I wish the geniuses who came up with the "Petster" would turn their big brains to inventing the "Kidster." A simple switch on the back of the neck would preclude incommodious behavior such as what happened to the guardians of these biological units:
In East St. Louis, a 4-year-old girl has died and her 2-year-old brother is in critical condition.Police in East St. Louis say they found the girl dead inside her home yesterday after someone from the residence placed a 911 call for an ambulance.
...
A police officer who responded to the call also found a 2-year-old boy who appeared to be groggy and he was airlifted to a St. Louis hospital. His condition was not available last night.East St. Louis Police Chief Michael Baxton says officers were sent to the home late yesterday afternoon after a call from someone who said the four-year-old was not breathing.
Baxton said it appeared that the child had been dead for four to six hours.
News 4 is told by a source familiar with the investigation that the two young children were in the care of their aunt and another person who allegedly wanted the two children to go to sleep and take a nap.
But when the children did not go to sleep, they were allegedly given some type of pills to make them drowsy.
All these legal repercussions for want of a switch. So much promising technology remains tantalizingly out of reach.
What did you put in this irony? It's delicious!:
A Birmingham pastor was arrested for making a terroristic threat against a judge.Birmingham Police Sgt. Cory Hardiman said Wanda Radford was arrested November 9th for making a terroristic threat against a person in public administration. Another police officer told FOX6 News the public official was a circuit court judge.
Pastor Radford is the founder of "Mothers Who Want to Stop the Violence," an organization created to promote non-violence in Birmingham.
You know this lady got no bond.
I don't know what the usual procedure for Thanksgiving is in your state, but here all the good boys and girls get a visit from the alligator trapper.
I took quite a few photos and we quickly came to the conclusion this wasn't the first time they'd been photographed on the job. They were rock stars.
Thanksgiving night rocked too with a bonfire out back. Some of the many things that got burned were coconuts, and one nephew swears that today we should all be in the burn unit in Tampa full of hot exploding coconut shrapnel. Another nephew warned us beforehand not to burn them because he'd burned them before and found the smell akin to "pure shit." We decided we wanted to see the smell for ourselves.
In the end the burning coconuts neither smelled bad nor went off like grenades. Instead we enjoyed a pleasant evening watching their eyes burning bright orange in the flames while a full moon looked down from the top of the sky.
Enjoy your time with your family. Have a safe journey all of you who are traveling.
The killer was holding the victim's neck tight, tight, yeah:
A man has been convicted of first-degree murder in a killing that arose from a dispute over a Beatles poster, although his defense lawyer said he was bullied into a role in the killing.Donald L. Smiley-Lyle, 19, faces more than 25 years in prison after being convicted Friday by a jury in Spokane County Superior Court, Deputy Prosecutor Stephen W. Garvin said. Sentencing was set for Dec. 20.
Testimony during the two-week trial showed Smiley-Lyle helped strangle Robert "Bud" Johnson, 45, whose body was pulled from the Spokane River on March 18, 2006.
"I'm happy there's one more monster off the streets," Johnson's half brother, Brett Krop, said after the verdict.
A key witness against Smiley-Lyle was Robert A. Entel, 20, who pleaded guilty in an agreement with prosecutors and was sentenced to 25 years. Without the deal he could have faced life behind bars.
Prosecutors said the two young men plotted to kill Johnson as a favor to Entel's cousin, Kathryn B. Kelly, 31, who lived briefly with the older man — a relationship that ended with him asking her to return a framed and autographed "Hard Day's Night" Beatles poster he'd given her.
When Kelly refused, Johnson and a friend reportedly drove to Entel's house and took the poster. Entel and Smiley-Lyle then planned and carried out the killing of Johnson, prosecutors said.
That someone died for a Beatles poster makes me ill -- almost as ill as I got when I read that in a new book on the Fab Four, A Hard Day's Night is said to unfold ''like a pop-Freudian discourse on the themes of Work and Love."
