Text-a-Tip Programs Allow Tipsters To Help Police

Once again technology being used to serve the public interest.

in reference to:

"A mother in Boston tells police her 8-year-old boy was shot to death in their apartment by gunmen in hooded sweatshirts during a home invasion.Officers later receive a text message from an anonymous tipster that leads them to a much different conclusion: the boy's 7-year-old cousin accidentally shot him while the two boys were playing with a loaded 9 mm handgun.Meanwhile, authorities in Douglas County, Colo., thwarted a threatened Columbine-style attack after an anonymous text about a student's "kill list" led them to weapons in the child's home.After struggling for years with an anti-snitching culture that made witnesses too afraid to come forward, police across the country are getting help from text-a-tip programs that allow people to send anonymous, text messages from their cell phones.In Boston, the first city to heavily promote texting for crime tips, police have received more than 1,000 tips since the program began two years ago. Police credit text tips for providing them with key leads in at least four high-profile killings, including: the accidental shooting of Liquarry Jefferson by his cousin; an arson fire that killed two children; the shooting of a Boston teenager on her 18th birthday; and the fatal stabbing of a man during a bar fight.Officer Michael Charbonnier, who oversees the program, said people who live in high-crime neighborhoods are often afraid that if they talk to police, they could be hurt or even killed by gang members, drug dealers or other criminals."It's either call 911 or live with the bad guy. And if you call, there could be repercussions," Charbonnier said."So when they have this option of texting us - knowing no one will know who they are - well, now, people give us license plate numbers, they give us names," he said.In the past, people feared retaliation for talking to police, but with the texting programs, police never see the tipster's name or telephone number. The text messages are sent to a separate, third-party server, where identifying information is stripped out and they are assigned an encrypted alias before being sent to police."
- Text-a-Tip Programs Allow Tipsters To Help Police - CBS News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Rachel Uchitel, Tiger Woods' Alleged Mistress, Denies Affair

Let's see if this turns out to be false rumor. When did the National Enquirer become respectable enough to be quoted. And if the rumors turn out to be wrong, will Huffington, TMZ, and Drudge apologize?

in reference to:

"Rachel Uchitel became a major story on Wednesday, when rumors that the 34-year-old was having an affair with Tiger Woods began to circulate. The rumors have picked up steam after the circumstances surrounding Woods' car accident raised more questions than they answered. Uchitel continues to deny the affair. She told the New York Post that the rumors are "completely untrue." Nevertheless, she said, "this is nothing to do with me. We have never had an affair, and the claims we did are completely false. We have never had an affair, talked on the phone or sent any type of text, sexy or not. She denied the National Enquirer story that sparked the rumors to BlackBookMag.com as well: "I totally deny the Enquirer story. They did contact me about it, but they didn't use any of my quotes or any of the information I gave them. They make it sound like I said those things, but it's all other people saying I said things." The Enquirer is standing by its story and has released additional details."
- Rachel Uchitel, Tiger Woods' Alleged Mistress, Denies Affair (INFO) (view on Google Sidewiki)

U.S. Still Running Secret Prison in Afghanistan

How little things really change in this government.

in reference to:

"An American military detention camp in Afghanistan is still holding inmates for sometimes weeks at a time and without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to human rights researchers and former detainees held at the site on the Bagram Air Base. The site consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each lighted by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day, where detainees said that their only contact with another human being was at twice-daily interrogation sessions. The jail’s operation highlights a tension between President Obama’s goal to improve detention conditions that had drawn condemnation under the Bush administration and his desire to give military commanders leeway to operate. In this case, that means isolating certain prisoners for a period of time so interrogators can extract information or flush out confederates. While Mr. Obama signed an order to eliminate so-called black sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency in January, that order did not apply to this jail, which is run by military Special Operations forces."
- U.S. Still Running Secret Prison in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Russia: Bomb caused train crash that killed 26

"Russian officials opened a terror investigation Saturday, saying that a home-made bomb planted on the tracks of the high-speed Moscow-to-St. Petersburg route caused a derailment that killed at least 26 people and injured dozens more.

The head of Russia's Federal Security Service, Alexander Borotnikov, was quoted by the Interfax and RIA Novosti news as saying that an improvised explosive device equivalent to 15 pounds (7 kilograms) of TNT had detonated when the train passed over it Friday night. Remains of the device were found at the site of the crash, Borotnikov said.

