Obama’s half-brother arrested on drug charge

By Calvin Palmer

The half-brother of President Barack Obama was arrested today at his home for alleged possession of marijuana, police said.

George Obama was arrested in Nairobi with one joint of marijuana, police chief Joshua Omokulongolo said.

“He is not a drug peddler,” Omokulongolo said. “But it’s illegal, it’s a banned substance.”

George Obama, who is in his twenties, is due to appear in court on Monday morning.

He and the president have the same father, who died in a car crash in 1982.

Several of President Obama’s Kenyan relatives went to Washington, D.C., for his inauguration, but George was not among them. He lives in the Huruma area of the capital with extended family.

President Obama described his half-brother as a ” handsome, roundheaded boy with a wary gaze” in his book, Dreams From My Father.

[Based on reports by Associated Press and BBC News.]

Texas Republicans propose a return to days of the Wild West

By Calvin Palmer

The class roll-call at colleges across Texas may soon reverberate with the names of Colt, Glock, Beretta, Walther, Smith and Wesson, if the state’s lawmakers allow guns to be carried on campuses either as concealed weapons or openly brandished.

State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, is preparing the campus concealed-carry gun measure to be put before the next session of the State Legislature. He calls it a “safety protection bill” for students and faculty.

“I don’t want to wake up one morning and hear on the news that some madman went on a Texas campus and picked off Texas students like sitting ducks,” Wentworth said. “I’m doing what I can to prevent that from happening in Texas.”

Who says it won’t be some madwoman?  That’s a rather sexist stance and likely to be met with derision by the likes of Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter.

Wouldn’t it be easier to prevent a gunman or gunwoman going on the rampage by simply banning handguns?  Oh, I forgot, Wentworth is a Republican.

A similar move to Wentworth’s was put before the Legislature in 1997 and 1999, when the then-state Rep. Suzanna Hupp, a Republican from Lampasas whose parents were shot and killed in the 1991 Luby’s massacre in Killeen, proposed similar legislation. The bills didn’t pass.

Republican, eh?  Quelle surprise!

Gov. Rick Perry is among those supporting the notion of letting adult students bring handguns on campus if they are licensed to carry them.  You betcha!

Thankfully, Texas is blessed with people who realize that they are living in the 21st Century.  They tend not to be Republicans.

Opponents to such preposterous proposals include gun-control advocates, university officials, campus law enforcement and some lawmakers.

The University of Texas at Austin’s student government overwhelmingly passed this week a resolution supporting their campus gun ban and calling on “elected officials in Texas to oppose attempts to eliminate campus weapons bans.”

“I don’t want to return to a 19th-century Wild West urban atmosphere for Texas,” said state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. “I oppose both concealed-carry on campus and open-carry, but psychologically open-carry is the worst by far because of the implications it has when you’re walking down the street.”

Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said he has not seen the bills but would not be inclined to support guns on campuses.

“I think it’s an issue of safety,” he said. “Will that improve or diminish the safety of students? My gut instinct is most members would say it actually diminishes the safety of faculty and staff. … They didn’t pass it before, and they don’t have as good a chance for passing it now.”

Texas State Rifle Association lobbyist Alice Tripp said the group is “not forwarding the issue.”  And why should it?  Rifles and handguns are like apples and oranges.  A rifle may be used for recreational sport, hunting and skeet shooting.  A handgun has only one purpose — to kill or maim people.

At present, people with handgun permits have to keep their weapons concealed but that is not enough for Ian McCarthy, a 22-year-old online marketing entrepreneur in Austin. Does that mean he sells stuff on eBay?

McCarthy wants to be able to brandish one openly.

“Criminals want an easy target,” he said.  “When they see you can fight back, they’re going to go somewhere else.”
 
Not necessarily.  They may decide to blow your head clean off just because you have had the temerity to point a gun at them.

His rationale assumes a person has the gun skills of Dirty Harry.  But what happens if the criminal has faster reactions and a steadier hand?  One dead McCarthy.  It is open to debate whether that would be a great loss.