Some things are only as scary as you allow them to be. Silly stories like these that make national news with a tone of such import don't impart information so much as they induce phobia. You could hang up a loop of yarn and a news crew would soon be on hand to film it. And a professional infantilizer like Al Sharpton would be on stand-by for a soundbite, shaking his rattle in eager anticipation of capitalizing on the situation:
A student found four nooses in a classroom at Central Michigan University earlier this week, the school said Thursday.The student found the nooses in a section of the Engineering and Technology Building typically used by senior engineering students. They were made of compressed gas lines that are typically used in laboratory work, according to a news release.
Michigan state Sen. Hansen Clark said he met with the university president to discuss how to handle the incident. He plans to make a statement Friday on whether the university will ask federal authorities to investigate the case.
"There was no reason for the nooses to be hung like that," Hansen said. "The community is looking at this as a racist act."
Back when I was in Tallahassee in the early nineties, every month or so a middle-aged man would come into the ibrary dressed in full Nazi regalia and parade around. From there he'd go cruise the aisles of the grocery store. What a disappointment it must have been to him that nobody rose to his bait. Nowadays there'd be a helicopter crew filming his march from on high.
If when you went in for shots as a kid your parents acted like it was a scary deal, you thought it was a scary deal too. They had induced a fear of needles. How much more ridiculous is a phobic reaction to an object from which no one involved has any personal memory of trauma whatsoever; and how much more foolish some in the media look when they race to cover the innocuous.
My blessings upon the innovative and ultimately quite deranged mind of Hartford resident Horace Wells, for his introduction of nitrous oxide into the field of dentistry.
Hurrah as well for whichever post-op drug it is that currently has me wrapped in cotton, though I'm considering staying awake some day soon.
Barry Bonds has more to worry about than an asterisk now.Just three months ago, the former San Francisco Giants star angrily defended himself against steroid allegations on the night he surpassed Hank Aaron to become baseball's home run king.
"This record is not tainted at all," Bonds declared. "At all. Period."
On Thursday, his very freedom was put in jeopardy when a federal grand jury indicted him on five felony counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, charges that could result in a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if he's convicted.
What a glorious game baseball is without cheaters.
Like all fashionable young men of his era, Duane had an appreciation for Rit dye.
Screengrab from Fillmore East video.
Wail on, Skydog!
The lame branch of the sick, lame, and lazy.
Winter Basic, Ft. Jackson, SC, 1988.
My much hale and heartier dad.
Winter Basic, Ft. Jackson, SC, 1950.
Working on the principle of aversion therapy, a novel approach to the treatment of chocoholism is undergoing a limited scientific trial in Rockdale County, Georgia:
Rockdale County deputies have made an unusual bust -- drugs in candy ducks!
Officials arrested Matthew Jackson, 20, of Covington for allegedly selling LSD and other hallucinogens baked into duck-shaped chocolate candy.Authorities said the chocolate ducks were wrapped in silver and gold foil. Officials said a crushed sample of the chocolate revealed a large amount of a mushroom-like material mixed into the chocolate.
Officials with the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Department said they had never seen anything like it.
A search of Jackson’s vehicle revealed 74 more ducks in a cooler bag, officials said.
He remains in jail while awaiting a bond hearing. He is charged with the sale of LSD; sale of psilocin, the active ingredient in psilocybin mushrooms; and possession with intent to distribute psilocin.
Good work, Dr. Jackson! I've no doubt the paired associates of chocolate with the vomiting induced by the magic mushrooms will indeed help some addicted to theobroma cacao bring their chocoholism under control. As the groundbreaking field trials of Chocolate Ex-Lax in the 1970's proved when an association between chocolate and diarrhea was forever established in the minds of millions of Americans, aversion therapy can be a very effective tool in fighting this disease.
Next treatment in the pike: underwritten by Bed, Bath, and Beyond, a chocolate-scented gonorrhea-laden bodywash to bring the sensation of urinating ground glass into play.
