile, imprisoned in a giant green box, to the Los Angeles Zoo after it was caught.

Perea said he would not take part in the capture, adding: "I'm not that kind of guy. I get paid for dogs, not alligators."

Authorities believe the alligator was probably once an exotic pet that was abandoned when it grew too large. Alligators are not indigenous to California.

They say they were baffled to discover the reptile basking in the lake at the center of a city park, though they suspect it had been living there for about two months, dining on scraps left behind by fishermen and bread intended for the birds.

Though the creature was originally thought to be a reptile called a Caiman, the professional wrangler has since opined that it is in fact an alligator.

"I don't think you could say they didn't catch the gator for lack of effort," said local Paul Smith, who has spent much of the past two days watching the action at the lake. "They'll get him eventually. They'll figure something out."

Spammer gets good deal

I'm kind of shocked that he didn't get more $$$ for that list, seems like it could be worth at least $50K? 92 million active email addresses?? Surely that's worth more than a paltry $28,000. He'll probably be out of jail in less than a year, there's no way he's serving that entire 15 month sentence.

Ex-AOL man jailed for e-mail scam

A former AOL employee has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for selling members' details to spammers. American Jason Smathers, 25, said he turned into a "cyberspace outlaw" after selling the database of 92 million screen names and e-mail addresses. As a result of his actions in 2003, about seven billion unsolicited spam e-mails flooded inboxes of AOL members.

Prosecutors said Mr Smathers had violated recent Can-Spam laws, which aim to clamp down on unsolicited mail. He was also accused of breaking US interstate transportation of stolen property laws. Mr Smathers admitted accepting $28,000 (£15,515) from an individual for the list of AOL member details. The details are still thought to be circulating amongst spammer rings. The public at large has an interest in making sure people respect the same values that apply in everyday life, on the internet "I know I've done something very wrong," Mr Smathers told US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein via a letter.

"Cyberspace is a new and strange place," Mr Smathers wrote. "I was good at navigating in that frontier and I became an outlaw." Assistant US Attorney David Siegal concluded that the case had shown that the net was "not lawless" anymore. "The public at large has an interest in making sure people respect the same values that apply in everyday life, on the internet," he said. Mr Smathers' lawyer added that the theft had been a "dumb, stupid, insane act".

AOL said Mr Smathers' act had cost the company at least $300,000 (£166,240), although the judge said that figure was speculative. The judge ordered Mr Smathers to pay $84,000 (£46,560) in restitution, but he delayed the order so that AOL could prove whether the damages were higher. Mr Smathers was fired by AOL in June 2004. He was said to have used another employee's access code to steal the list of AOL customers in 2003 from its headquarters in Dulles, Virginia.

Spam laws

The US CAN-Spam legislation (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) was introduced in the US in January 2004. The US and UK laws to control spam have been criticised as ineffective. Some legal action in the US has had to be brought against individuals or groups using local state laws instead. Spammer Jeremy Jaynes was recently sentenced in Virginia, where there are tough anti-spam laws, to nine years in prison for sending 10 million junk e-mails daily.

But unsolicited e-mails in the US rose by 10% after the introduction of its anti-spam laws. The majority of spam originates outside of Europe, from the Americas in particular. UK spammers account for less than two percent of all junk e-mails sent. UK anti-spam campaign group, Spamhaus, estimates that by summer 2006 spam will account for 95% of all e-mails sent. It said that spam would not stop until the US acts to toughen its laws.

Last week, software giant Microsoft has won a $7m (£3.9m) court settlement from a businessman considered to be one of the world's biggest senders of spam e-mail. Scott Richter agreed to pay the sum after Microsoft filed a lawsuit against his net firm Opt In Real Big. Loopholes in UK law mean legislation is ineffective in the fight against spammers, according to Spamhaus.

Since UK anti-spam laws came into force more than a year ago no UK spammers have been fined or prosecuted.

nice briefcase for a laptop

Holy shit this thing is phat. I never really click on links that google puts up, but one listing caught my interest. Seems like a nice product so I thought I might share it. But on reflection what sort of flaky dork would you have to be to seriously cary something like that around. It's almost worse than those people carrying around those flashy aluminum cases, what's up with that? If your moving money between couriers for the columbian mafia, then yes I could understand a locking metal breifcase. but if your some wool & tweed accountant at the dept. of labour it seems to be a tad much. ehh..

funnies, or god people are dumb

A friend sent this to me, thanx allison! 1 & 2 I think have happened to me before. Number three seems a litttttle far fetched. Four is the funniest one. I think five just wanted to waste company resources or pretend to look like the dumbest blonde ever just for kix. six must have been high, drunk or tripping. seven is too dumb to be belived. Number 8 actually made the news when it happened and number nine, well i think she was actually trying to kill her child.

ONE

Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets. "We don't have half dozen nuggets," said the teenager at the counter. "You don't?" I replied. "We only have six, nine, or twelve," was the reply. "So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?" "That's right." So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets

TWO

I was checking out at the local Walmart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those "dividers" that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the "divider," looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code she said to me, "Do you know how much this is?" I said to her "I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll buy that today." She said "OK," and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened.

THREE

A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM "thingy."

FOUR

I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. "Do you need some help?" I asked. She replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?" "Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm, too?" I asked. "No, just this remote thingy," she answered,handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries. It's a long walk."

FIVE

Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier machine paper," the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five "blank" copies.

SIX

I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister." I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the "cruise control" and then went in the back to make a sandwich.

SEVEN

My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: "I've got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?"


EIGHT

Police in Radnor, Pa., interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.

NINE

A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid was eating ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and should be fine, the mother says, I just gave him some ant killer..... Dispatcher: Rush him in to emergency!

real life sopranos

Being in a crime family sounds like it could be fun, I guess you have to be born into something like that? I'm sure they don't solicit applications for obvious reasons. Somehow that just doesn't seem completely fair to me.

Alleged mobsters rounded up
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Contributed by John Martin

Authorities swept up more than a dozen reputed members and associates of the Genovese crime family this morning, capping a four-year investigation of mob operations in New Jersey.

The arrests occurred in early-morning raids by more than 100 FBI agents, state and local police officers, at locations in Hudson and Bergen counties, and as far south as Cape May. A sweeping racketeering indictment against 16 defendants is expected to be announced this afternoon by U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie in Newark.

The allegations include charges of extortion, loan-sharking, illegal gambling and theft, according to FBI spokesman Steve Siegel.

The probe is among the largest organized crime takedowns in recent years in New Jersey, against the most dominant crime family in the state right now.

