Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
All
rights reserved. No claim to original government forms
Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
All
rights reserved. No claim to original government forms
Korean Riot Police don't play dat.
Video of Riot Police giving out serious beatdowns in South Korea. Not for the squeamish. Some obvious fatalities.
http://www.lefande.com/KoreanRiotPolice.wmv
posted by Matthew LeFande 2:03 PM
matt@lefande.com
NYC Transit has got no heart
The Transit Authority keeps plenty of defibrillators at its executive headquarters - but has practically none of the heart-starting devices at subway stations or work spots.
Just seven of the system's 468 stations have the potentially lifesaving machines, while executives and managers at 2 Broadway have access to 15.
Two other managerial buildings and a subway control center in Brooklyn are stocked with three each.
But the TA hasn't placed the equipment at any of its many bus depots, train yards or other job sites, where tens of thousands of blue-collar workers punch time clocks.
And riders who have heart attacks anywhere else in the transit system but the seven busy stations stocked with defibrillators could lose precious minutes waiting for help, critics say.
"It's obvious that at the TA, safety concerns start and end at the executive offices," charged Ed Watt, secretary treasurer of Transport Workers Union Local 100.
Union President Roger Toussaint has been arguing for increased safety equipment and defibrillator training for bus and subway workers - including train crews and token booth clerks - for years.
The TA and MTA agreed during recent contract negotiations to study the feasibility of placing defibrillators where large numbers of union workers toil.
That study will still take place even though union members rejected a tentative contract by just seven votes last Friday, TA spokesman Charles Seaton said.
Seaton declined to comment further, but in the past the TA has said it relies on the FDNY and NYPD to be "first responders" in certain emergencies.
The devices - which cost about $2,000 each - are vital to saving lives, experts say.
The chances of survival are highest if a victim can be aided during the first three minutes following an attack. "Without them, a person can't be saved from cardiac arrest," said Mark Hurley, regional communications director for the American Heart Association.
Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign commended the TA for launching a defibrillator program in 2002 - but wants officials to do more.
Medical staff are at the seven busy stations to respond to ill riders, in a program that TA has touted as a success.
"If it's working, they should expand it to more stations and the workplaces like railyards for the rank-and-file employees," Russianoff said.
The TA couldn't say yesterday afternoon how many staffers work at 2 Broadway or the Brooklyn offices. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's bridge and tunnel division also is housed at 2 Broadway.
State law requires that there be a defibrillator in each public school.
Last year, the City Council passed legislation requiring defibrillators in hundreds of other public places, including 50 city-maintained buildings, 30 parks, 16 golf courses, 350 senior centers and 160 nursing homes. Some private facilities also were required to have them.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/385557p-327208c.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:35 AM
matt@lefande.com
Why fear Iranian nukes?
A growing number of nations and international interests are expressing alarm at Iran's seeming intent to develop nuclear weapons. But why the world thinks Iran is developing such capacity, and what is to be feared from it, remain matters in wide dispute.
The United States, as the dominant world power would have primary responsibility for managing a more aggressive, harder to deter Iran that might feel safer in using terrorism to strike the United States and the West, armed with a nuclear deterrent. Also, a nuclear Iranian regime would feel safer from a combined U.S. and domestic regime-change effort.
French President Jacques Chirac last week added a fascinating and unexpected element to the crisis by his barely veiled, unambiguous threat -- while visiting France's Ile Longue nuclear naval base in Normandy -- that France might use her nuclear weapons against a country that either launched a terrorist attack against France or cut off her "strategic supplies" (i.e. oil). The French press, from left to right, immediately stated that Mr. Chirac's target was Iran.
Some of his left-wing domestic political opponents suggested he was fantacizing about France's quickly fading imperial glory, merely trying to regain his footing after his poor performance during the Muslim fire-bombing riots in Paris last fall, or trying to justify the large budget of France's "useless" nuclear force de frappe.
Other observers quite plausibly judge that Mr. Chirac is now alive to the threat of radical Islam in France, and he is prepared to threaten to go nuclear to try to stop its encouragement from outside.
But there are other serious theories arising to explain Iran's possible motives. In a completely different theory, Iran's move is all about Iran's place in the Islamic firmament -- and particularly her seeking pride of place over al Qaeda as the leader of radical Islam.