Erratic driving indeed:
Pontiac [Illinois] police are investigating a rare case of decapitation this morning after a body was found in a tow truck and the head was found elsewhere.The truck was found near the intersection of routes 116 and 66 after bystanders called police about 4:30 a.m. to report the truck was moving erratically and a chain was dragging from the rear.
Police Commander Jim Woolford said a 911 caller reported the truck had left the parking lot of S&R Route 66 Auto Center, 1026 W. Reynolds St., traveled east in the parking lot of Super Gyros, 1024 W. Reynolds St., and then hit a sign before crossing Route 66 and going down the embankment of Mike's Glass Plus at the intersection of routes 116 and 66.
Woolford said police found the victim's head in the S&R parking lot.
He did pretty well, considering. Lots of headed people have driven worse.
Well, it shows you how out of the loop I've been. I had no idea that my favorite Canadian blogger was up for an award.
Treat yourself to a visit to Mitchieville and sponge off of all the social services while your there - he's used to it. Then head on over to give the Mayor your vote here, if you will. It'd only be fair after all the handouts.
And since I must plug Florida blogs, also swing by and say hi to the beautiful and delightful Panhandle Cooter over at Coalition of the Swilling.
I've been following the disappearance of a little Missouri girl named Rowan Ford:
Investigators in Missouri fear that foul play may be involved in the disappearance of a 9-year-old girl last seen Friday night.David Spears told authorities that he last saw his stepdaughter, Rowan Ford, Friday night at 10:45 p.m., Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland told ABC News. Spears then left the house with two friends until around midnight, during which time the fourth-grade girl was left alone in their unlocked Stella, Mo., home. Spears told investigators that he did not check on the girl before going to bed.
The girl's mother, Colleen Spears, had left for her night job at Wal-Mart about two hours earlier. When she arrived home from work Saturday morning, her daughter was not there to greet her, Copeland said.
"The mother worked nights, the dad worked days," Copeland said. "So he was home and he decides to go out drinking with the boys."
David Spears initially told his wife that he did not know where the girl was, the sheriff said. He later told her that Rowan may have woken him up during the night and said something about going to a friend's house, but he could not be sure, Copeland said.
David and Colleen Spears spent the day Saturday searching for the girl. They had no luck at various friends' houses, and Saturday evening they reported her missing to the sheriff's department.
So he was gone an hour and 15 minutes? Not exactly:
Authorities have not identified any suspects in the girl's disappearance, but they also haven't ruled anyone out -- including family members. Copeland described Colleen Spears as "very upset" and cooperative with the investigation. He also said that co-workers confirmed that she was at her job at Wal-Mart.David Spears, he said, took a much different tack.
"The stepfather was uncooperative with us," Copeland said, adding that Spears has refused to speak with police anymore until he consults with an attorney.
Investigators also learned -- and Spears acknowledged -- that he'd left the house for a second time early Saturday morning and was not there between 1:30 a.m. and about 7 a.m. During that time, Copeland said, David Spears' mother was at the house while her son used her car. The woman told investigators that she did not check on her stepgranddaughter while her son was away from the house.
Where David Spears was for more than five hours remains unknown. "We don't know," Copeland said. "We know where he said he went."
I don't know if he Mr. Spears went through with any lawyering up, but he has done some talking: to the media, to say it was stupid of him to leave her alone.
And while there are 50 or more FBI agents now swarming the tiny town, offers of assistance from outside search and rescue organizations are being turned down because, as the sheriff says, he's just going to follow the evidence. So far the only evidence he's mentioned is a missing sheet, a missing kid, and a nocturnal drive in the country of a step-father.
Closer to home, we have our own story of a wandering night owl parent. A 9 year-old Clearwater boy named Zachary Bernhardt who disappeared from home while his mother was taking a 15-minute 4:00 a.m. stroll. Hopefully Rowan's case will be resolved sooner than Zachary's has. He's been gone since 2000.
More on Rowan here, here, and here.
UPDATE:
A video interview with David Spears here has him repeatedly speaking of the girl in the past tense. Not a good sign.