The lead defendants is Lawrence "Little Larry" Dentico, described by agents as the captain of the family. Dentico, 81, has been in custody since his arrest in April on similar federal charges in Brooklyn.

But the New Jersey indictment, which is also expected to name three other capos or "made" members, deals only with the family’s operations here.

Man seeks under age lover at flea market

Apparently this guy hasn't heard about the internet yet.

Man arrested for allegedly seeking girl for sex at flea market

BLUFF CITY, Tenn. Police in Bristol have arrested a man who officers say agreed to exchange 150 dollars and a D-V-D containing child pornography for an underage girl.
Police began investigating 53-year-old Clarence White after people at a flea market said he asked if they could find a girl for him to have sex with.

Bluff City Police Chief Ken Potter says White let it be known at the flea market earlier this month he was looking for a nine- to 13-year-old girl willing to perform certain acts.

He was arrested Saturday at a meeting where undercover agents say he made the offer.

Potter says police acted quickly out of fear a child might be abducted.

After a search of White's home, police charged him with aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor for having hundreds of computer disks and C-D's containing child pornography.
_

Information from: Kingsport Times-News, http://www.timesnews.net

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Raver meet up @ Six Flags, LLOOZZ!!1

Looking for some fun in central NY? Meet up with these crazy kids 4 good timez!!!

August 20-21 (Saturday & Sunday) - Raver Day Weekend 4 @ 6 Flags In Lake George, NY

This year it will be open to ANY & ALL Ravers and any friends they wish to bring!!!! This will go on.. ** RAIN OR SHINE ** If It By Chance Rains, This Is Still Going On, Rides Still Run In The Rain & The Lines Are Very Short If It Rains. To end any confusion this will be at THE GREAT ESCAPE in LAKE GEORGE NY, Which is basicly A 6 FLAGS PARK... It is owned by the same people and your 6 flags season pass works at it as well. Day 1 Usually includes the meet up at the hotel in the morning, a full day at the park.. partyin' by the pool (WITH THE INFAMOUS ANUAL RO SKINNY DIP!! WOO WOOO !! ) and out on the strip in Lake George at night & Day 2 taking in all the fun that Lake George has to offer outside... There is all kinds of things to do down there... haunted house, wax museum, fortune teller, head shops, clothing and souviner(sp?) shops, horse and carriage rides, restaurants, minature golf, parasailing, jetski rentals, tour boats that are nice with pretty low prices! Lake George is a beautiful mountain town; There will be a raver meet up at the park at 2pm on Saturday. This will take place at the wall next to the candy store in the park. The candy store I'm talking about it the one you will see straight ahead as you enter the park, next to the little fountain.

Woman guilty of turkey assult makes tearful apology

This touching story should serve as an inspiration for us all, even after hitting someone in the face with a frozen turkey we can still come together in the spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness. We are all brack people.

Plea deal reached in turkey toss case

Aug 15, 2005
BY ALFONSO A. CASTILLO
STAFF WRITER

August 16, 2005

Nine months after a Huntington teenager shattered nearly every bone in Victoria Ruvolo's face with a thrown turkey, she whispered words of consolation in his ear yesterday and stroked his head as he rested it on her shoulder.

The astounding scene of forgiveness took place moments after Ryan Cushing, 18, tearfully pleaded guilty to an assault that almost killed Ruvolo. Then he pleaded for his victim's forgiveness in the Riverhead courtroom, and quickly received it.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you," a sobbing Cushing told Ruvolo.

"It's OK," she said to him.

The emotional exchange left an impression.

"She has not only recovered remarkably," Suffolk prosecutor Peter Mayer said in court, "but she is a remarkable woman."

Prosecutors agreed to let Cushing plead guilty to second-degree assault. He'll receive 6 months in jail and 5 years' probation in exchange. Cushing once faced a maximum of 25 years, but prosecutors said Ruvolo's compassion sealed the deal.

"It took us a while to conclude that justice would be served in this case," Mayer, chief of the district attorney's major crimes bureau, said before Suffolk County Court Judge Barbara Kahn. But, Mayer said, ultimately Ruvolo "made clear to us that this ... is the kind of punishment and sentence that she would look to as appropriate."

continue reading, although I don't recommend this. . and I posted this story based solely on the mildly amusing title, hey it's a slow day what can I say.

OH, OH... ME TOO!!!

Now everbody is attempting join the gold rush. I just found a burnt hotpocket with the face of Chevron Texaco CEO David O'Reilly, helllooo GoldenPalace.com!!!

Pastry with Christ's face for auction on ebay

Asian News International
London, August 13, 2005

A Polish pastry featuring the face of Christ is for sale on eBay.

According to Fox News, a Michigan woman, Donna Lee, from Point Place, made the pierogi as she cooked the family's dinner at Easter. "The last one I flipped over was Jesus, so I flipped the spatula, and my husband goes: "What? There's Jesus!" and he goes: "Oh my God!,"" WTOL quoted her as saying.

Something to think about

I guess playing insane wont get you off the hook in front of juries these days. something to keep in mind.

Man who mooned jury convicted

Associated Press
Panama City, Fla., August 16, 2005

A man who once shouted "cuckoo" and then dropped his pants to moon a jury has been convicted of attacking his girlfriend with a boxcutter.

Cornell Jackson, 31, could face up to 33 years in prison when sentenced Tuesday. That's the penalty he received after two earlier trials in which convictions were reversed because he had not received formal competency hearings.

Jackson's lawyers argued he was legally insane when, in a jealous rage over perceived attention that Kisha Smith had paid to another man, he slashed her on Jan. 21 and 22, 2000. The second attack came after she returned home from getting her initial wound stitched at a hospital.

Jackson testified that he battles demons regularly with "Jesus and Michael Archangel." He refused to attend his first trial and was removed from his second in 2003 after he bared his buttocks.

Jackson was ruled competent in April, and a jury convicted him Friday of aggravated battery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and armed burglary.

SFFD learns important lesson

Man that sounds like fun! I sure hope this guy was high on crystal meth, cause if he wasn't.... crazziiee.....

Thief Goes On Rampage With SF Fire Department SUV

POSTED: 5:35 am PDT August 15, 2005
UPDATED: 9:25 am PDT August 15, 2005

San Francisco -- Investigators say someone stole a San Francisco Fire Department SUV while a rescue captain was responding to a medical call late Sunday night. The supervisor had left the keys in the ignition, which is department policy, since they need to leave the lights on.

