A Davie man was hospitalized on Sunday for injuries after a gun his girlfriend was cleaning went off and hit him in the abdomen, police said.
Kristi Ellis, 40, told police that at 4 a.m. she's couldn't sleep and to make her boyfriend, 40-year-old Michael Allih, feel better she decided to clean his .38 revolver, said Sgt. Christopher Chastain, Davie Police spokesman. The gun went off twice and one bullet hit him in the abdomen.
He was rushed to Memorial East from his home at SW 63 Ave. Police said the wound doesn't appear to be life threatening.
Authorities said no charges have been filed. "In the really low part of the abdomen, in the middle."
#10
It's Florida. Depending on the injured man's reputation with the local police, they may not have been able to stop laughing long enough to investigate yet...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/18/2011 20:31 Comments ||
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#11
This story is completely impossible. She should be put up on charges of assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder. The wheels of justice grind slowly, so we will probably never know the outcome, but she is a big nugget of evil that will eventually be ground fine.
#12
It's Florida. Depending on the injured man's reputation with the local police, they may not have been able to stop laughing long enough to investigate yet...
[An Nahar] Police in Rome have placed in durance vile two men suspected of carrying out a string of armed robberies dressed as Father Christmas.
At least six stores in the Appia neighborhood south of Rome city center reported thefts by the two in the past month, in which one of the men pointed a gun at shop staff while another grabbed the cash.
Police said they found guns and Father Christmas costumes in one of the men's homes, and were still looking for possible accomplices.
A film with a similar theme, "The Band of Father Christmases" featuring three men wrongly accused of being robbers, was a box-office hit in Italia last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2011 00:00 ||
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"They bring a candy cane, you bring a gun. They kill a cop, you kill two of their elves. It's the Appian Way!"
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/18/2011 09:40 ||
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#1
This is sad. Havel did two things that should long be remembered. The first is highly unusual for a leader, to recognize that the Czechs and Slovaks desired different futures, and agree to divide Czechoslovakia without violence or acrimony.
It makes you wonder about Abraham Lincoln. But it still is a huge victory for the idea of peace without violence, and self-determination over ego.
And neither the Czech nor Slovak people curse him for it.
The other think Havel did was to objectively look at the ruination and pollution the Soviets had inflicted on his once beautiful and forested nation, and ask, "How can we economically recover?"
His solution was to make the Czech nation a center of entertainment and media production, followed by repair and redevelopment and tourism.
It worked. Despite problems from their links with Europe, internally their economy has grown tremendously, and their long term plan is economic sustainability.
Havel, for whatever faults, will long be remembered as a poet and playwright who led his nation from darkness back into the light.
A great man. The world is diminished with his passing.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/18/2011 12:49 Comments ||
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#3
It would be a great gesture if the Plastic People of the Universe and the Velvet Underground were to do a concert together in his honor.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/18/2011 15:34 Comments ||
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#4
Well, they say deaths come in threes. Christopher Hitchens, Vaclav Havel, and .... Kim Jong-Il.
I wonder how Aric Bardwin and Hans Brix are taking that last one.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/18/2011 22:16 Comments ||
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#5
TOPIX > NORTH KOREA SAYS ITS LEADER KIM JONG-IL HAS DIED, at age 69 from complications of heart disease + diabetes according to a "special broadcast" announced ala State TV.
STORY/ARTIC appears to be breaking as it was not mentioned in the MSM-Net [e.g. CNN, Fox] this Guam AM.
The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.
He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.
"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled the assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."
At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents. I wonder if Nieman-Marcus has layaway?
Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.
"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," the manager said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband. Prolly was not the rat made famous by the movie/song.
Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four decades. Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold onto their merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks. On the dark side, if it's not paid off, I suspect K-Mart keeps the money. Maybe not.
In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments. What? There are no K-Marts in blue states?
The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's assistant manager.
"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't have the money for it," Graff said.
He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."
"You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people," Graff said. Graff's store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.