An interview with the mother here.
UPDATE II:
A report out a few minutes ago says her body's been found in a sinkhole. How awful. RIP, Rowan:
A 9-year-old southwest Missouri girl missing for a week was found dead Friday in a sinkhole in eastern McDonald County, a law enforcement official said.The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because authorities had not yet made an official announcement, said the body of Rowan Ford was found on private land near Powell, about 10 miles from the girl's hometown of Stella.
I hope the next announcement they make is that of an arrest and that they have an air-tight case. We've not had much luck in prosecuting the murderer of our own Sarah Lunde of Ruskin, whose case is remarkably similar to Rowan's. It's for a good reason they say the most dangerous person to a child is mommy's boyfriend.
UPDATE III:
Two men have been arrested for her murder.
Anyone know the venue for this awesome pic? Atlanta, perhaps?
Wail on, Skydog!
Whether it was the molten lava of chocolate chip or the searing scorch of oatmeal raisin, one thing is certain: a very homey drug deal went terribly wrong:
Two students at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville are jailed on charges that they kidnapped, paddled and burned a young man with freshly baked cookies after a drug deal went bad.
...
Authorities say three men went to [suspect Rosario] James' house on Friday night to buy marijuana, but two of the men grabbed the drugs and fled, leaving the third behind. That's when the suspects allegedly held that man and tortured him to press him into finding money for the stolen drugs.
How freshly baked were these cookies? These gentlemen were in the midst of a drug deal, after all. If only the reporter would clarifiy whether the paddling was done with a pancake turner, it would go far in easing my mind over this troubling incident.
I don't know this family, but I found their trip to a surreal pumpkin patch a delight.
Erring on the side of caution, Cory Ryder's folks are not so willing as those of Ashlee Pulcini to overlook their dangerously anti-social child's youthful indiscretion of hiring a hitman to kill them:
Like many middle-class, suburban American parents, Shannan and Joey Troiano worried about their son’s behaviour and his bad grades at high school. And like many wayward teenagers, Cory Ryder was grounded for weeks at a time, had a PlayStation confiscated and was banned from watching TV.Less typically, this 16-year-old was plotting to murder his parents by hiring a hitman, while his mother was organising a sting operation involving a police officer posing as a contract killer.
Cory’s trial is scheduled to begin today at the circuit court in St Mary’s County, Maryland. His mother is expected to testify as a witness for the prosecution.
On the upside, Gangsta Cory will now get his street cred by doing a stretch in jail, while his parents will no longer have to worry if he's waving a week's-worth of milk tickets over his head in some tempting overture to a would-be hitman - it's win-win for everybody.
And Ashlee's folks should make it very, very clear that she's not in the will.
The mother of a 7-year-old boy who claimed a carjacker killed her son was arrested Monday and charged with murder in her son's death, Greenville County Sheriff Steve Loftis said.Amanda Reagan Smith was arrested nearly three months after she told authorities that a knife-wielding carjacker forced her to drive to a secluded, wooded area in Greenville on Aug. 12. Once there, she said the carjacker locked the car doors and pressed a pillow to the face of her 7-year-old son.
"Investigators have concluded that Amanda Smith is responsible for the death of her son," Loftis said during a news conference in Greenville. "We are confident that we have the suspect in jail now."
Brad Willis of Rapid Eye Reality has been following the Devon Epps case closely and has much more. Law enforcement's biggest clue to the public that something was amiss came immediately after the crime was reported: not only did they decline to do a massive manhunt for any knife-wielding, carjacking, child-smothering homeless man, they said, "Don't worry about it." Then they winked.
No doubt this fun-loving gal has enjoyed these past few months sans the little style-cramper but it looks like Amanda Smith has had her last jell-o shot. The only bars she'll see are the ones she's behind.
But don't fret her prison life will be too bleak - being behind bars hasn't kept fellow South-Carolinian son-dispatcher Susan Smith from the occasional good time.