The suspect drove off and rammed into a moving car. That driver suffered minor injuries. The car thief then smashed into five other cars. He abandoned the stolen vehicle on Filmore and Golden Gate shortly after midnight. He took off with a bag of medical equipment. The suspect was still on the loose Monday morning.

Copyright 2005 by FOXReno.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Dr. Jones liberates priceless relic

Indiana Jones is at it again. 'This belongs in a museum'. While they act like this is a real big deal, I'm sure that '50 million kyat' is actually $3.80. A relic like this has so much more symbolic value than any real street value.

Sacred stone stolen from pagoda in Rangoon Mayanggone

Aug 14, 2005 (DVB) - A jade believed to be worth around 50 million kyat was stolen from Swedawmyat Pagoda in Rangoon Mayanggone Township, at around 4am local time on 14 August.

Initially, it was reported that the diamond tip of the pagoda was stolen but when DVB contacted the local police station No.1, a police officer on duty said that it was not the diamond but the jade, revered as a clone of Buddha’s tooth, was stolen during a break-in. “Currently, we are still investigating from which entry it was entered. We don’t know the details yet,” the officer told DVB. “All the police from the station are here. Those from the district and division are all here to investigate.”

The officer added that the pagoda is being cordoned off and no worshipper has been allowed in and the usual suspects have also been rounded up, interrogated and their fingerprints taken. The Swedaw Pagoda in Rangoon and another similar one in Mandalay were both built and venerated by the ousted Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt while he was in the all powerful position, according to local residents.

The pinnacle of another pagoda in Moulmein Lawka Okeshawn which was re-innovated and revered by the local military commander Maj-Gen Myint Aung, was struck and damaged by the thunderbolt on 19 July. Superstitious local people are said to be very puzzled as to why the thunderbolt hit only the pagoda sponsored by the military commander, out of many pagodas built on top of the mountains in the area.

Lawka Okeshawn means master or figurehead of the world.

Rare antiquities market suffers setback

What are we to do now that it will be more difficult to find people in Egypt willing to smuggle national treasures for our private collections here in the US? I guess I can go back to purchasing illegal Chinese artifacts. It's just not the same, I WANT MY PHAROS'S MASK!!!1

Life in Prison for Smuggling Egyptian Antiquities
By Mariam Fam
Associated Press
posted: 15 August 2005
09:16 am ET


CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ The former director of a national antiquities department was among three men sentenced to life in prison Saturday, after being convicted in a scam that smuggled thousands of antiquities out of Egypt. Abdel Karim Abu Shanab, who headed the government office that inspects the collections of antiquities traders, was accused of taking bribes and supplying smugglers with certificates that said genuine antiquities were fakes. Under Egyptian law, only fake antiquities can be exported.

A total of 10 people were on trial in one of Egypt's biggest antiquity fraud cases. Three were acquitted. According to court documents, Abu Shanab was sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing records from the Supreme Council of Antiquities and helping smuggle antiquities, and received a lighter sentence of 15 years for other charges to be served concurrently. A life sentence in Egypt equals 25 years.

Other defendants also received multiple sentences, in one instance adding up to 55 years, but will only stay in prison for the duration of the single longest sentence. "This is injustice. I have done nothing,'' Abu Shanab said after the verdict. His lawyer said they would appeal. The six other convicted defendants received sentences ranging from life imprisonment to 15 years in prison as well as fines.

Former antiquities official Salah Eddin Ramadan gasped with relief when he heard he was among three defendants found not guilty. "I cannot pull myself together,'' he said, shaking in the caged dock. "Thank God. I know I'm innocent.'' Zahi Hawass, the council's secretary general, praised the verdict.

"This is an important step toward protecting Egypt's antiquities from being looted by gangs,'' he said. The accused were part of a group that officials believe has stolen about 57,000 artifacts from state warehouses and smuggled thousands of them abroad. Police found coins, statues and sarcophaguses in tunnels under the villas of three relatives _ businessmen who were convicted in an earlier trial. The cache allegedly included certificates signed by Abu Shanab.

Egypt has drastically stepped up efforts in recent years to stop trafficking of its antiquities. It has warned foreign museums that it will not help them mount exhibitions on the Pharaonic era unless they return smuggled artifacts.

Taipei really knows how to party

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!1!! I love how it says that he was giving money to children, 'as if he were tipping prostitues in a bar'. I guess tipping prostitutes in a bar is an activity so familliar to the readers of the Taipei Times that they instantlly know how the mayor was behaving during this drunken escapade.

A drinking spree, or a sign of Ma's real flaws?
By Chin Heng-wei 金恆煒

Monday, Aug 15, 2005,Page 8

After attending a meeting of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Central Standing Committee Meeting a few days ago, Taipei Mayor and party chairman-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) participated in a luncheon at the party's headquarters with retired generals, guzzling down booze in front of the TV cameras.

He then proceeded to drink a toast in kaoliang before hurrying to his next scheduled event, where, almost too drunk to handle himself, he repeatedly gave children money, as if he were tipping prostitutes in bar. Besieged by the media, Ma's drunken behavior was all captured on camera. With Ma drunk during office hours, it is no wonder that his subordinates misbehave, as happened when a city mortuary employee died after he and a few colleagues skipped work on Aug. 6 to go wining and dining at a Taipei restaurant. Not only did this mortuary employee fail to report his absence from work, he even asked a colleague to punch in for him.

But this is not the most sensational part of Ma's exhibition of the "Drunken Mayor" style. Although he apologized to Taipei citizens on Aug. 12 and admitted that he had set a "bad example," there was one proviso -- Ma shifted the blame onto KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), who had "entreated him to drink," saying it was difficult for him to refuse such an invitation. He also said that there were no alternative beverages available. Apart from implying that he could not be blamed for the incident, he tried to divert the issue to be merely about drinking alcohol. But is all this only about drinking on the job? If it were, it may not have been such a big issue. What makes the whole incident interesting is that it tells us something more about Ma. He has nowhere to run to, and his problems are too many to count.

One of the problems is that Ma has put himself on the spot. He issued the ban prohibiting city employees from drinking on the job or on their lunch breaks. He has denigrated his own position by breaking this rule. He even excused himself by saying that it was "difficult to refuse the invitation." With such a mayor, it is all too easy to guess what his staff must be like.

A second problem is that he lied from beginning to end. He was clearly so drunk that he could no longer handle himself, but still he told the media that, "I've had something to drink, but I'm not drunk." That may be of little import, but he altogether avoided mentioning his own drinking ban. Not until things became more serious did he change his story and offer an apology. This is how he does things most of the time.