"To be honest, in retail, it's easy to get cynical about the holidays, because you're kind of grinding it out when everybody else is having family time," Graff said. "It's really encouraging to see this side of Christmas again."
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/18/2011 12:02 ||
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#1
that's the America we love. We don't need community organizers or unbathed whining Occutards. I hit USMC's Toys for Tots online and the Salvation Army kettle every time I grocery shop. They do good things
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/18/2011 14:20 Comments ||
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#2
"that's the America we love"
Yes, it is, Frank.
It's also the America the lefties hate. >:-(
Screw 'em.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/18/2011 18:17 Comments ||
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#3
What? It wasn't a government program coming to the rescue? It was private citizens? How un-liberal and anti-progressive. I'm sure this will be addressed by our Democratic represenatives.
SIDI BOUZID, Tunisia: Tens of thousands of people packed a provincial town square to celebrate the first anniversary on Saturday of Tunisia's democratic revolution in the place where it began, unleashing a tide of popular revolt that has transformed the Arab world.
In Sidi Bouzid, tens of thousands of people rallied joyfully in the central square, dancing to the rhythms of popular songs despite cold weather, and flags and photographs of Tunisians killed in the uprising decorated the streets.
A ceremony was held to unveil a giant status of Mohamed Bouazizi, who has become a national hero in the North African country. He was a jobless unemployed university graduate in Sidi Bouzid set himself on fire in despair at police who had confiscated his unlicensed fruit and vegetable cart. He died later in hospital. His death took the lid off simmering anger about poverty, joblessness, corruption and repression. Protests erupted across Tunisia, forcing President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country less than a month later.
"It's a day of joy; Sidi Bouzid has long suffered from neglect and today it has become the capital of the world," said a dancing young man who identified himself as Emad.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/18/2011 00:00 ||
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Expatriate workers in the Kingdom find it very easy to escape from their sponsors ¡ª either a person or a company ¡ª without losing money.
Despite the difficulties that Saudi citizens and companies face to import workers in addition to the money they pay for visas ¡ª SR7,000 or more per worker ¡ª Saudi Arabia does not have a strict law to protect the rights of the citizen or company when the worker escapes. Economists estimate that Saudi Arabia loses SR38 million annually on escaped workers. The poor dears£¡
Arab News spoke to lawyers and officials in the Ministry of Interior, who confirmed that the government had nothing to do with escaped workers apart from deporting them. They also confirmed that the citizen is the only loser in such cases. Those damn expats£¬ taking advantage of the good nature of Arabs towards other races£¡
¡°It is common these days to hear about escaped workers, maids and drivers. They sometimes escape from their sponsor while looking for higher payment and better treatment,¡± said Abdulrahman Al-Jehani, head assistant of the recruitment department in the ministry.
The government duty, in this case, is to arrest the escaped worker and deport him or her, said Al-Jehani.
He added that workers sometimes escaped because of bad treatment or because they had not been paid their salary on time, but ¡°workers should know that escaping is not the solution for them.¡± Just grin and bear the beatings¡£ They will continue until morale improves¡£
#2
What they need is some variety of fugitive slave law.
"It is also decreed that if any slave run away from his master, that in such case, upon the fatwa of one Imam; that said slave shall be delivered, either to his master, or any other that pursues and brings such certificate or proof to the local Mutaween office, during regular Vice and Virtue business hours."
One of the most reviled politicians in southern Mexico is Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) Ulises Ruiz, former governor of Oaxaca state.
Ruiz has been hammered repeatedly in the local and national press for his heavy hand on the state levers of power, which included accusations he used intimidation to win election in 2004
His actions as governor included moves against the Noticias de Oaxaca news daily, demonstrating in stark terms the power a PRI politician has in his domain outside the normal areas he had as governor. In this case, PRI's traditional nexus of a labor organization was used against the publication to stop its distribution in Oaxaca,
Mostly it is in Mexico's mainstream and independent left that he had gained the most notorious reputation as accusations flew about his treatment of indigenous Indian populations within Oaxaca.
