This part of Arizona, which I've touted as The Land of the World's Stupidest Criminals, is now vying for title of The Land of America's Most Rabid Animals:

http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=66357

I usually don't post sad news because I don't want to bring people down, but there is a happy story to go along with it. Last week four Oakland police officers were shot and killed by one man. It started after he was pulled over by two motorcycle cops and they discovered he was wanted for violating his parole.

Believe it or not about 60 people marched and protested in support of the killer! Sick people.

Anyway, the good part of the story is that the fourth police officer who died in the hospital was an organ donor, and four people's lives were saved because of his organs. I think it's pretty cool that even after he died he was still able to save the lives of four people.

There was a funeral service at the Oakland arena where 21,000 people showed up. I was on my way to work while police officers were coming from all over the Bay Area. It was a cool commute because every minute or so there was a group of about 10 police vehicles with their lights all flashing on the way to the funeral, and on most of the highway overpass' was a firetruck parked with it's lights flashing and firemen lined up to honor the police driving by underneath.

Stuff like this makes me appreciate the police even more. It's too bad most people hate cops, just because of a few bad eggs. But even the bad eggs put their lives in danger.

I understand where you're coming from, Blib. But I don't think most people hate cops--I think the news media give a lot of space to cop-haters and cops who commit questionable acts, rather than their day-to-day professionalism and heroism.

"hate" was probably to strong of a word, but most people don't appreciate what cops do because everyone has that uncomfortable experience of getting pulled over for a traffic violation. I think it's hard for people to respect the police when they feel like they've been picked on.

Nicholas Calabrese admits to 14 murders, gets 12 years. Yeah this could go in the real life OC forum but who'd read it?


Leniency to Calabrese vs. mob and its justice
John Kass
Chicago Tribune

Chicago Outfit hit man turned star government witness Nicholas Calabrese, who killed at least 14 men and wet his pants on his first murder assignment near Sox Park decades ago, stood in court to talk about fear.

"I chose my path in life," he told U.S. District Judge James Zagel before he was sentenced as the last man in the historic mob prosecution known as Family Secrets. "I was always with fear, and underneath that fear, there was a coward."

Not the Hollywood image of the Outfit hit man, but then Hollywood has always glamorized the mob. American audiences, so numbed by living in an increasingly bureaucratic culture, demand recognizable archetypes to fulfill escapist fantasies. It's Tony Soprano they want, the politically incorrect and unrepentant white guy who takes what he wants.

But that's Hollywood, and Nick Calabrese is from Chicago, and he testified to wetting himself as a grown man, when he strangled Bones Albergo years ago with his brother Frank.

He's been afraid since he was a kid, afraid of Frank, afraid of failing at his work. That fear forced him to become meticulous in his planning of murders, so fussy about details that he sounded more like a grandmother at a quilting convention than some archetypal gangster.

That fear led him to become the first "made man" ever to testify against the Outfit, in the most significant prosecution of the mob in modern Chicago's history.

Outfit bosses Frank Calabrese, Joseph Lombardo and James Marcello have been sentenced, as have enforcer Paul Schiro and Chicago cop Anthony "Twan" Doyle. On Thursday it was Nick Calabrese's turn.

The families of his victims came up first, testifying tearfully about fathers who were shotgunned or strangled or tortured, never to see their kids grow up, graduate, marry and start their own families. Some wept, others spat out their hatred at Calabrese, and all asked Zagel to let him rot in prison.

It would have been the easy thing to do. Yet Zagel's job isn't about emotion, but rather about logic and the law, and he began to speak slowly, eloquently about leniency.

Not leniency to Calabrese, but leniency to all the other families of other victims unknown, future victims of other killers who might receive some small measure of justice if the law showed some mercy on Calabrese, to persuade men like him to testify in court.

"There is a phrase used in state courts, when individuals are charged with murder: 'Against the peace and dignity of the people of the state of Illinois,' " Zagel said. "And murder is a kind of war, and the organization you are involved in engages in that war, with faction against faction, and against the people."

