Telecommunication companies takes your bill and ‘crams” it

Senator's probe slams phone firms for murky 'cramming' fees

Mysterious fees and services crammed onto phone bills are a “nationwide epidemic” for U.S. consumers, but a reliable source of revenue for some of America's biggest telecommunications companies, a year-long congressional investigation has found.

A report issued Wednesday by Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., says that three firms -- Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink/Quest -- earned $650 million as their cut of cramming charges levied by third-parties since 2006.

Cramming charges -- such as unwanted $10-per-month voicemail or Web design services -- have been frustrating phone customers for more than 15 years, thanks in part to ill-considered rules designed to enhance competition in local phone markets. Consumers often don't spot the small monthly fees, but even when they do getting refunds can be a nightmare: The telephone provider that sends the bills often refuses to issue refunds, instead referring consumers to the third-party firms, which are often unresponsive.  The Federal Communications Commission estimates that 15 million to 20 million consumers are crammed every year.  Rockefeller’s report says cramming could cost U.S. consumers $2 billion annually.

Congress has been unable to fix the problem for more than a decade.

photo source

Tour a new Children’s Museum, buy the “First Dolt’s” basecard card, and (Déjà vu) lawyer accidently shoots another lawyer while hunting

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Good to see you this morning. Pull up a stool and sit with me as we wander through some headlines:

Delving into the world's largest children's museum

Welcome to the new "Treasures of the Earth" exhibition here at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, launched in partnership with the National Geographic Society and world-renowned archaeologists, at the largest children's museum in the country, which draws well over a million visitors a year. The museum emphasizes using science, history and artifacts to encourage family learning and offers innovative hands-on activities, which by all accounts, works beautifully.

George W. Bush's baseball card

Now you too can have a baseball card with the “First Dolt” throwing a baseball! Imagine how you can impress your friends with this collectible prize?

President George W. Bush lent his signature to a new Topps baseball card release: For the first time ever, Topps issued autographed trading cards of a former President.

Lawyer sentenced for shooting fellow lawyer while hunting

This story reminds me of Cheney when he accidently shot a lawyer buddy. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it was another case of where a lawyer couldn’t tell the difference between a deer and another lawyer!

A Pennsylvania attorney who shot and killed a fellow hunter by mistake in 2010 while hunting for deer on his own property was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison on Friday for involuntary manslaughter and gun violations.

David Manilla failed to call promptly for emergency help and tried to hide the rifle that killed Groh. Manilla also fired a shotgun he was carrying in order to claim it was inconsistent with the fatal rifle wound, James said.

Time to walk on down the road…

Not the buzz they were hoping for: Truck spills 14 million bees on Idaho highway

Cleanup crews have finished clearing honey and an estimated 14 million bees that got loose after a delivery truck overturned on an Idaho highway.

Authorities say the semi-truck was hauling the bees from California to North Dakota when the driver veered off the shoulder, tipping more than 400 hive boxes and honey.

Authorities reportedly began receiving 911 calls late Sunday afternoon.

Fremont County Sheriff deputies say several workers were stung during the first few hours of the cleanup Sunday.

According to KPVI, officials had to spray fire foam on the truck and bees before responders could join the effort. The spill, which also unleashed a torrent of honey, reportedly required crews from numerous agencies.

Some observers told The Post-Register they saw a strange black cloud and heard a roaring noise above the spill area before realizing it was a massive swarm of bees.

Crews worked all day Monday before removing all the honey from the roadway, though deputies say a significant number of bees were still buzzing.           source

Tuesday Talk: Spiderphobes studied, Chuacabra spotted, and a pot smoking chimp documentary

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Join me in having a cup of coffee, or tea, and let’s see what’s happening in the world today:

Spiderphobes spot the bugs first, study shows

Picture this: you're sitting in a garden on a pretty summer day, and along comes a butterfly and a bumblebee. Which grabs your attention first?