Oaxaca was one of the three states in Mexico in 2010 which did not go PRI, due in part to the reign of Ruiz. His rule has been an embarrassing stain on effort to polish the image of PRI.
So, a few days ago when an auditor for the new non-PRI governor of Oaxaca submitted a report to the Oaxaca chamber of deputies on massive state spending irregularities during Ruiz's term as governor, it was unwelcomed news, especially in light of the recent problems in Coahuila state.
The report stated that in 45 separate audits of Oaxaca state finances some 507 irregularities were found, of which 20 were resolved, 300 were pending and 187 were sent to an investigating agency for possible prosecution.
The amount involved in this scandal is said to be as much as MP $4 billion (USD $288,000,000), Already four complaints have been filed with the state attorney general for investigation and prosecution of Ruiz and unnamed individuals.
As the news daily Reforma described it, PRI politicians attending the hearing made noises in protest of the news as it was being delivered. The spectacle inasmuch as it received scant national press attention has to be an embarrassing one for the hopes of a PRI with a newly polished reputation.
Ruiz's successor, Gambine Cue, a Convergencia party member, is currently governor, and has a political motive for bringing out the excesses of the Ruiz administration, even if it is the start of his administration. Convergencia is usually aligned with Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) and is generally considered to be conservative in the Mexican political spectrum.
As such, Cue's concern for the financial health of Oaxaca is a growing one in Mexico amongst Mexican PAN members and conservatives.
Oaxaca's problem has not been in contracting debt, however. Indeed, amongst the 32 Mexican political entities it is in the bottom five when it comes to per capita state debt.
Oaxaca's problem and a growing problem with several of the other states is in transparency, priorities and spending. If the charges that seem to be arrayed against Ruiz are as true in those other states, the one-two punch of state government spending and state debt may become a national issue before the next national president is even in office a year.
Last week, Laura Rojas, a PAN Mexican Chamber of Deputies coordinator held a "Debt Expo" forum in Mexico City where the facts about state spending were laid out.
This interest in state government spending at the national level took on a stark relief with the excesses of Coahuila state under the auspices of now deposed PRI leader Humberto Moreira Valdez. In many ways the excesses of that era which will lead to unprecedented and painful austerity in Coahuila state services and in state revenue, could well affect Mexico nationally.
It effects could well reverberate into the US as well.
Mexico maintains a federal revenue sharing system with the states and individual municipalities, whereby those entities get their share of federal monies and must share their local fees and tax collections. The share states receive is based on agreement, as long as a state imposed tax or fee either does not interfere with the federal government or exceeds it. In exchange, states and municipalities give up some of their autonomy in exchange for revenue. That system has been modified somewhat in recent years as the Mexican federal government has asked states to pay more for their share of security costs, and whatever autonomy is regained or maintained is paid for through state revenues.
Zacatecas state is a good example. A decision by the Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), the controlling agency of the Mexican Army to deploy three newly raised rifle battalions in 2011 came with two costs: one financial and one political.
Zacatecas was required to build several bases to house the new troops with its own funds, while SEDENA pays for the costs of the deployment. It is unclear if any part of those costs include logistics, but it is very clear those costs do include the states' part of joint federal and state counternarcotics operations.
As reported in the El Sol de Zacatecas news daily last fall, the state chamber of deputies decided to borrow the money to pay for improvement/reinstatement in its water and sewage system as a revenue source. The fees collected in such a system cannot go to the federal government as the service is unique to a geographical area. It thus came with a cost of autonomy, the cost borne by the federal government.
During the forum, Sra. Rojas laid out six growing problems that are and will eventually affect Mexican localities.
Federal revenue given to the states has grown 34 percent since 2000, from MP $786,585,000,000 (USD $56,634,120,000) to MP $1,290,051,000,000 (USD $92,883,672,000) in 2011.