A third problem is that Ma's city government is devoid of discipline. From the day he took office until today, 357 people have been disciplined for drinking on the job, and we have no way of knowing how many have been lucky enough to slip through the net. The city government isn't merely suffering from a loose screw or two, the whole structure is coming apart. They cannot even enforce a simple "drinking-on-the-job" ban, with the mayor himself imbibing to his heart's content. It wouldn't be very surprising if the whole city government took to drinking.

The fact that Ma was forced to issue a drinking ban after less than two years on the job shows him to be a bad leader; the fact that he issued the ban but fails to enforce it shows him to be a bad administrator. Since now he is spending his time dreaming of becoming the next president, I guess the people of Taipei will continue to be responsible for their own happiness.

Chin Heng-wei is the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.

Translated by Lin Ya-ti and Perry Svensson
This story has been viewed 333 times.

this is disgusting, ebay hits new low

amazing, a peice of trash wrapped up in a bad pun is apparently worth $2.8K, lovely. I wish I had thought of that.

Scottsdale man's candy wrapper fetches $2,800 on eBay

Jessica Coomes
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 13, 2005 12:00 AM

A powerhouse eBay buyer has pounced on a Scottsdale man's online auction, paying $2,815.43 for an M&M's wrapper. GoldenPalace.com, an online casino famous for off-the-wall eBay buys, was basking in the publicity of its latest odd purchase Friday.

The M&M's wrapper will be framed and placed among the ranks of GoldenPalace.com's other well-known purchases, including a toasted cheese sandwich with an image resembling the Virgin Mary and a pregnancy test purportedly used by Britney Spears.

"I'm sure it might even have a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for most expensive candy wrapper ever sold," spokesman Jeff Kay said from the online casino's marketing headquarters in Montreal.

Brian Schwartz of Scottsdale teamed up with another eBay seller from Virginia to create a rap music-themed auction featuring an M&M wrapper, not to be confused with the rapper Eminem. The play on words attracted more than 53,000 people to view the Web page, which worked its way up to be the second most-watched item on eBay this week.

Reach the reporter at jessica.coomes@arizonarepublic.com.

oops..............

Wow, the explanation offered is such a cliche, anyone who has ever run over a bicycle messanger, or driven through a plate glass store display window has offered the, 'I meant to drive forward, but instead I backed up'. Even Lizzy Grubman used this line. lol.

Volusia Man Crushed To Death By Steamroller

POSTED: 2:54 pm EDT August 13, 2005

DELTONA, Fla. -- A Volusia County man is dead after he was crushed to death by a steamroller. Authorities say 41-year-old Ronald Lee Fox was backed over by the steamroller Thursday evening while shoveling asphalt onto a road.

The steamroller's driver, Lyle E. Thomas, told deputies he accelerated backward when he intended to go forward.The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the accident -- and the road construction site has been shut down for at least two days,

Fox's cousin, John Earl Lewis, said the two had just started their shift when he saw the steamroller approaching. He jumped out of the way, but he was unable to save Fox. Here's Lewis in his own words: "When the roller was over half his body, he held himself up on his hands and I could see the pain in his face."

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

gasoline shortages in china

This is going to happen here in the US eventually, give it time; soon cars will be obsolete, that's why I bought a bike recently.

Gasoline stations jammed as fuel crisis deepens

Dennis Ng

August 12, 2005

An increasingly acute fuel shortage in southern China is reaching crisis proportions, with long lines of trucks and cars at filling stations throughout Shenzhen and other areas.

Recent news reports in Guangdong said many filling stations in the fast- growing province have run low on fuel because of Typhoon Haitang, which hit Taiwan in the middle of last month and kept many oil tankers out of harbor.

Some reports said mainland firms are balking at supplying the domestic market because it is unprofitable. Other reports said some filling stations are withholding retail supplies out of fear that wholesalers will be unable to deliver to them in the near future.

Both truck and car drivers reported having to go from one filling station to another and facing long lines to find fuel. Because prices of gasoline are so much lower in Shenzhen and other areas over the border, Hong Kong drivers often go over the border to fill up.

As an example of the problems truckers face, a major transport union said Thursday that rising prices may force hundreds of self-employed container truck drivers and dozens of transport firms to impose a fuel surcharge to transport goods from Guangdong factories to Hong Kong container terminals.

continue reading...

drug user passes out naked in motel hallway

Ha Ha..... Sounds like a typical evening, anyone know this guy? I sure hope he wasn't trying to get his freak on with that dog. I think I may have stayed at the Fenwick Inn once, although I don't recall anything like this happening.

Man Vows To Leave Area After Bizarre Incident

Jacob Cook
Staff Writer

08/12/2005 OCEAN CITY – An Ocean Pines man with several medical conditions who was found in the hallway of a local hotel sleeping in his birthday suit with nothing but a dog and booze was in Ocean City District Court on Monday. Jeffrey Harrison Douglas pleaded not guilty to possession of marijuana, drug paraphernalia and indecent exposure during his day in court this week.

Judge R. Patrick Hayman found Douglas not guilty of indecent exposure and drug paraphernalia and guilty to possession of marijuana. Hayman sentenced the man to 18 months probation before judgment and banished him from the county after Douglas said he was moving out of the area and would have no reason to return. “I don’t plan to, it hasn’t been a pleasant experience,” Douglas said.

On May 15, at approximately 5:30 p.m., OCPD Officer Todd Speigle responded to the Fenwick Inn for Douglas who had reportedly passed out completely nude in front of his room. “Mr. Douglas was completely naked,” testified Speigle. “I’m not sure what his intentions were.”

The officer told the court that he saw Douglas sleeping on the floor in the hallway and urged him to put his pants on, which were nearby. Speigle said an assortment of alcohol surrounded the man and a dog was standing in the area, which was later determined to belong to Douglas. The officer testified that he tried to wake the man up several times. Speigle also said Douglas had an active arrest warrant in Baltimore. “I’m not quite sure what he’s doing there or why his pants are beside him,” replied Hayman, in the middle of the testimony.

Speigle said Douglas became responsive and began complaining of back problems, so he was transported to the hospital. When officers went to the man’s room to put the dog inside, they found marijuana in plain view. Douglas testified he has a blood disorder and passed out because of the medical condition. Douglas told the judge he has toxins in his blood.

“Yeah, alcohol on this occasion,” said Hayman. Douglas said he didn’t remember what happened, but felt he was unfit to live on his own and was looking for an assisted living situation. “Seriously, I can’t recall,” said Douglas. “I don’t dispute what the officer just said. I have no memory of what happened, I worried about hurting myself or someone else.” The man testified that he smokes marijuana because of a chronic back problem. “The next time you look, unless it’s a nudist colony, wear your trousers,” said Hayman.