Evolution would suggest that we're primed to detect threats, so we might pay attention to the buzzing little bee. But butterflies are pretty. And here are some complications: what if we're especially afraid of bees or especially entranced by butterflies? Instead of bees and butterflies, the researchers turned to arachnoids and cult TV: they exposed 72 British subjects to a variety of photos, including some of spiders and characters or objects.

'Chupacabra' rears its ugly head

The chupacabra has been an intriguing urban legend for decades, but one man said he spotted something like it and got pictures of it.

Jack Crabtree said he and a friend spotted the strange-looking creature outside his Lake Jackson home on July 4.

"He said, 'That's the strangest dog I've ever seen,'" Crabtree said. "I immediately said, 'That's not a dog, it's a chupacabra.'"

Crabtree said he's heard of the chupacabra as a mysterious creature with a scary look.

The word "chupacabra" means "goat blood sucker" in Spanish. It was given that name for its reported habit of attacking and sucking the blood of livestock, mainly goats.

Crabtree said what he saw was ugly, skinny and gray.

"Most prominent feature was his ears," he said. "I can see why people would conjure up myths and horror stories associated with something that has that appearance."

Nim: the little chimp that couldn't

"Project Nim," a documentary by Oscar-winning director James Marsh, is a heartwarming and heartbreaking story about a home-bred, pot-smoking, cookie-chomping chimpanzee called Nim Chimpsky. Nim was the star player in a controversial language experiment that failed ... but nevertheless laid the foundations for research into primate communication.

In the early 1970s, Herb Terrace, a Columbia University psychologist, adopted a 2-week-old chimpanzee. Nim Chimpsky (named after linguist Noam Chomsky) was to be the star of an experiment to see if non-human animals could be taught the elements of language. At the time, linguists and psychologists were locked in a shouting match about the true nature of our chatty brains and the origins of human language. Terrace hoped Nim would end the raging debate about how and why human language evolved.

The behaviorists led one camp, and said that language could be taught and learned by other intelligent, non-human species. The opposing camp, led by Chomsky, insisted that language was a human product and there were parts of it that non-human species could never ape.

Terrace, who still does research on primate intelligence at Columbia, had heard stories about another precocious chimpanzee named Washoe, who lived with her scientist "parents" at the University of Nevada in Reno and had been taught to communicate through American Sign Language.

But Terrace wasn’t satisfied with the way Washoe’s feats had been documented. Terrace wanted to raise young Nim among people, just as Washoe had been brought up, but scrupulously log his progress and learning abilities. If chimpanzees could in fact master elements of human language, he wanted to be sure how they did it, and how well they picked it up. "I wanted to have a total record of how Nim signed," Terrace told me.

So, at the age of 2 weeks, Nim Chimpsky was put in the foster care of Terrace's student, Stephanie LaFarge, who lived with her family in Manhattan. LaFarge, who even breast-fed Nim, would be the first of a string of chimp-sitters who tried to teach him American Sign Language. Laura-Ann Petitto, then an undergraduate at Columbia, would be next. She raised Nim from the time he was 3 months old until he was 4 years old.

South California as new state? Campaign is on — again

More than 220 groups/people have tried to propose a split of California since the 1850s…

Now a Southern California Republican says it is time to split California in half.

Jeff Stone, a Riverside County supervisor from Temecula, says he wants 13 of the state's mostly conservative counties to break away and become "South California".

The proposed South California would be made up of Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Tulare and Riverside counties. That totals about 13 million people.

Riverside County's Board of Supervisors will consider the proposal tomorrow, according to the Los Angeles Times. If the board approves the plan, leaders will create a framework for secession and then host a statewide summit on the issue.

Stone says as it is, California is an ungovernable financial catastrophe that is forcing businesses to flee and crushing taxpayers with welfare programs.

A spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown says this is a laughable political stunt.

"It's a supremely ridiculous waste of everybody's time," spokesman Gil Duran told the Times. "If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there's a place called Arizona."