McCarthy is a member of the national pro-gun group OpenCarry.org, which has raised more than $10,000 online to buy radio and billboard ads across the state and has collected more than 53,000 online Texas signatures in favor of changing the law.
 
Won’t it look a little suspect when nearly all of those signatures read as either Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam?

It’s good to know so many Looney Tunes are alive and well, and living in Texas.

[Based on a report by the Houston Chronicle.] 

Seven die in Arizona tour bus crash

By Calvin Palmer

Seven people died and 10 others suffered serious injuries after a tour bus crashed this afternoon on U.S. Highway 93 about 27 miles south of the Hoover Dam.

Arizona Department of Public Safety officer Robert Bailey said the DW Tours bus was heading north when it crossed the center desert median and rolled over into the southbound lanes.

Several of the 16 passengers aboard the bus were thrown out of the vehicle and six of them died at the scene. A seventh, a man in his 40s, later died at University Medical Center, Las Vegas.

The cause of the crash, which occurred at 3:04 is not known. No other vehicles were involved.

Cmdr. Dean Nyhart with the Arizona Department of Public Safety said five people had suffered life-threatening injuries. “We’re hopeful that those people can be stabilized and at least the death toll stop where it is,” he said.

Nyhart said the tourists on the bus were Chinese nationals who had flown from Shanghai to San Francisco. Investigators were still searching for the bus manifest for more details on its route.

The death toll could rise. Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center spokeswoman Stacy Acquista said a man and a woman in critical condition had been airlifted to the hospital Friday night from Kingman Regional Medical Center.

“They brought them to us because they needed an upgraded level of medical care,” Acquista said.

University Medical Center spokesman Rick Plummer said two of the injured remained hospitalized in critical condition: a 35-year-old woman and a woman whose age was unknown but was believed to be in her 40s. The 48-year-old driver and a 61-year-old man were in serious condition, and an eight-year-old boy was in fair condition.

Plummer said the victims’ injuries ranged from spinal and serious head injuries to bone fractures.

The boy’s parents joined him after being released from Arizona’s Kingman Regional Medical Center, spokesman Ryan Kennedy said. A 41-year-old woman was in fair condition at Kingman Saturday, and two other patients — a man in critical condition and a woman in serious condition — were taken to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, Kennedy said.

DW Tours is based in San Gabriel, California, and operates tours throughout the southwest. Federal records show the company has not had a crash in the past two years.

 [Based on reports by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Associated Press.]

Albanian refugee gets 36 years in prison for sexual assaults on teenage girl

By Calvin Palmer

An Albanian refugee was sentenced yesterday to 36 years in prison for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and getting her pregnant.

It could turn out be a life sentence for Skender Mustafaj, 53, of Manchester, Connecticut, who was found guilty in December of 16 counts of sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl and impairing the morals of a minor.

His victim gave birth to his child, confirmed by DNA testing, and gave the infant up for adoption.  She had told police Mustafaj had sexual intercourse with her more than 20 times, starting when she was 13.

He is also accused in another case of sexually abusing another girl for several years, beginning when she was 11.

Judge William Bright Jr. handed down a sentence of 60 years, suspended after 36, followed by 20 years of probation.  Mustafaj must also register as a sex offender on release from prison.

“I do expect that you are going to serve all of that time,” the judge said. “I know you will be an elderly man if you get out, but it’s not a life sentence.”

Mustafaj made several outbursts during the sentencing and was guarded by three judicial marshals.

He accused the girls of lying.  He said a car accident had changed him and played a role in his actions.

In an earlier outburst, Mustafaj said he fled a communist government in Albania and came to America for a better life.
 
Mustafaj must be regretting that he did not choose to flee to Britain, with its lenient sentencing policy.

Earlier this month, three men who gang-raped a 16-year-old girl, with the mental age of nine, and then doused her with caustic soda were sentenced at a court in London to between six and nine years in jail.

