Open Thread ... Thursday (Friday Eve)

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments. This is also a good spot to share links, if you've seen an interesting story elsewhere.

Please sign your comments, and please avoid profanity, as well as racially and sexually abusive language. And when you sign your comments, please use only one nickname. I read the OT, but if you need to contact me directly, my email is jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Comments

[Keith G. in P.V.]

Good morning, Mr. Abbott and fellow Costellos.

A British man committed suicide by chainsaw, an inquest has ruled. SNIP:

A HAMPSHIRE man cut his own head off with a chainsaw in protest at being forced from his home, an inquest heard.

David Phyall went to tragic lengths to take his life because he wanted to make a statement about what he believed was unfair treatment at the hands of his housing association landlords, the court was told.

Didn't I see this on CSI?

2 Denver-area 19-year-olds arrested for burglary and shooting a sheriff's deputy. The deputy suffered an arm wound. One of the kids is the son of a Denver police officer.

[Keith G. in P.V.]

The Illinois House, voting 109-0, passed the "Drew Peterson Law," allowing some hearsay testimony in murder trials. I think it's terrible judicial precedent, but at last we have a law named after a criminal!

[The Golfer]

Morning Keith.

In a little early this morning, work to do plus Granny came by to do a couple of things for daughter's birthday shindig and showed up at 6am, so she got the kiddo off to school.

[The Golfer]

And the law probably will NOT stand the first constitutional challenge.

[Keith G. in P.V.]

It may stand the challenge, Golfer. There are existing exemptions to the general hearsay rules. Wikipedia has a discussion here, if you want to wade thru it.

[JUNGLE JIM]

Good morning gentlemen. I have to agree with Golfer, the courts have made it pretty clear. 3rd party "He/she told me..." testimony doesn't allow a defendant to question whether a conversation with a dead person did or didn't occur. That would open a heeyuge can of worms.

[The Golfer]

Might make my head explode reading all that. You have to dump knowledge to have new knowledge inserted.

You remember that from Married with Children right? lol

[Keith G. in P.V.]

I'm having a EUREKA moment. Thanks to a little picture in the Star today, I've found the hairdo I want when I grow up. This is the same publicity pic the Star ran in FYI.

[JUNGLE JIM]

Wow! Thought I was looking in the mirror for a second. But I'm not wearing a tie right now, so it couldn't be me....

An expensive lesson...
L.A. to pay nearly $13 million over May Day melee, sources say. The city of Los Angeles would pay nearly $13 million to immigration protesters and bystanders injured by Los Angeles police officers during a melee at MacArthur Park last year, according to sources familiar with a tentative settlement reached by both sides.

[The Golfer]

Did his hairdresser have a seizure during the work? That would scare most little kids. lol

[James Hart]

Good morning, everybody!

[The Golfer]

And the $13 Mil is still cheaper than what the costs would be if it went to trial.

Also, by time all the lawyers are paid, all the people suing should get about $1.25 each.

Just a little cynical here. Have been a part of MANY such suits because of siding on house, this credit card, phone service, etc. My take once settled is about $1.25 on average probably. lol

[Searching]

NO, punk thug stupid look is in..

[JUNGLE JIM]

Free free, for now...
Santa Rosa man wanted on drug, weapons charges. Santa Rosa police officers are looking for a man they say may be armed and dangerous, after finding 143 marijuana plants and several rifles Tuesday at his westside home.

Justin James Free, 26, could be driving a silver 2004 Ford Mustang with a license of 5GPL406, said Sgt. Eric Litchfield.

[The Golfer]

Morning Jungle, Search, James.

[The Golfer]

And of course all that reefer was for personal use only. lol

[JUNGLE JIM]

You want rude, I'll show you rude!
$60,000 jury award for Normandy Park man Tased by detective. A federal jury has awarded $60,000 to a 53-year-old accountant who was roughed up and Tased by Normandy Park police after he tried to talk to the chief about rude treatment.

[Searching]

a 53 year old accountant.. yeah, there's a real physical threat to society.

[Searching]

Golfer, maybe the reefer guy is really, really sick?

[JUNGLE JIM]

Rudeness, Part II...
Issaquah judge accused of rudeness, intimidation. A King County judge in Issaquah again faces allegations that she is rude, impatient and intimidating toward people in her courtroom.

District Court Judge Judith Eiler, who has been on the bench since 1992 and served much of that time in Federal Way, is accused of violating four judicial ethics codes.

The judge was reprimanded in February 2005 for belittling people and threatening to rule against them simply for annoying her. At the time, she expressed remorse and agreed to take ethics and behavioral training that focused on sensitivity.