NBC Bay Area Business & Tech Analyst Scott McGrew says this deal would probably benefit Northern California more. "Housing prices here have been somewhat more stable," said McGrew. "The state is able to get more money from stock gains here thanks to tech and we have smaller numbers of people in entitlement programs."

story source -- poster source

Sportsmanship fail: Parents charged after youth baseball brawl

Aaawww Summer time! Blazing temperatures and tempers flare during America’s favorite past time, a baseball game. Not a pro game,or a college game, but a youth game. Pre-teens who should be learning sportsmanship instead of World Wrestling moves from their parents, got a taste of hypocrisy that won’t soon go away. 

 CASTLE ROCK, Colo.-  Police charged three parents — including the town prosecutor — with third-degree assault and disorderly conduct after a brawl during a youth baseball tournament put a player in a hospital, a city official said Monday. The fight involved at least six adults during a game for 12-year-olds, and police were still trying to sort out what triggered the brawl and who was involved, KUSA-TV reported.

Newborn may have set record in Texas – he weighed 16-lbs, 1 ounce!

I’ve always been the standard for big babies in the Stancliff clan. I weighed a whopping 10 lbs, 2 ounces when I was born. That family record pales beside the birth of JaMichael Brown. I wouldn’t be surprised if he set a national record, but who knows? Somewhere in this country there may have been a bigger baby born and we just haven’t heard about it yet:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This big boy sure looks at peace doesn’t he? If only he knew what lay ahead!

Baby boom! 16-lb. newborn may set Texas record

“Coming out of the womb weighing more than 16 pounds, JaMichael Brown couldn’t even fit in one of his home state’s famous 10-gallon hats. Even in a place where everything is reputedly bigger, the newborn boy may have set the record for the biggest baby ever born in Texas.

Doctors underestimated just how big JaMichael would be. When he came into the world via Cesarean section a little after 9 a.m. last Friday, he weighed 16 pounds, 1 ounce. JaMichael was born with a full head of hair, measuring a full 2 feet long with a head measurement of 15 inches and a chest measuring 17 inches.”

Monday Musings: marriage goes to the dogs in Peru, thirst for career bums people out, and Free Slurpees today at any 7 Eleven stores

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Good to see you. Pull up a chair and enjoy a cup of coffee with me while being entertained by today’s headlines. Got some good ones this morning. Enjoy: 

For Better Or Woof: Dog Couples Tie The Knot

Marriage went to the dogs in Peru's capital Lima as multiple canine couples tied the knot.The ceremony was made legal when the canine couples put their paw prints on the matrimonial documents.

Thirst for career happiness is bumming us out

Finding career happiness seems to be what everyone wants these days.

The shelves in bookstores are lined with books on how to find career happiness, and an endless stream of life coaches are trying to help workers attain it. Twitter is rife with advice and corny quotes about finding job joy.

But is happiness a wise career goal? There is growing evidence that our thirst to find happiness, especially during tough economic times, is actually bumming us out.

Free Slurpees = cash in 7-Eleven's coffers

You have to give some to get some. That’s apparently the theory behind 7-Eleven’s campaign to dole out free Slurpees to customers today to celebrate the chain’s unofficial birthday: 7/11.

USA Today reports that 7-Eleven expects to give out 5 million, 7.11-ounce Slurpees, or about 1,000 free drinks per store. No coupon needed.

That’s a lot of Slurpees, to be sure. But the paper says that 7-Eleven has found freebies to be very lucrative. The chain’s vice president of marketing Nancy Smith tells USA Today that the same gimmick last July 11 pushed Slurpee sales for the day up 33 percent.

"Slurpee drinkers are some of the most loyal fans we have," Smith told USA Today. "They come here to have fun." And, she said, many of them spend more on other items.

Thus proving there’s no such thing as a free lunch … uh, Slurpee.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Shell Corporations: The modern version of the old con game

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 07/10/2011 02:30:25 AM PDT

“Step right up, folks! It's your lucky day. Pick a shell. A pea is under one of the three. Find the pea and win the prize!”