All material copyright 2005 The Maryland Coast Dispatch, Berlin, MD. Questions, comments, contact us at editor@mdcoastdispatch.com

Active duty military personnel make shitty mules

I wonder how they got caught. I have a suggestion for the judge; send these wannabe donnie brascos to Iraq!

Intel officers charged with drug smuggling

EL PASO — Four U.S. Army military intelligence soldiers who were assigned to assist the Colombian government in drug surveillance are facing court martial for distributing 200 pounds of cocaine in Texas and Louisiana. The soldiers were on regular rotations in and out of the country when they allegedly smuggled the drugs into the United States and carried money back to Colombia, apparently to pay for the drugs, Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt told the El Paso Times

According to military court documents, Staff Sargents Daniel Rosas, Victor J. Portales, and Kelvin G. Irizarry-Melendez, along with Specialist Francisco Rosa, bought the cocaine in Colombia, transported it on military aircraft from the Apiay air base to Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, and then distributed it in several Texas cities and Lake Charles, LA. The alleged smuggling occurred between April 2003 and March 2005.

Rosas faces multiple counts for buying nearly 180 pounds of cocaine, making six trips, and, with Irizarry-Melendez, distributing more than 105 pounds. Portales is charged with carrying $48,000 during a trip in late 2004. All three allegedly put up their own money to buy the drugs. Six civilians also are mentioned in the charges.

The soldiers have been charged with conspiracy, making false official statements, wrongful use, possession, distribution or importation of cocaine, and damaging the good order and discipline of the armed forces.

General courts-martial allow severe punishments. In these cases, this could include prison time, dishonorable discharge, reduction to the lowest enlisted grade, forfeit of all pay and allowances, and fines. The soldiers can choose between the military equivalent of a jury trial or a trial by military judge. The Fort Bliss commanding general can approve or disapprove the verdicts or the sentences.

keylogger feeds data to criminal enterprise

wow, just wow. The time has come for vigilante action, finding out where these people live and smash their computers, government and traditional law enforcement can't deal with these threats, their investigations are too slow moving and the people responsible for this massive fraud will never be threatened with physical violence. maybe all the mercenaries coming back from Iraq will be looking for some work sometime soon, now to find a financial backer to make it happen.

Identity-Theft Keylogger Identified Aug. 12, 2005

Sunbelt Software has identified the keylogging spyware that is feeding sensitive personal information to an identity-theft ring. The FBI confirms it has been in contact with Sunbelt and is looking into the company's findings.
By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek

Sunbelt Software Inc. says it has identified the keylogging spyware that is feeding sensitive personal information to the "massive identity-theft ring" identified by company researchers last week.

According to the Florida-based security software company, the keylogger is named Srv.SSA-KeyLogger. It's a variant of a family of Trojans sometimes known as W32/Dumaru. Trojan progams by definition do not spread. Users typically download them onto their PCs without realizing it, or they acquire them through other malware.

According to Phil Owens, product manager at Sunbelt Software, the keylogger is known to be present in adware downloads offered at certain porn and hacking sites. He says that users of unpatched Windows systems prior to Windows XP SP2 can have their PCs infected simply by visiting one of these sites. In other instances, a confirmation dialogue box may be the only warning that a dangerous download is about to take place.

This particular malware, the company warns, steals data from user's Internet sessions, including logins and passwords from online banking sessions and E-commerce sites, and from Internet Explorer's Protected Storage Area, which can contain personal information for use with the browser's Web form AutoComplete function. Specifically, it captures browser window titles and keystrokes when it detects words associated with financial interactions -- including "bank," "casino," "eBay," "login," and "PayPal," to name a few.

Because it runs under Internet Explorer, company president Alex Eckelberry notes in his blog, the keylogger "is generally undetectable by a software or hardware firewall." It also turns off the Windows firewall.

What's more, the keylogger blocks access to the Web sites of many anti-virus security companies by altering the hosts file on infected machines. Sunbelt Software, ironically, isn't among the companies listed.

Once the program has captured enough data, it sends the information in a text file to a remote server where the information is presumably harvested by criminals. This server, Sunbelt claims, is located in the U.S. but registered to an offshore entity. As of Thursday morning PST, the server was still active.

A spokeswoman for the FBI's Dallas field office confirms that the FBI has been in contact with Sunbelt and is looking into the company's findings. She adds that the agency has noted an increase in cybercrime and is allocating its resources appropriately. She says cybercrime is the agency's number three priority, behind counter-terrorism and foreign counterintelligence.

In his blog, Eckelberry expresses his dismay about the potential impact of this keylogger. "In a number of cases, we were so disturbed by what we saw that we contacted individuals who were in direct jeopardy of losing a considerable amount of money," he wrote last Saturday. "One particularly poignant moment was a family in Alabama whom I contacted personally last night and warned them of what was going on. This was a family where the father had just had open-heart surgery, and they had very little money. Everything personal was recorded in the keylogger -- Social Security numbers, their credit card, DOBs, login and password info for their bank and credit-card companies, etc. We were able to warn them in time before they were seriously hurt."

A spokeswoman for Sunbelt Software says the family does not wish to comment on its experience.

Sunbelt says it has updated its CounterSpy anti-spyware program to block the keylogger and expects to have an update for CounterSpy Enterprise shortly. It also has notified other major security companies so they can do the same. Sometime today, it plans to offer a free detection and removal tool on its Web site for those who aren't already customers.

It's not clear whether, as initially believed, the keylogger is related to a family of Trojan programs known as CoolWebSearch. Variants of this Trojan redirect users to coolwebsearch.com, owned by a company in Russia, and affiliated sites. "It was discovered during a CoolWebSearch infestation, but it actually is its own sophisticated criminal little Trojan that's independent of CWS," Eckelberry wrote in his blog on Monday. On Wednesday, he wrote, "It seems related to the CoolWebSearch gang, but that is still not certain."

Cop killer found guilty

I'm glad to hear that the 'video game made me do it' defense doesn't hold water with today's juries. "Your honor, I'd like to commit into evidence this Sony Playstation 2'....

'Grand Theft Auto' cop killer found guilty
By Tony Smith
Published Thursday 11th August 2005 12:50 GMT

Computer game Grand Theft Auto (GTA) has been let off the hook by an Alabama jury which this week found cop killer Devin Moore guilty on three counts of murder.

The jury rejected Moore's plea that he was not guilty by reason of mental defect arising from hours spent playing GTA and years of abuse as a child.