[The Golfer]

Show me my money!!
After Losses, Pensions Ask For a Change

Wonder if Bush will wait and let Obama handle?
Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One Weapon

Has he already spent it?
Defiant Mayor Won’t Promise to Send Rebate

[The Golfer]

I lived in Federal Way when I was in Seattle, and if you wanted to do anything, you had to go somewhere else. At least at the time I lived there.

[The Golfer]

And with the Federal Courts in California being some of the most liberal.
Prop. 8 gay marriage ban goes to Supreme Court

Oops! Looks like the first wish they had might not happen!!
Antiwar groups fear Barack Obama may create hawkish Cabinet

[The Golfer]

Oh no, no pictures of Brittney and Paris!! What has the world come to??? lol
L.A. councilman seeks to protect celebrities from paparazzi

[Larry]

My God I stumbled across what will surely stand up as one of the century's richest troves of bin-head material.

They are fan blogs for/about "The Real Housewives of Atlanta." What an eye-opener.

After about 20 minutes of reading, it all began to get redundant and repetitive. And I'm pretty sure, from reading this tripe, that I could never stomach an hour of the show. I'd need a hydrogen-peroxide bath, at the least.

But there were enough howling references to one chick's wig -- described, among other things, as various four-legged critters -- that I would like to pop in sometime and take a quick gander.

[JUNGLE JIM]

Let's make this a double day.
Looks like somebody needs to hire a Driver driver...
Officers accused of beating NFL player's father. The father of a noted NFL player was in critical condition Wednesday, two days after an incident in which his family says Houston police officers beat the man while arresting him on outstanding traffic warrants.

Police said Marvin Driver, the father of Green Bay Packers wide receiver Donald Driver, was taken into custody about 1:30 a.m. on Monday. He was unresponsive when he arrived at the Southeast Jail on Mykawa, police said.

Family members say 56-year-old Marvin Driver was beaten by officers after being arrested at his mother's house in southeast Houston.

[Patty PV]

Morning all!

Golfer - did you ever tour the Weyerhauser HQ in Federal Way? There is an incredible exhibit of bonsai trees there. Kind of ironic.

[JUNGLE JIM]

Report: Reporter's reports, Editor's editorials "killed" recovery...
Mayor: News coverage killed recovery committee. The disaster recovery committee formed by Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas and County Judge Jim Yarbrough is dead because of coverage in The Daily News, Thomas said in a prepared statement issued Wednesday.

Thomas said a story published Nov. 9 fatally wounded the committee and an editorial published Nov. 12 finished it off.

[Keith G. in P.V.]

Good morning, all!

Golfer, the Prop 8 case goes to the California RaisinsSupremes, not the Federal courts.

Jungle Jim, don't you hate it when sunshine kills those back-room deals? Not that Galveston doesn't have problems - they sure do and they need to address it. But Mayor Thomas and Judge Yarbrough could make the Funk look good.

[JUNGLE JIM]

Yep. A committee if 2 can decide just about anything if they can get away with it.

Speaking of doubles...
Texas Teacher Arrested Over Topless Photo. A 27-year-old former schoolteacher has been arrested and charged with distributing harmful material to a minor after the parents of a 14-year-old boy found a topless photo of her on their son’s cell phone.

Dallas teacher accused of having sex with student at school. A 26-year-old teacher in the Dallas school district has been arrested after a 14-year-old female student told police that they had sex in a school, authorities said.

[The Golfer]

Keith - true on CA courts, but they are still some of the most liberal in the country so I see the prop being overturned and this getting long and ugly.

[Larry]

Hey JJ, "family members say" Driver Senior was beaten by cops.

Because of the hundreds of times that newspapers publish BS claims by family members -- for example when police are fighting for their lives and the family members later cry "brutality," Driver gets a knee-jerk "yeah, right."

Why would the cops "beat him" if he hadn't resisted or attacked them?

(Now that the knee-jerk is out of the way, I'll read the linked material.)

[The Golfer]

I have seen previews for the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and I know it will not be like the original, but it looks like they are going off the deep end. Keanu Reeves plays Klatu, if that is any indication of where this is going.

[JUNGLE JIM]

KHOU10 has a lightly different slant on the situation:

"He still can't speak because he has a ventilator down his throat, but relatives said he wrote down on paper towels what happened to him.

Driver wrote that the officers, whom he said he knew personally, took him to a Valero station, kicked him in the stomach, elbowed him in the neck and forced something down his throat.

[The Golfer]

Sounds a little like the cop is jealous. Wonder if the cop was a football star that colleges were looking at and Driver stole the stoplight.....

