Women With Troubles - November 2012

Here is a compilation of women with troubles reported in news stories during November 2012. Each name is linked to an Interested-Participant blog entry displaying details.

For a more comprehensive listing, check the Women With Troubles category link.

(CA) Gabriela Cortez, 43,
teacher - Pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with 2 male students, 16 & 17; Sentencing in January,

(CA) Gay Davidson-Shepard, 60 and husband, Daniel Alma Shepard, 63,
teachers - Get no jail time for sex with male student, 17,

(CA) Juana Perez Valencia, 21,
restaurant worker - Sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the Dec. 2009 murder of her newborn daughter,

(FL) Amy Alvarado, 42,
teacher - Accused of burglary of golf clubs and dealing in stolen property,

(FL) Denise Ethridge, 30,
teacher - Accused of providing alcohol to minors,

(FL) Cheryl Grampa, 46,
teacher - Loses teaching license for inappropriate conduct with students,

(FL) Amie Lou Neely, 38,
teacher - Accused of sex with boy, 16,

(FL) Danielle Reed, 23,
teacher - Accused of engaging in sex with a minor, age 13 to 17,

(GA) Dorothy Elizabeth Dixon, 30,
teacher - Sentenced to 15 years probation and community service for sex with student, 15,

(IL) Julie Salk,
teacher - Accused of theft of school theater production revenue,

(IL) Jennifer Tyree, 36,
teacher - Accused of engaging in sex with a male student, 17,

(LA) Bridgette Lynette Murphy Gean, 41,
teacher - Accused of domestic violence and molestation of juvenile, 16,

(MA) Jennifer Olsen, 41,
teacher's aide - Accused of repeatedly providing alcohol and marijuana to minors,

(ME) Alexis Wright, 29,
zumba instructor - Summons were issued for 18 more customers in her prostitution case,

(MI) Janet Brown, 32,
teacher - Accused of sex with male student, 16

(MO) Rebecca Sue Russell, 31,
babysitter - Gets 10 years prison for statutory sodomy on 2 girls, 5 years and 7 months,

(MS) Emily Suzanne Hansford, 43,
kindergarten teacher - Gets 8 years in prison for sexual battery of a child,

(MS) Kimberly Smith, 25,
caregiver - Gets no jail (20 years suspended) for sexual assault of boy, 14,

(NJ) Erin T. Haskell, 31,
teacher - Accused of sexually assaulting one of her students,

(NJ) Monica Mogg, 49,
neighbor - Accused of murdering her former boyfriend and his girlfriend,

(NM) Jodi Kirkpatrick aka Jodi Glascoe, 42,
teacher - Accused of violently raping young foster children in her care,

(NY) Tracy L. Brooks, 44,
treasurer - Accused of stealing $50,000 from a school PTO,

(NY) Stephanie Fletcher, 28,
teacher - Accused of engaging in sex with underage students,

(NY) Lisa Footer, 44,
teacher - Accused of sexual abuse of a male student, 16,

(OH) Sandra Adams,
teacher - Guilty of forgery and theft; gets probation and will pay restitution,

(OH) Whitney Chiles, 31,
teacher - Sentenced to six more years prison for additional sex crimes,

(OH) Shena Hardin, 32,
neighbor - Guilty of not stopping for a school bus and reckless operation by driving on a sidewalk,

(OH) Kelsey Hartmann, 27,
teacher - Accused of sexual battery involving a minor,

(OH) Jodi A. Kellish, 38,
teacher - Guilty of sex with student. Sentencing in January,

(OH) Stacy Schuler, 34,
teacher - Asks, then is released after serving only one year of a 4-year sentence for sex with 7 students,

(PA) Erica King, 40,
neighbor - Gets 90 days prison and 90 days house arrest for hosting teen drug and liquor parties,

(PA) Pamela Smallis, 49,
neighbor - Accused of multiple child pornography charges,

(SC) Michelle Stabach Jensen, 40,
teacher - Accused of sending lewd texts and photos of herself to two male students,

(TN) Tiffany A. Conwell, 39,
neighbor - Gets probation for aggravated statutory rape of a boy, 16,

(TN) Christie N. David, 32,
teacher - Pled not guilty to sexual battery of a male student, 15; Hearing in February,

(TN) Aanaka Petty, 23,
neighbor - Accused of statutory rape of a boy,

(TX) Javonna Shaunte Bradley, 29,
neighbor - Accused of engaging in sex with two boys, 15 & 16,

(TX) Patricia Jean Coone, 35,
teacher - Gets 10 years probation for selling drugs,

(TX) Lucinda Rodriguez Caldwell, 41,
teacher - Gets 10 years prison for sex with boy, 12,

(TX) Shanice Adel Lambert, 38,
teacher's aide - Guilty of illicit sexual conduct with a boy, 15,

(TX) Amanda Sotelo, 36,
neighbor - Pregnant due to sex with boy, 14,

(TX) Jessica Tata, 24,
daycare owner - Gets 80 years prison for the fire-related death of a 16-month-old child in her care,

(UT) Liza-Anne Roberts, 26,
teacher - Accused of texting partially nude photos to a male student, 14,

(WI) Andrea Ebert, 31,
teacher - Gets six months jail plus probation for sexual assault of two boys, 17,

(WY) Britney Rosenfield, 25,
neighbor - Accused of illegal jiggy-jiggy with boy, 13

(Venezuela) Gabriela Alexandra Fernandez Ocando,
model - Accused of money laundering and criminal conspiracy to protect a Columbian drug trafficker,

Thanks to the tipsters.

Louisiana Teacher Accused of Molestation

(Union Parish, Louisiana) A 41-year-old teacher, Bridgette Lynette Murphy Gean, was arrested this week for allegedly molesting a juvenile.

Gean faces charges of domestic abuse battery and child endangerment.

Union Parish Sheriff Bob Buckley said detectives' investigation revealed Gean had sexual relations with a 16-year-old male juvenile who at the time 11 months ago was a student at Downsville High School. This year the school is Downsville Charter School.

Deputies had worked a domestic abuse case Saturday night at Gean's residence where she denied any altercation had taken place.

However, her husband told deputies that his wife was beating on him. The victim said he was trying to leave with their two children because his wife had an alcohol problem.

Gean was booked into custody and released on bond.

Texas Teacher Gets 10 Years in Sex Case - Updated

(San Antonio, Texas)

A longtime elementary school teacher whose repeated sexual encounters with a 12-year-old student came to light following a high-speed chase in which she let the boy drive her SUV was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison.

Lucinda Rodriguez Caldwell, 41, choked back sobs as she was placed in handcuffs after asking state District Judge Lori Valenzuela for probation.

Although the judge denied the request, she did retain jurisdiction of the case, leaving open the possibility that Caldwell could be released from prison on shock probation sometime in the next six months.

In October, Caldwell pleaded no contest to a charge of indecency with child by exposure. The prosecution and defense agreed to 10 years in prison.

If it occurs, I contend that six months and shock probation sends the wrong message to female child sex abusers.

* * * * *Texas Teacher Arrested for Sex with Boy
[Previous 7/31/10 post]
(San Antonio, Texas) A 38-year-old fifth-grade teacher at Cable Elementary School, Lucinda Rodriguez Caldwell, was arrested earlier today on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy, one of her students.

Police say that the boy reported she took him to a hotel and sexually assaulted him.

