Women With Troubles - October 2014

Here is a compilation of women with troubles reported in news stories during October 2014. Each name is linked to an Interested-Participant blog entry displaying details.

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

(AL) Carolyn Watson,
neighbor - Sentenced to one year in drug court for stealing medicine,

(AR) Morgan Young, 23,
paraprofessional educator - Accused of felony sexual assault of female student,

(CA) Kristen Goodwin Roush, 34,
teacher - Accused of inappropriate relationship with male student,

(DC) Symone Greene, 22,
teacher - Accused of engaging in sex with male student, 17, on her first day at school,

(DE) Ashley Tull, 30,
neighbor - Faces drug and child endangerment charges,

(GA) Fleur Jean Ruley, 43,
teacher - Accused of engaging in sex with a 17-year-old student,

(IA) Abigail Louise Roberts, 29,
pharmacy employee - Accused of stealing thousands of dollars from pharmacy,

(IA) Rochelle Sapp, 34,
day care provider - Sentenced to possible 100 years in prison for death of 3-year-old girl,

(IL) Jenee Blackert, 31,
teacher - Gets 4 years prison for sex assault of female student, 17,

(IN) Emmy Gibson, 27,
soccer coach - Accused of inappropriate relationship with female student, 17,

(IN) Brandi Lynn Phipps, 30,
neighbor - Accused of engaging in sex with a 14-year-old boy,

(KY) Carrie Staples Williams, 31,
teacher - Guilty of inappropriate relations with male student, 17,

(LA) Tracy Marie Barras, 34,
teacher - Accused of indecent behavior with several 16-year-old male students,

(LA) Shelley Dufresne, 33,
teacher - Accused of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and contributing to the delinquency,

(LA) Angeline Lodice, 26,
neighbor - Accused of engaging in sex with a 3-year-old boy and a dog,

(LA) Rachel Respess, 23,
teacher - Accused of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and contributing to the delinquency,

(MN) Mary Gilles, 28,
teacher - Accused of sex with male student, 17,

(MO) Johnna Feazell, 46,
teacher - Charged with statutory sodomy and attempted enticement of a girl, 16,

(MS) Krystal Kersey,
neighbor - Accused of murdering her husband of two months,

(NC) Stacey Rademacher Kolmodin, 31,
teacher - Accused of child abuse, larceny, trafficking opiates and creating a counterfeit controlled substance,

(NE) Brandi R. Jorgensen, 19,
neighbor - Accused of child abuse and drug offenses,

(NE) Vanessa Ramirez, 28,
neighbor - Accused of intentional child abuse,

(NV) Tanikka Queen, 22,
teacher - Sentenced to probation for sex with student, 15,

(NY) Heather Castrechino, 38,
neighbor - Pleads guilty to sex assault of 3-year-old child. Sentencing November 20,

(NY) Virginia Vertetis, 52,
teacher - Accused of murdering boyfriend,

(PA) Patricia Davenport, 35,
neighbor - Faces counts of corruption of minors, child endangerment and drug offenses,

(PA) Elizabeth Goshorn, 24,
neighbor - Accused of sex with 15-year-old boy,

(PA) Katelyn Marie Sweitzer, 23,
neighbor - Accused of sex with boy, 14,

(PA) Lisa Winarchick, 50,
neighbor - Accused of performing a sex act on a 15-year-old boy,

(SC) Dedra Kiser,
teacher - Accused of DUI and child endangerment,

(TN) Marry Cruickshank, 26,
neighbor - Accused of shooting a 6-year-old child in the face with a BB gun,

(TN) Melissa Ellen Williams, 40,
teacher - Faces drug and public intoxication charges,

(TX) Lyndsey Baker, 28,
neighbor - Accused of driving drunk and naked with child on lap,

(TX) Sondra Reed,
special education teacher - Sentenced to probation for improper relations with student,

(TX) Ashley Zehnder, 24,
teacher and cheer coach - Accused of engaging in sex with a 17-year-old male student,

(UT) Jaime Renee Tactay, 37,
neighbor - Guilty of sex with boy, 15. Sentencing November 20,

(VA) Tessa Monique Hairston, 31,
teacher - Accused of sex with juvenile,

(VA) Erica Lynn Mesa, 27,
teacher - Accused of sex with male student,

(VT) Alexandra Fusco, 25,
teacher - Accused of sex with male student, 16,

(WA) Silvia Brooks, 42, with an accomplice, Kervan Reed, 38,
neighbor - Accused of stealing luggage from airport,

(WI) Lindsey Quednow, 26,
teacher's aide - Accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy,

(Chelmsford, England) Charlotte Parker, 32,
teaching assistant - Gets suspended sentence for sex with schoolboy, 14,

(Kent, England) Karen Ackland, 44,
neighbor - Gets 2 years prison for sex with friend's son, 14,

Thanks to the tipsters.

Deer Tongue

(Little Rock, Arkansas) This report is disgusting.

A woman from Little Rock, Arkansas, is now recovering after a bizarre chain of events that led doctors to find the tongue of a deer lodged into her vag!na.

The Arkansas woman, who’s name has not been released, went to her gynecologist complaining that her discharge had a “very bad odor.” Her doctor performed a typical exam checking for several different issues that could have been causing this problem. All tests were negative.

The doctor was not at all concerned about her complaints, until the results of the pap smear came back.

The report indicated that the cells taken from the pap smear, were not human. It could not determine the origin of the cells: all they knew was that they were not human cells.

The doctor requested that the woman come back for a repeat exam, and to discuss the findings.

During the exam, the doctor inserted his speculum, and scooped out a large piece of loose, decaying flesh.

Ugh!

School Board Votes on Abortion Page in Textbook

(Gilbert, Arizona)

The Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board voted this week to redact a section on abortion from a science book used in a high school honors curriculum.

The book, "Campbell Biology: Concepts and Connections," contains a section about contraception, which discusses various methods, including the so-called abortion pill. Mifepristone, also known as RU486, can terminate a pregnancy in its early stages.

"You would expect a discussion of abortion maybe to show up in actual sex-ed materials. That's why I didn't like abortion in a biology book that all it discusses is natural processes. There's nothing natural about abortion," said Daryl Colvin, acting Gilbert school board president.

The school board voted 3 to 2 to remove the abortion section.