You've heard of the “shell game.” It's been around since ancient Greece. It's also known as “Thimblerig,” an old Army game.

It's really a “short con” that's easy to pull off and swindle unsuspecting dupes. It's all about sleight of hand. You're never going to pick the right shell unless the operator wants you to. Which leads me to today's topic: A growing niche in the modern business con handbook is called shell corporations.

Like paper-only shells, shell companies are set up to hide the real ownership of assets. Once these secretive business havens were in the Cayman Islands and Cyprus, but that's changing rapidly.

For example, a recent investigation by Reuters discovered a “Cayman Island on the Great Plains.” Located in Wyoming. A single address (2710 Thomas Ave. in Cheyenne) is stuffed with an A-list of corporations. It's headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a “business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as 'shell' companies,” according to Reuters. In other words, if you want to hide assets, Wyoming Corporate Services is the place to go.

The company's website gleefully explains how “a corporation is a legal person created by state statute that can be used as a fall guy, a servant, a good friend or a decoy. A person you control... yet cannot be held accountable for its actions. Imagine the possibilities!”

How about that? Creating your own fall guy? You'll be offered a bank account for your shadow identity, and a lawyer as a corporate director to invoke attorney-client privilege. But wait! There's more. You'll have appointed stand-in directors and officers as high as CEO.

Wyoming Corporate Services offers a variety of “shell” companies which come with years of regulatory filings behind them. A solidarity coveted by those interested in hiding their assets.

You, too, can create shell companies like the one set up by online-poker operators to evade a U.S. ban on Internet gambling. Or like the owner of two other firms who was banned from government contracting in January for selling counterfeit truck parts to the Pentagon.

Wyoming Corporate Services offers 700 shell companies for sale in 37 states. The hotbeds of the shell company industry are three states with the lightest regulations: Delaware, Wyoming, and Nevada.

Here's something else to consider: The incorporation industry, overseen by officials in the 50 states, has few rules. Convicted felons can operate firms which create companies, with no background checks.

According to the Reuters investigation, “No states license mass incorporators, and only a few require them to formally register with state authorities.” No states collect the names and addresses of “beneficial owners,” the individuals with a controlling interest in corporations, according to a 2009 report by the National Association of Secretaries of State, a group for state officials overseeing incorporation.

The loopholes in U.S. disclosure of bank-account and shell-company ownership are as numerous as holes in a block of Swiss cheese. The U.S. was declared “non-compliant” in four out of 40 categories monitored by the Financial Action Task Force, an international group fighting money laundering and terrorism finance, in its 2006 evaluation report.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee's Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations, has introduced the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act each year since 2008. The bill would require states to obtain and update information about the real owners of companies and impose civil and criminal sanctions for filing false information.

I'm not surprised that this bill has failed to pass. The 2006 U.S. Money Laundering Threat Assessment, prepared by 16 federal agencies, devoted a chapter to the ways U.S. shell companies can be attractive vehicles to hide ill-gotten funds. I have no doubt that special interest groups have been involved in smothering the bill.

“In the U.S., (business incorporation) is completely unregulated,” says Jason Sharman, a professor at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia. He is preparing a study for the World Bank on corporate formations worldwide, according to an Associated Press story. “Somalia has slightly higher standards than Wyoming and Nevada,” Sharman added.

An estimated 2 million corporations and limited liability companies are created each year in the U.S., according to Senate investigators.

As It Stands, step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and pick a company. Any company. Why pay taxes when you can play the shell game?

Other websites and online magazines carrying this column:

God’s Vacation - blog about metaphysics, spirituality,kundalini, synchronicity, mystical experiences, personal para-normal experiences, politics, comparative religions, global warming, the future, you name it.

cross-referenced news and research resources about

shell corporations

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US Senate Newswire - Comprehensive Real-Time News Feed for US Senate.

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Latest Toys/Games News – scroll down (the 7th headline) strange site if you ask me.