The boy's father said he awoke Saturday morning to find his son missing, and that when he went outside to look for him, he saw Caldwell drive up with the boy. He said when he approached the vehicle, Caldwell left with the youth.

The father said he followed them to Hondo, where local police stopped Caldwell, and the boy was returned to his father.

Police went to the hotel where the incident allegedly occurred and found Caldwell had checked in Saturday at 1:15 a.m., according to the affidavit.

Caldwell was booked into custody at the Bexar County Jail with bail set at $75,000.

Search aid: Interested-Participant

Housekeeping

I had an accident earlier this week during which I fell and injured my back. Getting around is tough. My productivity is necessarily impeded.

It will take a few days for full recovery.

 The real cause of variations in oceanic Ph ("acidity")

Warmists talk as if there is one level of Ph for all the globe and that global warming is moving it towards an acidic balance.  None of that is true.  Ph varies greatly from place to place in the oceans  and the idea of getting a precise global average for it is a dream.

This video shows one of the main NATURAL causes of Ph variation in different areas of the ocean:  Undersea volcanoes.  The video is of a volcano in the Pacific  around 4,000 feet down.  The water temperature rose to 2,200 degrees F. and the eruption turned the water more acidic than battery acid.  And this is just one volcano.  There are lots of them under the Arctic ocean and elsewhere


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

The permafrost scare is back again 

This pops up every couple of years.  Most of the permafrost concerned is in Russia and Russian scientists have repeatedly said the alarmists don't know what they are talking about.

The Russian Arctic,  particularly in Siberia, is VERY cold, far too cold for a warming of a degree or two to have any effect

And the researchers below admit that they don't know what they have found! How's that as a solid basis for a climate theory?  Forgive me while I laugh

I think they know what they have found.  They just haven't been able to torture their data into saying what they want yet.  They should get a copy of Darrell Huff's  "How to lie with statistics".  Let me suggest a technique:  Extreme quintiles.  I have never used it but it's used in the epidemiological literature all the time.  It's a "respectable" way of throwing away most of your data.  And epidemiology is a sensation-dependent literature too

THE world is on the cusp of a "tipping point" into dangerous climate change, according to new data gathered by scientists measuring methane leaking from the Arctic permafrost and a report presented to the United Nations on Tuesday.

"The permafrost carbon feedback is irreversible on human time scales," says the report, Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost. "Overall, these observations indicate that large-scale thawing of permafrost may already have started."

While countries the size of Australia tally up their greenhouse emissions in hundreds of millions of tonnes, the Arctic's stores are measured in tens of billions.

Human-induced emissions now appear to have warmed the Arctic enough to unlock this vast carbon bank, with stark implications for international efforts to hold global warming to a safe level. Ancient forests locked under ice tens of thousands of years ago are beginning to melt and rot, releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the air.

The report estimates the greenhouse gases leaking from the thawing Arctic will eventually add more to emissions than last year's combined carbon output of the US and Europe – a statistic which means present global plans to hold climate change to an average 2degree temperature rise this century are now likely to be much more difficult.

Until very recently permafrost was thought to have been melting too slowly to make a meaningful difference to temperatures this century, so it was left out of the Kyoto Protocol, and ignored by many climate change models.

What isn't known is the precise rate and scale of the melt, and that is being tackled in a remarkable NASA experiment that hardly anyone has heard of, but which could prove to be one of the most crucial pieces of scientific field work undertaken this century.

The findings, for now, are still under wraps. "But I think 'tantalising' is probably the right word," [Or is that "inconclusive"?] said Charles Miller, the principal investigator in NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment, or CARVE.

The findings of the first year of the experiment are so complex that Professor Miller and his team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are still trying to work out exactly what they have found.

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Measurements Are Subjective



Translation

Anybody who keeps abreast of common knowledge already knows that a truism in life is that Oriental men have under-endowed undercarriages. It's genetic. Studies have shown.

Of course, I need to mention that through decades of life I have never met a man, myself included, who owned up to having his penis measured -- uh, for an academic study. I need to qualify my measurement story because there was a wonderful hour with chickas on the beach in Puerto Rico where the girls had a contest over who had the longest foot. One thing led to another and I WON.

Must not describe Islam accurately in Canada? 

A Canadian Islamic organization is accusing a Toronto-area Jewish day school of using a textbook that vilifies Muslims.

In a Nov. 19 letter to Jewish groups, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-CAN, charges that a textbook used at the Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School employs "inflammatory and hateful terms in describing Muslims."

CAIR-CAN alleges the book, "2000 Years of Jewish History," describes Muslims as "rabid fanatics" with "savage beginnings."

"The entire chapter devoted to Islam presents a pernicious and extreme portrayal of Muslims and the Islamic faith. The material further denigrates the Prophet Muhammad as a 'rabid Jew-hater,' and falsely portrays Islam as inherently anti-Semitic and devoted to hating Jews," the group said in its letter to the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center For Holocaust Studies and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, or CIJA.

It said the text is used in grade 7 and 8 girls' classes at the Orthodox Jewish day school and "leaves impressionable young Jewish readers with a sense of suspicion and even intolerance towards their fellow Canadians."

Source

Particularly in Surah 9, the Koran is full of hatred towards non-Muslims and exhortations to kill or oppress them  -- so the Jewish school is simply describing Islam accurately.  I have a copy of the "Glorious Koran" on my desk and have checked it.

It could be that Muslims disown that part of the Koran, just as modern Jews disown the harsher commandments of Leviticus, but any Muslim who did that would get his head chopped off.  The Koran is perfect, according to Islamic doctrine.  Muslims can't stand criticism of any kind.


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Hockey and Sex Toys

(Alberta, Canada) With the National Hockey League on lockout, the fans have to keep busy.

"We'd be gearing up for [NHL hockey] now, but there's nothing, so I guess we need to find some better ways to spend our time," Vinay Morker, owner of Hush Lingerie and More in Edmonton, told the Toronto Sun. Morker says his sales of sex toys, sex games, sexual guides and lingerie have gone up 15 per cent since October.

While not all hockey fans have traded scoring goals for scoring with each other, Hal Roseberg, who owns Edmonton's Tease Adult Boutique, told the paper that he's noticed a similar spike in business.

"I suppose that's one of the other reasons it's as busy as it is -- there's no hockey," he said.

Heh. Hockey, eh.

Tip: slwlion

Panic! panic!  "Rising acidity levels threaten ocean's food chain" 


All sorts of fun here.

1). Reducing the frequency of one creature will not generally "threaten" any food chain.  Food chains are complex and the only likely effect is that another species will become more abundant.  And in fact no food-chain analysis is attempted.

2). The academic journal article is appended and we find that the chief data-gatherer was from the notoriously crooked UEA.  Their frank admissions of manipulating the data (as revealed in the ClimateGate emails) must make us ask for independent replication of any findings emanating from there.

3). The study compares EXISTING ocean regions and finds that some tiny snails have thicker calcium carbonate shells where there is a LOT of calcium carbonate in the water.  Why that is a surprise and what it tells us about climate I have no idea.

4).  If the theory is that global warming will put more CO2 into the water then I have good news for them -- though why basic physics should be news I also have no idea.  Henry's law tells us that warmer water will OUTGAS CO2, so there will in fact be less of that naughty CO2 in the ocean under global warming.

5).  I could go on ....

The shells of some marine snails in the seas around Antarctica are dissolving as the water becomes more acidic, threatening the food chain, a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience said on Sunday.