What's the Sport?

Found this picture in my ancient archives. I think it is scintillatingly questionable.

Fireball Whisky Recall

Fireball Whisky

European standard for whisky is more restrictive than U.S. standard.

Fireball Whisky is being pulled from shelves in Europe because it contains too much propylene glycol – an additive that prevents evaporation and is a stabilizer in foods.

But it’s not going anywhere in the United States.

Norway, Sweden and Finland have recalled the popular cinnamon-flavored drink after a batch of the North American recipe, which contains higher levels of propylene glycol, was shipped there, its manufacturer said on Tuesday.

Officials in Finland say Fireball liqueur is prepared according to North American food regulations but does not meet the requirements of the European Union’s tighter standards on propylene glycol.

Reportedly, Fireball Whisky is very popular.

Violence genes may be responsible for one in 10 serious crimes

Leftists assure us that poverty is the cause of crime.  Could they be wrong?

The genes for extremely violent behaviour have been discovered by scientists who fear they may be responsible for one in 10 serious crimes.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden analysed the genetic make-up of 895 criminals from Finland to see if violence was in their DNA.

The majority of violent crime is committed by a small group of antisocial, repeat offenders, who seem incapable of rehabilitation.

Now scientists believe they have found which genes are responsible for high levels of rage and violence. They believe that they could be responsible for up to 10 per cent of serious crime in Finland.

The criminals who had committed the most serious crimes, such as murder, were found to have variants of two genes; monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and cadherin 13 (CDH13).

MAOA is linked to dopamine levels in the brain, a chemical which makes people feel happy and fulfilled. CDH13 is linked to impulse control.

“When compared to the control population, non-violent offenders were not observed to exhibit either variant to a greater degree, indicating that these genetic variants may be specific to extremely violent behaviour,” said lead researcher Professor Jari Tiihonen.

The researchers, whose findings were published online in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, also suggest that the low dopamine levels associated with the MAOA gene may make carriers more aggressive when drunk or on drugs, increasing the risk of violent behaviour.

British scientists said the study could help identify potential criminals early when it was still possible to treat their violent tendencies.

However some British researchers criticised claims that the genes could be responsible for such large amounts of crime in Finland.

Prof John Stein, Emeritus Professor of Physiology, University of Oxford, said "This is a very interesting study with plausible aspects.

“But please do not accept the claims that these alleles are 'responsible for 5-10 per cent of violent offences in Finland'. All they show is that they may contribute 5-10 per cent to the chance of an individual being very violent.

“These alleles are quite common and so environmental factors are probably much more important. For instance simply improving prisoners diets can reduce their violent offending by 37 per cent."

Prof Jan Schnupp, Professor of Neuroscience, University of Oxford, added: "Half the people in your office will carry these genes. Odds are 50/50 that you do. How violent has your day been? To call these alleles "genes for violence" would therefore be a massive exaggeration.

“In combination with many other factors these genes may make it a little harder for you to control violent urges, but they most emphatically do not predetermine you for a life of crime.”

SOURCE

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

Louisiana Woman Accused of Child and Dog Sex

(Jefferson Parish, Louisiana} A 26-year-old local woman, Angeline Lodice, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 3-year-old boy and a dog.

Lodice faces counts of aggravated rape of a victim under the age of 13, pornography involving juveniles, crimes against nature and sexual battery.

The abuse came to light after the father of the child was contacted by a relative of Lodice, who said he received photographs and videos of Lodice and the child, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputy wrote in a report.

It's unclear how Lodice knows the child.

Lodice faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

Bruce Jenner

Bruce Jenner
Some things just make no sense.

Bruce Jenner has thrown caution to the wind and is ready to go public with his sex change gender transition into becoming a woman.

After months of speculation, Bruce is telling the world what many already knew—he has long yearned to be a woman, and he finally decided, on his 65th birthday, that he is making his dream come true.

Jenner is 65 years old and he's an Olympic decathlon champion, so it's a mystery of what possesses him to want to wear lipstick and pantyhose.

Kentucky Teacher Guilty of Sex with Student

(Frankfort, Kentucky) A 30-something English teacher formerly at Franklin County High School, Carrie Staples Williams, has pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree unlawful transaction with a 17-year-old male student.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Zach Becker said Williams admitted to the inappropriate relationship, which occurred from September 2006 to January 2007 when she was 23 years old.

“There were emails documenting this,” Becker said, sent from Williams’ personal Hotmail account.[…]

It wasn’t until after the victim died this year that law enforcement was notified of the allegations.

“He did take his own life in the spring of this year,” Becker said. “…While his mother was going through his personal items, these previously referred to explicit emails were discovered.”

The victim’s mother then notified the current superintendent, Chrissy Jones, who immediately notified the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.

Sentencing is scheduled for December 5.

Another attempt to "psychologize" conservatives -- one which overlooks the obvious

Does the Study of Science Lead to Leftward Leanings?  Not  quite. Key excerpts from the latest article below.  It is difficult to know whare to start in such a rubbishy article but I should note initially that the use of student attitudes to draw great inferences about people in general is an act of faith. In the very first piece of research I ever did (in the mid-60s) I used students and found a correlation of .808 between two variables  -- which is very high.  Being a very skeptical person even then, however, I repeated the research using a sample of Army conscripts, a much more representative group.  The correlation dropped to negligibility. Plainly, you CANNOT draw reliable conclusions from student samples

But does the research below tell us anything about instututions of higher education?  Perhaps it does, though what it shows is obvious and no surprise.  It shows that universities and colleges  are hotbeds of Leftism.  So even some students who do not start out as Leftists eventually become brainwashed into it.  The authors found that in the third and fourth year of study, the students had become more Leftist than they were in the first and second year.

So how come the authors found the effect among science students only?  Probably because the social science and humanities students were already asymptotically Leftist from the outset.  They started out Leftist in their studies so had little room to move further Left.  The authors don't give their results in tabular form so I was not able to check that. It is however a common finding that social science and humanities students are the most Leftist

But even the interpretation of the results as showing us something about academe may be too incautious.  The measuring instruments used by the authors were woeful.  The ad hoc scale they used in Study I had a reliability (alpha) of only .58, which is simply too low to conclude that it is measuring any consistent trait.  It implies that the items had virtually nothing in common.  An alpha of .75 is the normal threshold for a usable research instrument.

