TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - A man who posed as a decorated Marine Corps captain for two years will tend graves at a military cemetery as part his sentence to serve 500 hours of community service, a federal judge ruled.
Reggie L. Buddle, 59, of Puyallup pleaded guilty in April to unlawful wearing of U.S. military medals and decorations. He told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kelly J. Arnold at his sentencing Monday that he was ashamed of his conduct.
Buddle never served in the Marines. He bought the uniform at a military surplus store, and the medals belonged to his brother, a Marine who died in Vietnam.
Buddle posed as a Marine Corps captain in 2005 and 2006, wearing a uniform with medals intended as awards for extraordinary contribution to national defense and heroism in combat. He even gave the opening prayer for the Washington state Senate in 2006 and posed as a chaplain and reverend, including officiating at weddings and funerals of servicemen.
Buddle wasn't ordained, however Friedman has said the marriages he presided over would still be lawfully recognized.
The judge said Monday that Buddle would serve his community service tending graves at the Tahoma Military Cemetery in Kent.
While out for a round of golf on Monday a middle-aged couple had their game disrupted by a teenage boy bearing a grudge and a gun. The strange encounter took place at Ringenäs golf course near Halmstad in western Sweden, Aftonbladet reports.
At around 5.30pm the golfers came upon a boy dressed in camouflage combat fatigues and a helmet. Before they had time to react, the boy took aim at the pair and screamed "bloody capitalists" before firing a shot into the air above their heads. "My wife ducked behind her bag. It was very unpleasant. We were scared," the male golfer told Aftonbladet.
The boy quickly ran away and was nowhere to be found by the time police had arrived at the course to investigate the incident.
Other golfers meanwhile were quick to leap to their sport's defence, rejecting the implication that it was somehow the preserve of a capitalist elite. "We are not high earners. There is nothing unusual about people who play golf. It is no longer the snobbish sport that it was fifteen years ago," Fredrik Johansson told Aftonbladet. Apologizing for playing golf - more victims of GDS.
#3
Maybe he lives by the course and was pissed off about getting his windows broken?
(Anyway, there is a more civilized approach to dealing with the problem, as illustrated by Johnny Knoxville & Co. in their cinematic opus, "Jackass". A couple of well-timed toots of an airhorn are all it takes.)
#5
Yes, but there was an heart attack as a result (with the pills lost in the sunken golf cart. Oh, well). The only schumacher movie I deemed bearable, and with only *one* gay-related scene, oh boy.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/31/2007 06:46 ||
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#1
He's a repeat offender and posed a significant safety hazard--but on the other hand, getting a Prius up into triple digits is so amazing it just has to be a mitigating factor in sentencing.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/31/2007 7:02 Comments ||
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#2
If I take a copy of this article to my second DUI hearing will I get off with just probation too?
#3
Not for the second one, Brer. This was his first DUI. The earlier marijuana conviction was not whilst driving. Besides, he's doing so well in rehab. According to the article, all the first-timers get a slap on the wrist. No special treatment here.
These aren't the droids you're looking for. He can go about his business. Move along.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/31/2007 7:27 Comments ||
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#4
So they're just going to forget about the 100 mph car chase, DUI, and the whole "putting the public in grievous peril" thingys? All he has to do is go live in some luxury treatment complex for a couple of weeks? I wish I had it so good; maid service, gourmet meals, we arent talking about a state run facility here.
I don't get it, where are all the screeching harpies now, when someone really is getting off the hook for being in the right family.
#5
He's not getting special treatment. Here in California we have Penal Code 1000. Everyone is entitled to go through a very Micky Mouse rehab which doesn't include any kind of residential treatment. He is getting, because he can pay for it, treatment that is much more extensive. The legislature passed it long ago and that's all there is to it. If he completes the program he is entitled to a dismissal of the drug charges in eighteen months. The DUI is not subject to dismissal under this program.