The tiny snails, known as ``sea butterflies'', live in the seas around Antarctica and are left more vulnerable to predators and disease as a result of having thinner shells, scientists say.

The study presents rare evidence of living creatures suffering the results of ocean acidification caused by rising carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning, the British Antarctic Survey said in a statement.

``The finding supports predictions that the impact of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems and food webs may be significant.''

The tiny snail, named for two wing-like appendices, does not necessarily die as a result of losing its shell, but it becomes an easier target for fish and bird predators, as well as infection.

This trend may have a follow-through effect on other parts of the food chain, of which they form a core element.

The world's oceans absorb more than a quarter of man-made carbon dioxide emissions, which lower the sea water pH.

Since the beginning of the industrial era, our oceans have become 30 per cent more acidic, reaching an acidity peak not seen in at least 55 million years, scientists say.

Scientists discovered the effects of acidification on the sea butterflies from samples taken around the Scotia Sea region of the Southern Ocean in February 2008.

Oceans soak up about a quarter of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year and as CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase from burning fossil fuels, so do ocean levels, making seas more acidic.

Ocean acidification is one of the effects of climate change and threatens coral reefs, marine ecosystems and wildlife.

The study involved researchers from the British Antarctic Survey, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other institutions found.

"The corrosive properties of the water caused shells of live animals to be severely dissolved and this demonstrates how vulnerable pteropods are," said lead author Nina Bednarek, from the NOAA.

"Ocean acidification, resulting from the addition of human-induced carbon dioxide, contributed to this dissolution."

Until now, there has been little evidence of the impact of ocean acidification on such live organisms in their natural environment and the study supports predictions that acidification could have a significant effect on marine ecosystems.

The researchers examined surface water, where wind causes cold water to be pushed up from deeper water, because it is usually more corrosive to a particular type of calcium carbonate which the sea snails use to build and maintain their shells.

"We know that the seawater becomes more corrosive ... below a certain depth which occurs at around 1,000m. However, at one of our sampling sites, we discovered that this point was reached at 200m depth. Marine snails - pteropods - live in this top layer of the ocean," Bednarek said.

Climate models forecast more intense winds in the Southern Ocean this century if CO2 continues to increase, which will make the mixing of deep water with more acidic surface waters more frequent, the study said.

This will make calcium carbonate reach the upper surface layers of the Southern Ocean by 2050 in winter and by 2100 all year round, said the study's co-author Dorothee Bakker, research officer at the University of East Anglia.

If CO2 levels continue to rise in the future, surface waters could be almost 150 per cent more acidic by the end of this century, which has not been experienced for more than 20 million years.

SOURCE

Extensive dissolution of live pteropods in the Southern Ocean

By N. Bednarsek et al.

Abstract

The carbonate chemistry of the surface ocean is rapidly changing with ocean acidification, a result of human activities. In the upper layers of the Southern Ocean, aragonite-a metastable form of calcium carbonate with rapid dissolution kinetics-may become undersaturated by 2050 (ref. 2). Aragonite undersaturation is likely to affect aragonite-shelled organisms, which can dominate surface water communities in polar regions. Here we present analyses of specimens of the pteropod Limacina helicina antarctica that were extracted live from the Southern Ocean early in 2008. We sampled from the top 200m of the water column, where aragonite saturation levels were around 1, as upwelled deep water is mixed with surface water containing anthropogenic CO2. Comparing the shell structure with samples from aragonite-supersaturated regions elsewhere under a scanning electron microscope, we found severe levels of shell dissolution in the undersaturated region alone. According to laboratory incubations of intact samples with a range of aragonite saturation levels, eight days of incubation in aragonite saturation levels of 0.94-1.12 produces equivalent levels of dissolution. As deep-water upwelling and CO2 absorption by surface waters is likely to increase as a result of human activities2, 4, we conclude that upper ocean regions where aragonite-shelled organisms are affected by dissolution are likely to expand.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Gun Store Shooting

(Silver City, New Mexico)

An employee at a southern New Mexico gun shop who was unloading a handgun accidentally shot and wounded a customer in the back, authorities said Wednesday.

The 65-year-old customer, who remains unidentified, was airlifted from Silver City to an El Paso, Texas hospital after the shooting on Tuesday.

He is in stable condition, police Capt. Steve Reese said.

The shooting occurred at Copper Country Sporting Arms and involved a .45 caliber handgun, Reese said.

I'm skeptical regarding the competence of the employee. Pulling the trigger to unload a gun? I don't think so.

Florida Teacher Loses License for Massages by Students

(Broward County, Florida) A 46-year-old teacher at Cooper City Elementary School, Cheryl Grampa, has been stripped of her teaching license for inappropriate conduct with students.

Grampa allegedly rewarded her elementary school students when they gave her massages.

Trading a rub down for grades with the young school aged children by the teacher went even more wrong when authorities said one of the boys rubbing her down for his reward massaged her breasts and vaginal area.[…]

It is unclear how the incidents were uncovered, but school investigators became involved and discovered that "between August 2009 and February 2010, Grampa offered students rewards in exchange for massages."

It doesn't sound as if she was ever fired, but she now will lose her license to teach in Florida, in a ruling this week.

No criminal charges have been filed.

 The death of simplicity

I sometimes think (but have no intention of acting on it or urging others to) that the world would be a better place if all architects were shot.  In their desperation for "originality" and novelty, architects these days seem to specialize in designing structures that are ever more ugly and dysfunctional.  A return to simpler, more traditional forms would work better, look better and cost a lot less.

But the desperation for originality is not confined to architects.  It is society-wide.  There is a society-wide fascination with the new.  For many poor souls, it is prestigious to have the newest of everything.

But that novelty is almost always dysfunctional in at least one way:  complexity.  New things are usually more complex than the old.  And that gets very tiring.  Thomas Sowell gives some excellent examples in his comments about hotels below  -- points that will undoubtedly be ignored by all hotels.  His points clash with the ego needs of the hoteliers.  They see prestige in having "the latest" of everything, regardless of how well "the latest" works.

I have lived long enough to have had a stream of electronic gadgets pass through my hands: radios, phones, TVs etc.  And each generation of them gets harder to use.  As Sowell found, the days of turning on a TV and using a simple rotary dial to find a station are long gone.  When you buy a new TV there are all sorts of complex performances required before any stations are accessible -- and poring over a manual to see what is required is a must.  And even after that ritual has been performed, changing stations can still be a puzzle for a while.

I don't suppose anybody uses VHS videotape recorders any more but they were a good example of the problem too.  If you had a power outage, all your settings were lost and there were guys who made a good living going around after outages and resetting videorecorders for confused ladies.

I myself took revenge on this loss of simplicity by doing something very eccentric:  I paid $300 for my kitchen radio (Illustration here).  Why did I do that?  I bought it because it was simple.  On the front on it are only three controls:  An on/off switch, a tuning dial and a volume knob.  I could use it the moment I turned it on!  Expensive though!  -- JR

Few things can make you appreciate home like staying in a hotel. This includes not only low-budget, bare bones hotels but also sweepingly large and ornate luxury hotels. What many hotels seem to have in common are needless hassles.

Since most people who stay in hotels do so while traveling, and stay only a few days in a given hotel, you might think that those who run hotels would want to make it easy for someone who arrives a little tired (or a lot tired) from traveling to use the various devices they find in their hotel room. But you would be wrong. That thought never seems to have crossed their minds.