And the rest of the research relied on an even  more execrable instument -- the SDO scale, which assumes what it has to prove.  The SDO scale must be one of the most uninsightfully put-together instruments in the psychology literature.  See here for details on that.

So the only really safe conclusion is that the research proves nothing at all

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

According to a research team led by Harvard University psychologist Christine Ma-Kellams, immersion in the world of science tends to shifts students’ attitudes toward the left side of the political spectrum.

In the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, Ma-Kellams and her colleagues describe four studies that support their thesis. In the first, 196 students from a New England university revealed their ideological positions by responding to 18 statements expressing political opinions.

“Across domains,” the researchers report, “those who are in scientific fields exhibited greater political liberalism compared to those in non-hard-scientific fields.”

Importantly, this was only found for students in their third or fourth year of college. This strongly suggests that, rather than political liberals being attracted to science, it was the hands-on study that made the difference.

The second study featured 100 undergraduates, who expressed their views on three hot-button political issues (same-sex marriage, affirmative action, and the Affordable Care Act). They also completed the Social Dominance Orientation Scale, in which they expressed their level of agreement or disagreement with such statements as “Sometimes other groups must be kept in their place,” and “In getting what you want, it is sometimes necessary to use force against other groups.”

Consistent with the first study, the researchers found that “for those with significant exposure to their discipline (i.e., upperclassmen), studying science is associated with more liberal political attitudes.” Furthermore, they found this was due to a lower level of support for the my-group-deserves-to-dominate positions outlined above.

Additional studies featuring Canadian students and a community sample from the Boston area came to the same conclusions.

“Relative to those studying non-sciences, students in the sciences exhibited greater political liberalism across a variety of domains (including foreign policy, health care, and the economy) and a variety of social issues (gay marriage, affirmative action), as well as in general self-reported liberalism,” Ma-Kellams and her colleagues write.

This, they conclude, is the result of “science’s emphasis on rationality, impartiality, fairness, progress, and the idea that we are to use these rational tools for the mutual benefit of all people in society.”

In one sense, these results are something of a surprise. Given the fact the social sciences involve people and politics more directly, one might think the study of these disciplines would be more likely to shape minds in a more liberal direction. But these students were no more liberal than those majoring in disciplines having nothing to do with science.

More HERE

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

Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Sex with Boy

(York, Pennsylvania) A 23-year-old local woman, Katelyn Marie Sweitzer, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 14-year-old boy.

Sweitzer faces counts of statutory sexual assault, indecent assault of a person less than 16 years old and corruption of minors.

Police say Sweitzer and the boy had sex Oct. 13 at Sweitzer's apartment, where the boy's mother caught them.

Sweitzer later admitted to willingly having sex with the boy, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

Sweitzer was booked into custody at the York County Prison with bail set at $5,000.

Cute, eh?




Anyone who can get a couple hundred people to act in any semblance of unison is either a genius or, at least, a hard worker blessed with luck. Kudos to the director.

Coca-Cola Problem

(Abuja, Nigeria)

The Federal Government of Nigeria is suing Coca-Cola and Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC), over alleged failure to comply with Consumer Protection Council (CPC) orders over two half-empty cans of Sprite.

The lawsuits follow a consumer complaint, which ended in investigation into the half-filled cans of Sprite bought at a supermarket in Abuja.

The case was brought to the Federal High Court in Abuja against Coca-Cola Nigeria and its chief executive as well as the Nigerian Bottling Company and its managing director for criminal breach of the Consumer Protection Act.

The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) considers it to be a threat to public health.

Some excerpts from a diatribe by an Australian Green/Left law academic

He's certainly got a good imagination.  He implicitly implies that "climate disruption" is going on but seems unperturbed that the 2003 prophecy he quotes (in red) shows no sign of being fulfilled.  Mr Obama is in fact letting poor Hispanics flood into America these days.  Some fortress!  The usual Green/Left lack of reality contact.

And where do we see these days "a dramatic growth in violent political and social unrest over dwindling resources"?  I know of none.

And another loss of reality contact in saying that police forces are also adopting military ideas and tactics "to confront demonstrations about climate change".  Tactics of that sort are indeed growing in the USA but they are used to confront crime, especially black crime (check Ferguson, Missouri). If middle-class Greenies make a big enough nuisance of themselves they might experience such approaches but that is entirely their doing.

And his last paragraph below is sheer fantasy -- and a good laugh. A definite ivory tower inhabitant


For over a decade, the Pentagon and other Western militaries such as Australia have put serious thought into the medium and long-term implications of climate change. For example, in 2003, the Pentagon released a paper titled “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and its Implications for United States National Security.”

The report predicted massive flooding, storms, forced migration, food shortages, starvation and water crises. Moreover, as a result of diminishing carrying capacity, the report also foresaw a dramatic growth in violent political and social unrest over dwindling resources.

The authors of the Pentagon report also predicted “boom-times” for militarized security, as nations that have food, water, energy and other resources mobilize high-tech technology to separate themselves from the masses outside of their geographical borders. By 2025-2030, the authors predicted:

The United States and Australia are likely to build defensive fortress around their countries because they have the resources and reserves to achieve self-sufficiency… Borders will be strengthened to hold back unwanted starving immigrants.

Such an outcome would make current LNP immigration policy look like “an evil child's fumbling toys” to quote Hannah Arendt. And yet, the Australian government already uses the Navy to prevent asylum seekers from landing on Australian soil. Moreover, it has continued to build an “economic fortress” around itself by dramatically cutting its foreign-aid budget and refusing to commit to the United Nations Green Climate Fund.

Police forces are also adopting military ideas and tactics to confront demonstrations about climate change and other justice issues. Stephen Graham highlights in his book Cities Under Siege, the way that large defence and IT companies have created a multi-billion dollar market in civilian technologies directed at crowd control and civilian disturbances. Geographic mapping and drone technology are perhaps the best-known examples utilised by the Australian police.

This might sound like hyperbole, but I do not think it is a stretch to imagine a time when the US-Australian Great Green Fleet (complete with biofuel planes) is deployed in the name of national security to “hold back unwanted starving” climate refugees or masses of people suffering from climate related disease.