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The Federal Circle – Want advise on how to make money? Take a look at this site. The administrators also know how to make money…by bringing you aboard their team. I’m not recommending this site, just sharing it because it carried my column this week.

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Real people in comic books make an interesting conversation…

I grew up in what is often referred to as “The Silver Age” of comics, when Marvel Comics made their big marketing move against the well-established DC Comics collection of Super Hero’s such as Superman and Bat Man.

I was fascinated with the whole concept of  Super Hero's. I didn’t care much for comics like Archie, or the Donald Duck series that was so popular in the late fifties and early sixties. Spiderman vied with Thor and the Incredible Hulk for being my favorite character.

Comics books are often reflective of our society. It’s been that way for a long time and I don’t expect it’ll change soon. 

As the November elections loom, the philosophical gulf between President Obama and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin seems to yawn ever wider. But there is at least one place they can find common ground: the Chok’lit Shoppe, venerable hangout for Archie and the gang.

Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis starred in long-running comic book series back in the 1950s and ’60s. Once-popular actors like Alan Ladd and Buster Crabbe had their own titles, as did western stars like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and John Wayne.

But those comics were fantasy narratives about their on-screen personas, not the actors themselves. The same could be said about the rock band KISS, who battled Marvel Comics super-villain Doctor Doom in a 1977 comic.

Popular musicians are appearing in more realistic accounts of their real lives; Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, and Madonna are a few examples. But you don’t have to be a rock star to get your own comic:

You can be a politician (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton), a TV star (Martha Stewart, Betty White or Stephen Colbert), a business mogul (Mark Zuckerberg, a planned Donald Trump bio), or just notorious (Lindsay Lohan appears on the cover of a series called “Infamous,” and a future issue on Charlie Sheen is in the works).

As It Stands, my only problem with comic books today is they’re so expensive. I still see those issues for a dime in my mind. Wish I’d have saved some back then!

Saturday stuff: over-reaction to flipping the ‘bird,’ gold coin controversy, and ‘Save Phonehedge West’

Good Morning Humboldt County!

It’s time to sip on the hot beverage of your choice while we leisurely look at today’s stories. I think this trio of tales ought to get you going: 

Guards over-react to middle finger

South African President Jacob Zuma's elite guards overstepped their authority when they arrested and roughed up a student who they thought made an obscene hand.

 Family fights government over rare ‘Double Eagle’ gold coins

A jeweler's heirs are fighting the United States government for the right to keep a batch of rare and valuable "Double Eagle" $20 coins that date back to the Franklin Roosevelt administration. It's just the latest coin controversy to make headlines.

Philadelphian Joan Langbord and her sons say they found the 10 coins in 2003 in a bank deposit box kept by Langbord's father, Israel Switt, a jeweler who died in 1990. But when they tried to have the haul authenticated by the U.S. Treasury, the feds, um, flipped.

They said the coins were stolen from the U.S. Mint back in 1933, and are the government's property. The Treasury Department seized the coins, and locked them away at Fort Knox. The court battle is set to kick off this week.

Calif. oddity's creator ordered jailed by judge

LANCASTER, Calif. – The eccentric creator of a Mojave Desert compound of whimsical buildings known as Phonehenge West was jailed Friday for failing to obey an order to cut electricity and keep guests out of the illegal structures.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Daviann Mitchell put off Kim Fahey's sentencing for code violations, but ordered him held in lieu of $75,000 bail for disobeying a previous order.

Mitchell said Fahey's "blatant refusal" to demolish the structures and disconnect electricity put his family, the community and first-responders at risk because the buildings pose a significant fire hazard. The judge had allowed Fahey to remain free pending sentencing on the condition that he follow the order.

"I did not want to put Mr. Fahey in custody. I wanted to work with Mr. Fahey. I gave him an opportunity," Mitchell said. "I don't think he has taken the public risk to heart. He has chosen to do nothing."

The case has turned into something of a fight-the-system cause celebre with more than 29,000 fans of a "Save Phonehenge West" Facebook page.