In June 2003, Moore was charged with the murder of two Fayette police officers - Arnold Strickland and James Crump - and a civilian police worker, Leslie Mealer. Then 18 years old, Moore had been apprehended by Strickland and Crump for allegedly stealing a car. Taken to the the local police HQ, Moore was later said to have grabbed Strickland's gun and shot all three men in the head.

According to the prosecution, Moore said at his arrest, "life is a video game, everybody has to die sometime". Prosecution lawyers also claimed there was no proven link between virtual violence and violent acts in the real world.

GTA publisher Take Two Interactive, along with games retailers GameStop and Wal-mart, and PlayStation maker Sony, still face a civil action which claims they are complicit in the murder. The lawsuit was filed by the families of the police officers killed by Moore.

GTA was developed by Rockstar, which this week was criticised for its Bully game, in which school pupils set about walloping each other. The game carries an 18 certificate, and so cannot be sold legally to anyone under that age. ®

west bank deli

OMG it's a conspiracy, the man be keeping the palies down once again!!

Heat dashes Palestinian quest for longest sandwich

Aug 11, 1:48 PM (ET)

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians abandoned a quest to build the world's longest sandwich on Wednesday after health officials told them their 750-meter construction risked rotting in the West Bank summer sun.

Hundreds of volunteers spread a 750-meter bun on tables along a dusty roadside in the West Bank city of Jenin, long a hotspot of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

But the attempt was called off for health reasons before volunteers got a chance to add 180 kg of mortadella meat, 350 kg of tomatoes and 250 kg of green peppers.

Organizers had planned to serve the sandwich to the poor, and said they were aiming to beat a record set in Portugal in 2004 for a 634-meter sandwich.

"We were planning to add the mortadella and stuffing at the last minute to rule out any possibility of rotting," chef Ahmed Nazzal told Reuters. "There must be a conspiracy against us by other competitors."

Colonel borf reporting, SIR!

I can't belive this was an Officer! outrageous.

US Air Force officer charged for anti-Bush graffiti

Aug 11, 1:45 PM (ET)

DENVER (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force colonel has been charged with painting obscenities on parked cars bearing pro-President Bush bumper stickers, police said on Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, who supervises 41 full-time and part-time reservists at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, Colo., is suspected of vandalizing 12 cars at Denver International Airport over a six-month period, Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said.

"Lieutenant Colonel Fecteau has been charged with one count of felony mischief and six misdemeanor counts related to the vandalism," Jackson said.

Fecteau, who could not be reached for comment, is scheduled to be arraigned later this month.

Police said they received numerous complaints dating back to December 2004 from people with cars bearing Bush or Bush-Cheney campaign bumper stickers that their vehicles had been vandalized.

Police set up a bait car with a pro-Bush bumper sticker, parked it at the airport with a surveillance camera, and waited. On July 1, the camera recorded a man spray-painting over the bumper sticker with an expletive.

Investigators traced the license plate of the suspected vandal to Fecteau, 42, who turned himself into police last week and was released after posting a $5,000 bond.

Jackson would not comment on a possible motive for the vandalism, but said one victim had to spend $2,000 on repairs after it was spray-painted, which led to the felony charge.

Maj. Tina Barber-Matthew, spokeswoman for the U.S. Air Force Space Command, said the case was under investigation, but that it would be "premature" to discuss what discipline Fecteau would face if convicted.

"Until we can validate or invalidate the charges, he is still on full-duty status," she said.

Barber-Matthew said Fecteau has been in charge at the post since October 2004. The institute provides ongoing training to Air Force personnel to keep them current on space technology and its applications, she said.

old man flips out

ha ha.. old people are funny.

France nabs gun-toting pensioner

An 81-year-old Frenchman has been given a one-year suspended jail sentence for firing a hunting rifle at helicopters dropping water on a forest blaze.

David Thiel opened fire on 21 July when the low-flying helicopters disturbed his afternoon nap near Grasse in the south of France, court sources said.

During his arrest the man swore at the policemen and hit them with saucepans.

Fifteen hunting rifles were confiscated from his home. The helicopters were beyond the range of the rifle he fired.

The judge, quoted by the AFP news agency, said Mr Thiel should not have shot at water-bombing helicopters "as if they were wild ducks".

He was convicted on weapons charges and for resisting arrest. The south of France, languishing in a prolonged heat wave, has been plagued by forest fires in recent weeks.

and the lord struck out with great vengance....

omg, what a horrible way to die.

WOMAN, 38, DIES CRUSHED BY CRUCIFIX DURING MASS

(AGI) - Oristano, Italy, Aug 10 - A woman died crushed by an iron crucifix at the entrance of the church of San Lorenzo while she was attending mass in the city's patron saint's celebrations. Paoletta Orru', 38, had returned to Mogorella, near Oristano, with her husband and two children especially for the celebration of San Lorenzo. Tomorrow was her birthday. This morning the woman was outside of the busy church, together with other devotees who did not manage to enter. Suddenly, around 12, the heavy crucifix about one metre wide fell from the entrance of the church where it was placed, crushing the woman. The emergency services immediately dispatched a helicopter, but when they arrived from the nearby Ales they warned that it was not necessary any more: the victim, hit on the head, died due to a strong concussion. Fire-fighters and police arrived and will inspect the scene. The accident is currently unexplained. A youth, who was grazed by the crucifix, suffered a slight injury to his ankle and will heal in 4-5 days. (AGI) .

101533 AGO 05
COPYRIGHTS 2002-2005 AGI S.p.A.

public breast feeding is cool

I'm totally for public breast feeding, as I feel that there's nothing offensive about it, the young tikes gotta eat, ya know? To placate some people's absurd sensibilities, is it possible to design some type of shirt, kind of like a tent for the baby to be under while nursing, so as not to expose any breast?

Breast defense - Female sports fans battle for right to nurse at stadiums
By Jessica Heslam
Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - Updated: 08:15 AM EST

Women in favor of public breastfeeding are demanding the right the nurse their infants in the stands at sports arenas, but say they feel pressured to leave their pricey seats and feed their babies in bathrooms or first aid stations.

``They've paid for their seat, they have the right to be in that seat, so they have the right to breastfeed their baby there – that's our understanding of the law,'' said Lezlie Densmore of La Leche League in Massachusetts. None of the area's three major sports venues have written policies on breastfeeding, creating confusion among mothers over what is allowed.


# At Gillette Stadium, a spokesman said women can nurse anywhere. But a security official told a Herald reporter inquiring about the policy that mothers must breastfeed in designated areas.