In the quarter century since the Iranian Revolution launched radical Islam on the world, Iran has sullied its reputation for principled Islamic radicalism by its conventional geopolitical compromises with the West, including with the United State -- and even with Israel during the 1980s. Moreover, in the last 15 years the Shia Iranians have seen the Sunni Wahhabi movement of al Qaeda outflank Tehran for revolutionary primacy.
Thus, by this theory, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad very methodically went out to deny the Holocaust in order to reassert Iran's anti-Zionist credentials. The nuclear gambit, so it is reasoned, would have three goals: To be seen to end Iran's sometimes unprincipled accommodation with the West; to become Israel's greatest threat (and gain unambiguous power over regional Sunni states, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt); and to be seen to take unmatched risks for radical Islam.
Under this theory, if they get the bomb unobstructed -- good. If the United States or Israel uses military force against them, they regain their valued credentials as a true martyr and fighter for Islam.
There is yet another theory emerging to try to explain Iran's motives for presumably starting to develop a nuclear capacity: traditional Persian imperialism driven by a quest for more oil and regional hegemony.
Turkey, an historic adversary of Persia/Iran, is expressing increasing concern over Iranian pretensions. If Iran moves much further down the nuclear path, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt might all feel the need to join the nuclear club, with all the potential for catastrophic miscalculations inherent in such a condition.
Moreover, should the Iranian regime fail for any reason, then Turkey fears the emergence of an independent Kurdistan formed out of Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish Kurds.
At the same time, Iran still asserts its rights to much of Caspian Sea oil, based on pre-World War II treaties with Russia.
despite Iran's current oil glut, in 20 years Iran will be almost out of oil, just as her now young population will be aging. From Eastern Saudi Arabia (with its Shi'ite population) to the United Arab Emirates, to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, these oil-rich Caspian and Gulf regions may become powerfully attractive to a nuclear Iran.
The world is only in the earliest stage of seriously trying to understand the significance of Iran's recklessly bold nuclear moves of the last few weeks.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060124-104524-8319r.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:33 AM
matt@lefande.com
Nagin's 'Chocolate' Remark Sparks T-Shirt Craze
T-shirts making fun of Mayor Ray Nagin's remark that New Orleans would once again be a "chocolate city" are in high demand, with recent orders coming in from overseas countries, according to a Local 6 News report.
A company said it has filled thousands of orders of T-shirts featuring Nagin in a top hat as Willy Wonka. The shirt has the words "Willy Nagin and the Chocolate Factory" printed on it.
A creator of Nagin T-shirts said he has received orders from as far away as Malaysia and Norway, according to a report.
"We all heard the speech and jaws hit the floor and we said, 'No he did not say that,'" a T-shirt creator said in the Local 6 News report. "The mayor unfortunately did (say that) and we said what can we do?"
The company also sells Nagin hats and bumper stickers with the "Willy Nagin and the Chocolate Factory" slogan.
A company representative said they have sold about 3,000 shirts in the first two weeks of offering the product.
http://imnotchocolate.com/
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:15 AM
matt@lefande.com
Local Va. Officials Will Test Use of Sirens for Terrorism Alerts
The Washington region's emergency managers have concluded that the high-tech devices put in place since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are not enough to warn masses of people. So they are looking at the system that alerted the World War II and Cold War generations: the piercing wail of a siren.
Arlington County and neighboring Alexandria will become the first communities in the country to experiment with sirens as alerts to terrorist attacks. They are preparing to buy as many as 15 modern sirens to mount on telephone poles, buildings and even traffic lights in a few neighborhoods in a federally funded pilot program that is being closely watched by other area governments.
With their mix of urban canyons, suburban subdivisions, tourists, malls and parks -- and dense populations of daytime workers that make them vulnerable to attack -- Arlington and Alexandria stand out as ideal locations to see whether sirens can reach people that BlackBerrys, cell phones and radio stations cannot.
"People outdoors are most at risk in an attack because they are least able to find out what is going on quickly," said John Fuoto, an engineer and siren expert for the Department of Homeland Security and a consultant to Arlington, which is overseeing the pilot project.
