Yes it was in very poor taste. I agree.

Remember that these kids were all of 7 when the attacks occurred. They probably don't have the same sensitivity that an adult would.

I guess that's true, Babe.

“I was foolish to do it and I’m very sorry,” said Wadhah Almadhagi, one of the students behind the sweatshirts. “I can promise that as long as I'm in Edsel Ford I'll do my best to ensure something like this, as foolish and naive as this, will never happen again.”

Another student told Local 4 the design was made out of frustration over some media portrayals of Arab-Americans in the wake of the Christmas day terror attack.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/22146212/detail.html

The state of NJ is going to contract-out the clean up of toxic sites. There are 20,000 identified in NJ; anything from a oil tank in your backyard to major chemical plants. An infamous one down in South Jersey is called Kiddie Kollege - a pre-school facility. It was housed in an old mercury thermometer plant! Yes, toxic fumes still existed. Of course it was shut down.

But back to the biz-i-ness. Can't you see Tony Soprano getting into this type of "clean up" business?

My personal favorite clean up site was right along the Hudson in an old gorgeous house. The former owners were in the battery biz. The husband used to bury lots of batteries in the backyard! The whole property was contaminated.

And don't forget the Palisades Mall is built on a "superfund" landfill. There was also a business on Rt 303 that used to dump on that site. I forget the type of business, but it was some nasty carcinogen.....like battery acid

Recently abot 25 minutes away from my home, a boyfriend and girlfriend broke into a beer store to steal money and a few cases of beer. A 19 year old employee, who lived nearby saw the flashlight in the store after midnight, grabbed his gun, and went to see what was going on. When the worker turned on the lights, the male burglar rushed at him waving a hammer whereupon the worker unloaded two rounds into the man's chest, killing him immediately. It was all captured on video surveillance.

The female had fled out the rear door, but the worker identified the car, and police apprehended her. The police reviewed the tape and the DA determined that the killing was justified as an act of self-defense.

Now for the law school question:

What happens to the female conspirator?

She gets charged with burglary, conspiracy and......murder. Yes, by participating in a felony, the commission of which results in a death (even if it was a co-conspirator), she gets tagged with a felony murder charge, second degree murder, the penalty for which is life in prison. And she didn't even get a dime or a beer out of the whole thing.

Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid..

Look at Charles Manson. He ordered the massacre in the Sharon Tate murders. Yet he didn't actually do the killing himself. Still, he got convicted of the murders. I know he murdered the LaBiancas and assume his sentence included that murder (I don't remember). He originally received the death penalty I believe but it was discontinued so he's serving life. One weird and scary guy.


TIS

Boo F'n hoo. Don't expect me to feel sorry for her stupidity.

Not at all. It's the risk you run.

Here's another scenario. The person, who is the getaway driver in a robbery attempt is fleeing from the scene, at which time a drunk driver, passed out behind the wheel, runs a red light and smashes into the getaway car, killing himself.

The getaway driver may then be charged with felony murder.

Check out this link about a 104 year old former "strongman" who was hit by a car, killing him.

What a way to go, considering his age and (good) physical condition.


104 YEAR OLD STRONGMAN KILLED IN ACCIDENT - click here

Such twists and turns in the law fully illustrate why when accused of a crime one definitely needs a lawyer despite any protestations of innocence.

Wow, what a story. He sure doesn't look 104. We should all be that healthy for that long.

You know it's amazing, you live to be 104, basically healthy, and who'd think you'd die by getting hit by a car. Who knows, if that hadn't happened, he may have lived another 8 - 10 years. Do you know the bit part he had in "Waterfront" SC?
Gee, and he knew Mario Lanza, my dad's favorite singer. How cool.


TIS

Don't know the bit part in the movie, TIS. He was probably one of the dock-workers.

Yesterday there were closing arguments in the restitution hearing for the former Mayor of Detroit, Kilpatrick. He stopped stopped paying the agreed upon restitution on time ($6K/mth), claiming that his income had changed. Of course the County Prosecutor did not see it that way and thus began a very bitter and heated, yet thoroughly entertaining restitution hearing. It was revealed that Kilpatrick had received a $240K "loan" from Detroit Area businessmen, including the owner of the company at which he currently works, a $50K gift from the owner of the Ambassador Bridge (who is working with the Mayor's mother -the local congresswoman- to prevent a competing bridge from being established. It also came out that despite at one point claiming to only having $6 left in his accounts at the end of the month, Kilpatrick was spending thousands of dollars on tithes, plastic surgery for his wife and was even having other people pay his restitution. He's also under FBI investigation.