Zagel noted that in another federal courtroom in April, Deputy U.S. Marshal John Ambrose will go on trial for allegedly being an Outfit messenger, guarding Calabrese and sending the bosses information about murder sites visited by Calabrese and FBI agents when the investigation began.

I wrote about the beginning of Family Secrets before it was called Family Secrets, back on Feb. 21, 2003, when Calabrese was quietly swept into the federal witness protection program, when the Outfit began to tremble, and I listed some of the murders that would be solved. I knew the Outfit bosses were worried. What I didn't know was how easily they could penetrate the federal shield.

The Outfit "will not forgive or relent in their pursuit of you," Zagel said to Calabrese, adding that even when he's a free man, Calabrese will never draw a secure breath.

He was sentenced to 148 months in prison, but given the time he's already served, Calabrese will be out in about four years. He should be available to testify in other trials.

Without Calabrese's testimony, there would have been no prosecution, and the big bosses would be out on the street, ordering hits, spreading corruption, sending their political errand boys to carry messages to local governments.

Watching him sitting at the defense table, an old man in jeans, glasses and a gray sweat shirt, trying to keep his lips from quivering and losing, it became clear that while the Chicago Outfit relies upon corrupt politicians to protect it, the Outfit was built on what was obvious in Nick Calabrese's eyes:

Fear.
[/quote]

True enough. Here in AZ, the state has installed dozens of photo radar sites on state roads and interstates. Motorists caught in those traps complain that the law isn't being followed because they're mailed a summons generated by a machine, not witnessed and signed by a real cop. But when they get stopped and ticketed by a real cop, they bitch about "police harrassment."

Is that the citation that takes a picture. My friend's husband was going 60 in a 50 MPR zone and the camera shot the picture and sent it to him with the ticket. There was no getting out of it.

While we're on the subject of driving/traffic. Here in CA they banned cell phone use (without a headset), while driving, but I see it everyday. The other day it was kind of stop and go while entering the freeway. The guy next to me has his cell on the steering wheel and was texting while we slowly enter the freeway. That's just one example. I can see accidents happening a whole lot, if people aren't more cautious.

TIS

This isn't news, but it's from my neck of the woods.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the meltdown at Three Mile Island. TMI remains a sobering sight as the three large reactors rise on the horizon, two of which continue to emit billowing steam clouds while the third is forever sealed and dormant.

To this day Central Pennsylvania has a mass evacuation plan if an accident occurs that leaks radioactive gases ito the atmosphere. We occasionally get mailers on this. I forget where our area is supposed to go, but I'll just follow everyone else on the clogged highways.

I'll never forget that. My first wife and I had gone to see "The China Syndrome" for my birthday. The next day we heard the news about TMI and almost shit a pickle.

I was 14, living 120 miles north of the reactors, and that first night there was some talk of the possibility of evacuation. Some sense of comfort arrived when Jimmy Carter personally toured the facility in his famous high yellow boots. My aunt in Hasrrisburg hopped in the car and drove to her sister's in South Carolina. My uncle stayed put.

Wow, scary stuff Klyd

Former NYC mayor, Rudy Guiliani got an order of protection against some guy with whom he had a shouting match here on Long Island. This other guy allegedly threatened bodily harm on Rudy.

The guy's name? McCluskey.

(I can see it now... he asks, "How's the food in this Italian mayor"?)

Anyone hear about the mother and daughter from PA who were reportedly abducted? The mother supposedly called from the trunk of a car, saying she and her daughter had been kidnapped. The police found her SUV in Philly with a bunch of parking tickets on it. The police issued an Amber Alert for the missing 9 year old daughter.

Then the two of them were found in Disney! There was only a small mention on the news last night, but perhaps our friend Klyd knows more???

Saw that last night on Nancy Grace...some people will do anything for attention. I gotta watch NG to keep up on the Drew Peterson story. I grew up in Bolingbrook, Illinois and remember a lot of people, places and things they keep showing!