What a surprise: Mexican cartel boss says he buys all of his guns from the USA

I’ve written about this subject a couple of times in the last three years. One of the many claims by the NRA and other gun activists is that the Mexican cartels don’t get a significant amount of their guns from the U.S.

I’ve always taken the position that the U.S. has been a main provider of guns for the cartels. My columns were both vilified by numerous NRA websites, and websites operated by outright wackaloon gun lovers who threatened me for suggesting we need stronger gun laws. I’ve just got one thing to say to all of those smart asses…sit on this story and spin!

During an interview recorded by Mexico’s Ministry of Public Safety, Jesus Enrique Rejon, alias 'El Mamito,' told officials that the feared drug gang purchases all of its guns in the US.

In the interview (the video of which is available here), Mr. Rejon claims the group used to sneak the arms through border checkpoints, but stricter security measures have forced them to smuggle them across the Rio Grande. He also alleged that the Zetas’ rival Gulf Cartels have an easier time bringing weapons across the border. “It got harder, but we can still get them,” Rejon said. “Those in the Gulf Cartel get them a lot easier; we don’t know why. It’s impossible to buy them and smuggle them in a vehicle trunk, but they do it. There must be a deal somewhere. I don’t know.”

It has long been known that gun stores in the American Southwest are a significant source of weaponry to Mexican cartels, a topic that InSight Crime has covered extensively in its GunRunners report.

Story Here - By Geoffrey Ramsey -

Geoffrey Ramsey is a writer for Insight – Organized Crime in the Americas, which provides research, analysis, and investigation of the criminal world throughout the region. Find all of his research here.

U.S. official says pre-infected computer tech entering country

This news is very discouraging…we, those with computers, could be pawns for other governments or private interests!

Confirming years of warnings from government and private security experts, a top Homeland Security official has acknowledged that computer hardware and software is already being imported to the United States preloaded with spyware and security-sabotaging components.

The remarks by Greg Schaffer, the Department of Homeland Security's acting deputy undersecretary for national protection and programs, came Thursday during a tense exchange at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The panel is considering an Obama administration proposal to tighten monitoring and controls on computer equipment imported for critical government and communications infrastructure.

Schaffer didn't say whether the equipment he was talking about included end-user consumer tech like retail laptops, DVDs and media players. If so, his comments, first reported Friday morning by Fast Company, would be the first time the United States has publicly confirmed that foreign consumer technology is arriving in the country already loaded with nasty bugs like key-logging software, botnet components and even software designed to defeat security programs installed on the same machine.

Schaffer made the statement under questioning from Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who noted that "the issue of software infrastructure (and) hardware built overseas with items embedded in them already by the time they get to the United States ... poses, obviously, security and intellectual property risks."

DEA Closes Eyes to Evidence, Rejects Petition to Reschedule Marijuana for Medical Use

After nine years of regulatory delay, the DEA rejected a petition by a coalition of groups including California NORML to reschedule marijuana for medical use.

The response came only after advocates sued in federal court for unreasonable delay.The petition, filed in 2002 by the Cannabis Rescheduling Coalition (http://drugscience.org), cited a growing body of scientific evidence plus the approval of medical marijuana in several states as grounds that marijuana qualifies as having "accepted medical use" and should be removed from Schedule I.

The DEA countered that none of the evidence was valid since it did not meet the standard of FDA new drug application trials.The DEA  cited a five-year old DHHS paper claiming that marijuana did not have medical use.  While referencing innumerable studies showing potential health risks of marijuana, it failed to reference any of the hundreds of studies showing medical efficacy of marijuana on the grounds that they did not meet the standard of well-controlled, large-scale, double blind FDA approval trials.  However, none of the negative evidence cited by the government met that standard, either.

The DEA failed to mention that it has deliberately obstructed FDA trials from taking place by denying the approval of a research-grade marijuana growing facility at the University of Massachusetts, contrary to the recommendation of its own administrative law judge. The only existing legal source of marijuana for U.S. researchers is the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has stated that it will not pursue FDA studies of the drug for medical use.