#10
I never thought I'd say this.... but could I have the Palestinian, please?
Posted by: Clereper Darling of the Leprechauns2105 ||
07/31/2007 18:02 Comments ||
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#11
I never thought I'd say this.... but could I have the Palestinian, please?
I have to admit that the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in person in my 48 years was a Palestinian woman in a gift shop in Bethlehem. I had to force myself not to ogle and drool. Most likely a Christian, but a Palestinian nonetheless.
#3
Over the last couple of years (?) there had been two reports here I think of kangoroos found beheaded for no apparent reasons (I could search for the articles, but I don't think the RB search has been working lately).
This would be a plausible explanation for those spooky incidents, at least more plausible than proto-serial killer, satanist cults or would-be jihadis practicing, though I don't see why fishers should bother to specifically behead ambulatory 'roos, as opposed to getting bodyparts from meat-processing plants or ranchers.
#4
I lived in Oz for a while. 'Roos are like giant rats. Some Aussies eat 'roo jerkey, but otherwise only their skin is useful: for covering golf clubs.
I own an excellent pair of hunting boots made of kangaroo leather. (Haven't noticed a "bounce" in my step, either.) And didn't the Oakland A's have kangaroo leather shoes back in the day when their owner was experimenting with goofy uniforms, orange baseballs, etc?
I would guess that this is a good business down under, making leather for footwear. I only hope they use the rest of the animal for meat for humans or pets or something.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/31/2007 5:51 Comments ||
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#7
Chef Warren at BAT-7 in Kuwait City used to have Roo shipped in once a month. It was absolutely delicious, as was his sticky date pudding, and homemade Crown Royal. Warren was a talented Kiwi lad.
#9
Strewth. All Oztrailians know that the only way to deal with an agressive, rampant, attacking, predatory kangaroo is to grab him by the tail, swing him around you head, then crack him like a stockwhip. Snaps their head clean off.
Kids learn this from an early age, practicing on possums, wombats and wallabies, until this important survival skill is perfected.
#10
But how do you avoid the drop bears?! I won't go to Australia until I'm certain the drop bear menace is contained!
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
07/31/2007 7:42 Comments ||
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#11
Some dumb broad saw the heads and put it together with the only other sensory information available to her tiny brain at the time - water,fish....fishing!
Oh! they must be for fishbait! Nobody uses roo heads for fishbait, the premise is ridiculous. The real question is why did the news pick this up verbatim and not inject the smallest bit of rationale into the story. She's an animal rights nut, or at least an "activist", end of story.
#12
And, isn't it still winter down under now? I thought us "rednecks" only fished in the summer.
Posted by: BA ||
07/31/2007 14:02 Comments ||
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#13
Whenever I think of 'roos, I think of the horrifically bad Elliott Gould movie 'Matilda', about a boxing kangaroo. Almost impossible to find anymore, thank heavens. Regarded as one of all time worst movies.
Jim Gleeson, 47, of Madison, Wis., beat out thousands of other prose manglers in San Jose State University's 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this convoluted opening sentence to a nonexistent novel:
"Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten per cent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them 'permanently' meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee."
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/31/2007 9:37 Comments ||
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#6
And Dan Brown wasn't a contender? I could only get two chapters into "The DaVinci Code", 'cause I kept tripping and falling flat over sentances that read like something from the Bulwer-Lytton contest... ;-)
A Table View woman plans to lay charges against three police officers who she says arrested, threatened and abused her before driving her to a Cape Flats police station "just to scare" her.
Carol-Anne Porter, 62, a grandmother and bank employee, said she was unfairly stopped and arrested for drunk-driving as she and a friend drove home from a restaurant at the West Beach shopping centre on Friday night.
She claimed that even though she was charged at the Table View police station, police officers drove her all the way to the Bonteheuwel police station for a breathalyser test.
"They kept saying, 'Now we're going to show you white people what it's really like in the ganglands'," she said.