SOURCE

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

Pennsylvania Teachers Union Block

Teachers Union Placard
Frankly, I don't even understand how charity could be rejected.

Two Pennsylvania teachers are fighting the state’s largest teachers union for interfering with their charitable giving.

The teachers allege in a suit filed in district court that the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) is blocking them from exercising their right to donate union dues money to charity. Pennsylvania allows religious objectors to cut ties with unions as long as they donate an equivalent agency fee payment to charity. That money is given to the union, which is then supposed to send it to the charity of the teacher’s choosing.

Jane Ladley, an elementary school teacher for 25 years before retiring in June, said that the union prevented her from directing her $435 donation to a scholarship fund to teach high school seniors about the Constitution because it was “too political.”

Individuals who seek charitable contributions should be forever thankful of all donations. Of course, my opinions are just that --- my opinions.

Pennsylvania Animal Rights Bill Dies

(Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)

Pigeon shoots can live on in Pennsylvania, and cats and dogs can still be eaten in the privacy of your own home.

That's the state of affairs now that state lawmakers have left town without passing a state proposal banning both activities.

OK

A silly little Leftist lady tries to "psychologize" conservatives

One does not expect much in the way of profundity from the  crusading Australian Leftist organ, "New Matilda", but a rather long diatribe just up there is particularly feeble.  Author Lissa Johnson starts out claiming that conservatives are psychopaths but gives neither reasoning nor evidence that could lead to that conclusion.  She particularly targets Tony Abbott, Australia's conservative Prime Minister.

So what psychopathic characteristics does Mr Abbott show?  Is he, for instance, extremely self centred?  Seeing Mr Abbott has for many years taken substantial time out to work hands-on in Aboriginal communities, creating and upgrading facilities for the use of the community's people, that accusation has to earn a resounding "Not Guilty" verdict.  I know of no Leftist who has shown anything like Mr Abbott's personal committment to Aboriginal welfare.  It is because of that committment that the reviled Prof. Spurr called Abbott an "Abo lover".

So what about the various other attributes of the psychopath?  Ms Johnson is a clinical psychologist so she should know them well. Which of those does she find among conservatives?  She does not say.  She offers no evidence for her assertion.  What she does do is however amusing.  She offers a survey of the psychological literature on the psychology of conservatism.  And her survey is a broadly  accurate one.  But nowhere in that literature are conservatives accused of psychopathy!  Her own literature survey refutes her opening assertion!  The evidence that Leftists are pychopathic is however abundant.

So let us look at the psychology literature Ms Johnson believes in.  The big problem with it is that it is almost  entirely written by Leftists --  with all the lack of ethics and objectivity that one expects from that.  The author in that literature most favoured by Ms Johnson is the amusing John Jost, senior author of a paper that purported to be a meta-analysis of the literature on the psychology of conservatism, and which claimed, inter alia, that Stalin, Khrushchev and Castro were conservatives!

And one of his co-authors was the anti-scientist Frank Sulloway, who tried to use litigation to suppress publication of a research report that contested one of his theories.  Leftist attempts to suppress speech that they disagree with are notorious (See TONGUE-TIED) but Sulloway stands out even in that company.

And suppressing contrary evidence was Jost's bag too.  His article purported to be a meta-analysis and should, as such, have offered a comprehensive view of the relevant literature.  It did not.  It omitted about half of the relevant research.  Which half?  The half that disagreed with his foreordained conclusions, of course!  Any hope of finding truth in the writings of Prof. Jost and his ilk is therefore highly likely to be disappointed.

And even if one conceded every claim about conservatives made by Leftist psychologists, the gruel is thin. They have such a lot of trouble finding something wrong with conservatives that they confine themselves almost entirely to cognitive style variables.  And such variables can be seen in a variety of lights. Even Jost ended up admitting that.  For instance, one of the earliest accusations hurled at conservatives was that they are "intolerant of ambiguity".  But that can equally be parsed as showing that conservatives seek order.  And seeking order in natural phenomena is precisely what real scientists do.  The idea that such a cognitive style is in any way aberrant is simply ludicrous.

I in fact have had many papers published in the academic literature on cognitive style research and repeatedly found that the measuring instuments used fell far short of accepted psychometric standards.  So even the literature that Jost & Co. reviewed was inadequate to support their conclusions.  My most recent article in that genre is here

And I would be remiss if I did not take some note of two more of Ms Johnson's academic inspirations:  Altemeyer's RWA research and the SDO scale associated with Jim Sidanius.  Both are fairly hilarious pieces of work, as I show here in the case of SDO and most recently here in the case of Altemeyer.

The unfortunate Ms Johnson is simply credulous.  But Leftists believe what they want to believe anyway, and damn the evidence

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

California Teacher Accused of Naughty with Male Student

(Orange County, California) A 34-year-old English teacher at La Paz Intermediate School, Kristen Goodwin Roush, has been accused of engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a male student.

Roush faces prosecution for lewd and lascivious acts with a child.

In July, investigators were contacted by the student’s parents regarding what they perceived as an inappropriate relationship between their son and Roush.

Detectives conducted a several month long investigation.

According to deputies, witnesses were interviewed and evidence was obtained from both the victim and the teacher’s cell phone.

Roush was booked into custody at the Orange County Jail with bond set at $50,000.

Tip: JR

Trick or treat





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

50 Percent Of American Workers Make Less Than 28,031 Dollars A Year

The Social Security Administration has just released wage statistics for 2013, and the numbers are startling.  Last year, 50 percent of all American workers made less than $28,031, and 39 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000.  If you worked a full-time job at $10 an hour all year long with two weeks off, you would make $20,000.  So the fact that 39 percent of all workers made less than that amount is rather telling.  This is more evidence of the declining quality of the jobs in this country.

In many homes in America today, both parents are working multiple jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. Our paychecks are stagnant while the cost of living just continues to soar.  And the jobs that are being added to the economy pay a lot less than the jobs lost in the last recession.  In fact, it has been estimated that the jobs that have been created since the last recession pay an average of 23 percent less than the jobs that were lost.  We are witnessing the slow-motion destruction of the middle class, and very few of our leaders seem to care.

The "average" yearly wage in America last year was just $43,041.  But after accounting for inflation, that was actually worse than the year before...