Recently, at a well-known luxury hotel in Los Angeles, I found that something as simple as turning on a television set can require a phone call to the front desk, and then waiting for the arrival of a technician. Then it took another phone call to get a list of which of the dozens of channels were for which networks.

Why the turning on of a television set should be anything other than obvious to a newly arrived hotel guest is apparently a question that never occurred to the people who ran this hotel. Nor did it apparently ever occur to them that someone just arriving from a journey might want to be able to relax, instead of having to cope with complications that the hotel could easily have avoided.

The next morning, in the shower, I found myself confronted with a dazzling array of knobs and levers, none of which provided any clue as to what they did. The lever rotated and four of the surrounding knobs both rotated and tilted forward and backward.

Apparently it was not considered sporting to come right out and tell you how to get hot water or cold water. That was something you could find out for yourself by being either scalded or chilled.

Being fancy and opaque seemed to be the guiding principle. Getting on the Internet required another phone call to the front desk. In fact, it required two phone calls, because I was first referred to the wrong technical support group.

It is easier to get on the Internet at almost any institution other than a hotel. And, at this particular hotel, you had to go through the whole procedure every day, instead of just signing up for Internet access for your entire stay when you checked in or logged on.

Being a luxury hotel, this one provided bathrobes. But I had my own bathrobe. At least I had it until the maids took it away when cleaning the room while I was out. Another phone call to the front desk.

Since my bathrobe was a white, terry-cloth robe and the hotel's robes were a light tan and made of a different material, I thought there was no danger that one would be mistaken for the other. But I was wrong.

Just how wrong I discovered when, after a long delay, late at night when I wanted to get to sleep, a man appeared with a large bag containing two bathrobes. Apparently their search had also turned up another guest's bathrobe that the maids had taken. It looked even less like the hotel's bathrobe than mine did.

Something as simple as turning on a light can be a puzzle at some hotels. Again, the fatal allure of the fancy seems to be the problem with people who choose things to put in hotel rooms. Moreover, it is not uncommon for different lamps in the same hotel room to have different fancy ways of being turned on.

Years ago, at a hotel where I stayed for a week, it was only on the last day that I finally figured out, or stumbled on, the way to turn one of the floor lamps off and on.

Since I was very busy on that trip, I didn't feel like adding this to the list of things to phone the front desk about, especially late at night, when I was more interested in getting to sleep than in waiting for some technician to show up and unravel the mystery.

After my misadventures in Los Angeles, I was off to San Diego, where a hotel maid had to replace a light bulb in the bedroom and a technician had to fix a lamp in the living room. Later I had to fix a toilet that kept running after being flushed. I once had a toilet like that at home, so I knew what to do. But I replaced my malfunctioning toilet at home, unlike the hotel.

No amount of fancy things makes up for hassles.

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Illinois Teacher Accused of Theft

(Barrington, Illinois) A report from earlier this month (11/14).

Former Barrington High School Fine Arts Department Chairwoman Julie Salk was arrested on theft charges Tuesday.

Barrington Police charged Salk with one count of theft over $500.

Police say she stole $5,022 in theater and raffle ticket revenue from a "Hello Dolly!" production in March 2012. In the 2010-2011 school year, the Illinois State Board of Education reported Salk's salary as $142,024.27.

Her initial court date will be held later today, at 1:30 p.m. at the Babcox Justice Center in Waukegan.

Salk retired last June after being placed on administrative leave.

Frankly, I find it incomprehensible that someone would jeopardize a $140K+ job for a mere 5K.

Florida Teacher Accused of Burglary

(Winter Haven, Florida) A 42-year-old second-grade teacher at Eastside Elementary School in Haines City, Amy Alvarado, has been accused of burglary and dealing in stolen property.

Alvarado and an accomplice, 30-year-old Brian Fideau, were arrested for residential burglary of a golf bag and clubs worth $2,500.

After questioning, Alvarado admitted to stealing the clubs, according to the statement. She said she and Fideau went to several pawn shops in an attempt to sell them, and eventually went to Play It Again Sports in Winter Haven and sold them for $180.00, Fideau denied involvement in the crime.
The clubs were located by deputies at Play It Again Sports.

Alvarado was arrested and charged with Burglary To A Dwelling, Grand Theft, Dealing in Stolen Property and False Verification to a Pawn Broker. Fideau was also charged.

Details on booking are unavailable.

Tennessee Woman Faces Rape Charge

(Waynesboro, Tennessee) According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), a 23-year-old local woman, Aanaka Petty, has been accused of statutory rape of a boy.

Petty was indicted by a Wayne County grand jury this week. The age of the victim hasn't been reported.

In May of 2012, the District Attorney requested the TBI investigate allegations that Petty was having sex with an underage boy in February 2012.

After conducting an investigation, the TBI presented to the case to the grand jury which returned an indictment against Petty.

Petty was booked into custody with bond set at $2,500.

 "Incompetent" is racist?
   
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Tuesday that a letter from nearly 100 House Republicans urging President Obama not to appoint Susan Rice as secretary of State employed racially charged "code words" to make its case.

The letter, signed by 97 House Republicans, says Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "is widely viewed as having either willfully or incompetently misled the American public in the Benghazi matter" — language Clyburn saw as racially loaded.

"You know, these are code words," Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, told CNN. "We heard them during the campaign — during this recent campaign we heard Sen. Sununu calling our president lazy, incompetent, these kinds of terms that those of us, especially those of us who were grown and raised in the South, we would hear these little words and phrases all of our lives and we'd get insulted by them.

"Susan Rice is as competent as anybody you will find, and just to paste that word on her causes problems with people like [incoming Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman] Marcia Fudge and certainly causes a big problem with me," he added.

"I don't like those words," Clyburn said. "Say she was wrong for doing it, but don't call her incompetent. That is something totally different.

Source


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

 Shhh… Serious Scientists At Work

USA Today of course sucks this crap up without doing any fact checking.

Iowa scientists: Drought a sign of climate change

The report was signed by 138 scientists and researchers from 27 Iowa colleges and universities. They said they wanted to release the updated report now while the drought is still fresh in the public’s mind. “The drought is sort of a teachable moment,” said Jerry Schnoor, co-director of the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research at the University of Iowa.

Brilliant theory – except that Iowa has been getting wetter and experiencing fewer droughts.



More HERE  (See the original for links)


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Gun Registration in Germany

(Cologne, Germany)

Germany's first national weapons register should be online at the start of next year to provide information about the six million legally-held guns in the country, authorities said on Tuesday.

Until now, keeping track of weapons has been the duty of 551 different local authorities and much of the information was held on paper.

But civil servants in Cologne have been collating and computerising the data since April, and the national database should be live from January 1.

The new database would offer a “considerable improvement to safety in Germany,” said Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, who has been in charge of the project, which also fulfils EU guidelines that member states should adopt by 2014.

Gun registration accommodates gun confiscation to a greater degree than it improves safety, I contend. Also, thieves wanting to steal guns, or avoid establishments and residences protected by guns, would gleefully make use of an online gun registry displaying the names and addresses of gun owners.

Companion post at GunWatch.

 A simple economic truth that's staring Americans in the face

Stop saving

Obama has printed greenbacks by the truckload yet prices in the supermarkets have mostly not risen much.  That's not supposed to happen.  More money chasing the same amount of goods and services is supposed to devalue the money and send prices rocketing.  So what gives?  That's a puzzle many economists have addressed.  Lags in the system can by now be fairly convincingly dismissed so there is only one possible explanation.  People are saving (mainly by paying off debt) at roughly the same rate as Obama is printing money.