"The government has created a Catch-22 situation, in which the DEA is free to ignore mounting scientific evidence and the experience of countless physicians and users who have found medical marijuana effective in order to protect its bureaucratic position," said California NORML director Dale Gieringer, who helped author the re-scheduling petition. " The government's response raises serious questions about its competence to manage Americans' health care. Surveys have shown that patients who use medical marijuana can dramatically reduce their use of other, more costly but less effective FDA-approved prescription drugs. Yet DEA drug bureaucrats are deliberately ignoring these facts so as to protect their bloated agency."

Advocates are planning how to challenge  the DEA decision. Medical marijuana advocates are supporting a bill by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), the State's Medical Marijuana Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 1983), which would end marijuana's schedule one status and let states regulate its medical availability. Under a policy recently reaffirmed by the Obama administration, the federal government has arrested, charged , threatened, and/or imprisoned hundreds of individuals in states with legal medical marijuana for violating  federal laws. (http://www.canorml.org/fedcasessum.html.)

California NORML is calling on  Congress to investigate the DEA's malfeasance with regards to medical marijuana.

DEA answer to CRC petition:

http://americansforsafeaccess.org/downloads/CRC_Petition_DEA_Answer.pdf

CRC rescheduling petition:

http://www.drugscience.org/PDF/Petition_Final_2002.pdf

canorml@canorml.org

California NORML, 2261 Market St. #278A, San Francisco CA 94114 -(415) 563- 5858 - www.canorml.org

Finally Friday: poo police, win a baby game, and French robbers copy Wild West tactics to rob train

Good Morning Humboldt County!

I’m looking forward to another beautiful day. Have you got your cup of coffee or tea? Well then, join me this morning as we check out the news. Let’s start off with a case of POO POLICE!

Doggie DNA nails owners of pets leaving smelly piles

Some pet owners who failed to clean up after their dogs got a nasty surprise from apartment complex manager Deb Logan. Using DNA evidence, Logan started fining the irresponsible dog owners $100 per offense. Logan, property manager at Twin Ponds in Nashua, New Hampshire, started using a dog DNA-testing system to reveal which pooches were leaving feces scattered about outside.

Logan says the DNA technology called "PooPrints", developed by BioPet Vet Labs of Knoxville, Tennessee, is working "amazingly" well for Twin Ponds, a 339-unit complex that is home to about 241 dogs.

At Twin Ponds, all tenants with a dog now must use a PooPrints pet DNA sampling kit when they move in. To set up a profile, owners come to Logan's office, swab their dogs' cheeks for a saliva sample, and Twin Ponds then sends that to BioPet, which creates a reference database that includes all the community's canines. Photo source

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New "win a baby" game draws fire

A controversial IVF lottery will launch in Britain this month giving prospective parents the chance to win thousands of pounds toward expensive fertility treatments in top clinics.The scheme, which the media have dubbed "win a baby," has already run into trouble on ethical grounds with critics calling it inappropriate and demeaning to human reproduction.

Britain's Gambling Commission has granted a license to fertility charity, To Hatch, to run the game from July 30. photo source

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French train robbers revive Wild West tactics

In a scene taken straight out of an American Wild West movie, masked men robbed a freight train in southern France Thursday night after blocking the railway tracks with shopping carts and metal beams. About 20 bandits looted several carriages and then vanished into the night. It was unclear what was taken.

"Attacks on trains aren't new, but it is a pretty rare phenomenon," David-Olivier Reverdy, a police union official in the area said. "It's worthy of stagecoach attacks in the Wild West," he said.

photo source

Time for me to head on down the road…

What's in your navel? Hundreds and hundreds of types of bacteria

When I was a teenager we use to kid about contemplating our navels to reach enlightenment.

It was back in the 60s and there were gurus and yogis everywhere.

Recently, scientists from the Belly Button Biodiversity project went navel-gazing and discovered 662 new species of bacteria.