Porter said she and her friend Sari Curiger had gone out for dinner, sharing one bottle of white wine for the evening. They left the shopping complex at about 11pm, taking the West Coast Road to drive the short distance to her home.
But before she could turn into her street, she was pulled over by a police van that was unmarked, except for blue lights on its roof, she said.
A traumatised Porter, who sobbed uncontrollably as she recounted her ordeal, said they were approached by the occupants of the van, two men and a woman, all dressed in plainclothes. Something is missign from that description, I have that nudging feeling...
They screamed at me and asked me for my driver's licence. When I said my bag was stolen a month ago and I had not yet received my new licence, they pulled me out of my car, pushed me against the police van and slammed on handcuffs," she said.
Porter said an officer called for back-up and minutes later, a marked police van with uniformed officers arrived and she was "shoved" into the back and driven "recklessly" to Tableview police station.
"I have bruises on my arms from where they grabbed me, and on my wrists from the handcuffs," said Porter.
They sped off leaving Curiger behind, but when Curiger insisted on being taken to the police station to ensure her friend's safety, one of the three officers drove Curiger there in Porter's Citi Golf .
Curiger said she stayed with Porter until the early hours of Saturday but was denied the opportunity to bail her out and her daughter came to fetch her about 2am.
Porter said that, just 15 minutes after Curiger left, she was again thrown into a police van by the same three officers and taken to Bonteheuwel police station for a breathalyser test.
Porter was returned to a Table View holding cell. Although her boyfriend paid her bail at 7am, she was only released at 9am on Saturday. She claims she was sworn and shouted at throughout her ordeal, for which she is now receiving counselling.
Police spokesperson Captain Randall Stoffels confirmed the arrest. ""We request that she come to the station commissioner to make a complaint," he said.
Porter said she was due to appear in the Cape Town's magistrate's court on Monday and that she and her lawyer would then decide what action to take.
#1
(translated) Drunk woman gets pulled over with half a dozen reasons for the cops to bring her in. She decides to use the race card and play victim.
"They screamed at me and asked me for my driver's licence." Which they probably followed up by screaming at her to see her proof of registration and insurance. And they then screamed "Please".
It was kind of like a screaming barbershop quartet: "MAY WE SEE YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE?"
Then they probably screamed at her to walk a straight line, screaming at her to extend her arms out to her sides, close her eyes then touch her nose with her right index finger.
The finally, they screamed at her to recite the alphabet, backwards.
#2
re #1 Moose, I think you might want to verify the evidence on this one before you dismiss it. I've been hearing some "interesting" things w/r to SA lately.
#3
Ya know, unmarked van, plain-clothes cops... I'd (politely) request that uniformed officers be called to the scene.
Hell, with a cellphone I'd dial 911 (or the local equivalent). Better to be apologetic about wasting their time than quietly disappear when someone pulls a classic predator trick.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
07/31/2007 21:10 Comments ||
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tt8048
I agree. Lot's of interesting stuff from africancrisis.com
'I can never go back to that area . . . What they did to me was inhumane," says the young woman who had her pants torn off, was beaten and then forced to parade half-naked because she dared to wear pants instead of a dress.
And the conservative men controlling Umlazi's notorious T Section have remained unrepentant after torching her family home and vowed they would not allow women wearing pants to enter their area.
Last Sunday morning Zandile Mpanza, 25, was washing her clothes at a community tap near the hostels when two men demanded to know why she was wearing pants, and not a dress.
An "instruction" not to wear pants was first made at the hostel in the early 1990s after an incident in which two men fought over a woman wearing tight pants, according to the hostel co-ordinator.
It was then extended and enforced throughout T Section.
Mpanza replied that she was not living in T Section, and so the ban did not apply to her.
The two men then grabbed her, ripped her pants off and beat her with sticks.
They forced her to parade half-naked.
Mpanza and her family have since fled and are now in hiding. Two teenagers previously beaten by the men for wearing pants have also fled the area.