More HERE

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

Tennessee Woman Accused of Shooting Child with BB Gun

Marry Cruickshank
(Clarksville, Tennessee) A 26-year-old local woman, Marry Cruickshank, has been accused of shooting a 6-year-old child in the face with a BB gun.

Cruickshank faces counts of aggravated assault and aggravated child abuse.

According to a warrant, Cruickshank was shooting a BB gun and said she didn't believe it was loaded. She fired the gun at the ground near the 6-year-old, and the child was not struck.

The victim and another child ran to the right side of the house near a tire swing, and Cruickshank allegedly pointed the gun in the direction of the children and fired.

The 6-year-old was struck in the head and taken to Gateway Medical Center for treatment.

Cruickshank was booked into custody at the Montgomery County Jail with bond set at $25,000.

Carolina Teacher Accused of Switching Child's Meds

Stacey Rademacher Kolmodin
(Fayetteville, North Carolina) A 31-year-old teacher formerly at Glendale Acres Elementary School, Stacey Rademacher Kolmodin, has been arrested for allegedly switching out medication prescribed to an 11-year-old child she had been babysitting.

Kolmodin faces counts of child abuse, larceny, trafficking opiates and creating a counterfeit controlled substance.

Investigators said Kolmodin took Tylenol with codeine liquid out of a prescription bottle and replaced it with a liquid that was a similar color.

The child, who the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office said suffers from numerous medical illnesses, had to go to a local hospital after having an allergic reaction to what authorities called "the counterfeit medication."

Kolmodin was a first-grade teacher at Glendale Acres Elementary School until April, when she was arrested on drug charges after a school official discovered her allegedly snorting a "powdery substance up her nose" at her desk, the sheriff's office said.

Investigators said she also has a history of illegal drug activity that includes "doctor-shopping" to get prescriptions for Percocet.

Kolmodin was booked into the Cumberland County Detention Center with bond set at $31,000.

Indiana School Coach Accused of Child Seduction

Emmy Gibson
(Elkhart County, Indiana) An assistant soccer coach at Concord High School, Emmy Gibson, 27, has been accused of engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old female student.

Police say the girl admitted that on numerous occasions "she would either sneak out of the house and Gibson would pick her up, or Gibson would sneak into her house and they would lie in bed together, kissing and touching."

The girl told police Gibson was concerned "about getting into trouble so they had not yet engaged in sexual conduct" and they were allegedly waiting until the girl turned 18.

Police say they collected text messages between Gibson and the girl which supported the relationship details the girl provided in her interview.

The school reported the incident to Elkhart County Police after an investigation, and police handed it over to the prosecutor’s office in September.

Gibson reportedly faces a charge of child seduction. A warrant has been issued for Gibson's arrest.

Washington D.C. Teacher Accused of Nasty with Student

(Washington D.C.) A 22-year-old teacher at Options Public Charter School, Symone Greene, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 17-year-old male student on her first day at school.

The student told police he was working as an office assistant and helped Green twice that day in her English class. The student says he flirted with Greene during class, gave her his cell phone number, and later received a text message from her.

While the student did not recall the exact contents of their messages, he said he did ask if she was "kinky."

She allegedly responded, 'I don't tell[;] I show," court documents state.

Toward the end of the school's pep rally that day, the teen went to Greene's classroom, where she allegedly performed oral sex behind the teacher's desk. The victim recorded the sex act and later shared the video with his teammates and a childhood friend.

Allegedly doing the nasty with a student on her first day as a substitute teacher indicates that Greene wasn't properly prepared.

Media Bias?

Mainstream Media News Anchors - 2014
The Media Research Center (MRC) analyzed midterm election coverage during ABC, CBS, and NBC’s evening news programs.

MRC counted the full and partial campaign reports from September 1 – October 20, 2014 across networks and compared those numbers to the same date range in 2006.

While during the 2006 Midterm Elections, ABC’s “World News Tonight” aired a combined 36 full and partial campaign stories. During the time observed this year, that number was zero.

OK

Watch those swastikas



The cross on the book cover above has hooks on the end of it that can make it look like a swastika.  One wonders if the artist was aware that Hitler called his symbol a "hooked cross".  It seems likely.  The symbol on the book was certainly asking for trouble and may have been a deliberate provocation.  It is clearly an attempt to slime American Christians as Nazis.  That hundreds of thousands of American Christians died fighting Nazism is not mentioned of course

Amazing the trouble that a reaction-baiting local TV news segment can work up, isn’t it? In Euclid, a small city to the east of Cleveland, Ohio, the race to send a representative to the state house in Columbus recently got a healthy injection of political punk art—not always the most welcome addition to a candidate’s resume. The controversy stems from a book that one of the candidates wrote in 2008, a book of good old-fashioned pamphleteering called Please God Save Us. The text of the book is by current Euclid school board member and possibly future state representative Kent Smith, and the art is by renowned master of the punk rock poster idiom, Derek Hess.

On September 22, a markedly one-sided news segment by political reporter Tom Beres on local station WKYC all but accused Smith of being a virulent anti-Semite—over a book that has nothing to do with Jews or Judaism—because Hess (not Smith), in order to land a specific point about specifically extremist brand of Republican thinking—incorporated a modified swastika in some of the images.

SOURCE

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

Georgia Teacher Accused of Sex with Student

(Wayne County, Georgia) A 43-year-old vocational teacher at Wayne County High School, Fleur Jean Ruley, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 17-year-old student.

Ruley was arrested and charged with sexual assault.

Investigators say school officials became aware of the alleged relationship and notified the Jesup Police Department.

The investigation was turned over to the Wayne County Sheriff's Office who then turned it over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Ruley was booked into custody at the Wayne County Jail with bond set at $5,000.

Prostitution in High School Bathroom




(Shelby County, Tennessee) A 14-year-old ninth-grade girl student at Bolton High School allegedly passed around notes to let male students know she was available for sex during school hours. Reportedly, "sometimes she charged for the sex and sometimes she didn't."

According to one student:

"There was like a line 10 people almost every day," he said. "She just turning around at me in class always smiling at me ... There's something wrong with her, and I hate it."

The student said it started at the beginning of the year. Teachers didn't seem to be aware he says.

Several students have reportedly been suspended.

Illinois Teacher Guilty of Sex with Female Student - Update

(Belvidere, Illinois) In accordance with a plea agreement, former Belvidere North High School social studies teacher Jenee Blackert, 31, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old female student.