Fuoto said sirens could also be ideal warning systems on the Mall, in downtown Silver Spring and at Tysons Corner -- any place people congregate outside the reach of mass broadcasts over television, radio, telephone or pager.
Terrorism fears have been the driving force behind the free emergency alerts many of the region's local governments are offering to deliver on such portable hand-held devices as cell phones as well as via radio stations, electronic highway signs and reverse-911 telephone service.
But even in a region of techies, many people aren't equipped for the warnings, and relatively few of those who are have signed up for such systems. For example, Fairfax County has just 5,000 subscribers to its text-messaging alert system, officials said.
A new generation of sirens used in San Francisco (for earthquake alerts), on Mount Rainier (for volcano warnings) and now in tsunami-stricken Southeast Asia caught the attention of local officials.
"Everyone's looking at this to see if it will really reach significant numbers of people who are otherwise not reachable," said David Snyder of Falls Church, a member of the Washington region's emergency preparedness council.
Emergency managers stress that sirens, too, are limited because they are designed to reach people outdoors. They are not ideal for suburban counties where people tend to spend more time indoors than out.
"We may say, 'This was a good attempt to fill a void in our public alerting system that may not work,' " said Robert P. Griffin Jr., Arlington's director of emergency management. "Or we may say, 'We've answered a problem for ourselves and the rest of the region.' "
The program will test sirens in several as-yet-unidentified neighborhoods, simulating the response to an explosion or weather catastrophe with a wail followed by a broadcast, Griffin said. There will be ample advance warning of the drill. During the drill, people will be told the nature of the emergency and will be directed to go indoors or prepare to evacuate. Or they'll be told to turn on a radio to find out what to do.
"We don't want to disturb people," Griffin said, "but we want to make sure we get the best information we can." He estimated the project's cost at $350,000.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/24/AR2006012401549.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:03 AM
matt@lefande.com
Purse goes bang, blows its secret
Black sequins rained down in the Dairy Queen after the explosion.
Some thought a car had backfired in the parking lot. But that wouldn't explain the sequins, or the smoke, or the smell of gunpowder in the south St. Louis County restaurant.
Then everyone's attention turned to a woman in line - the one with a shredded sequined purse on the tile floor near her feet.
"She picked up her purse like it was some kind of disease," explained Shelley White, the store manager on duty.
"I ain't got no gun," was the only thing the stranger told the crowd in the restaurant before gathering her purse and teenage daughter from a nearby booth and running out of the place about 1 p.m. Friday.
But she did have a gun, investigators said, apparently a low-quality one that discharged by accident when she dropped her purse.
She had a secret too, one that she might have kept had White not rushed to the window and called out the license number for a customer to jot down. The fleeing woman was an off-duty St. Louis police officer.
The bullet blew a hole in a window and came to a safe landing in front of a doorway. A fragment struck a van outside. But no one was injured.
"I don't know how that bullet didn't kill anyone," said White, whose family owns the franchise. "I looked at the people outside, and they were just standing there with their mouths hanging open."
St. Louis County police tracked down the city officer, who they said first denied even being at the restaurant, in the 4300 block of Telegraph Road. Then she told police that she had fled because she thought she was under fire. Finally she confessed to the accident, police said.
The officer, whose name was not released pending consideration of charges against her, eventually told police that she had thrown the weapon out her car window along Interstate 255 because she was afraid she was going to be in trouble.
County officers spent hours scouring the area along the westbound lanes in the dark and rain Friday, looking for the weapon; they never found it.
The woman resigned from the force Friday after the St. Louis police internal affairs unit opened an investigation. She had been on the department for three years.
Said White, "I just can't believe she's a police officer."
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/3D6C1BF7256D20148625710000237F40?OpenDocument
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:11 AM
matt@lefande.com
Michigan Police driving team: Best cars for cops
If there were a list of the "toughest jobs for cars" being a police car would probably be right up there at the top.
They need big trunks, decent back seat space, huge amounts of front seat space (to allow for computers and radios) and they have to be capable of driving at high speeds for extended periods of time.
Plenty of cars could fill a couple of those needs. But police departments need to find the ones that can do all three at once.