So now in addition to asking for an order for Kilpatrick to pay up, the prosecutor is also asking for a finding of probation violation.
Probation Violation Claim

There was one argument that Kilpatrick's attorneys made which was both simple and quite audacious. They pointed out that the order of restitution ordered Kilpatrick to pay $6K/mth and that (according to them) after 6 mths the restitution amt shall be adjusted to reflect 30% of his gross income.

The Court Order didn't say WHO should do the adjustment so Kilpatrick took it upon himself to adjust his restitution amount because as he earnestly claimed on the stand, he was eager to obey the Court's mandatory order.



Here's a question for any legal minds. Do the attorneys have a point? Is the order sufficiently vague enough to allow the probationer to make adjustments without first checking with the Court and/or State? The judge who will rule on this is the same judge who issued the original order.

Court Order

What a guy. He was certainly a marvel.

i guess he had a page on wikipedia...don't know if it was made before or after his death though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Rollino

Here's another goodie from my hometown, The Land of the Stupid Criminals:

Cops arrested a 49=year-old man who robbed a convenience store of a can of beer and some cookes at knifepoint, made the clerk lie on the floor, kicked him--and then left in a taxi that he had waiting for him. Cops traced him through the cabdriver and arrested him in minutes. The guy claimed he was doing it as an initiation into an outlaw biker gang.

According to one of the articles written about him.....

"He was also a longshoreman and decorated World War II veteran whose scene in the Marlon Brando film “On the Waterfront” was left on the cutting room floor."

he was trying to get in a biker gang, but used a taxi...what a dumbass

The story of Haiti is really hitting home. I spoke to my friend who said that they've heard from two cousins. They are homeless, but alive. One was buried under the rubble, but was rescued without major injury. They don't know anything about anyone else yet.

One of the newly-elected local mayors is Haitian. Her husband was in Haiti at the time of the earthquake and is still missing.

I saw her on the news last night.

I can't even IMAGINE what these people are going through ~ not even knowing if your loved ones are dead or alive.

I want to see our government respond quickly and efficiently and in force NOW. I don't wanna see just one aircraft carrier and a few minor ships be dispatched. Send a fleet! Send the SeaBees. Send a few hundred bulldozers and doctors and MASH units.

More importantly, send them NOW!! Every hour they delay people are dying. They need to dig out the bodies NOW.

The richest, most powerful country in the world can't do this for a poor country only a few hundred miles from its shores??

I have one word for you - Katrina. Hopefully some good came from our horrible response to the people of New Orleans, and we are able to muster the necessary help more efficiently for Haiti.

The news this morning said that the death toll will surely be in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

It doesn't look like we learned a hell of a lot!

Sadly, the death toll MAY be more that the tens of thousands.

Tens?

This is horrific. They're claiming 500,000 or more people may be dead.

There are a bunch of Haitian gamblers who frequent the OTB on 241st Street here in the Bronx. I almost never go to that one because it's way on the other side of town from me. But I stopped in yesterday afternoon because I was driving by and there was a horse that I liked at Aqueduct (of course she lost ). Anyway, this is normally a very loud, very friendly, very demonstrative group of people. Yesterday, these middle aged and even old men were openly weeping. It was heartbreaking to see.

I know that Jersey has a very large Haitian population, as does Brooklyn and the Wakefield section of the Bronx. So this hits very close to home for a lot of people in this area. It's very, very sad.

I hope he got enough money from the robbery to pay the cab fare and leave a suitable tip.

I had heard of a robber first asking a clerk if he had change for a twenty. The clerk took the bill whereupon he was held up at gunpoint, opened the register, and handed the dolt the twelve dollars that was in the till. The robber couldn't figure out why he was charged with a felony and going to jail for five years when the store owed him $8.

Within hours, three die in getaway crash, guard killed trying to detain suspects in separate thefts
George Hunter and Mike Martindale / The Detroit News

Waterford Township -- Greg Paul Wainio had only been on the job as a Kmart loss prevention officer for about three weeks before his final shift ended in tragedy.

The 36-year-old Wainio, a Gaines, Mich., resident and father of 8-year-old twin boys and five stepchildren, was dragged to his death Thursday by two suspected shoplifters. They were charged Friday in Wainio's death.

Shoplifting Turns Deadly

Does anyone have $319,000 that they can loan out to the former Mayor of Detroit? He's good for it...
Judge orders payment