As a result, Blackert was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender.

* * * * *
Illinois Teacher Accused of Sex with Female Student
[Previous 8/9/13 post]

(Belvidere, Illinois) A 30-year-old social studies teacher at Belvidere North High School, Jenee Blackert, has been accused of engaging in sexual contact with a 17-year-old female student.

Blackert faces four counts of criminal sexual assault.

Blackert of Poplar Grove is charged with four counts of criminal sexual assault, two of the alleged incidents with her female student happened between March 1st and May 16th. Police say the other two happened on June 28th.[…]

On July 28th, Boone County Sheriff’s Deputies took a report about the incident. After further investigation, they learned Blackert had sexual contact with the student. We’re told the incident did not happen at school.

Blackert was booked into custody at the Boone County Jail and later released on $50,000 bond.

Climate change now 'irreversible' - claim

One wonders what drives the guy to make these unfounded prophecies. The only evidence he offers is the old theory that rising CO2 levels will have catastrophic effects -- despite the fact that markedly rising CO2 levels have had NO effect for the last 18 years.  He does say that CO2 for some reason takes 40 years to have an effect but that is a strange claim -- well outside the usual Warmist models.  It is however a safe claim: He may well not live long enough to see his theory disconfirmed.

He also thinks chemtrails are “geoengineering” the planet and that 9/11 was a controlled demolition.  He also lives in a straw house in the middle of the woods surrounded by animals.  A paranoid schzophrenic would be my guess




The climate change message is just depressing, no matter what way you look at it.  Best case scenario, we all have to change our lives dramatically, just to keep us vaguely on the right track.  Worst case scenario - were all doomed.

Unsurprisingly, that's a hard message for scientists to get us all to listen to, which might be why Professor emeritus Guy McPherson is a teacher of natural resources, ecology and evolutionary biology, but is also a grief counsellor on the side.

Prof McPherson taught and conducted research at the University of Arizona for 20 years before leaving the university in 2009.

He will be speaking about climate change in guest lectures in New Zealand from October 22 to November 1.

You can catch Prof McPherson at an event co-organised by AUT's School of Social Sciences and Public Policy and the Pacific Media Centre in Auckland on October 22 at 5.30pm.

Tonight on the Paul Henry Show, he explains that due to the arrogance of humans, the damage done is too far along and now irreversible.

Now, the only way to help planet Earth is to "terminate industrial civilisation".

SOURCE

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

Texas Teacher Accused of Sex with Male Student, 17

(Pasadena, Texas) A 24-year-old biology teacher and cheer coach, Ashley Zehnder, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 17-year-old male student.

Zehnder has been accused of improper relationship with a student.

The high school teacher who doubles as a cheerleading coach was busted for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old on her cheerleading squad after students at the school were found circulating a nude selfie of her on their cell phones, prosecutors allege.

"She admitted to sending the nude photo to the student, knowing in fact that he was a student, and that they had sex," assistant district attorney Nick Socias told KHOU.

Zehnder was booked and released on $10,000 bond.

The great phthalate scare rumbles on

The study described below is an unpublished one so is difficult to evaluate fully.  There is enough detail below to question its conclusions, however.  It is established that phthalate exposure can be increased by eating certain foods, "junk" food in particular. But since the toxicity is in the dose nobody knows if the amounts concerned are cause for alarm

So the study below looks important.  We do appear there to have evidence of harm:  Higher levels of serum phthalates were found to go with decreased libido.

But as I have pointed out many times, correlation is not causation and the fact that it was not phthalates behind the loss of libido can very readily be inferred from the fact that working class people, particularly poor people, are much more likely to eat "junk" food than are middle class people.  And as has been shown just about whenever it is examined, working class people have poorer health.  And that loss of libido might be one aspect of poor health scarcely needs stating.

So phthalate levels were simply a proxy for social class and it was social class behind the lower levels of libido, not phthalates themselves.

All that is fairly obvious so poverty should have been the first thing controlled for in the study.  Was it?  I would be surprised.  I would be surprised if income was even asked of the patients.  We will have to wait for the study to be published before we know, however. Given the ubiquity of class effects, however, a class effect has to be the default interpretation of the results.  Evidence that phthalates are harmless is summarized here


Chemicals found in PVC flooring, plastic shower curtains, processed food and other trappings of modern life may be sapping women’s interest in sex.

A study has linked low libido with the additives used to soften plastics which are found in every home.

Women with the highest levels of phthalates in their bodies were more than twice as likely to say ‘not tonight dear’ as those with the lowest amounts.

Phthalates are man-made chemicals thought to interfere with the natural hormones that are crucial to overall health.

They are found in everything from PVC flooring and shower curtains to car dashboards – and may also be in our food. Tiny particles can enter our systems either through breathing or eating.

Previous studies have linked them to diabetes and asthma. They have also been blamed for feminising the brains of baby boys and last year the World Health Organisation warned they have ‘serious implications for health’.

The latest research, presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual conference in Honolulu, suggests they are doing psychological, as well as physical, damage.

In the first study of its kind, Dr Emily Barrett, of the University of Rochester School of Medicine in the US, measured levels of phthalates in the urine of 360 pregnant women in their 20s and 30s.

She also asked them how often they lost interest in sex in the months leading up to their pregnancy.

Those with the most phthalates in their bodies were two and a half times as likely to say they had frequently lacked interest in sex as those with the least.

Dr Barrett suspects that phthalates interfere with the production of sex hormones oestrogen and testosterone, both of which are involved in female libido.

She said that food is a significant source of phthalates, particularly processed and highly-packaged products. It is thought to get into into food from processing equipment and from packaging.

Dr Barrett, who tried to avoid fast food when pregnant over fears that the chemicals it contains would harm her unborn baby, said: ‘One of the recommendations... to potentially lower your exposure is to eat less processed food and to pick fresh things without packaging.’

A spokesman for the Chemical Industries Association, which represents manufacturers, said: ‘We are not aware of any globally accepted tests which can yet measure the effect chemical exposure may have on libido.’

He added that phthalates are among the most researched chemicals and the use of any that affect fertility is restricted.

Certain phthalates are banned from use in cosmetics, toiletries and toys in the EU and further restrictions are due next year.