It's not like your local police chief can just go to his neighborhood Chevrolet dealer and take an Impala out for a nice high-speed-pursuit-style test drive, either. That's why the Michigan State Police do their annual cop car round-up.
"Numerous police agencies throughout the U.S. base their criteria on these tests," said Sgt. Keith Wilson with the Michigan State Police Precision Driving Team, the unit that conducts these tests.
The state troopers take examples of potential police cars and test them on race tracks. They measure handling, acceleration, top speed, braking and something called "communications and ergonomics."
Communications and ergonomics is judged based on the comparative comfort of the cars, the readability of gauges and how difficult it is to install equipment like computers and radios.
For 2006, the Michigan Police tested versions of the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, the Chevrolet Impala, the Dodge Magnum, Dodge Charger and the Chevrolet Tahoe SUV as potential general purpose police vehicles. A smaller-engined version of the Magnum was also tested for suitability as a "support vehicle," a category that otherwise included SUVs.
While they may be losing market share elsewhere, domestic carmakers seem to have a virtual lock on the police car market. Volvo submitted a car for testing a few years ago, Wilson said, and Subaru inquired about doing so. But non-U.S. branded police cars remain a rare sight on American roads.
In the past, some smaller cars -- Ford Mustangs, for example -- had been used by some state police departments as specialized high-speed pursuit vehicles. But bigger, better engines in modern full-sized cars have allowed state troopers to have their speed and trunk space, too.
Wilson refused to choose a specific "best car," saying that individual police departments have their own needs and would have to balance the performance number revealed by the testing against their own requirements and vehicle costs.
Overall, based on the Michigan police's recently published final scores for the 2006 model year, the Dodge Charger ran away with all the performance categories. It fell short, however, in communications and ergonomics.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/funonwheels/01/19/best_cars_for_cops/index.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 11:42 AM
matt@lefande.com
California Police Commander Busted for Online Solicitation - Los Angeles Times
An Arcadia police commander who was caught by computer-monitoring software was charged today with repeatedly using the Internet to solicit prostitutes while on duty.
Kenneth Kuwahara was immediately suspended from his job as a lieutenant and watch commander for the Arcadia Police Department.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Renee Korn said all Arcadia Police Department employees had been provided with written notice that department computers were being monitored.
Kuwahara, 40, faces charges of false personation, identity theft and soliciting prostitution. The complaint, filed as an arrest warrant, alleged that the defendant solicited prostitution from four women between Jan. 1 and May 19, 2005.
Authorities said the crimes occurred while Kuwahara was working as a watch commander. The complaint alleged that the defendant used a subordinate officer's name for an e-mail account.
If convicted on all counts, Kuwahara could be sentenced to a maximum of three years in state prison.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Commissioner James N. Bianco allowed the defendant, who appeared without an attorney, to remain free on his own recognizance.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-011906iporn_lat,0,2735253.story?coll=la-story-footer&track=morenews
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:33 AM
matt@lefande.com
Armed Citizen of the Week
Jeffrey B. Randle, 44, 1100 block of West 36th Street, Indianapolis, died of a gunshot wound late Wednesday after he stormed into his former girlfriend's Clermont home and charged her male companion, police said.
The alleged shooter, Aaron Sterling, 44, was not arrested.
Randle knocked on the door to Marcelene Robinson's home in the 7600 block of Marabou Mills Way about 11 p.m. Wednesday, according to a Marion County Sheriff's Department report.
Robinson, 41, answered the door, thinking it might be her daughter. Randle, who police say was violating a protective order by visiting Robinson's home, saw Sterling and became enraged, according to the report.
He pushed through the door, knocking Robinson out of the way, and charged Sterling, police said. Sterling produced a .44-caliber handgun and fired one shot, which struck the victim in the groin, police said.
Randle died at Wishard Memorial Hospital. Robinson's 9-year-old granddaughter was in the home at the time and was not injured, police said.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060120/NEWS01/601200491
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:24 AM
matt@lefande.com
The Iran Charade
"It was what made this E.U. Three approach so successful. They [Britain, France and Germany] stood together and they had one uniform position."
-- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Jan. 13
Makes you want to weep. One day earlier, Britain, France and Germany admitted that their two years of talks to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program had collapsed. The Iranians had broken the seals on their nuclear facilities and were resuming activity in defiance of their pledges to the 'E.U. Three.' This negotiating exercise, designed as an alternative to the U.S. approach of imposing sanctions on Iran for its violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, had proved entirely futile. If anything, the two-year hiatus gave Iran time to harden its nuclear facilities against bombardment, acquire new antiaircraft capacities and clandestinely advance its program.
With all this, the chancellor of Germany declared the exercise a success because the allies stuck together! The last such success was Dunkirk. Lots of solidarity there, too.
Most dismaying was that this assessment came from a genuinely good friend, the new German chancellor, who, unlike her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder (now a wholly owned Putin flunky working for Russia's state-run oil monopoly), actually wants to do something about terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
Ah, success. Instead of being years away from the point of no return for an Iranian bomb, as we were before we allowed Europe to divert anti-proliferation efforts into transparently useless talks, Iran is probably just months away. And now, of course, Iran is run by an even more radical government, led by a president who fervently believes in the imminence of the apocalypse.
Ah, success. Having delayed two years, we now have to deal with a set of fanatical Islamists who we know will not be deterred from pursuing nuclear weapons by any sanctions. Even if we could get real sanctions. Which we will not. The remaining months before Iran goes nuclear are about to be frittered away in pursuit of this newest placebo.
First, because Russia and China will threaten to veto any serious sanctions. The Chinese in particular have secured in Iran a source of oil and gas outside the American sphere to feed their growing economy and are quite happy geopolitically to support a rogue power that -- like North Korea -- threatens, distracts and diminishes the power of China's chief global rival, the United States.
Second, because the Europeans have no appetite for real sanctions either. A travel ban on Iranian leaders would be a joke; they don't travel anyway. A cutoff of investment and high-tech trade from Europe would be a minor irritant to a country of 70 million people with the second-largest oil reserves in the world and with oil at $60 a barrel. North Korea tolerated 2 million dead from starvation to get its nuclear weapons. Iran will tolerate a shortage of flat-screen TVs.
The only sanctions that might conceivably have any effect would be a boycott of Iranian oil. No one is even talking about that, because no one can bear the thought of the oil shock that would follow, taking 4.2 million barrels a day off the market, from a total output of about 84 million barrels.
The threat works in reverse. It is the Iranians who have the world over a barrel. On Jan. 15, Iran's economy minister warned that Iran would retaliate for any sanctions by cutting its exports to "raise oil prices beyond levels the West expects." A full cutoff could bring $100 oil and plunge the world into economic crisis.
Which is one of the reasons the Europeans are so mortified by the very thought of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The problem is not just that they are spread out and hardened, making them difficult to find and to damage sufficiently to seriously set back Iran's program.
The problem that mortifies the Europeans is what Iran might do after such an attack -- not just cut off its oil exports but shut down the Strait of Hormuz by firing missiles at tankers or scuttling its vessels to make the strait impassable. It would require an international armada led by the United States to break such a blockade.
Such consequences -- serious economic disruption and possible naval action -- are something a cocooned, aging, post-historic Europe cannot even contemplate. Which is why the Europeans have had their heads in the sand for two years. And why they will spend the little time remaining -- before a group of apocalyptic madmen go nuclear -- putting their heads back in the sand. And congratulating themselves on allied solidarity as they do so in unison.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011700893.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:33 AM
matt@lefande.com
Saddam's Terror Training Camps
The former Iraqi regime Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed by eleven U.S. government officials.
The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.
The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq war.
The discovery of the information on jihadist training camps in Iraq would seem to have two major consequences: It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and U.S. intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator. It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years.
Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent. Despite the hard work of the individuals assigned to the "DOCEX" project, the process is not moving quickly enough, says Michael Tanji, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18 months. "At this rate," he says, "if we continue to approach DOCEX in a linear fashion, our great-grandchildren will still be sorting through this stuff."
Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists, since David Kay and his Iraq Survey Group--who were among the first to analyze the finds--considered those items top priority. "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited," says a former military intelligence officer who worked on the documents in Iraq.