The sentencing of Rogel McMorris, 18, Jason Brew, 19, and Hector Muaimba, 20, by Judge Shaun Lyons caused public outrage.

The next day, Attorney General Baroness Scotland requested the papers in the case to consider whether the sentences should be referred to the Court of Appeal for review.

A spokesman for the Attorney General said: “We have asked the Crown Prosecution Service for the papers in the case so the law officers can consider whether the sentence is one that should be referred to the Court of Appeal to consider as unduly lenient.”

Even if the sentences are increased, I doubt they will approach the magnitude of the sentence meted out to Mustafaj in Connecticut. 

More’s the pity.

[Based on reports by The Hartford Courant and Calvin’s Palmer Weblog.]

Philly’s bowl full of wings and breasts

By Calvin Palmer

In Philadelphia, Super Bowl Sunday is preceded by Wing Bowl Friday.  For the past 17 years, thousands have turned up to see the annual fast food-eating contest. That is fast food-eating rather than consuming the fare served up by Burger King, Taco Bell or KFC.

A tasty Wingette. Picture courtesy of AP.

A crowd of 20,000 turned up this morning at the Wachovia Center to witness 23-year-old John Squibb, from Berlin, New Jersey, down 203 chicken wings in 20 minutes.

He beat off a strong challenge by Richard “Not Rich” Razzi, from Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, who came in second by eating 180 wings.

Squibb, known as “Super Squibb,” won a Mini Cooper, a $7,500 diamond ring and crown decorated with miniature chickens. No mention was made of a case of Rolaids.

Professional eaters were not allowed in this year’s Wing Bowl, but organizers say they’ll be back next year.

The contest is sponsored by sports-talk station WIP-AM and its carnival atmosphere features the scantily clad “Wingettes”.

All proceeds go to benefit the Philadelphia Police Department.

[Based on reports by Associated Press, South Jersey News and The News Journal.]

Traffic-light camera inventor arrested as motorists the world over see red

By Calvin Palmer

An Italian engineer, who invented intelligent traffic lights that detect cars which go through a red light, is under house arrest after it emerged the lights had been fixed to catch drivers who were not, in fact, breaking the law.

Stefano Arrighetti, 45, an engineering graduate from Genoa, created the “T-Redspeed” system, a configuration of three cameras designed to assess the three-dimensional placement of vehicles passing a red light and store their number plates on a connected computer system.

But now it is alleged that the systems were fixed – with the connivance of their inventor – so that instead of staying on amber for the regulation five or six seconds, the lights changed to red in half that time.

It is said that more than one million Italian drivers driving across intersections on the amber light were unjustly snared on red, and landed with flat fines of €150 ($192, £130).

A further 108 people are under investigation, including 63 municipal police commanders and 39 local government officials as well as the managers of seven private companies.

Prosecutors in Verona maintain that Mr Arrighetti committed fraud when he supplied his devices to public administrations around Italy because he declared that they had been ratified by the Ministry of Transport. In fact, while the cameras had been ratified, the computer hardware that registered offences had not been.

Arrighetti’s lawyer, Rosario Minniti, maintained that he was blameless in the affair. Well he would, wouldn’t he?

“Arrighetti is a genius whom the whole world envies,” Minniti said. “And he does not deserve these accusations ? They are accusing him of fraud in the supply of goods to public entities but he never had any connection to the local administrations.”

During the two years it was in use, the T-Redspeed system became loathed by motorists and adored by local governments, which raked in increased revenues from the fines, up to 300 per cent more than places that did not use the system.

A report from the police in Milan claims that 300 municipalities and a handful of private companies took a share of the bounty.

The fraud was uncovered by Roberto Franzini, police chief of Lerici, on the Ligurian coast. In February 2007, he noticed the abnormal number of fines being issued for jumping red lights.

“There were 1,439 for the previous two months,” Franzini said. “It seemed too much: at the most our patrols catch 15 per day.”