# At Fenway, both a fan service representative and a security official said if a fan finds a nursing mother ``offensive'' it is up to park security to decide whether the mother must go to a more discreet area.

# At TD Banknorth Garden, public nursing is handled on a ``case-by-case basis,'' said spokeswoman Courtney McIlhenny.

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Russian jails not fun vacation

I feel lucky that I have never been jailed in Russia.

Russia Jails Former Policeman for
Torturing Suspects With Electricity

Created: 09.08.2005 19:07 MSK (GMT +3),
Updated: 19:07 MSK, 23 hours 18 minutes ago

MosNews

Former criminal investigation official has been sentenced to three years of prison in the court of the Russian city of Kazan for exceeding his authorities with application of force.

According to the investigation, three young persons were detained in Kazan in May 2004 under suspicion of stealing a cellular phone. In the office of the convict, Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Lyamzin, they were questioned and forced to confess they had stolen the phone. The policemen handcuffed one of the young persons, pushed his knees between his arms, stretched a wooden stick under his knees and hanged him on the backs of two chairs. Another young person was tortured with electric current, with plates attached to his anus.

In June 2004, the local prosecutor’s office instigated criminal proceedings against Lyamzin. On May 30, 2005, he was given a suspended five-year sentence. However, the local acting prosecutor found this sentence too light and appealed in on June 3 to the Supreme Court of the Russian internal republic of Tatarstan (Kazan is Tatarstan’s capital). The court cancelled the sentence and sent the case to a new trial.

According to the new court decision, Lyamzin has not right to work in law enforcement structures.

On this day.....

On This Day

National Day of Ecuador
Feast day of St Laurence of Rome

1787 Mozart completed his famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. On the same day in 1788, he finished his Jupiter Symphony.

1842 The Mines Act was passed by the British Parliament, forbidding women and children to work underground.

1846 The Smithsonian Institution was founded in Washington DC, to foster scientific research.

1889 The screw bottle top was patented by Dan Rylands of Hope Glass Works, Yorkshire, UK.

1900 Lawyer Charles Russell died. He was best known for his brilliant success during the Parnell Commission of 1888-90, when, representing Parnell against The Times, he completely refuted the evidence of forger Richard Pigott.

1904 In the Russo-Japanese War, Japan inflicted heavy losses on the Russian fleet at the Battle of the Yellow Sea, off Port Arthur.

1911 British MPs voted to receive salaries for the first time.

1954 Gordon Richards, champion English jockey, retired after 4,869 wins.

1966 Orbiter I, the first US lunar satellite, was launched.

1975 Robert Childers Barton, nationalist and last surviving signatory of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, died.

1976 In Belfast, three children were killed and their mother was badly injured when a car driven by a Provisional IRA member hit them. The deaths led to the foundation of the widely supported though short-lived Women's Peace Movement, later the Peace People, led by Betty Williams, Máireád Corrigan and Ciarán McKeown.

money stolen, used for parties in philly

For every one of these stories that come out, I imagine there are ten more which will never be uncovered. Graft while the gettin's good.

Trio charged with using federal funds for parties
Tue, Aug. 09, 2005
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA - Two city managers and a nonprofit director used $13,000 from a recycling program for parties, including a lavish farewell bash for one of them, according to the latest federal indictment related to City Hall corruption.

Former Streets Department Commissioner William R. Johnson, Assistant City Managing Director David B. Robinson and Mark N. Viggiano, who ran a federally funded nonprofit called "Keep Philadelphia Beautiful," were charged with conspiracy and two counts of theft in an indictment released Tuesday.

The nonprofit had a $198,000 contract with the city to develop public-education programs to improve cleanliness in the city. The three used the group's funds to pay for a March 2002 birthday party for Johnson and an August 2002 farewell party for Johnson.

"The amount of money isn't as significant as the abuse of trust by two public servants and the gatekeeper of federal funds given to the Streets Department," U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan said in a statement Tuesday.

Home telephone numbers for Johnson, 42, of Philadelphia, and Robinson, 43, of Philadelphia, could not be determined. A woman who answered the phone at Viggiano's home in Lafayette Hill said Tuesday he was unavailable for comment.

Parking dispute takes a deadly turn

Who are these people that would do these things?!?!

Man Convicted Of Murder In Fight Over Parking Place

POSTED: 7:47 am PDT August 8, 2005

TACOMA, Wash. -- A man who fired seven shots in killing a man during a tussle over a parking place has been convicted of second-degree murder.

Franklin-Scott Keawe Dela-Cruz, 28, was convicted Friday after he failed to convince a Pierce County Superior Court jury that he shot and killed Jerry Edward Reyes, 34, in self-defense.

Dela-Cruz faces about 15 to 23 years in prison when he is sentenced following trial in October on a separate assault charge.

Evidence showed Reyes came home drunk on March 15, 2004, and started a fight because two cars were parked in front of his house, at one point pushing or otherwise causing Dela-Cruz's girlfriend, Jessica Larsen, to fall onto a car door.

Dela-Cruz, who fired seven rounds and hit Reyes with four shots, testified that he thought Reyes had a gun and said he was scared because he knew the older man had been convicted of rape, domestic violence and assault.

Dela-Cruz fled after the shooting but was arrested two months later when he was surrounded by police at an apartment in suburban Lakewood. Detectives have said he is under investigation in two unsolved homicides.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Mars exploration vechicle tested

MARS, BITCHES, MARS!!!

August 8

Mars “Gashopper” Takes Flight

A novel approach to airborne travel on Mars has been demonstrated.

The vehicle is dubbed the Gashopper and taps into the carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere. Using a pump, it stores the gas in liquid form, sending it through a preheated pellet bed. That action transforms the liquid into hot rocket exhaust to produce thrust for a flight vehicle.

Pioneer Astronautics of Lakewood, Colorado has spearheaded the vehicle’s development.

“The flight vehicle could either be a ballistic vehicle…or a winged airplane that would take off and land like a Harrier, then transition to horizontal flight,” said Robert Zubrin, head of the firm. On Mars, a ballistic gashopper would be capable of flights for several miles per hop. A winged aircraft would be capable of chalking up even more distance each flight, he said.

Zubrin is also head of the Mars Society, a public advocacy space group.

After each landing, a small rover could be deployed for local exploration. While it is doing this, the gashopper would refuel from the atmosphere. This would take about a month. The rover would then be recalled, the pellet bed reheated, and the gashopper would fly to a distant landing site to explore again.