So what's going on is not only driven by Keynesian thinking but it is actually working in a Keynsian sort of a way.  Public demand is replacing private demand.  So as long as Americans lack confidence in the future, Obama can keep printing money and thus seize huge amounts of private output for spending by the government.  And it's hard to see him doing anything to boost confidence in the next 4 years.  So there is no need for him to cut government spending.

But countries need investment spending to remain prosperous and it is precisely investment spending that is not happening.  People are mostly not building new homes and businesses are mostly not building new factories, to put it at its simplest.  A large part  of the workforce which normally provides investment goods (builders etc) is either not working or has been sucked into unproductive government employment.

But without investment spending the country will not only fail to grow but will even go backwards.  Maintenance is a major form of investment spending and without maintenance assets will deteriorate and everyone will be poorer for it.

But, whatever the detail, the crash in private investment is causing a crash in jobs and more and more people are becoming welfare-dependent.  America is becoming steadily poorer.  And Obama's job numbers are the sort of thing that the guy had in mind who wrote the book "How to lie with statistics".  Even many  Mexicans are going home for lack of work.  As a percentage of the population, the number of people working has not been so low since the Depression.

Is there a way out?  Hopefully.  Countries can continue to get poorer for many years  -- as Britain has.  And the solid bloc of minorities that elected Obama may continue to elect equally destructive Democrats for many years to come.  But I am guessing here that Americans have got more spunk than that.  If the next Democrat presidential candidate is white, even some blacks may get tired of no jobs and vote GOP.

And just the election of a GOP president would probably inspire confidence in the people who make investment decisions. And if he immediately rolled back the previous 8 years of EPA regulations,  America would be on a roll.  The demand for investment goods and services would roar ahead and all that newly released investment money chasing a fairly fixed supply of goods and services will bid up prices sharply.  Everything will cost a lot more and a greenback will buy a lot less.  Roaring inflation will have arrived.

A drastic cut in government spending at the same time could in theory prevent much of the inflation but that ain't gonna happen.

So people's savings will be virtually wiped out, which will be keenly felt by many, particularly older Americans who will see a life's hard work and savings go down the drain.

So what should Americans do right now?  Roughly the opposite of what they are now mostly doing:  Stop saving and stop paying off debt.  Maybe even borrow money to buy another house for letting  out.  Money in the bank won't do you much good in the future but owning real assets will.  But don't buy gold.  The price of gold is inflated at the moment by uncertainty.  Once confidence returns, the demand for gold will drop.

And I know what I am talking about.  I have "been there and done that".  In the early '70s I bought some condos using mainly borrowed money.  Then along came a Leftist government, led by the economically illiterate E.G. Whilam, that went on a spending spree and inflated the currency to do it.  So when my loans came up for renewal, the prices of real estate had roughly doubled and by selling one condo I could pay off my debts on all the rest.  I thus owe my present economically comfortable circumstances to Leftist folly.  You too can do that.

Shares in blue chip companies are another possibility but are risky unless you know what you are doing.

The destruction of savings will of course create great outrage and who will get the blame for that?  Unless they have great PR, it will be the next GOP administration.  They will be blamed for excesses created by Obama.  The GOP administration might even try price-controls to save its skin.  Nixon did.  But that will just create more chaos.

So a return to Donk destruction can also be foreseen, sadly for America.  The long-term future for America is not bright now that a huge slice of the electorate is as thick as a brick.  Restricting voting to those who pay income taxes would help but is most unlikely to happen.


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Daycare Owner Gets 80 Years in Prison - Updated

(Houston, Texas) The case against Jessica Tata has been decided.

On Tuesday, jurors sentenced the 24-year-old woman to 80 years in prison for the death of one of the children, 16-month-old Elias Castillo.

She still faces charges related to the rest of the children.

Tata must serve 30 years of her sentence before she is eligible for parole.

* * * * *Daycare Owner Arrested in Child Deaths Case - Updated
[Previous 3/22/11 post]
Day care operator Jessica Renee Tata, 22, was apprehended in Nigeria and returned to the United States. She currently is in custody at the Fulton County Jail.

Tata, who was on the U.S. Marshals Service's 15 Most-Wanted Fugitives list, arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport shortly after 5 a.m. today on a flight from Lagos International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria

The Marshals Service said Tata was “captured” Saturday in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, by Interpol and U.S Department of State Diplomatic Security agents.

Tata faces multiple charges in the deaths of four children stemming from the February 24 fire at Jackie's Child Care.

Tata waived extradition. She awaits transport back to Harris County.

* * * * *
Texas Daycare Owner Wanted in Deaths of Four Children
[Previous 3/7/11 post]
(Houston, Texas) A 22-year-old local daycare owner, Jessica Renee Tata, has been indicted on charges stemming from a fire at Jackie’s Child Care during which four toddlers died.

On February 24, 2011, Jessica Rene TATA negligently abandoned seven children under the age of 15 at her independently owned and operated daycare.

During the time period TATA abandoned the children, a fire erupted in the residence due to a pan of oil left on an ignited stove.

As a result of the fire, four of the seven children died while the remaining three suffered from severe burns.

Tata faces charges of four counts manslaughter, six counts of reckless injury to a child, three counts of abandoning a child under 15 and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

The U.S. Marshals Service has classified Tata as "Most Wanted" and offers a $25,000 reward for her capture. It's believed that she has fled to Nigeria.

Texas Woman and Teen Boys

(Houston, Texas) A 29-year-old local woman, Javonna Shaunte Bradley, has been accused of engaging in sex with two underage boys.

Bradley faces a charge of sexual assault of a child under 17 years of age.

According to court documents, in June, a 15-year-old boy and his 16-year-old friend were invited by a male friend of the woman to "go meet up" with her and hang out. He then drove them to an apartment where Javonna Shaunte Bradley was waiting.

In October, the 15-year-old described the encounter to police, saying that Bradley's male friend and both boys proceeded to have sex with Bradley.

Details on arrest and booking are unavailable.

Playful Glances

(Bangkok, Thailand)

U.S. President Obama appeared to flirt with Thailand’s attractive prime minister on his first stop of his three-day tour of Southeast Asia, said the Daily Mail.

The president and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra could be seen laughing together and exchanging playful glances throughout a state dinner at the Government House in Bangkok on Sunday night.

Joining Obama on the visit was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who knows that playful glances sometimes lead to biological stains on a blue dress.

Mississippi Woman Gets No Jail in Sex Case

(Lowndes County, Mississippi) In May 2011, a local woman, Kimberly Michelle Smith, was accused of statutory rape of a 14-year-old boy.

This week, 25-year-old Kimberly Smith pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a 14-year-old boy and was sentenced by Circuit Judge Lee Howard to no jail.

Howard gave her a 20-year suspended sentence. She also was placed on five years' probation.

Smith was arrested in May of 2011.

Authorities say Smith was a family friend and had moved in with the boy and his ailing mother to help tend to the sick woman.

Authorities say she was living with the family at the time the assault occurred.

I suggest 20 years reduced to zero is smoochy-smoochy lenient.

Known Unknown

Heh.

