40-year old Paul Walker known for the Fast and Furious movie franchise died in a single-vehicle accident that resulted in a fiery explosion. The accident occurred about 3:30 p.m. Pacific time Saturday in Santa Clarita, Calif.
The actor was a passenger in a Porsche GT in which the driver somehow lost control slamming into a tree. Both in the car were killed.
GEORGIA—A man in Atlanta was confronted by police when he plugged his Nissan Leaf into a school outlet “stealing” about five-cents worth of electricity. He was arrested for the “crime” ten days later.
According to ArsTechnia,
Kaveh Kamooneh plugged an extension cable from his Nissan Leaf into a 110-volt external outlet at Chamblee Middle School while his son was practicing tennis. A short time later, he noticed someone in his car and went to investigate—and found that the man was a Chamblee police officer. “He informed me he was about to arrest me, or at least charge me, for electrical theft,” Kamooneh told Atlanta’s Channel 11 News.
Sergeant Ernesto Ford of the Chamblee Police Department told News 11 that a theft is a theft and he would arrest anyone for theft.
By John Dodson
In September 2009, John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was assigned to the ATF’s Phoenix office. What he found there shocked him. The bureau was encouraging gun dealers to sell weapons in bulk to known straw buyers, who would funnel those guns to Mexican drug cartels. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, it ended with the death of at least one American law enforcement officer. Dodson became a congressional whistleblower, and the investigation into the operation is ongoing. In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, “The Unarmed Truth,” Dodson explains how tragically inept Fast and Furious was.
‘It’s like the underwear gnomes,” my ATF colleague Lee Casa told me one time as we recounted the latest bizarre goings-on in Phoenix.
“What?” I asked.
“You ever watch ‘South Park’? There’s this episode where all the boys get their underwear stolen by these underwear gnomes. They track them down to get it back and one of them asks why they are stealing everyone’s underwear. The gnomes break out this PowerPoint and reveal their master plan: Phase One: Collect underpants . . . Phase Two: ? . . . Phase Three: Profit.”
“We’re doing the same thing,” he explained. “We know Phase One is ‘Walk guns’ and Phase Three is ‘Take down a big cartel!’ ”
Both of us were laughing now; a more fitting and appropriate allegory could never be found. Casa concluded, “Just nobody can figure out what the f–k Phase Two is!”
What was happening did at times almost seem like a spoof. Letting guns “walk” was a tactic that I had never before seen or even contemplated. It simply wasn’t done.
I couldn’t understand how anyone could argue that allowing guns that ought to have been in law-enforcement custody to go to known or suspected criminals — people who shouldn’t have been near a gun, people who almost certainly would be passing them on to Mexico’s most brutal drug cartels — wasn’t madness.
Read more at the New York Post
By Megan McArdle Nov 26
In the latest City Journal, Steve Malanga writes about an issue that hasn’t yet gotten a lot of attention but is virtually guaranteed to become a serious topic of national debate in the not-so-distant future: Do we bail out cities that have become insolvent?
Malanga quotes a Steve Rattner op-ed from the summer: “The 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs, and eventually Congress decided to help them.” Rattner is right, of course; Detroit was largely undone by massive structural changes in the auto industry, which now employs only a small fraction of the people that it used to. And yet, there’s more to the story, isn’t there? Detroit’s biggest problem is the combined burden of its pension funds and retiree health benefits. And the reason that its pensions are in such a state is that they were bizarrely mismanaged by people who apparently didn’t quite get fifth-grade math.
It’s true that it would be easier to deal with these problems if Detroit were more like New York and less like, well, Detroit. But it’s also true that if Detroit had been responsible about its pension contributions instead of underfunding the pensions while simultaneously handing out extra benefits above and beyond what the city already couldn’t afford, its retirees would not now be facing dire straits. New Yorkers did not get to vote for the corrupt Detroit politicians who appointed the terrible Detroit pension managers who made all of Detroit’s problems so much worse than they had to be. Why should they have to pick up the check for all those mistakes?
Read more at Bloomberg
I was astounded to read that this rare event – Thanksgiving and Hanukkah – might not occur again for 79,000 years! Here’s why:
Well, almost never. If the Jews don’t ever abandon the calculations based on the Shmuelian calendar, Hanukkah will keep getting later and later — moving through winter, then into spring, summer, and finally back into fall — so that tens of thousands of years from now they will again coincide. But long before then the springtime holiday of Passover will have moved deep into summer, so be on the lookout for a memo with a calendar update in the next several thousand years.
But another source (A Jewish source) says it will be 2070AD! But it will be the next to last time.
You’ll notice that these dates are getting further and further apart. That’s not just FDR’s fault. Both the Gregorian calendar and the Jewish calendar are slowly drifting in relation to the actual solar year—but at different rates. After 2165, Chanukah would have completely drifted out of November—unless one of these calendars (or Thanksgiving) is changed.
More at Virginia Right
At the same time the government used the risk of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from prison to work for the CIA.
It was a nod to the classic Beatles song and a riff on the CIA’s other secret facility at Guantanamo Bay, a prison known as Strawberry Fields.
Penny Lane: Officials have revealed that the CIA trained terrorist prisoners as double agents at a top secret Guantanamo facility codenamed Penny Lane in the early days after 9/11. The facility, now abandoned, is the white rows of buildings at the center of this satellite image
The CIA turned some Guantanamo Bay prisoners into double agents then sent them home to help the U.S. kill terrorists in the early years after 9/11, officials have revealed.
The CIA promised the prisoners freedom, safety for their families and millions of dollars from the agency’s secret accounts.
It was a risky gamble. Officials knew there was a chance that some prisoners might quickly spurn their deal and kill Americans.