[Larry]

What miserable, slanted reporting from Houston. Sort of leaves you wondering.

I wonder if Jennifer Leahy has ever ridden with a cop on the streets of Houston in the middle of the night. I wonder if she's ever seen a prisoner resist or even attack an officer.

I wonder what the full sentence sounded like in the quote from the internal-affairs statement. I wonder what Driver Senior's history was, as well as the cops'.

I wonder why they presented the officers' order for the interloper to go back inside as though there were something wrong with that. I wonder what Mr. X's real name is.

I wonder what Driver Senior was doing in the driveway at 1:30 a.m. I wonder what was happening in "the exchange" that could be heard from indoors.

[JUNGLE JIM]

If the car has video, this should be easy. Before pics, after pics and a timeline to drive from the house to the station. But it looks like the Internal Affairs people are taking this seriously, so that's a good sign.

[The Golfer]

Oh, the trials and tribulations of the rich.
Hollywood stars sue over access to a neighborhood gate

[Larry]

Going back to the predawn hours: A world where Wikipedia is cited as authoritative is just the sort of place where you'd expect the rules against hearsay to be erased.

[Larry]

Sure smells like the committeecidal reporter and editor caught the mayor and the judge putting the fox in charge of the you-know-what.

Seems like good work. So now the appropriate officials can go back and form a new committee, doing it the right way this time.

[JUNGLE JIM]

Mmmmm! Mystery meat! You can't beat it!
More meat found at Centre common, being tested. The mystery at Town Centre common deepened Tuesday when residents discovered another large hunk of what appeared to be beef.

For the past five weeks, residents have discovered butcher-quality cuts of meat left on the common off Edgell Road.

No one seems to know where the meat is coming from, or why it is there.

[The Golfer]

Not even remotely crime related, like most of the ones I have posted today. lol
QB Tony Romo Takes Homeless Man To Movies

I wonder what Jessica had to say....

[Larry]

Think there is more or less teacher/student sex in the high schools these days than 20 or 40 or 60 years ago? ("60 years" may not be relevant, since everything changed so drastically with the widespread availability of birth-control pills.)

In our high school of 1,500-1,800, suburban KC in the '70s, I can think right off hand of three teachers who were certainly having heterosexual relationships with students, and two more teachers who were widely believed to be having multiple homosexual affairs with students.

I wasn't aware of anyone ever being turned in, though a couple of the affairs were so blatant it's inconceivable that top administrators wouldn't have known about them. One of those teachers did get transferred, but it wasn't until two or three years after his girlfriend had graduated and they had gone public.

[Patty PV]

Well Larry, there should have been four "R's" then: Readin', wRitin', 'Rithmatic - and Reproductive systems.

[JUNGLE JIM]

Just a random thought, were the Symbionese ever liberated?

[Patty PV]

JJ: In a way, they were.

A shootout with the Los Angeles police in May 1974 left six of the radicals dead, but they continued to operate throughout 1975. Subsequently, the group dissolved, as its members ended up dead, captured, or in hiding. In 1999 the SLA was once again in the headlines with the arrest of Kathleen Soliah, one of its fugitive members. She ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of aiding and abetting a plot to plant bombs in police vehicles. As of 2002, she and three other former SLA members were facing murder charges stemming from a 1975 bank robbery.

[You're a Mean Drunk R2D2™]

Morning everyone!

Why isn't it friday already? I don't ask for much in this world, and all I want is for it to be Friday and the weekend. :)

[You're a Mean Drunk R2D2™]

Morning everyone!

Why isn't it friday already? I don't ask for much in this world, and all I want is for it to be Friday and the weekend. :)

[JUNGLE JIM]

Read the circumstances of the arrest...
Police: Man tried to rape prostitute at gunpoint.

Because she didn't wash her hands?
Woman charged as another woman complains of "bite to nipple area". A 35-year-old woman faces a battery charge after another woman "complained of a bite to her nipple area" following several confrontations at BJ's lounge in northwest Fort Pierce, according to recently released records.

Cherail W. Ware was arrested on a warrant Tuesday in connection with the 2 a.m. Oct. 4 dust-up at the establishment at Juanita Avenue and North 25th Street.

The victim told investigators a woman identified as Ware "jumped" her as she exited the bathroom. Asked why she was "jumped," the victim said, "I guess because when I came out of the bathroom, my brother was fighting her old man and the whole 10th Street gang," a warrant affidavit states.

[JUNGLE JIM]

Note to Aunts everywhere: A baby is NOT a salad!
Aunt accused of injuring infant. A sleeping infant was injured yesterday morning when he landed on his head after his aunt picked up the car seat he was in and threw it, police said.