"Indeed, this was a terrorist attack," Interfax cited Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for federal prosecutors, as saying."
in reference to:

- Russia: Bomb caused train crash that killed 26 - Yahoo! News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tiger Woods Seriously Hurt in Crash

MSNBC is quoting Woods' agent as saying the golf great is "fine."

in reference to:

"Authorities say Tiger Woods has been seriously injured in a car wreck in Florida. The Florida Highway Patrol says the PGA star hit a fire hydrant and a tree as he pulled out of his driveway early Friday in his 2009 Cadillac sport utility vehicle. Woods was taken to Health Central Hospital. His condition was not immediately known, though the news release said his injuries were serious."
- Tiger Woods Seriously Hurt in Crash - CBS News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Jump in number of global swine flu deaths

"The global number of swine flu deaths has jumped by more than 1,000 in a week, latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) show.

At least 7,826 people are now known to have died following infection with the H1N1 virus since it first emerged in Mexico in April.

Europe saw an 85% increase in the week, with the total number of deaths rising from at least 350 to at least 650.

However, in most cases the virus continues to produce mild symptoms.

The overwhelming majority of patients usually recover, even without medical treatment, within a week."

in reference to: BBC News - Jump in number of global swine flu deaths (view on Google Sidewiki)

FBI: Ex-Doctor in Ohio Admitted Making Pipe Bombs

How do these things happen without anyone noticing.

in reference to:

"Federal agents in Ohio say a former doctor admitted making pipe bombs that were part of an arsenal seized at his apartment. An affidavit filed in federal court in Akron says 56-year-old Mark Campano of Cuyahoga Falls told an FBI agent he "did indeed" build the pipe bombs found this week at his apartment. The affidavit filed late Wednesday does not describe a motive or any possible targets. A message seeking comment was left Friday for defense attorney Donald Hicks. Authorities arrested Campano after an explosion rocked his apartment complex Monday night. Police said he was trying to load shotgun shells when one blew up. Campano's Ohio medical license was revoked in 2006 because of a long history of drug abuse."
- FBI: Ex-Doctor in Ohio Admitted Making Pipe Bombs - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

White House Crashers May Face Charges

They should be thrown in jail for this stunt. But it won't happen. The media would jump all over that. In addition, these low lives will become famous, and maybe wealthy, from this experience.

in reference to:

"The Secret Service may begin a criminal investigation against the Virginia couple who crashed a high-profile White House dinner, an agency spokesman said Friday. Jim Mackin said the possible turn toward criminal charges is one reason the Secret Service has kept mum about what happened when Michaele and Tareq Salahi arrived at the security checkpoint Tuesday. They were not on the guest list for the dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Nobody disputes that the two, candidates for a reality TV show, were allowed through security. The Secret Service acknowledges that its procedures weren't followed. Still unknown is the story that the uninvited guests spun to the security officers that persuaded them to allow the couple through. That likely would play a role in any criminal charges."
- White House Crashers May Face Charges - CBS News (view on Google Sidewiki)

The White House Gate Crashers: What Went Wrong?

It could have been a terrorist or an assassin.

in reference to:

"At least two people who weren't invited, we now know. Just how reality-TV-wannabes Michaele and Tareq Salahi managed to crash last week's first State Dinner (See TIME's photos here.) has been the subject of back-to-back front page stories in the Washington Post and another one in the New York Times. The story raises some serious questions about White House security, given how close they got to the President and the Indian Prime Minister, as well as so many other high-ranking government officials. As of now, the Secret Service is blaming the debacle on a breach at a single checkpoint, though they are being vague on the details. My own experience with these things is both limited and dated. Back in 1999, I attended a similar dinner the Clintons threw in honor of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji. (According to the Washington Post account of that dinner, I got invited under the "White House always throws a bone to reporters who follow the president" exemption. Whatever. I was very, very happy to be there for what turned out to be a very cool experience.) But what I know from that dinner tells me there were a number of places where things went wrong: The first thing to know is what makes entering the White House for one of these big social events different from, say, getting in for a routine interview or a briefing. For state dinners, invited guests are allowed to drive a car up to the building. The guards go over your vehicle, including putting something that looks like a gigantic dental mirror under it, and then you are sent up the driveway to the White House, where a uniformed military officer takes your keys and parks your car."
- UPDATE: Guess Who Came To Dinner? - Swampland - TIME.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