He went to check the lights and found that they were changing to red after three seconds instead of the five seconds that had been normal.

Now towns and cities across Italy face the nightmare of processing hundreds of thousands of claims for reimbursement from drivers who say they were victims of the scam.

Franzini said: “Safety controls cannot be transformed into a form of taxation.”

How sweet and innocent, although I do admire his honesty, for which motorists everywhere must be thankful.  Those in Houston would dearly love Franzini aboard the city’s police department.

Houston Police Department has been accused of trying to influence the outcome of a city-commissioned study into traffic-light cameras by changing how crashes at intersections with red-light cameras were counted, according to documents included in a lawsuit.

The police department’s request was refused by the study’s authors, however, who concluded the number of accidents at 50 intersections with the cameras had increased, not decreased as city officials expected, documents say.

Attorneys fighting to end Houston’s two-year-old red-light camera program seized on the documents as evidence the study was tainted by a purposefully skewed methodology.

Lawyer Randall Kallinen said: “As in other cities, the red-light camera system in Houston is increasing accidents. This is very dangerous for the public, and we must end the red-light camera experiment.”

City officials and Rice University political science Professor Robert Stein, one of the study’s main authors, contend the Houston Police Department’s requests were part of an ordinary back-and-forth about how best to examine the efficacy of red-light cameras and not a conspiracy to deliver false data.

Stein acknowledged that the cameras are not working in Houston as well as he believes they have been shown to work in other cities and said the city and critics should be more concerned about why.

“Why are these crashes going up at these intersections?” Stein said. “Nobody really cares to get at the truth here. Cars are being damaged, people are being injured and a handful of people are dying.”

Red-light cameras have been controversial in Houston since they were installed in September 2006. Critics say the primary purpose of the cameras is generating revenue, not reducing accidents.

Mayor Bill White has argued that the cameras have made Houston safer, noting that red-light running citywide has gone down 40 percent since the cameras were installed.

The devices photograph license plates of drivers who run red lights, and a city contractor sends the registered owners $75 tickets in the mail.

Seventy cameras installed at 50 intersections have produced more than 400,000 civil citations and more than $21 million in revenue.

[Based on reports by The Independent and Houston Chronicle.]

Exxon Mobil reports record $45.2bn profit

By Calvin Palmer

Exxon Mobil Corp., headquartered in Irving, Texas, today reported a record $45.2 billion profit for 2008.  But an indication of tougher times ahead came with a 33 percent fall in earnings for the fourth-quarter compared to a year ago.

The massive full-year profit, a record of a U.S. company, was no big surprise with crude peaking at $150 barrel in July. Since then prices have fallen, in the fourth quarter alone they tumbled 60 percent, prompting spending and job cuts.

Exxon Mobil’s net income slid sharply to $7.8 billion in the October-December period compared with $11.7 billion in the same period a year ago, when it set a U.S. record for quarterly profit.

Revenue in the most-recent quarter fell 27 percent to $84.7 billion.

As expected, Exxon Mobil’s bottom line took a beating from its exploration and production, or upstream, arm, where net income fell 31 percent to $5.6 billion. The culprit: lower crude prices, which the company said decreased earnings by $3.2 billion in the fourth quarter alone.

The company, which produces about 3 percent of the world’s oil, said overall output fell 3 percent in the most-recent period, a troubling trend in previous quarters. Exxon, which generates more than two-thirds of its earnings from oil and gas production, said production-sharing contracts and OPEC quotas contributed to its lower output.

Results were better at its refining and marketing unit, where earnings rose 6 percent to $2.4 billion as higher margins overcame costs related to last summer’s hurricanes and other factors.

The company’s chemical division also took a hit, posting net income of $155 million versus $1.1 billion a year ago. Results were hurt by lower volumes and margins and hurricane-repair costs.

Exxon Mobil said it bought 119 million shares of its common stock in the quarter at a cost of $8.8 billion. Roughly $8 billion of that amount was dedicated to reducing the number of shares outstanding; the balance was used to offset shares issued as part of the company’s benefit plans.