"I am even scared of speaking to the media, as I have been receiving death threats," said Mpanza.
A warrant of arrest has been issued for Umlazi Unit 17's hostel induna Thulani Cele, who is alleged to have led the men who assaulted Mpanza, police spokesperson Superintendent Danelia Veldhuizen said.
She said Cele had failed to appear in court to face charges of crimen injuria, common assault and malicious damage to property.
Cele was arrested last Sunday, but was released after 500 armed men gathered outside the police station in V Section, demanding his release.
He was released on warning and told to appear in Umlazi magistrate's court on Monday.
Women in the area were still shaken when the Tribune visited. They said the men of the area "ruled with iron fists".
"My children wear pants, but I will have to make them stop before we attract any trouble. We are not happy with the way we are treated, but we can never speak out, as we fear for our lives," said one woman.
In the area, all the women wore long skirts, with no pants in sight.
M'khonkothe Nzama, a co-ordinator for the men living in the T Section hostel, said they would clamp down on women who continued to wear pants in the area.
"Women who unknowingly come to this area wearing pants are politely told to go back. But those who knowingly come with the pants will face the Might Of The People," he said.
T Section men's hostel is an IFP stronghold, but Nzama said the ban on women wearing pants was not their party's position.
"It was adopted by residents to forge a harmonious neighbourly relationship. This was after a huge conflict when two men clashed over a woman wearing a tight-fitting pair of pants showing off all her assets," he said.
Theresa Nzuza, IFP caucus leader in the eThekwini Municipality, is expected to meet councillors in the area on Sunday.
Nzuza said she would ask the men in the area to drop their no-pants rule, as it was tarnishing the party's image.
However, Nzama said the men in the area would not be influenced by party leaders to change their policies.
"We will drop our rule only if men in the area say so, not someone from outside," said a defiant Nzama.
Since the incident, the men have tightened their rule, declaring that children from the age of six will also not be allowed to wear pants.
"We have female IFP leaders who wear pants and we respect and love them. But if they come to this area, they don't wear pants.
"Even the ladies who work at Telkom who come to fix lines in the area don't come in pants. They usually wear skirts over their pants," said Nzama.
Nzuza said it was going to be tough to change the rules, because they were the product of the hostel men's rustic rural upbringing.
"We are going to educate our people slowly but surely.
"Sooner or later, these men will have to realise that they must change."
Nzuza said after the meeting she would visit Mpanza to give her support as a woman. Wearing a skirt over her pants.
chris.makhaye@inl.co.za
#3
Well it is obvious isn;t it; i mean it is the 'T' section of town (T for trousers, turban, turds, etc) but i don;t understand the honor burning of the house, there went all her dresses..
A US army major is scheduled to appear in court today charged with what a Congressional investigator describes as the biggest bribery case to come out of Iraq since the US took over four years ago. Major John Cockerham, 41, who was arrested last week, is accused of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from businessmen who had contracts in Iraq and Kuwait. Maj Cockerham, a contracting and procurement officer assigned to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, denies the charges. He is due in court in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife, Melissa, 40, and sister, Carolyn Blake, 44, a former schoolteacher, to request bail.
The US justice department said records indicated he might have received up to $9.6m (£4.74m), with the possibility of a further $5.4m in the pipeline.
Stuart Bowen, who was appointed by Congress to investigate mismanagement and corruption in relation to the $44bn spent so far on reconstruction projects in Iraq, told the San Antonio Express-News that the amounts involved in the alleged bribery were the largest "that's come out of the Iraq reconstruction experience". Mr Bowen, who reports to Congress every three months, has referred 28 cases to the justice department for prosecution.
Maj Cockerham is charged with bribery, money laundering and conspiracy in relation to his service as an army contracting officer in Kuwait in 2004 and 2005. Both his wife and his sister were charged with conspiracy to defraud the government and conspiracy to commit money laundering, the justice department said. All three face up to 20 years in prison and $500,000 in fines.