For the CIA, that was an acceptable risk in a dangerous business. For the American public, which was never told, the program was one of the many secret trade-offs the government made on its behalf. At the same time the government used the risk of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from prison to work for the CIA.
The program was carried out in a secret facility built a few hundred yards from the administrative offices of the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The eight small cottages were hidden behind a ridge covered in thick scrub and cactus.
The program and the handful of men who passed through these cottages had various official CIA code names.
But those who were aware of the cluster of cottages knew it best by its sobriquet: Penny Lane.
More at Mail Online
A bicyclist who was ticketed after he was hit by a US Forest Service pickup Saturday in north Fort Collins said he plans to dispute the citation in court.
Roger Hoover, 51, said he was slowly riding his bike in front of the law-enforcement truck, which was blocking the crosswalk, when it pulled forward and hit him. He was ticketed with leaving a place of safety into the path of a moving vehicle.
“I thought that basically any time somebody runs over a pedestrian with a car, that it’s the car’s fault,” he said. “Apparently not.”
Read more at the Coloradoan
Mexican illegals assaulting U.S. Border Patrol Agents with rocks and bottles near San Diego, Nov. 24. No shots were fired and no arrests were made per Mexican Government demands.
SAN YSIDRO, Calif.—–Border Patrol agents working near the U.S./Mexico International Border yesterday were assaulted with rocks and bottles.
On November 24, 2013, more than 100 people illegally crossed the International Border from Mexico one-quarter-mile west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry in the Tijuana River channel. The group advanced toward a Border Patrol agent positioned one-eighth of a mile north of the border. The agent ordered the group to stop. The group ignored his commands and continued to advance. The agent deployed his PepperBall Launcher System, an intermediate use-of-force device, in an effort to stop the group and protect himself. The crowd failed to respond appropriately.
Numerous agents responded to the scene as the crowd became increasingly unruly and began throwing rocks and bottles. The crowd struck several agents in the arms and legs with rocks; one agent was hit in the head with a filled water bottle. Agents deployed several intermediate use-of-force devices and Mexican law enforcement authorities were contacted. The use of intermediate use-of-force devices eventually caused the group to return to Mexico and disperse.
Paul Beeson, San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent said “While attacks on Border Patrol agents are not uncommon, the agents showed great restraint when faced with the dangers of this unusually large group, and fortunately no one was seriously injured.”
No one was arrested and no one was able to continue north.
To prevent the illicit smuggling of humans, drugs, and other contraband, the U.S. Border Patrol maintains a high level of vigilance on major corridors of egress away from our Nation’s borders. To report suspicious activity to the U.S. Border Patrol, contact San Diego Sector at (619) 498-9900.
SAN MARCOS, Texas — Police in San Marcos have released composite sketches of three men they say kidnapped a woman and her four-year-old child, then sexually assaulted and beat the woman.
The incident happened around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 6 on the east end of McKie Street near the I-35 access road, west of the highway.
The woman was driving on McKie when her vehicle was bumped from behind by another vehicle. When she got out to check for damage, she was forced into the back seat of her own vehicle by two suspects and a third followed.
The woman’s head was covered and she was taken to an unknown location where police say she was sexually assaulted, strangled, and eventually lost consciousness.
The unconscious victim and her child were later left in their vehicle parked on the side of a road outside of San Marcos. When she regained consciousness, she was able find her way home where she called police.
SMPD says investigators are following numerous leads, and tips continue to come in on the case, but they hope the drawings will help further develop tips on the suspects.
The suspects are described as follows:
Suspect 1: Hispanic male, possible nickname “Dago,” late 30s to early 40s, medium olive complexion, six feet tall, stocky build, shaved or bald heat, dark eyes, small goatee, possible diamond stud earring in left ear, tattoos of crosses on left and right forearms, wearing white shirt with blue trim and blue jeans.
Suspect 2: Hispanic male, possible nickname of “Chico,” 18 to 20 years old, light olive complexion, 5’8” to 5’10” in height, thin build, closely cropped black hair, dark eyes with long eyelashes, slightly protruding ears, possible diamond stud earring in left ear, tattoo of cursive writing at base of neck, wearing loose fitting white T-shirt and blue jeans.
Suspect 3: Hispanic male, late 30s, dark olive complexion, 5’6” to 5’7” in height, medium build, thick arched eyebrows, slight acne scars, hair styled into a “faux-hawk,” wearing gray T-shirt and blue jeans.
PLEASE CALL the San Marcos Police Department –
Criminal Investigation Division at 512-753-2300 if you recognize these individuals.
After 5 p.m. call San Marcos police at 512-753-2108.
Or call Crime Stoppers at 512-353-TIPS or 800-324-8477.
NOTE: RACIST REMARKS/COMMENTS WILL NOT HELP & ARE UNWELCOME HERE, SO PLEASE REFRAIN!!
Photo taken of a horse named Glass on the set of the Hallmark Channel movie Love’s Resounding Courage shortly after the animal was impaled in an accident. He was soon euthanized.
King’s trainer eventually snagged him with a catch rope and dragged him to one side of the tank, where he scrambled out to safety.
“I think this goes without saying but DON’T MENTION IT TO ANYONE, ESPECIALLY THE OFFICE!” Johnson continued in the email, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “I have downplayed the f— out of it.”
As a representative of the American Humane Association — the grantor of the familiar “No Animals Were Harmed” trademark accreditation seen at the end of film and TV credits — it was Johnson’s job to monitor the welfare of the animals used in the production filmed in Taiwan. What’s more, Johnson had a secret: She was intimately involved with a high-ranking production exec on Pi. (AHA’s management subsequently became aware of both the relationship and her email about the tiger incident, which others involved with the production have described in far less dire terms.) Still, Pi, which went on to earn four Oscars and $609 million in global box office, was awarded the “No Animals Were Harmed” credit.
More at the Hollywood Reporter