Yuckkkk…read all about it here.

Immortal jellyfish: Does it really live forever?

While it is often joked that cats have nine lives, a certain species of jellyfish has been deemed “immortal” by scientists who have observed its ability to, when in crisis, revert its cells to their earliest form and grow anew.

That means that these tiny creatures, 4 mm to 5 mm long, potentially have infinite lives.

The creature, known scientifically as Turritopsis nutricula, was discovered in the Mediterranean Sea in 1883, but its unique regeneration was not known until the mid-1990s.

Muscle cells can become sperm or eggs, or nerve cells can change into muscle cells, “revealing a transformation potential unparalleled in the animal kingdom,” according to the original study of the species published in 1996.

Father gives daughter most unique name in America

It Was Bound To Happen: Baby Named After Facebook "Like" Button

Given the sheer number of people on Facebook — and given the vast number of parents who have no problem saddling a child with a name that will require an explanation for its entire lifetime — it was inevitable that someone out there would be so inspired by Facebook that they would name their kid after the site's "Like" button.

"We named her Like because it's modern and innovative," said the little girl's father. "I checked that the name does not exist anywhere elsewhere in the country, that was the main condition for me." The new pop says his baby girl's name is going over well, at least with his Facebook pals: "When I posted her picture and name on Facebook I got 40 'likes,'... Considering that I have only a little more than 100 friends on the network that's a lot."

image source

Thursday Thoughts: weird crime and punishment stories

Man in Spongebob pajamas robs store

A man wearing Spongebob Squarepants pajama bottoms and an accomplice robbed a Family Dollar Store in north Harris County, officials said Wednesday.

Investigators said the first robber was a black male in his late teens to early 20s, 5 feet 5 to 5 feet 7 inches tall, 200 to 220 pounds, with short Afro hair and a light complexion. He wore a light blue McDonald's work shirt with yellow Spongebob Squarepants pajama bottoms.

 

Burglar caught with blow-up doll in closet

This burglar couldn't wait to get his hands on the merchandise.Police said they caught a man inside a sex shop in Woodbridge in Virginia's Prince William County, Inside Nova reported. It happened early Tuesday morning at the MVC Late Night adult store along Jefferson Davis Highway. Police found Justin Dale Little Jim, 28, in the closet with a blow-up doll, prosecutors said. According to Inside Nova, law enforcement said Jim was caught "attempting sexual relations" with the plastic doll. He’s now charged with burglary, grand larceny and felony destruction of property, police said.

Bad-boy taxman paid dominatrix with city money

A tax collector who pleaded guilty to raiding town coffers of nearly $800,000 and using some of the money to pay a dominatrix is due to be sentenced on Wednesday.

Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Leo Hernandez said Bartolozzi, a Secaucus city employee for the past 25 years, stole about $750,000 in tax funds between February 2008 to May 2009. He also stole about $25,000 from the local municipal union, according to prosecutors.

Bartolozzi made 19 wire transfers to a dominatrix, named "Tara Juliana," at addresses in five different states and internationally, prosecutors said. The dominatrix's website at one time included a picture of Bartolozzi, the dominatrix and others, the Journal reported.

Woman wearing purse on head tries to rob store

A woman wearing a purse on her head who claimed she was armed with a gun attempted to rob the Grill & Grocery store on Highway 700 in Ruffin on Saturday, Rockingham County deputies said.Deputies said the clerk asked the woman to show her gun, but the woman refused. She did have a bulge under her shirt, deputies said. Deputies said the woman left after being given no money and drove away in a red car that according to a witness was parked in a nearby driveway.No video of the incident was captured because the store's video surveillance system wasn't working properly, deputies said. Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call Crimestoppers at 336-349-9683. Editor’s Note: the photo is not of the woman who robbed the store in the story. Just a way of helping you envision what she might have looked like.

That’s all for now junior crime stoppers. It’s time for me to head on down the road…

On a starry starry night…they saw a strange sight

photo via stumbleupon