Least sympathetic recession victims ever?
As the wealthy cut lavish spending, several South Florida yacht brokers had declining sales last year and some of them saw business dive sharply the past three months as the economic slump deepened.(ORLANDO SUN SENTINEL)
With local yacht sales sinking 25 percent to 50 percent in 2008, some say a rebound isn't likely until midyear or early 2010.
So last week some bart cops(?) shot an unarmed father of one in the back up in Oakland, CA.
Let the protest-turned-riot commmence. (SFIST)
My favorite plaintiff of the bunch:
Another veteran in the suit, Bruce Price, alleged that military doctors implanted something in a sinus cavity near his brain's frontal lobe in 1966 that remains there today. The veterans' lawyer, Gordon Erspamer, said he believes the implant was an attempted mind-control device. Price did not attend the press conference.(SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE)
A man called a late-night phone chat line on Sunday, and was invited to come have sex with two young women at their home.(CINCINNATI ENQUIRER)
When he showed up, he was beaten, robbed and threatened with charges of statutory rape by their father.
James Merida, 40, and his two daughters, Amie Campbell, 28, and Ashley Merida, 20, of the 1900 block of Knob Court, have been arrested on robbery charges.
"I think these people found a new way to victimize others," Frey said.
"They find people who are an easy mark and found a way to intimidate and scare these men into thinking they could be involved with a more serious crime."
After the victim came to meet the girls about 10 p.m., Merida rushed into the house by kicking in his own door, police said.
He accused the man of fooling around with his daughters. Merida said the girls were underage, then beat the victim and took more than $200 from him, according to police.
Salton Sea Marina Sign
Not enough people are fascinated by the Salton Sea. Part post-apocalyptic wasteland, part environmental catastrophe, part psychedelic mind fuck, the Salton Sea is the beating heart of the "California Experience," in my opinion, and there is a sad dearth of materials: written, visual, what-ever on this subject.
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea is literally the first treatment I've seen anywhere (and at least within the category of books about California history, I've looked all over, even asking Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz for more information on the subject)
This documentary discusses the history of the Sea (big time Vegas style development in the 50s and 60s, bust thereafter) and interviews the locals who are all either a) drunks b) crazies or c)crazy drunks. My favorite local was an african american mother of three living on the Eastern Shore in a small community called "Bombay Beach." She moved there from El Centro. It seemed completely surreal- actually- post-apocalyptic and it occurs to me that you could drive out there with a film crew and shoot Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" without so much as a single change in scenery.
EL PASO, Texas — Concerns about the the bloody drug war being fought just across the Mexican border has El Paso leaders asking the federal government to consider legalizing drugs.(DALLAS MORNING NEWS)
Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso city councilman, pushed a resolution Tuesday that asks the U.S. government to start an "open, honest, national dialogue on ending the prohibition of narcotics."
"We think it should at least be on the table and so far it hasn't," O'Rourke said.
Why do people videotape themselves committing crimes? Because they don't think they will be caught. The flaw there is that the RISK that you will get caught way, way, way, outweighs the benefit you get if you aren't caught:
An Anaheim pastor, who had videotaped himself molesting a 13-year-old parishioner in a church office, cried and clutched a Bible behind his back Monday as he was led from a courtroom in handcuffs after pleading guilty to 34 felony sex counts.
Raul Rosas Hernandez, 44, was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno to 90 years in prison after he admitted molesting four girls and one boy over a 10-year span beginning in 1996.
She said she agreed to the 90-year sentence in part to save victims the psychological trauma of testifying at Hernandez's trial and – in one case – watching the graphic videotape.
The tape shows a naked Hernandez engaging in various sex acts in his church's office with the 13-year-old girl, Brown said.
At one point in the video, Hernandez answers a ringing telephone with the salutation "God bless you," in Spanish, Brown said. The tape closes with Hernandez in the pulpit delivering a sermon on blasphemy, Brown added.