"We had boxloads of Iraqi Intelligence records--their names, their jobs, all sorts of detailed information," says the former military intelligence officer. "In an insurgency, wouldn't that have been helpful?"
How many of those unexploited documents might help us better understand the role of Iraq in supporting transregional terrorists? How many of those documents might provide important intelligence on the very people--Baathists, former regime officials, Saddam Fedayeen, foreign fighters trained in Iraq--that U.S. soldiers are fighting in Iraq today? Is what we don't know literally killing us?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp
posted by Matthew LeFande 3:11 PM
matt@lefande.com
No-bid cameras contract renewed
The District has awarded a no-bid deal to the company in charge of the city's red-light and speed traffic cameras.
The agreement pays ACS State and Local Solutions Inc. $7.2 million to provide equipment and maintenance to the District's 49 red-light cameras, 12 mobile radar units and 10 fixed-location speed cameras. The contract runs from Jan. 6 through September.
The Metropolitan Police Department recommended awarding the contract without competitive bidding because "competition is not feasible or practical at this time," said documents signed by Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and Herbert R. Tillery, the city's interim chief procurement officer.
The officials also cited legal concerns that the "operating system is currently a proprietary system of ACS," the contract documents said.
The new contract pays ACS a flat fee of about $850,000 per month. Previously, the company received a flat monthly fee of about $650,000. Under the previous no-bid deal approved last year, ACS also stood to earn more money if the District issued more than 53,750 citations in any given month.
The status of the city's camera program remained in serious question last week after D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson, Ward 3 Democrat, filed a resolution disapproving of an earlier version of the ACS contract.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams last month submitted to the council a one-year deal for $10.8 million. Mrs. Patterson withdrew her objection after city officials agreed to an eight-month deal and pledged to restructure the contract later this year.
The contract comes at a time when the District has come under increasing criticism for its practice of awarding no-bid contracts. The Washington Times reported in September 2004 that the District had awarded more than $350 million through sole-source, or no-bid, deals.
http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20060110-103846-4281r.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:29 PM
matt@lefande.com
HIV Bombers
AL-QAEDA is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus.
Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe.
Under the heading "HIV/Hepatitis" the document states: "There is evidence that terrorists might be deliberately recruiting volunteers with diseases that are spread by blood transference."
Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments from a suicide bomber could penetrate the skin of a victim 50 metres away and infect them.
In the papers (part of which is summarised above) soldiers are warned to wear special protective clothing when on guard duty or if they have to deal with casualties in the event of an attack.
All bases must also have snipers hidden behind blast-proof defences ready to take out would-be suicide bombers. The guidelines were issued following the 7/7 London bombings which left 52 dead and injured hundreds more.
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16559740&method=full&siteid=62484&headline=hiv-bombers-name_page.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:42 AM
matt@lefande.com
Fla. Deputy Uses Taser to Stop Bear
A sheriff's deputy got a shock when a bear came toward him as he searched for a prowler. So he gave the bear a shock with his Taser.
Homeowner Charlie McQueen Smith called Santa Rosa County deputies Tuesday night after finding her air conditioner torn from her kitchen window.
Deputy Ray Dykes thought he was looking for a prowler.
"When I pulled up, I saw the reflection of an animal's eyes. It looked like a little bear cub," he said. "I got to about 40 feet and it stood up, and that's when I knew it was fully grown."
Dykes used his Taser gun when the bear got too close.
"He was about seven or eight feet away when I shocked him," he said.
The bear fell to the ground, breaking the connection with the weapon, which administers a strong electrical charge. The animal fled into the woods and disappeared.
Smith said she's lived in the home since it was built in 1960 and had never seen a bear there before Friday. The bear showed up then and visited several times over the weekend. Smith suspects the smell of fried chicken might have enticed it to try and come inside. A trash pit near the home might also have been a lure, officials said.
If the animal returns, the Florida Wildlife Commission will likely capture and relocate it, said commission biologist Pat Bowman.
"Between the Taser shock and the garbage removal, I would like to think this bear is going to stay away," she said.
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/01/05/ap2430703.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 3:02 AM
matt@lefande.com
Judge Sees Man Drinking After DWI Sentence
A judge who caught a man consuming alcohol an hour after sentencing him for drunken driving ordered the man into rehabilitation on Tuesday.