Investigators say the payments occurred in 2004 and 2005, with the money being deposited at banks in the Middle East and then moved to offshore banks in the Caribbean, according to court records.
The biggest bribery case in relation to Iraq reconstruction so far has been $4m. In his quarterly report published yesterday, Mr Bowen said his agency had carried out 95 audits which had led to 13 arrests and five convictions.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/31/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
And in other news, from the San Antonio news we learn the politics of MAJ Cockerham...... whahahhaha, no surprises, a true democrat through and through. Thank you Google.
Yet even while the probe was ongoing, the Cockerhams appeared to go about their daily lives. John Cockerham, for instance, showed up at June's rally for presidential candidate Barack Obama at Sunset Station.
"Hello Congressman Sir. It would truly be an honor to have you as the new Commander and Chief for the Armed Forces. Thanks for taking the time to stop by San Antonio and address the local Texans (sic) concerns," Cockerham wrote on the DailyKos politics blog.
#2
I suspect Obamanite campaign staffers were burning a little oil last night, scouring financial contributor registers....names, addresses, etc. Too rich I'd say.
#2
D ***ng, so it wasn't the meteor that blew up over Croatia, andor the Meteors = Shooting Stars seen over Guam. All together now, wid feeling, sing "QU-U-U-A-A-A-S-A-R". D***nged THIRD SECRET FATIMA FLYING HORSEHEADS + PURPLE-COLORED STAR EXPLOSIONS!
Cellphones light up operating room during blackout
Buenos Aires, Brazil
The light from the cellphone screens allowed surgeons to complete an emergency appendix operation we think during a blackout in a city in central Argentina, reports said on Saturday.
Leonardo Molina (29) was on the operating table on July 21, (a day he will not soon forget) when the power went out in the Policlinico Juan D Peron, the main hospital in Villa Mercedes, a small city in San Luis province, with intermittant electricity
"The generator, which should have been working correctly, didn't work," a hospital spokesperson, whose name was not given, told TN television news station.
"The surgeons and anesthetists were in the dark and were looking for candles when... a family member got some cellphones together from people in the hallway and took them in to provide light," he said.
Ricardo Molina (39) Leonardo's brother, told La Nación newspaper that the lights were out for an hour and his brother's anesthesia was wearing off. - Reuters
#1
I guess they never heard of automatic power-failure lights you can buy in most WalMarts for about $15. About 12 years ago I was working at a US hospital where this happened, its emergency generator died an hour after the public grid went down. The building code didn't mandate emergency lighting, so there was none. Ever try to find a flashlight in total darkness?
#2
Hospitals, it seems, have always had their share of backup power problems. sci-fi editor John Campbell:
[During the Nov. 1965 blackout] One of the major Boston hospitals had installed a magnificent new emergency power system about two months before the Blackout...the plant engineer there the new plant switch ON.. it didn't run. The fuel pump was designed to be electrically powered.
Another hospital - New York this time - had their emergency power generating equipment in the basement... the plant started up all right, but this didn't last long. The basement was below the level of the adjoining river, and normally kept dry by electric-powered pumps. Somebody classified these pumps as non-essential and their lines were not tied into the emergency power board...
What is a nerd? Mary Bucholtz, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been working on the question for the last 12 years.
Hmm - if you have been wondering who's a nerd for twelve years, your research might well be conducted with a bathroom mirror (works for me!). Rimshot!
It gets better:
...Though Bucholtz uses the term hyperwhite to describe nerd language in particular, she claims that the symbolic resources of an extreme whiteness can be used elsewhere. After all, trends in music, dance, fashion, sports and language in a variety of youth subcultures are often traceable to an African-American source, but unlike the styles of cool European American students, in nerdiness, African-American culture and language [do] not play even a covert role. Certainly, hyperwhite seems a good word for the sartorial choices of paradigmatic nerds.