Catholic Denied Confirmation for Gay Marriage Stance

(Barnesville, Minnesota)

In the letter, addressed to the parish of Assumption Church at 307 Front St. N., the Rev. Gary LaMoine says “a couple of candidates chose not to enter into full communion with the Catholic community because of their disagreement with the teaching of the Church concerning marriage.”

LaMoine also apologizes in the letter for the actions of 17-year-old Lennon Cihak’s family, who went public Wednesday with their claims that LaMoine denied their son confirmation after he posted a pro same-sex marriage photo on Facebook last month.

“I apologize to the parish for the actions of this family,” LaMoine wrote. “I have personally spent much time talking to them face to face about their unwillingness to accept the teaching of the Church on marriage but to no avail.”

It seems terribly presumptuous to expect confirmation by a church while broadcasting disagreement with its theological doctrine.

Will America be killed by its own internal parasites? 

No one understood the dynamics of aging societies approaching decrepitude better than Mancur Olson, an economist who taught at the University of Maryland until his death in 1998. Olson’s crowning achievement was a book published in 1982 titled, “The Rise and Decline of Nations.” Olson argued that the proliferation of interest groups (collusions or distributional coalitions, in his terms) eventually spells doom for the societies they inhabit. And proliferate they have, from 6,000 in 1959 to 22,000 at the beginning of the 21st century, according to the Encyclopedia of Associations. Like it or not, every man, woman, and child in the country is represented by an interest group.

But when we say “interest group,” what exactly do we mean? America’s master political thinker, James Madison, said it best with his definition of “faction” in Federalist 10, as comprising “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community” (italics added). So much for our contemporary, naïve notions about how factions (interest groups) proclaim to represent some greater good.

It gets worse, especially considering three additional developments. First, America’s mammoth federal government constitutes an interest group itself, which means it does all the things other public and private groups do to protect itself. Second, about half of the population receives some form of aid from the federal government, according to the Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Dependence on Government, and these recipients constitute perhaps the most behemoth group of them all. Third, close to one-half of the entire population does not pay federal-income taxes, a figure that climbed from 12 percent in 1969 to 34.1 percent at the beginning of the Bush administration to its current figure as President Obama starts his second term. The question is: What does all this mean for the destiny of America?

Prepare yourself for some very bad news. As societies age, they “tend to accumulate more collusions and organizations for collective action over time,” which in normal speak means that societies become infested with interest groups just like arteries become more rigid and clogged with body gunk as you get older—a phenomenon Jonathan Rauch referred to as “Demosclerosis.” Further, groups “reduce efficiency and aggregate income in the societies in which they operate and make political life more divisive.” Example: anyone read the healthcare bill lately? And the thousands of regulations in existence and forthcoming? And consider its huge increased costs?

The keystone of this argument is a passage that is terrifying in its implications and is worth quoting in full: “The typical organization for collective action [interest group] within a society will … have little or no incentive to make any significant sacrifices in the interest of the society” and “there is ... no constraint on the social cost such an organization will find it expedient to impose on the society in the course of obtaining a larger share of the social output for itself”. This means nothing less than it says: a group will kill its host, the American republic in this case, before relinquishing even a modicum of benefits for itself.

Nations die this way, empires collapse, societies atrophy, and countries implode (like the old USSR) or are conquered from without. In the United States, this phenomenon cannot be blamed exclusively on Democrats or Republicans; both parties represent coalitions of groups that all want something from the government. Indeed, if there is any difference between Republicans and Democrats in this regard it is that President Obama has accelerated this process over the last four years. But institutionalized selfishness was a going concern before he came along.

More HERE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Florida Teacher Accused of Providing Booze to Minors

(Gulf County, Florida) A 30-year-old teacher at Wewahitchka High School, Denise Ethridge, has been accused of providing alcohol to minors.

Ethridge faces charges of providing alcohol to a person under 21 and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

According to the Gulf County Sheriff's Office, 30-year-old Denise Ethridge bought alcohol on two different occasions on November 3rd and provided the beverages to minors.

According to the arrest affidavit, deputies say that Ethridge purchased two six packs of Smirnoff Ice from the Express Lane in Wewahitchka, while accompanied by a juvenile, who was then seen drinking the alcoholic beverages in Ethridge's car.

The affidavit says that Ethridge went back into the store, purchased a 12-pack of Bud Light beer and then exited the store, handing a beer to another juvenile.

Ethridge was booked into custody at the Gulf County Jail. According to the sheriff's office, more charges are probable.

Texas Educator Guilty in Sex Case - Updated

(Childress, Texas)

A former Childress Independent School District teacher’s aide pleaded guilty Friday to a federal charge after she traveled to Oklahoma in February to have sex with a 15-year-old boy.

Shanice Adel Lambert, 38, faces five to 30 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 after pleading guilty to a charge of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, court records showed.

Details on sentencing are not available.

* * * * *
Texas Educator Indicted in Sex Case
[Previous 9/13/12 post]
(Childress, Texas)

A former teacher's aide in Childress is indicted by a federal grand jury in Lubbock Wednesday on sex related charges.

Court documents show Shanice Lambert was indicted for production of child pornography, enticement of a minor, and two counts of transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

According to the indictment, in February 2012, Lambert enticed a minor to have sex through communications on a cellular phone, took images of the minor and also transported the minor on two different occasions to Oklahoma to have sex.

A court appearance is scheduled for September 20.

* * * * *
Texas Educator Accused of Sex with Student
[Previous 3/29/12 post]
(Childress, Texas) A 37-year-old teacher's aide with the Childress Independent School District, Shanice Lambert, has been accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with a student.

Lambert faces charges of sexual assault of a child and inappropriate relationship with a student.

After the accusations came to light on March 20th, Lambert was placed on administrative leave. That's when several agencies became involved in the investigation.

Just days later on March 23rd, Lambert was officially fired from her job with Childress ISD.

Lambert was booked into custody at the Armstrong County Jail and subsequently released on $20,000 bond.

New York Woman Accused of Theft from PTO

(Ontario County, New York) A 44-year-old local woman, Tracy L. Brooks, has been accused of stealing $50,000 while treasurer of the Gorham-Middlesex Parent Teacher Organization.

Brooks faces a charge of grand larceny.

Brooks was treasurer of the PTO from 2007 through this September, and police said the missing funds are from accounts to which Brooks has access.

Police said the PTO, which consists of parents and family that support the functions of the school, is a separate entity from the school district.

Brooks was booked into custody at the Ontario County Jail with bond set at $10,000.

Smoker's License

Here's an idea from a down-under academic.

A public health proposal suggests that tobacco smokers should be required to apply and pay for a “smoker’s license” in order to continue buying cigarettes.

Simon Chapman, a professor at the University of Sydney, proposes that users would have to apply and pay for a mandatory license in the form of a smartcard that would be shown when buying cigarettes. ...

In a controversial move, the smartcard would allow the government to limit how many cigarettes a smoker could buy.

I wonder what the penalty would be for possession of cigarettes without a license.

$30,000 Surgically-Enhanced Body

Heidi Montag
Reality television personality Heidi Montag spent $30,000 for 10 surgeries in one day, "including liposuction on her thighs, bottom augmentation and a breast enlargement, as well as a nose job and chin reduction."

Montag said she would never do it again nor would she recommend it because it's too painful.

Masks Declared Illegal in UAE

Guy Fawkes mask
(United Arab Emirates)

Police officials in Dubai have warned against wearing a mask that symbolises opposition to state authority during any celebrations connected to National Day and declared it illegal.