Yea, I heard last night before I went to bed, that he was or could be a hoax. Who would do something like that? Haven't heard anything yet this morning.


TIS

I haven't followed the story closely, but it's a weird one.

I read online that this was not impulsive, but rather carefully planned. The mother had $12,000 in cash with her. She also used the driver's license of a coworker that she resembled to buy plane tickets and get a room at The Grand Floridian (the 12K wouldn't last her long if she was going to stay in a place like that). At some point before they got to the airport, she called 911 and said that she and her daughter had been kidnapped and were in the trunk of a car.

I felt so bad for the poor father. He figured something wasn't quite right, but was terrified that they had been kidnapped. She has two other daughters, but they didn't get to go to Disney.

By the way, she works for a non-profit, and there was a mention that the $12K might not be all hers. What a whack-o!

A one legged African grey parrot that swears constantly was stolen from someones house. Shouldn't be too hard to find though,i imagine

Ha ha That's hilarious!!!


TIS

Apparently every time it sees somebody it says "What the f--k you looking at you f--ker?"

I want a pet like that

Well having only one leg, the poor bird has to compensate by acting "tough."


TIS

Thank God this kid is okay, so it's almost funny.

A Staten Island teenager fell into a manhole while texting

by Christina Boyle
Daily News Staff Writer

A Staten Island teen trying to text while walking fell into an open manhole - and city officials have launched an investigation.

Alexa Longueira, 15, was walking with a friend along Victory Blvd. on Wednesday when she suddenly dropped underground.

"She's all scraped up on her back, under her arms and her shoulders," her mother, Kim Longueira, said.

The schoolgirl had just been passed the phone by her friend and was opening it to send a text message when the ground beneath her feet disappeared.

The manhole had been opened by a Department of Environmental Protection team flushing a high-pressure sewer line, officials said.

DEP has said an investigation is underway.

"We regret that this happened and wish the young woman a speedy recovery," spokeswoman Mercedes Padilla said.

well...i blame the girl for not watching where she is walking

Here's a good one from my hometown newspaper. Whiskey Row, across from the county courthouse, is an Old West street that's the town's main tourist attraction:

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Prescott police made two arrests on prostitution charges after a Monday night incident on Whiskey Row downtown.

A department spokesperson said witnesses saw a man and a woman engaging in sexual activity around 8:50 p.m. in a vehicle with the door open at 150 S. Montezuma, right in front of the Bird Cage Saloon. At least four people, one of whom was a 16-year-old girl, saw the two and heard conversation that led police to suspect prostitution on the woman's part.

Police booked Stephen C. Curran, 57, of Phoenix on charges of indecent exposure, public sexual indecency, soliciting prostitution and disorderly conduct. Police also booked Linda J. Weston, 62, a transient police say is staying in the Prescott area, on charges of prostitution, public sexual indecency and disorderly conduct.

Yavapai County Jail officials said that Curran was due for release Tuesday night. Weston remains in custody.

TB, the least they could have done was close the door.

The local news is reporting the death of a woman who was killed while crossing the street last night. She was hit by a car at a busy intersection.

She was my former landlady, and she offered me an apartment when I REALLY needed one. She and her husband kind of "took me in". They're both dead now.

R.I.P. Purabi Nandi, and God bless you for all your kindness!

Sorry to hear of this SC.. RIP

That's awful, SC. I'm sorry.

SC, You have my heartfelt sympathies.

That's very sad, SC. It's nice that you remember her kindness.

Speaking of tear provoking, I saw this heart breaking sight the other day in my neighborhood. "Brownie", a loveable, tail wagging mutt from the neighborhood was struck by a car and lying dead in the street. The owners have a fouryear old daughter, who played with that silly dog every day. To get the dog to come in she would shake a tin container that held his treats.

Well, there she was on her porch with tears down her cheeks, looking at the motionless dogwhile shaking the container. It broke my heart.