Jacob Vandeven, 27, of Whitewater, CA entered a guilty plea before Judge William Syler on Dec. 5 to a reduced charge of misdemeanor driving while intoxicated for causing an accident with injuries.
Vandeven had been charged with a felony after the Nov. 20, 2004, accident, but with his plea was given a six-month suspended sentence and two years probation, according to court records.
The judge went to lunch at a restaurant and bar close to the courthouse less than an hour later. Syler spotted Vandeven drinking, a violation of his probation. A standard provision of probation in drunken driving cases is that the defendant refrain from drinking alcohol, avoid bars and not be around people who are drinking.
On Tuesday, the bar tab receipt was offered as evidence.
The receipt showed Vandeven and his party ordered two beers, two Long Island iced teas and a margarita, assistant Cape Girardeau prosecutor Jack Koester said. Koester said the exact number of people with Vandeven was unclear, but it appeared he was in the restaurant with one or two other people.
Vandeven has been in the Cape Girardeau County Jail since he was arrested Dec. 6. Syler ordered Vandeven to remain in custody until a space opens at a nearby treatment center.
The judge said Vandeven must complete a 30-day inpatient alcohol program. Vandeven must then return to the county jail and appear back in court on Jan. 30. Depending on how well the man does at the treatment center, the judge could restore his probation or impose the jail sentence of up to six months.
Vandeven's attorney, Malcolm Montgomery, told Syler that Vandeven had a drinking problem and was willing to go into treatment.
"I have never had a client so audaciously violate a judge's order that quickly after being placed on probation," Montgomery said.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/12/28/national/a135236S21.DTL&feed=rss.news
posted by Matthew LeFande 3:35 PM
matt@lefande.com
Crime-stat revelation: 'Lost property' reports mysteriously soar
Here is an indication that New York City's falling crime rate may be crime fiction: The number of lost-property reports filed with police jumped by 44 percent from 1997 to 2004, according to an NYPD document. Nearly half of that increase occurred in the last two years of that period. And 2005 was on pace, as of November 1, to beat out the previous year.
Why? The most obvious suspect in the lineup: Police are taking complaints that once would have been treated as grand larceny or another property crime and reporting them as "lost property."
"This would be what's known in the business as 'unfounding,' " said Samuel Walker, a criminologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and author of The New World of Police Accountability (Sage, 2005). "They're not making out a crime report when a crime may have been committed."
Grand larceny is one of the closely watched seven major "index" crimes monitored in the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, the basis for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's claim that New York is the nation's safest large city. It makes up nearly 60 percent of the reported index offenses, so police commanders know that if they are going to get their numbers down, they have to report fewer thefts.
According to the police department's Crime Complaint Reporting System Reference Guide, a larceny—and not a lost-property case—should be recorded "if the complainant claims that an item was left at a specific location and upon return to the location within a reasonable time thereafter, it is discovered that the property is missing." It adds that "a complete and thorough interview should be done," including questions about whether the property owner believes the goods were lost or stolen.
The number of lost- property complaints is often used as an integrity check on other crime data. In his 1999 book NYPD Battles Crime, Eli Silverman, of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, reported that the police department had improved its monitoring of crime statistics by keeping closer track of such categories as lost property and petty larceny. "They are especially sensitive to downgrading of crimes," wrote Silverman, whose book praised the police department's number-driven CompStat approach to mapping and fighting crime.
Putting such intense focus on making the numbers—in the case of CompStat, pushing commanders to lower the tally for the seven major felonies—invites trouble. "The problem is that when you develop a system (like CompStat) that applies a lot of pressure on people to accomplish something that is difficult, some people (and sometimes quite a few) will take the easy route to show that they are meeting the new performance expectation," Stephen Mastrofski, director of the Administration of Justice Program at George Mason University, said in an e-mail. "Same with body counts in the military in time of war. And cooking the books in the private sector."
Evidence is building to support the contention of two police unions that such pressure has led to widespread fudging of the numbers: Other indicators conflict with the argument that index crimes keep falling.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0552,moses,71322,5.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 3:30 PM
matt@lefande.com