Any person found wearing Guy Fawkes masks, also known as ‘Vendetta masks’, risks police questioning as any object or action deemed to be instigating unrest or insulting the UAE is illegal, police officials said.

The masks are a stylised depiction of a man who was behind the failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up the British House of Lords in London in 1605. The plot is commemorated with a fireworks displays in the UK on November 5 each year in an event that has come to be known as Guy Fawkes night.

The masks being targeted at people in the UAE have mainly shown up on some online stores and are emblazoned with the colours of the UAE flag — red, white, green and black. They also feature the number 41 prominently — a reference to the 41st National Day on December 2.[…]

A Dubai Police official stressed the negative connotations of the mask. “Using any symbol that insults the country or instigates unrest against its system is not allowed. We urge citizens to celebrate using other symbols such as national flags, slogans or photos that are more appropriate to the happy occasion of National Day.”

Tip: Charlie Nestor

 British Met Office lets the side down

The following is from the official blog of Britain's Met Office news team.  They are irritated by some forecasts that December will be unusually cold.  But in their keenness to scotch that prediction they make a stunning admission:  "The science does not exist to make detailed forecasts for temperature and snowfall for the end of this month, let alone for December or even the winter as a whole".  Yet they use recent differences in temperature calibrated in tenths and hundredths of a degree to predict what the temperature will be 50 years hence?  According to  their own admission we surely have to say:  "The science does not exist" for that

We wrote only last week that it seems that it is the time of year again for colourful headlines about an impending big freeze.

We had them at this time last year, which prompted our Chief Executive to write an opinion piece in The Times. Now we have very similar stories again, with the front page of the Daily Express declaring last week ‘Coldest winter freeze on way’ and warning that temperatures are set to plunge as low as -15C and again a week on we have another front page from the Daily Express which declares ‘Coldest winter for 100 years on way‘. with the UK expected to grind to a halt within weeks.

These longer range forecasts for December and January have not come from the Met Office and a look at our current 30 day forecast provides perhaps a more measured assessment of our weather prospects to the middle of December:

As is usual, there are uncertainties in the forecast for this period. Whilst changeable conditions are considered more likely initially, some signs are beginning to emerge for more settled conditions to develop over parts of Europe. The signal is that these conditions may extend towards the UK during the first part of December. So, although there are no strong indications of any particular weather type predominating, on balance, colder and drier-than-average conditions are favoured over the recent mild and damp weather many areas have experienced.

What is clear from the forecast is that although there are some signs that after a rather unsettled period, the weather may become colder and drier than we have seen recently there is still a lot of uncertainty in the forecast which again the article has failed to pick up on and report to its readers.

The science does not exist to make detailed forecasts for temperature and snowfall for the end of this month, let alone for December or even the winter as a whole with these types of forecasts only able to provide an indication of how our weather might change, or be different from normal, (i.e. warmer, colder, wetter, drier) across the whole UK or even Europe

Ultimately, we’re heading into winter and it is perfectly possible that we will see the whole range of weather that we get in winter at some point over the coming months, including snow and freezing temperatures, but also heavy rain, windy weather and mild conditions too.

Our five day forecasts and warnings will provide you with the best possible guidance on any periods of cold weather, frost or the likelihood of snow, giving detailed local information across the UK to help you make the most of the weather over the coming months.

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Missouri Woman Gets Prison for Child Sex Assault

(St. Charles County, Missouri) A 31-year-old local woman, Rebecca Sue Russell, has pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting two young girls she was babysitting at the Tee Kay Mobile Home Manor.

Russell entered an Alford plea to three counts of statutory sodomy. Under that arrangement, Russell did not admit guilt but conceded the prosecution had enough evidence to convict her.

The incidents involved a 5-year-old girl and a 7-month-old girl.[…]

Circuit Judge Ted House went with the recommendation of prosecutors to sentence Russell to 10 years on each of the three counts, with the sentences to run concurrently.

Two men, Billy Bunch Jr., 26, and John Scott Thomas III, 27, face separate prosecutions for sex assault on the same children.

Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Child Porn

(Coraopolis, Pennsylvania) A 49-year-old local woman, Pamela Smallis, has been accused of multiple child pornography charges.

Smallis faces counts of child porn possession, photographing child-sex acts, sexual exploitation of children, unlawful contact, endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, obstruction of justice and criminal use of a cell phone.

She was charged in September after investigators found video of two girls and a boy in a shower, with her voice heard directing them, on her cell phone, which had been confiscated as part of a drug investigation against Smallis and her 20-year-old son Richard.

Investigators said they found a similar video and more than 30 image files portraying minors ages 8 to 16 in various states of undress and engaging in sexual activity on the phone's memory card. The files were created between Dec. 31, 2010, and March 14, 2012, according to the complaint.

Smallis along with her son face multiple drug charges in a separate prosecution. She was booked and released on $50,000 bond.

A compliment from Al Gore? 

He went on Reddit, writing as follows:

Hello Reddit, I'll be here from 1:00-1:30pm EST to answer your questions.  I'd also like to take this opportunity to invite Reddit to take part in the Climate Reality Project's 24 Hours of Reality: The Dirty Weather Report. This is a live internet broadcast, intended to unite people around the world in demanding action to address the climate crisis. Despite overwhelming scientific consensus, climate change deniers continue to stand in the way of meaningful solutions and the reality-based community cannot afford to stay silent any longer.

"climate change deniers continue to stand in the way".

That is cheering.  We deniers have stopped the Warmists! Al Gore says so.  Perhaps we should have a few victory celebrations.

There are at least 15 deeply researched separate lines of evidence that all confirm man-made global warming. They are all consistent, each with the others. Every National Academy of Science on the planet agrees with the consensus. The Academies describe the evidence as "indisputable". Every professional scientific society in every field related to climate science and earth science also agree. And 97-98% of climate scientists worldwide most actively publishing also agree. Animals and plants also agree -- in that they are moving their ranges by latitude and altitude to find climate niches similar to the ones in which they evolved. Even if you leave climate science completely out of it and just measure extreme temperatures, the statistical record of global temperatures shows that three-standard deviation events have increased from 0.25% of the time (from 1951-1980) to 10% of the time now. There is as strong a consensus as you will find in science, with the possible exception of the existence of gravity.

Gore goes on above using language no scientist would.  What is "deeply researched"?  You can exert great research efforts, going as deep as the Marianas trench if you like, but if your asssumptions are wrong or your methodology flawed you will still be wrong.  A scientist might have said "rigorously" researched but that would be a large claim for any Warmist research.

And what ARE these lines of evidence?  Can he not name them?  It would be fascinating to hear.  He does name one of them:  That extreme temperature events have become more frequent since 1980.  He neither names the direction of those events nor their magnitude, however, which is a hoot.  About half of those events will be unusual COLD.  And Warmists compare years down to hundredths of a degree Celsius so even tiny and inconsequential changes will make Gore's list.

If that's the best he can do, the prospects for the rest of the "deeply researched" evidence seem very bleak indeed.  The man is a charlatan -- JR

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Tennessee Woman Gets No Jail in Sex Case - Updated

(Erin, Tennessee) This week, 39-year-old local woman, Tiffany A. Conwell, pleaded guilty to engaging in sex with a 16-year-old boy and to sending him indecent photos.

Conwell faced sentencing on two counts of aggravated statutory rape and nine counts of exhibition of inappropriate materials to minors.