E-mails Don't Prove Global Warming is a Fraud

Nice try.

in reference to:

"Stop hyperventilating, all you climate change deniers. The purloined e-mail correspondence published by skeptics last week -- portraying some leading climate researchers as petty, vindictive and tremendously eager to make their data fit accepted theories -- does not prove that global warming is a fraud. If I'm wrong, somebody ought to tell the polar ice caps that they're free to stop melting."
- RealClearPolitics - E-mails Don't Prove Warming is a Fraud (view on Google Sidewiki)

Britain ‘failed to establish legitimacy’ of Iraq invasion

That's because it wasn't legitimate.

in reference to:

"The US and UK failed to “establish the legitimacy” of the invasion of Iraq within the international community, according to Britain’s former ambassador to the United Nations.Sir Jeremy Greenstock told the Iraq inquiry on Friday that while there was sufficient ”legal cover” for the war to topple Saddam Hussein it was of “questionable legitimacy”."
- FT.com / UK - Britain ‘failed to establish legitimacy’ of Iraq invasion (view on Google Sidewiki)

Teenager lashed for wearing knee-length skirt

It seems like we're going backwards in terms of the rights of women worldwide.

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"A 16-year-old south Sudanese girl was lashed 50 times after a judge ruled her knee-length skirt was indecent, her lawyer and family said in the latest case to push Sudan's Islamic law into the spotlight.The mother of teenager Silva Kashif told Reuters on Friday she was planning to sue the police who made the arrest and the judge who imposed the sentence, as her daughter was underage and a Christian.The case will add fuel to a debate already raging over Sudan's decency laws after this year's high-profile conviction of Sudanese U.N. official Lubna Hussein, who was briefly jailed for wearing trousers in public."
- Girl, 16, lashed over knee-length skirt - Sudan- msnbc.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

WHO: Tamiflu still works against swine flu

AP story:

in reference to:

"The World Health Organization says isolated cases of drug-resistant swine flu in Britain and the United States have not changed the agency's assessment of the disease. It says Tamiflu remains highly effective against the vast majority of H1N1 cases. Four cancer patients in a North Carolina hospital tested positive last week for a type of the flu that was resistant to Tamiflu. Five people at a British hospital also didn't respond to the drug after contracting the flu. WHO flu chief Dr. Keiji Fukuda said Thursday that investigations were underway, but that the American and British patients for whom Tamiflu did not work had severely weakened immune systems."
- WHO: Tamiflu still works against swine flu - USATODAY.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Thanksgiving in Afghanistan "Another Day"

"U.S. Soldiers Spend Holiday on Patrol Hoping to Aid Remote Villages"

in reference to:

"Thanksgiving Day for soldiers in this valley ringed by towering snowy peaks began with a 6-mile slog to aid village schools without desks and windows, and ended with five, once scrawny local turkeys soldiers have been fattening up for the past month. "Just another day, another mission," several soldiers said as a 25-man patrol from Able Troop, 3-71 Cavalry Squadron set out on a cold morning under brilliantly blue skies. Others let sentiment seep through their matter-of-fact, stoic shells. "We're with our family just like we would be at Thanksgiving back home," said Staff Sgt. Ben McKinnon, of New Haven, Connecticut, nodding toward the soldiers around him that have daily shared hardship, suffering and some elation over the past year."
- Thanksgiving in Afghanistan "Another Day" - CBS News (view on Google Sidewiki)

U.S. will be out of Afghanistan by 2017: White House

That means you won't finish the job, Barack. You need to solve this before you leave office (assuming you win reelection). Don't be a loser like Bush.

in reference to:

"The United States will not be in Afghanistan eight years from now, the White House said on Wednesday, as President Barack Obama prepared to explain to Americans next week why he is expanding the war effort. After months of deliberation and fending off Republican charges that he was dithering on Afghanistan while violence there surged, Obama will address the nation on Tuesday on the way forward in the costly and unpopular eight-year war. He is expected to announce he is sending about 30,000 more troops as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy that will place greater emphasis on accelerating the training of Afghan security forces so that U.S. soldiers can eventually withdraw. It appears highly unlikely Obama will offer a specific troop withdrawal timetable, but White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president would stress that the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan was not open-ended."
- U.S. will be out of Afghanistan by 2017: White House | Politics | Reuters (view on Google Sidewiki)