“The net result is a system that can fly repeatedly on Mars, conducting numerous aerial surveys and surface exploration at many diverse sites with a single spacecraft,” Zubrin added. Furthermore, unlike surface rovers, he said that the gashopper would not be blocked by terrain obstacles, nor contaminate landing sites with organics from a conventional rocket exhaust.

-- Leonard David

poor people in Mexico

I watched Entourage on HBO last night, wow, the people in that show have it real easy when compared to the human vermin descirbed in this article. Here's another article illustrating the incredible hopelessness filling the life of each mexican citizen.

Monday, August 8, 2005

Mexico’s ignored underworld crises

By Carlos Luken

You find them lingering in every large Mexican city. Disorderly, hungry and worst of all jobless. Like many of their hundreds of thousand of compatriots nationwide, they stand out like characters from a Steinbeck novel as they journey from hope to hopelessness, harboring dreams while ignoring their reality.

In Mexico they are called “malandrines,” an archaic word meaning “scoundrel” that Mexicans today use as a one word definition of those caught in the country’s modern malaise, fusing words such as “vagrant,” “jobless,” “homeless” and “criminal.”

Most are male, many are young, but all are disappointed and desperate. They have met frustration and it has conquered them. They are typically uneducated and ill prepared except for very low-level jobs in construction or the farming trade. Countless numbers are beyond any political ideology or ethical principle. They are simply a retrogression of persons that have devolved in the face of despair.

You will find them in railway or bus stations, traveling anywhere rumors claim there might be work. Any delusion is better than their reality at home, however once they arrive at unknown destinations they are still lost and hungry. They have no place to sleep and parade to where others gather, in hope of finding employment in any field that allows them a day’s meal with maybe a little left over for a beer or cheap drugs.

Like Steinbeck’s legions in the 1930s, these migrants originally left home in search of work. But unlike many jobs in the post-depression era, in the new globalized world malandrines find that it is work that moves from one location to another. Gone are many old-time stationary agricultural areas or industrial cities, thus migration — legal or illegal — is encouraged. And too many, tiring of the frustration of aimless wandering without finding employment, turn to crime just to survive and stay in one place.

To make situations worse, malandrines are constantly harassed by local police who use them to comply with daily arrest quotas — holding them for up to 36 hours and much of the time without food. Others find themselves being used to commit burglaries or robberies, bullied by local police and under their protection.

These people are part of a growing problem, that some in Mexico are calling “the ignored underworld.”

Thousands of desperate individuals, who lull about street corners or abandoned buildings, have given up on trying to find work so they can send money to their families that may not receive even sustenance income. Far from home and unable to find opportunities, out of desperation these men disassociate themselves from family obligations and, like predators, form packs in order to prey on anything or anybody they can rob to simply survive.

Although the malandrines are responsible for almost all of Mexico’s petty thefts, muggings, robberies and home burglaries, their social plight is relatively unknown — except for them being seen as a public pain.

These human packs and their transgressions are somewhat obscure, because individually or in groups the malandrines are not sophisticated like well-publicized drug cartel criminals or Mara Salvatrucha gang members. Nor does the world media report on them incessantly as with illegal immigrants in more fashionable categories. Like all petty criminals, they are only reported by local TV or in the crime pages of provincial newspapers.

Although many of them have first tried to migrate illegally into the U.S., most have been turned back and as such are also ignored by activist organizations. They are only to be used as political capital in order to basically engross statistics.

Mexican employment suffered a serious blow when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) hope ended due to an unexpected economic downturn in the U.S. Some economists blame the downturn on rising U.S. unemployment that they allege was caused by NAFTA outsourcing.

If this is true it’s expected that the new Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) will only worsen the U.S. effect, and as an associate result bring about yet greater unemployment and crime in Mexico.

With national and international crime-related attention being chiefly focused on narcotics trafficking, drug cartel wars, border violence and illegal immigration, the malandrines may be a less stylish and significant problem. But as in other developing countries, Mexican society must face the fact that this is a burning fuse problem caused not by a lack of resources, but by too few opportunities rooted in inadequate fiscal distribution and competent education programs.
__________

Carlos Luken, a MexiData.info columnist, is a Mexico-based businessman and consultant. He can be reached via e-mail at ilcmex@yahoo.com.

Spammer killed in moscow

They say he was beat with a large object, i wonder if it was one of his own computers, cause that'd be ironic, no? I sure hope so.

Russian Media Hails Spammer’s Murder

Created: 26.07.2005 12:43 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 13:13 MSK

Anton Nossik

MosNews.Com

Russia’s most (in)famous spammer, Vardan Kushnir, 35, was dead in his apartment in downtown Moscow on Monday, July 25. Someone repeatedly smashed his head with a heavy object, authorities say, and then ransacked his entire apartment. The authorities have obviously got no clue as to who that someone might have been.

And, as a matter of fact, they don’t seem to really care: every day between 10 and 20 people meet a violent death in Russia’s capital, and a significant part of those crimes remains unsolved (Russia’s Interior Ministry reports 1,935 unsolved murders, 73,000 burglaries and 11,400 robberies between January and May in this year alone). There is no reason for Moscow’s law enforcement officials to give Kushnir’s case any special treatment, so they most probably won’t. But the Moscow-based media is awash with comments and speculations, expounding one simple, albeit largely irrational, theory: someone (ranging from God almighty to an irate IT office worker) finally punished Vardan Kushnir for his seemingly unstoppable spamming activities.

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Reality tv crime stories

he he, those crazy russians. It makes sense that criminals would wind up on a reality tv show, as they most often have the charasmatic confidience that producers of these trainwrecks look for.

Crime, Pornography Taint Russian Reality Show

Created: 05.08.2005 18:50 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:56 MSK, 51 minutes ago

MosNews

While Russian parliamentarians are displaying their outrage at the reality-show mania that is sweeping the nation’s television, at least one show — Dom-2 — has proven to be a hotbed for criminals and porn stars. Turns out one of the participants on the show was a mugger who was on a police wanted list for fraud and robbery. The irony is that if it wasn’t for the show, this repeat offender’s victim wouldn’t have recognized the young man on the screen as the “real estate agent” who once defrauded her of $1,900.

The story of Alexei Adveyev, 25, culminated on July 19, when police, tipped off by the woman, raided the territory of Dom-2 and arrested their culprit right off the set, leading him off in handcuffs. The incident was not filmed live, however: The “reality show” airs 6-7 days after being filmed, and Avdeyev’s fans learned that he was off only on July 25, when the host announced that “Alexei was forced to leave the show,” without any other details save that “we will keep track of what happens to him next.”

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