Conwell was sentenced to four years, but jail time was suspended to probation, which will be part of a judicial diversion agreement.

Under the diversion, which a judge can grant for first-time offenders, her criminal record would be expunged if she successfully completes probation.

Among the conditions of her probation are that she be added to the state’s sex offender registry, and she is to have no contact with the victim.

She also must complete a psychosexual assessment and follow all treatment recommendations. Additionally, she must also pay for counseling the victim received and court costs.

No jail for aggravated rape is arguably lenient.

* * * * *Tennessee Woman, 39, and Boy, 16
[Previous 3/13/12 post]
(Erin, Tennessee) A 39-year-old local woman, Tiffany A Conwell, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 16-year-old boy.

The alleged rape reportedly occurred on January 16. Conwell was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of aggravated statutory rape.

The charge is aggravated, according to the indictment, because of an age difference of more than 10 years between the victim and the alleged perpetrator.

Conwell was booked into custody at the Houston County Jail.

Secret Service Suicide

(Washington, D.C.)

The Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the president's Secret Service detail believed to be involved in a long-term affair with a Mexican woman committed suicide a day after failing a national security polygraph and being stripped of his clearances and access, according to sources.

Rafael Prieto, a supervisor on President Obama's Secret Service detail, was found dead last weekend in the passenger side seat of his roommate's car in the garage of their Washington D.C. residence, clutching a photograph of his two children, multiple sources told FoxNews.com.

The suicide came a day after a Do Not Admit email sent agency-wide for Prieto was sent by the Security Clearance Division.

A senior law enforcement official confirmed Prieto's clearance had been pulled, calling it "standard practice" for an employee going through an "administrative process." The official said the investigation "was related to clarifying a long-term ongoing relationship with a foreign national."

The suicide occurred a couple of weeks ago and, I suggest, without a solid reason. Prieto had an affair and lost his job. Many, many men have found themselves in the same lascivious circumstances, dusted themselves off and moved on.

Unless there is something more sinister in Prieto's background, I suggest that suicide wasn't a rational response. After all, CIA Chief David Petraeus recently had an affair and lost his job but didn't off himself.

Carolina Teacher Allegedly Obscene with Students

(Greenville County, South Carolina) A 40-year-old science teacher at J.L. Mann High Academy, Michelle Stabach Jensen, has been accused of sending lewd texts and photos of herself to two male students.

Jensen faces two felony counts of unlawful dissemination of obscene materials to persons under 18 years of age, and two counts of contributing to delinquency of a minor.

Jensen resigned after being questioned by the principal last Friday, according to school district spokesman Oby Lyles.

Warrants allege that she “sent text messages and photographs of herself to a … male student of hers at J.L. Mann High School. The text messages and photographs were sexually explicit in nature.”

According to Lyles, this is Jensen’s first year with Greenville County Schools. She started as a substitute in August and became a full-time teacher Oct. 15, he said.

Principal Charles Mayfield became aware of allegations of inappropriate texts to students when a teacher reported overhearing a conversation between students about it, Lyles said.

Jensen was booked into custody at the Greenville County Detention Center.

Mississippi Teacher Gets Prison in Sex Case - Updated

(Union, Mississippi) Former kindergarten teacher at Union Elementary School, Emily Suzanne Hansford, 43, pleaded guilty before Judge Vernon Cotton to sexual battery of a child under the age of 18 while in a position of trust.

As a result, Hansford was sentenced to eight years in prison.

When asked by Judge Vernon Cotten if she was pleading guilty because she was guilty, Hansford replied: "Yes, sir."

The victim's father, who was in the courtroom for the sentencing, said he was satisfied when asked by Judge Cotten about the eight-year sentence recommended by the District Attorney's office as part of a plea bargain.

Judge Cotten told the father that the damage to his son could not be undone.

"We suggest the family get proper counseling and therapy for your son to be sure he can weather this properly and view sexuality in the confines of marriage like it ought to be," he said.

In announcing his sentence, Judge Cotten told Hansford, the mother of two children, that he would accept the state's recommendation.

Hansford was also ordered to register as a sex offender.

* * * * *Mississippi Teacher and Male Student
[Previous 2/14/12 post]
(Union, Mississippi) A 43-year-old teacher at Union High School, Emily Suzanne Hansford, has been accused of sexual relations with a male student.

Hansford faces a charge of having an inappropriate relationship with a male student under the age of 16. According to Union Police Chief Billy Walker:

Police began their investigation after receiving a complaint from the boy's parents, Walker said.

Police believe that the incidents, which they wouldn't detail, took place at three locations in Neshoba County and one in Newton County.

Hansford was booked into custody and released on $75,000 bond.

Energy Drink Deaths

(Washington, D.C.)

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating reports of 13 deaths possibly linked to so-called "energy shots" and cautioning consumers to talk to their doctors before they take them or other energy drinks.

The agency has received 92 reports that cite illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths after consumption of a product marketed as 5-Hour Energy. The FDA has also received reports that cited the highly caffeinated Monster Energy Drink in five deaths and one non-fatal heart attack.

If the danger continues, I suspect that the feds will pass a new law regulating energy drinks.

Counterfeit $100 Bills

(North Attleboro, Massachusetts) A 29-year-old Rhode Island man, Dana T. Leland, has been arrested for passing counterfeit $100 bills at a Target store. Leland faces charges of uttering a counterfeit note and possession of a counterfeit note.

After several purchases by Leland, less-than-eagle-eyed retail employees noticed that the bills displayed a picture of Abraham Lincoln, not Benjamin Franklin.

Leland reportedly has drug/alcohol problems. He was booked into custody with bond set at $1,000.

Illinois Teacher Accused of Sex with Male Student

(Springfield, Illinois) A 36-year-old English teacher at Lanphier High School, Jennifer Tyree, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 17-year-old male student. Tyree's husband alerted the police to the alleged crime.

Tyree faces one count of criminal sexual assault.

The mother reportedly told police her son admitted the affair.

The mother said Tyree contacted her about a month ago, saying she was one of her son’s teachers and would like to mentor him in order to improve his grades, a police report said.

The mother also said Tyree had been visiting the student’s home to help him with assignments and had been taking him to movies and to kickboxing classes recently, according to the report. Tyree allegedly would call or text the student’s mother before picking up the student.

Tyree’s husband told the student’s mother he witnessed his wife and the student having inappropriate contact with each other and that the two had rented a hotel room on Sept. 21, police said.

Tyree was booked into custody on Wednesday.

PA Woman Gets Prison for Teen Drug and Drinking Parties

(Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania) In April 2012, a 40-year-old local woman, Erica King, was arrested for allegedly hosting teen drug and liquor parties and engaging in sex with a 17-year-old boy.

In July, King pleaded guilty to corruption of minors and providing alcohol to minors. As a result, Lackawanna County Judge Michael J. Barrasse sentenced King to 90 days in county prison and 90 days house arrest.

Police interviewed six teenagers who claimed alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs were available at her home.

Judge Barrasse admonished Ms. King on Tuesday for not accepting responsibility for the incidents during her pre-sentence investigation several months ago. She stated at the time, according to the judge, that the case against her amounted to nothing more than "rumors and gossip" and that she "didn't do these terrible things."

After the judge finished his remarks, Ms. King apologized.

She was then handcuffed and escorted out of the courthouse by sheriff's deputies.

According to police, her home was called a "party house" for people under 21 years old.

King will also serve five years of probation.