"Don't tell me (my response to Katrina) was slow when there was
30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed."
Number of members of the rock band Anthrax who said they hoarded Cipro so as to avoid an “ironic death”: 1Estimated total calories members of Congress burned giving Bush’s 2002 State of the Union standing ovations: 22,000
Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50
Consider Mr. Chadwick's case. In 1994, during divorce proceedings, a Delaware County judge held Mr. Chadwick in civil contempt for failing to put $2.5 million in a court-controlled account. He says he lost the money in bad investments; his wife's attorney claimed he had hidden it offshore. In April 1995, Mr. Chadwick was arrested and detained. Nearly 14 years later, Mr. Chadwick, who suffers from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is still in jail -- even after a retired judge was hired to help locate the money, and failed."The money is gone," says Mr. Chadwick's lawyer, Michael Malloy. "The coercive effect of this order is gone; it has turned into a life sentence." The judge who held Mr. Chadwick in contempt in 1994 couldn't be reached for comment, but he has said publicly that he doesn't believe Mr. Chadwick lacks the funds.
Help wanted: Spend six months working for Tourism Queensland as "caretaker" and resident blogger on an island in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Compensation is $105,000 and housing in a three-bedroom villa with a pool."They'll also have to talk to media from time to time about what they're doing so they can't be too shy and they'll have to love the sea, the sun, the outdoors," said acting state Premier Paul Lucas.
"The fact that they will be paid to explore the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, swim, snorkel and generally live the Queensland lifestyle makes this undoubtedly the best job in the world."
Photographer Cornelia Clarke was in the right place at the right time, capturing this grim struggle between two beetles, each intent on gaining sole ownership of a dung ball.
"What I feel the evidence indicates is an unlawful killing done by an intentional act," district attorney Tom Orloff told reporters at a news conference.
"From the evidence we have there's nothing that would mitigate that to something lower than a murder," he added. "The murder charge was the appropriate charge given the state of the evidence."
Former Bay Area Rapid Transit Officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, was arrested Tuesday evening in Nevada, Orloff said.
He waived extradition and police officers were transporting him back to California on Wednesday.
Orloff said Mehserle's attorney has invoked his client's right to remain silent.
"In terms of an interview at this point in time, our hands are tied," he said.
Mehserle was arrested on a fugitive warrant charging homicide in Nevada.
He is accused of the shooting of Oscar Grant III at an Oakland, California, station on New Year's Day. The incident was captured on video by several witnesses and spurred violent protests in the northern California city.
Mehserle, 27, was taken into custody in Douglas County, Nevada at about 7 p.m., Sgt. Dan Coverly of Douglas County Sheriff's Office told CNN affiliate KGO-TV in San Francisco.
Referring to Mehserle's arrest, BART said, "This comes after the BART Police Department conducted a thorough investigation that involved nine detectives, which BART Police turned over to District Attorney Thomas Orloff on Monday, January 12."
Leads led investigators to Mehserle in Zephyr Cove, Nevada. Contacted through his attorney, Mehserle surrendered.
Jail staff report that Mehserle has cooperated and is in a segregated area and on a precautionary health and welfare watch.
Mehserle resigned from his job as a BART police officer days after the shooting.
Grant, a 22-year-old father, was killed on New Year's Day in a crowded BART train station. Police had been called to the Fruitvale station after passengers complained about fights on a train and took Grant and several other people off the train once they arrived.
Videos from witnesses show Mehserle shooting Grant in the back as another BART officer kneeled on the man. The shooting spawned public outrage and a string of protests that led to more than a hundred riot-related arrests.
Police have not said whether Grant had been involved in the fight.
The Oakland Police Department is running its own investigation into the killing, at the request of Mayor Ron Dellums, Officer Jeff Thomason said Wednesday.
A spokesman said: 'A remote control helicopter was flown into the grounds of HMP Elmley on December 23.'As a result of this, a search of the prison grounds and an accommodation block were carried out and nothing was found...'
'Using a mini-helicopter to get contraband into jails is unprecedented. When officers spotted it they nearly fell off their chairs', a prison source told the Sun.
'It could have been drugs or a mobile phone in the package. It is possible it was a dummy run.'
January 27th is the birthday of Lewis Carrol, author of ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. Alice fell down a rabbit hole into a place where everything had changed and none of the rules could be counted on to apply anymore. I say, let's do the same: January 27th, 2005 should be the First Annual LiveJournal Rabbit Hole Day. When you post on that Thursday, instead of the normal daily life and work and news and politics, write about the strange new world you have found yourself in for the day, with its strange new life and work and news and politics. Are your pets talking back at you now? Has your child suddenly grown to full adulthood? Does everyone at work think you're someone else now? Did Bush step down from the White House to become a pro-circuit tap-dancer? Did Zoroastrian missionaries show up on your doorstep with literature in 3-D? Have you been placed under house arrest by bizarre insectoid women wielding clubs made of lunchmeat?Let's have a day where nobody's life makes sense anymore, where any random LJ you click on will bring you some strange new tale. Let's all fall down the Rabbit Hole for 24 hours and see what's there. It will be beautiful.
The top cabal administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition.""We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.
Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.
Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani's health led to her conclusion. "The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said.