She does have a point. Can you imagine a wanabee rapper with a pocket protector driving a Geek Squad VW Beetle?
Had enough? I got plenty more where that came from:
By cultivating an identity perceived as white to the point of excess, nerds deny themselves the aura of normality that is usually one of the perks of being white. Bucholtz sees something to admire here. In declining to appropriate African-American youth culture, thereby refusing to exercise the racial privilege upon which white youth cultures are founded, she writes, nerds may even be viewed as traitors to whiteness. You might say they know that a culture based on theft is a culture not worth having.
So young white nerds today are traitors to their whiteness by not pretending to be hip-hop gangstas? Could someone please just cap me with a nine right now? But quietly - people are sleeping...
Posted by: Mike ||
07/31/2007 07:17 ||
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#1
What a load. But typical of the NYT.
The obsession is to call certain customs "derivative", assert that they come from another culture, provide a supposed "trace" that always ends up with the parent culture being one that is currently labelled as "oppressed". This allows the CURRENT members of the "oppressed" culture to claim credits and puff themselves up as being more influential than they are.
Here, the idiot admits she can't trace it to any culture that's officially labelled "oppressed", but can't condemn it as part of the "oppressor" class, because she can't detect elements from it either. So she makes a stab and calls it "hyperwhite" because of the CLOTHES.
Shithead. I'm part of the nerd culture, and clothes HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, as if we were goddamn Beverly Hills airheads obsessed with FASHION. We were so wrapped up in the cool intricacies of electronic artifacts, we just fell into the habit of wearing what was handed to us by our "white" parents. We were into learning and made high grades, but given the Ghetto idea that high grades===Oreo cookie (black on the outside, white on the inside), we hardly got any black nerds: First one I ever saw was the Black kid in "Bloom County". We were ostracized by our white peers, but the black/hispanic kids at my school embraced me, probably because Nerds are TRANSPARENT. What you see is what you get, and our different drummer drummed a tune whose verses said that brains, not color, counted.
It was OUR culture who created the tools that allowed people of ALL OTHER CULTURES to find each other and keep their cultures going.
Hey bitch, when your computer goes on the fritz and ya can't do your work, let's hope the nerd you call to fix it didn't read your article and take insult.
As a linguist, Bucholtz understands nerdiness first and foremost as a way of using language.
And this is why her entire analysis is bogus. As a physicist, I understand nerdiness first and foremost as a desire to know what makes stuff go boom, and how laser beams work, and that space actually has 27.5[1] dimensions. Linguist nerds thrill at knowing how to say "Kiss my ass, professor," in Sanskrit, !Kung, and Quechua.
[1]Or whatever today's number is. I know a guy who quit physics when he heard that. Can you imagine?? (He couldn't.)
#7
Does anyone sense that she's projecting rather than analysing
Ding! We have a winnah!
The whole thing to me sounds like one part of post-grad grantsmanship writing mixed in with 3 parts of fermented white guilt, baked untill half done. Frost with a nice thick layer of projected rage, and sprinkled with shavings of intelectual insecurity. Serves one (neurotic twit).
Posted by: N Guard ||
07/31/2007 14:02 Comments ||
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#8
LOL, N Guard!
I, as the king of the nerds in my day, appreciate that one!
Posted by: BA ||
07/31/2007 14:08 Comments ||
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#9
NGuard wins the coveted "Snark of the Day" award!
Posted by: Mike ||
07/31/2007 14:32 Comments ||
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#10
Yay me. It's just that I forced myself to read through the tripe, and not only does she bore me with her fermented white guilt/rage/insecurity/projection-- she dosent even begin to explore the glory that is nerddom! I should know, I are one. And I have the D&D library to prove it! (I think there is a huge overlap between nerd and geek.)
Posted by: N Guard ||
07/31/2007 18:41 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.
By Chris Makhaye and Nomfundo Mcetywa