Have you ever heard of this event? I've heard of it during party conversation in the Palm Springs area. Basically, these guys kidnapped a bus full of school children and put them in a fucking BURIED VAN out in the desert. So crazy. One of the guys is up for a parole, here is how it's described:
Woods and two brothers, James and Richard Schoenfeld, ambushed a Dairyland Elementary School bus at gunpoint on July 15, 1976, in Madera County. The kidnappers drove the 26 children and driver to a Livermore quarry and forced them into a buried van.(FRESNO BEE)
Woods and the two Schoenfelds planned to demand a $5 million ransom, but the older children and bus driver Frank Edward Ray dug themselves free after 16 hours underground
The Cops are really going out on a limb by saying the suspects long time crack use "may" have been at least somewhat responsible for his decision to (allegedly), "rob six Back Bay and South End establishments." (BOSTON GLOBE)
The headline sounds like something from the Onion: Drugs may have incited spree, police say.
What is it- every week that someone is murdered because they played Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" on a juke box and someone else didn't like the choice? Sheesh. When is Congress going to put a stop to this Jimmy Buffet inspired murder spree?
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. A Fort Bragg soldier was killed after a bar fight triggered by an argument over a Jimmy Buffet song playing on a jukebox.(AP)
Steamboat Springs police said 37-year-old Richard Lopez and two of his friends played the song at the Tap House bar and two other people started arguing with them over it. Lopez's family told The Denver Post the song was "Margaritaville."
This is the entire article, mind you:
NORFOLK, Mass.—Prison spokeswoman: Cross-dressing Mass. dermatologist who killed wife found hanged in prison cell.(BOSTON GLOBE)
Miss Sinaloa: But Can She Act?
You know what the best part of this already amazing story is? The former Miss Sinaloa is boning the head of the JUAREZ cartel. Can't wait for the movie on Telemundo. Oh man that is going to be awesome.
The former Miss Sinaola, Laura Elena Zuniga Huizen, sought relief against the 40 days of attachment to a federal judge ruled last December 26.(EL UNIVERSAL)
Laura Elena was arrested on December 22 together with Angel Orlando Garcia Urquiza, alleged leader of the Juarez cartel, and five subjects in Zapopan, Jalisco, in possession of two AR-15 rifles, three pistols, 633 cartridges, 16 cell phones and 55 thousand 300 U.S. dollars.
Paris Hilton in Aspen
I didn't get a chance to blog about James Blanning- the 72 year old ex-Aspenite who went bonkers with some homemade bombs and crazy threatening letters over the holidays. (ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS)
I want to make it clear that as an officer of the court I could never condone such criminal behavior. But... I understand.
This should make all the anti-immigration crazies delighted, yeah?
BORDER ARRESTS
Arrests of people illegally attempting to cross the U.S. border have dropped sharply in recent years. Typically, 97 percent of arrests are at the U.S.-Mexican border.
2008: 723,825
2007: 876,704
2006: 1,089,092
2005: 1,189,075
2000: 1,676,438
SOURCE: U.S. Border Patrol. Numbers are for arrests at locations between official border crossings. (RIVERSIDE PRESS ENTERPRISE)
Spectatcular!
A fiery car crash on Interstate 76 in Camden County last night led to the arrest of a Glassboro man on multiple drug and weapons charges, police said.(PHILLY.COM)
The wreck, at 10:30 p.m. in the highway's southbound lanes in Gloucester City, sent a Cadillac STS bursting into flames and trapped the driver of a Chevrolet Cavalier behind the wheel of her overturned sedan.
When state police arrived, firefighters told troopers that the driver of the Cadillac, Robert Rivera, 29, had a .357 handgun.
Troopers said they found the loaded weapon on the floor of the burnt out luxury car along with two vials of what is believed to be PCP
At 8:30 p.m. Friday, Tijuana's Grand Hotel was the scene of a shooting when gunmen burst into the Caliente sports book betting facility. They killed one man, Omar López Gallardo, 26, and wounded another, according to the Baja California Attorney General's Office
(SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE)
(GRAND HOTEL TIJUANA)