More HERE

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

Michelle Obama Approved School Lunch

(Chickasha, Oklahoma) A student in Chickasha Public Schools took a photo of her skimpy school lunch and showed it to her parents.

The new lunch complies with lunch regulations championed by First Lady Michelle Obama and implemented by the USDA.

Doesn't look very appetizing, I suggest.

Camel Kills American in Mexico

Richard Mileski
(Yucatan, Mexico) A 60-year-old American and owner of a wildlife sanctuary in Mexico, Richard Mileski, has been mauled to death by a camel weighing over 1,300 lb.

Investigators wonder whether the animal became enraged because it did not get its daily dose of Coca Cola.

Monday saw the camel as usual in his enclosure in the Tulum Monkey Sanctuary wildlife park, Yucatan, Southern Mexico, when it suddenly went for the owner, Richard Mileski, a 60-year-old US citizen.

"The camel kicked and bit him practically to death, and when he was almost dead, he sat on him," said Tulum civil defense official Alberto Canto. "Between the blows and the weight of the camel on top of him, he was asphyxiated."

Rest in peace.

Education and religion

The article below notes a correlation between more education and less religion.  The inference is that education squashes religion and that religious people are therefore ill-educated dummies.

But that misses an elephant in the room:  The overwhelming presence of Leftism in the current educational system.  And Christianity is abhorrent to most of the Left.  Leftism is itself a religion and they resent rival religions.  So the longer you spend in the educational system, the more you will be exposed to anti-religious messages -- and we must not be too surprised to find that those messages have some impact.  It is therefore entirely reasonable to explain the correlation between religion and education as an effect of educational bias, not as telling us something about religious people

Note also that there are two large and important nations with high levels of Christian belief where about 40% of the population are regular churchgoers: Russia and the USA. Lying geographically in between them, however, is another large group of important nations where religious observance is very low: England and Western Europe. Yet from the USA to Russia and in between IQ levels are virtually the same: About 100. That sounds like a zero correlation between belief and IQ to me. Education is not IQ but average IQ rises as you go further up the educational tree

And there is a comprehensive study which shows little relationship between religion and IQ.  It shows that just over 5% of the variance in religious attachment is explainable by intelligence. In other words, IQ DOES influence religious attachment but only to a trivial degree. And that triviality is probably a product of the fact that high IQ people tend to undertake more education.  So there are almost the same number of high IQ religious people as there are high IQ non-religious people. IQ is unimportant to an understanding of religion. So religious people are not dummies.  Personality and cultural factors are presumably the main drivers of religious adherence

JUST one extra year of schooling makes someone 10% less likely to attend a church, mosque or temple, pray alone or describe himself as religious, concludes a paper* published on October 6th that looks at the relationship between religiosity and the length of time spent in school. Its uses changes in the compulsory school-leaving age in 11 European countries between 1960 and 1985 to tease out the impact of time spent in school on belief and practice among respondents to the European Social Survey, a long-running research project.

By comparing people of similar backgrounds who were among the first to stay on longer, the authors could be reasonably certain that the extra schooling actually caused religiosity to fall, rather than merely being correlated with the decline. During those extra years mathematics and science classes typically become more rigorous, points out Naci Mocan, one of the authors-and increased exposure to analytical thinking may weaken the tendency to believe.

Another paper, published earlier this year, showed that after Turkey increased compulsory schooling from five years to eight in 1997, women's propensity to identify themselves as religious, cover their heads or vote for an Islamic party fell by 30-50%. (No effect was found, however, among Turkish men.) And a study published in 2011 that looked at the rise in the school-leaving age in Canadian provinces in the 1950s and 1960s found that each extra year of schooling led to a decline of four percentage points in the likelihood of identifying with a religious tradition. Longer schooling, it reckoned, explains most of the increase in non-affiliation to any religion in Canada between 1971 and 2001, from 4% of the population to 16%.

The most recent paper also showed that each extra year in the classroom led to a drop of 11 percentage points in superstitious practices, though these remain common. Two-fifths of respondents said they consulted horoscopes, and a quarter thought that lucky charms could protect them. Other research has shown that religious beliefs and practices seem to make people happier, and in some circumstances healthier and wealthier, too. But to argue that such benefits more than offset the gains from extra education would require a leap of faith.

SOURCE

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

Ebola Information from CDC

Eleven days after Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan died, and 9 days after one of his infected caregivers flew to Cleveland, the CDC has published guidance for healthcare facilities gearing up for other potential U.S. Ebola victims.

The document titled "When Caring for Suspect or Confirmed Patients with Ebola" appears on the CDC website under "What's New." The article provides steps which SHOULD be taken and which SHOULD NOT be taken when a PUI "patient under investigation" for Ebola presents to the facility. A checklist which incorporates and expands the guidance can be found here.

The CDC website provides much other information for healthcare workers dealing with Ebola patients including guidance for cleaning areas potentially contaminated with the virus.

Here are a few notations from the website which readers may find interesting:

Regarding what disinfectants are appropriate for use in the room of an Ebola or suspected Ebola patient...

Check the disinfectant's label for specific instructions for inactivation of any of the non-enveloped viruses (e.g., norovirus, rotavirus, adenovirus, poliovirus). [Enveloped vs. non-enveloped refers to whether or not there is a membrane coating the virus. Non-enveloped viruses are resistant to heat, acids, and drying.]

Regarding how long Ebola can live on non-porous surfaces...

Limited laboratory studies under favorable conditions indicate that Ebolavirus can remain viable on solid surfaces, with concentrations falling slowly over several days.

Ebola patients should be put into an isolation room with a private bathroom. Regarding whether it's safe for patients to use the bathroom...

Yes. Sanitary sewers may be used for the safe disposal of patient waste. Additionally, sewage handling processes (e.g., anaerobic digestion, composting, and disinfection) in the United States are designed to inactivate infectious agents.

Those working in the healthcare field... thank you and take care.

Posted by Note Taker

Vermont Educator Accused of Sex with Male Student

(Bennington, Vermont) A 25-year-old teacher formerly at the Bennington School Inc., Alexandra Fusco, has been accused of engaging in sex with a 16-year-old male student.

Fusco pleaded not guilty this week in Vermont Superior Court to repeated aggravated sexual assault of a child, sexual assault of a child under 16 she had care of, and lewd and lascivious conduct.