Between 2003 and 2008, Mexican states have raised at most 17 percent of their revenue, through taxes and fees. The rest is made up through federal revenue sharing. The state that raised the most is Chihuahua at 17 percent, followed by Nuevo Leon at 14 percent, Quintana Roo at 12 percent , Baja California at 11 percent and Tamaulipas at nine percent.
It should be noted that of the top five states with the highest raised revenue four are states that border the US while the fifth borders Guatemala and Belize.
The states with the lowest percentage of revenues raised in the state are Tlaxcala, Veracruz and Guerrero, with only 3 percent; Aguascalientes, Colima, Michoacan and Veracruz with four percent and Morelos, Nayarit, Tabasco and Yucatan with five percent.
The entity with the largest amount of raised revenue is Distrito Federal where 40 percent of its revenues are through taxes and fees.
In the five years between 2008 and 2011 state debt has grown almost 40 percent, an average rate of 13.1 percent per annum. According to the Mexican national finance ministry, the total debt of the states has grown from MP $141,400,000,000 to MP $197,111,600,000, a 39.4 percent increase.
Those figures are not totally up to date since revelation of the debt Coahuila state has amassed, a number which has certainly increased the percent of increase significantly.
Coahuila's debt load is 2.6 times the federal revenue it receives. The national average is .07 times. The three Mexican states with the next largest ratio of debt to federal monies it receives are Quintana Roo 1.7 times, Nuevo Leon at 1.5 and Chihuahua at 1.2.
Again, all the largest states with the greatest amount of debt relative to federal revenue are border states.
The national ratio of debt to internally generated revenue is 2.6. For Coahuila state the ratio is 12.6 times state revenues. The three states with the next highest ratio of debt to state revenue are Quintana Roo with 5.4, Nayarit with 5.2 and Sonora with 5.1.
Sonora, Coahuila and Quintana Roo are border states, with Sonora and Coahuila sharing their northern borders with the US.
Most interesting revelations are on the spending side. In most Mexican states spending is not an open matter for the press. So when a state chamber of deputy authorizes spending, which is public record, how the spending gets done is often shrouded in secrecy.
Even so, Rojas said according to the available figures, 68 percent of total revenues, state and federal are spent on personnel such as the payroll, phones, travel, per diem and various items for state employees.
That spending has grown very slowly, less than one percent per annum according to the Mexican national finance ministry and to the Fitch financial rating service. However, total state spending on bureaucracies grew by six percent per annum.
Mexican senator Juan Bueno Torio held a similar press conference last Wednesday to clarify the financial situation of the states and municipalities.
According to Senator Bueno Torio, 2,000 of 2,400 municipalities are in dire economic straights due to debt.
Since 2005, three states have had percentage increases of indebtedness in the triple digits. Those states include Coahuila at 465 percent, Nayarit with 159 percent and Chihuahua with 128 percent.
Of the MP $287.588 billion (USD $20,706,336,000) in total state debt, MP $41.429 billion went to municipalities, MP $23.307 billion went to state agencies and MP $6.114 billion went to municipal agencies. The rest, the great lion's share went to state government.
In Coahuila state 98 percent of the contracted indebtedness went to state government, with the rest to state agencies, municipalities and municipal agencies. Chihuahua state is worst with 99 percent while Michoacan was slightly less at 97 percent.
#1
Author's note: A MP $100 billion discrepancy exists between the total Mexican state debt in the report. The Deputy Rojas and Senator Bueno Torio reports were at two different forums and reports were submitted by two different reporters.
I can't resolve the discrepancy through other sources because, apparently, Rantburg.com is literally the only US media outlet/website on the planet reporting on this issue.