State-run magazine reports on black jails in China

This is hopeful for China eventually becoming a democracy. A little freedom could bring the whole totalitarian regime down. Just as it did in Russia. But then again, Russia did not have a booming economy. Bottomline: it's a long way to go. Meantime, China continues to be a horrific regime.

in reference to:

"It read like a muckraking expose: A magazine revealed a system of secret detention centers in Beijing where Chinese citizens are forcibly held and sometimes beaten to prevent them from lodging formal complaints with the central government.But the report appeared in the state-run magazine Liaowang (Outlook), which is written for the government elite and published by China's official Xinhua News Agency.For some activist groups, the two state-sanctioned articles published Tuesday signal a possible willingness by the Communist leadership to openly acknowledge a problem it has long denied."
- Newsvine - State-run magazine reports on black jails in China (view on Google Sidewiki)

Transcript: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW (11-24-09)

Excerpt below. Click link for complete transcript.

in reference to:

"Tonight, a small group of senators in the Democratic Caucus are reaffirming their commitment to killing the Senate health care reform bill, if it includes a public option. The most vocal among them is Senator Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut, who is now repeating his threat to block any bill that includes any version of a public option.With the Senate now less than a week away from debating health care reform, Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, now has a choice, stand firm on the public option or compromise it to get something passed. Those on the compromise side argue that we should just let the bill pass without a public option so we can get all of the good insurance reform that`s in the bill. But, there`s a dirty little secret about this -- the insurance reform is gone.In order to have insurance reform, you need two things. The first is making sure insurance companies can`t turn you down for any medical reason. That`s called guaranteed issue -- and that`s in the bill. But that`s only effective if you make sure that the coverage is affordable. And that`s not in the bill. As the bill is written now, the insurance companies will still be allowed to gouge their customers if they have illnesses to charge you two or three times what your neighbor gets charged.A lot of the insurance reform in this bill is gone. The only real reform that`s left is the public option. If that`s compromised away, this bill is no longer health care reform. It`s just a huge gift to the health insurance industry from the same people who bailed AIG out, the American taxpayers.Instead of ruining the bill by taking out the public option, why not just do the fair thing? If there are four senators who won`t let us pass the bill with a public option, we have a mechanism to pass it, anyway -- through the budget reconciliation process.If you do that, you only need 51 votes to pass it, which exist in the Senate, instead of 60, just a simple majority. That`s how most democracies work. That`s what we should have done in the beginning. And that`s what Democrats ought to do right now."
- LexisNexis News - Latest News from over 4,000 sources, including newspapers, tv transcripts, wire services, magazines, journals. (view on Google Sidewiki)

UK: NATO to offer 5,000 troops for Afghanistan

That's more than enough. Yea, right.

in reference to:

"British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says 10 NATO nations are ready to offer about 5,000 more troops for the war in Afghanistan."
- UK: NATO to offer 5,000 troops for Afghanistan - Yahoo! News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Congressmman John Boehner PAC splurges on golf

"According to FEC filings, the House Minority Leader John Boehner has spent $82,998 on golf outings so far this year "

- Time for Real Change: http://Termlim.com

in reference to:

"According to FEC filings, the House Minority Leader John Boehner has spent $82,998 on golf outings so far this year"
- Wedge issue: John Boehner PAC splurges on golf - Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Palin has signed 20,000 books, aide estimates

The power of celebrity. No matter how stupid she comes across, people are apparently flocking to her. Not that these people would vote for her. But sensationalism overrides that. Which goes to show that the power of media is overwhelming. And the dumber the better.

in reference to:

"Sarah Palin has signed 20,000 copies of "Going Rogue" during her nationwide book tour, a staffer traveling with the former Alaska governor estimates. Palin will have visited 13 cities and traveled 4,000 miles by the end of Tuesday, with 80 percent of that travel done aboard the "Going Rogue" bus, according to Jason Recher, an adviser to Palin during her vice presidential bid now assisting with book tour logistics. Recher ticked through the statistics while riding the bus to Palin's stop at The Villages retirement community in central Florida."
- CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Palin has signed 20,000 books, aide estimates « - Blogs from CNN.com (view on Google Sidewiki)