The 16-year-old told police that Fusco had expressed interest in him and said she wished he was 18. He said that one night he was upset and Fusco said she wanted to have sex with him, which they then did in the woods nearby. He said that prior to this there was a time when Fusco showed him her breasts, and another time she made a sexual comment to him.

The boy told police that after he ran away from the school he was placed at 204 Depot Street, a residential facility in Bennington used to place juveniles. Fusco was working there, and she told him she had been fired for contacting him via Facebook while he was on runaway status. Fusco told him that if he ran away from 204 Depot Street, he could stay at her house near Mount Anthony Union High School.

Fusco was booked into custody without bail.

More Liberal Lies Exposed: CDC Increased Payroll by 38% Since 2007, Increased # of Employees by Nearly 2,000

If you’ve been following politics for any time at all you know that the Democrats’ solution to every problem is to blame Republicans and call for more money from American workers. Take for instance the mishandling of the Ebola outbreak in Texas. Two US nurses have contracted the disease and hundreds of other Americans are being monitored.

In the wake of this latest disaster Democrats decided to blame the Sequester for cutting funds to the CDC. This was despite the fact that the Republican Congress gave more money to the CDC than Obama requested.

Now there is even more proof that Democrats are blatantly lying about funding to the CDC. Open the Books discovered that the CDC increased its payroll by 37% since 2007. The CDC also added nearly two thousand new employees since 2007.

More HERE






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

Pair Accused of Stealing Luggage at Seattle Airport

Silvia Brooks
(Seattle, Washington) A 42-year-old woman, Silvia Brooks, and an accomplice, Kervan Reed, 38, have been accused of stealing luggage worth $45,000 from the Sea-Tac International Airport baggage carousels.

The two would allegedly grab travelers' bags at baggage claim, walk to a waiting car and leave, investigators said.

Interesting, eh? I personally assess my luggage is worth more than $45K.

Are eco-friendly bulbs BAD for the environment? LEDs attract 50% more insects and could damage ecosystems

Blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been receiving positive attention after its inventors were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics last week.

They use around 90 per cent less energy than incandescent bulbs and last for 100,000 hours compared with 1,000 hours for tungsten filament light bulbs.

But while they may be good for the environment, a new study claims that the discovery may a problem for insects, which are more strongly attracted to the LED spectrum of light.

The research, by New Zealand-based institute Scion, found traps placed near LEDs captured 48 per cent more insects than traps near sodium-vapour lights.

Sodium vapour bulbs, which emit yellow light, are commonly used in street lighting as they are more efficient than pre-LED lights.

Insects are attracted to both white and yellow light, but it seems they are even more attracted to blue light which is generated by LED bulbs.

Overall, the researchers caught and labelled more than 20,000 insects, with moths and flies were the most group of bugs.

They claim the attraction can be fatal, causing flies to be thrown off their usual path and into the jaws of predators, disrupting the food chain.

SOURCE

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

Louisiana Teacher Accused of Indecency with Juveniles

Tracy Marie Barras
(Acadia Parish, Louisiana) A 34-year-old math teacher at Crowley High School, Tracy Marie Barras, has been accused of multiple wagge-wagga with several 16-year-old male students.

Barras faces three counts of indecent behavior with juveniles.

According Acadia Parish Sheriff Wayne Melancon, investigators with his office were contacted by officials with the Acadia Parish School Board, who reported possible inappropriate behavior between a teacher and several 16-year-old male students.

Following an investigation into the incidents, investigators were able to obtain warrants of arrest for Tracy Marie Barras, 34, of Duson.

Barras was booked into custody.

Iowa Woman Sees 100-Year Sentence in Child Death

Rochelle Sapp
(Orange City, Iowa) A 34-year-old local day care provider, Rochelle Sapp, has been convicted of causing head injuries that killed a 3-year-old girl at her in-home day care.

Sapp was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment resulting in the death of 3-year-old Autumn Elgersma.

Sapp told the court that she dropped the toddler to the ground.

She also entered an Alford plea to child endangerment with multiple acts, meaning she did not admit guilt to that charge but conceded there was enough evidence to convict her of injuring the girl three other times over the prior eight months.

Sapp was slapped with an indeterminate sentence of up to 100 years in prison per the plea agreement. There is no mandatory minimum.

The Iowa Board of Parole will decide when to release Sapp.

Arkansas Educator Accused of Inappropriate Contact with Female Student

(Cabot, Arkansas) A 23-year-old paraprofessional educator at Cabot Junior High South School, Morgan Young, has been accused of engaging in inappropriate contact with a female student.

Young faces a charge of felony sexual assault.

The juvenile female victim was interviewed at the Cabot Police Department about the alleged incident.

Immediately after the interview, detectives contacted Young at the school and she was interviewed at the Detective's Office. She was placed under arrest and booked into the Cabot Police Department Jail.

Young awaits a court appearance.

Nebraska Woman Popped for Drugs with Child in Car

Brandi R. Jorgensen
(Omaha, Nebraska) A 19-year-old female, Brandi R. Jorgensen, has been arrested for illegal drug use while her child was in the car.

Jorgensen faces several counts including child abuse/neglect, possession of methamphetamine, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Police said they found Jorgensen, another woman and Jorgensen's 1-year-old son inside the vehicle.

The child was not injured and was released to care of a family member.

Jorgensen was booked into custody at the Sarpy County Jail.

Poop Bank

Shirt honors treatment of 1000 patients
(Boston, Massachusetts)

Are you under 50 years old, willing to make daily trips to Medford, and have regular bowel movements? You, my friend, could be earning $40 a day—just for pooping.

All you have to do is visit OpenBiome, launched in 2012 as the only independent nonprofit stool bank in the country. The brainchild of MIT postdoctoral associate Mark Smith, OpenBiome collects, tests, and provides fecal samples to 122 hospitals in 33 states for one of the most interesting medical treatment innovations today: fecal microbiota transplantation.

“Think of us as a blood bank, but for poop,” said Smith, who developed OpenBiome when he saw the gap in the medical structure to provide many patients with the life-saving fecal samples.

Appears to be a really, really crappy business. In any event, I wonder if we'll see a future for-profit stool bank. Also, I personally believe my effluent is worth at least $100.