[Pak Daily Times] ANKARA: The dome of a mosque under construction collapsed on Saturday, killing one worker and injuring nine others, who were pulled from the rubble by rescuers, an official said. The dome of the mosque being built at an industrial area in the central Turkish town of Acigol tumbled down during construction, trapping 10 workers under a pile of iron, Mayor Hasan Unver told NTV television. Nine of the workers were rescued with injuries while the other was pulled out dead, he said. State-run TRT television showed images of rescuers, some carrying a bright orange stretcher, scrambling to rescue one trapped worker amid a pile of rubble and iron rods. The images were a mini-replay of a series of televised rescues in October after a pair of powerful earthquakes buried hundreds of people in eastern Turkey. The cause of Saturday's accident was under investigation. Tough safety codes were approved a decade ago after earthquakes in western Turkey killed 18,000 people and prompted an outcry over the poor quality of construction, but enforcement has remained lax.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The Sindh Assembly on Friday condemned the inhuman treatment of students at a seminary in Bloody Karachi where they were found fettered and expressed its grave concern over the existence of such unregulated seminaries.
The house was earlier informed by Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Hussain Wasan that the government had already ordered identification of and action against all such unregulated seminaries in the province, including Bloody Karachi.
The issue was raised by MQM Minister Syed Faisal Sabzwari soon after the session was called to order by Speaker Nisar Ahmad Khuhro at 11.15am, 75 minutes behind the schedule.
While making a statement on the issue under Rule 215 of the Rules of Procedure of the Sindh Assembly, the home minister appealed to the people if they come across such seminaries, it should be brought to the knowledge of the authorities so that action could be taken against them.
The minister said 68 children out of 75, who had been recovered from the seminary near Northern Bypass, were handed over to their parents while seven were shifted to the Edhi centre.
"The seminary has been sealed," he said.
Mr Wasan added that before the Dec 12 police raid on the Madressah Jamia Masjid Zakariya Kondal, Mufti Dawood was set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock while its administrator Qari Usman beat feet.
While further investigation was under way, the government had held a meeting with religious leaders on the issue. It was mutually agreed that all unregulated seminaries should be checked, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2011 00:00 ||
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Aceh police chief Ins. Gen. Iskandar Hasan: "There will be a traditional ceremony. First their hair will be cut. Then they will be tossed into a pool. The womens hair well cut in the fashion of a female police officer. Then well teach them a lesson."
Iskander denied the punishment constituted a breach of human rights.
"Well change their disgusting clothes. Well replace them with nice clothes. Well give them toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, sandals and prayer gear. It will all be given to them. Ill remind [police] not to breach human rights. We are oriented to educating our community, our nation. This is our country too, right?"
See also:
Police camp punks vow to keep the faith
"Look at my straggly beard, he said, pointing at his whiskered chin. This is my self-expression, and whos to say its a sign of social disease?
JETS
We are sick, we are sick,
We are sick, sick, sick,
Like we're sociologically sick.
ACTION, IMITATING HEADSHRINKER
In my opinion, this child does not need to have his head shrunk at all. Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease!
RIFF
Hey, I got a social disease!
ACTION, IMITATING HEADSHRINKER
So take him to a social worker!
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/18/2011 12:31 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.
ANKARA: The dome of a mosque under construction collapsed on Saturday, killing one worker and injuring nine others, who were pulled from the rubble by rescuers, an official said. The dome of the mosque being built at an industrial area in the central Turkish town of Acigol tumbled down during construction, trapping 10 workers under a pile of iron, Mayor Hasan Unver told NTV television. Nine of the workers were rescued with injuries while the other was pulled out dead, he said. State-run TRT television showed images of rescuers, some carrying a bright orange stretcher, scrambling to rescue one trapped worker amid a pile of rubble and iron rods. The images were a mini-replay of a series of televised rescues in October after a pair of powerful earthquakes buried hundreds of people in eastern Turkey. The cause of Saturday's accident was under investigation. Tough safety codes were approved a decade ago after earthquakes in western Turkey killed 18,000 people and prompted an outcry over the poor quality of construction, but enforcement has remained lax.
[Dawn] The Sindh Assembly on Friday condemned the inhuman treatment of students at a seminary in 
Aceh police chief Ins. Gen. Iskandar Hasan: "There will be a traditional ceremony. First their hair will be cut. Then they will be tossed into a pool. The womens hair well cut in the fashion of a female police officer. Then well teach them a lesson."