Exxon said it spent $26.1 billion on capital and exploration projects last year, up 25 percent from 2007. Its earnings release provided no information about its planned spending for 2009.

[Based on a report by Associated Press.]

Mother of octuplets already has six children

By Calvin Palmer

The southern Californian woman who gave birth to octuplets on Monday already has six children, her mother revealed yesterday.

Angela Suleman said her daughter, whose identity still remains uknown, never expected the fertility treatment would result in eight more babies.

“They all happened to take,” said Suleman, acknowledging that raising 14 children will be big challenge for her daughter.

Suleman said things would be difficult for her daughter because her husband was returning to Iraq, where he works as a contractor.

The mother of the octuplets lives on a cul-de-sac in Whittier. Neighbors said she and her six children — ages seven, six, five, three and two-year-old twins live there with her mother.

Suleman said that when her daughter discovered that she was expecting multiple babies, doctors gave her the option of selectively reducing the number of embryos, but she declined.

“What do you suggest she should have done?” Suleman said. “She refused to have them killed. “That is a very painful thing.”

Although the successful births at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower have received worldwide attention, they also have prompted disapproval from some medical ethicists and fertility specialists, who argue that high-number multiple births endanger the mother and also frequently lead to long-term health and developmental problems for the children.

Under the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, U.S. doctors normally would not implant more than two embryos at a time in a woman under the age of 35. After that age it is more difficult to become pregnant. The mother of the octuplets is believed to be 33, based on public records.

At a news conference yesterday, hospital officials said the woman came to Kaiser already in her 12th week of pregnancy. They did not say where she received the fertility treatment.

Dr. Harold Henry, a member of the delivery team, said doctors counseled her regarding the options and risks — among them aborting some of the fetuses.

“Our goal is to provide the best possible care, no matter what the situation or circumstances are,” Henry said. “What I do is just explain the facts. I always talk about the risks. The mother weighs those options, and she chooses the option based on spiritual or personal makeup.

Doctors and nurses, who had planned for the births for months, were expecting to deliver seven babies but discovered the eighth during the Caesarean section delivery, which took only five minutes to deliver all eight.

The babies have been assigned the letters A to H in the order of their birth.

Seven are breathing without assistance, while Baby G is still receiving oxygen by nasal tube.

The births marked only the second time that octuplets had been successfully delivered in the United States.

Dr. Karen Maples read a statement from the mother: “We understand that you are all curious about the arrival of the octuplets, and we appreciate your respect for our family’s privacy. Please know in our own time, we will share additional details about this miraculous experience.

“The babies continue to grow strong every day and make good progress. My family and I are ecstatic about their arrival. Needless to say, the eighth was a surprise to us all, but a blessing as well. We thank all of you for the positive thoughts, prayers and generosity.”

The mother is already receiving gift baskets, sealed envelopes and flowers, officials at Kaiser Permanente said.
 
[Based on reports by the Los Angeles Times and The Guardian.]

Man threatened staff of international bank over investment losses

By Calvin Palmer

A 60-year-old man from Stamford, Connecticut, yesterday pleaded guilty in federal court to threatening employees of an international bank after his investments fell in value.

Stephen Montalvo, of Washington Blvd., admitted to telephoning the September 30 threat, which was recorded on an answering machine of an HSBC employee.

“I’ll walk in that office with a gun, I swear to God,” Montalvo admitted being recorded saying. “I don’t care anymore, they stole my money … They’re playing me and I don’t like to be played.”

The threat came after Montalvo lost $60,000 to $70,000 on his $1.2 million investment portfolio between April and August.

Prosecutors said the threat was also witnessed by Fidelty Investment personnel from whose office Montalvo made the call.

Montalvo had transferred his investments from Charles Schwab to HSBC and seen their value fall. He then had HSBC transfer the remaining bond and stock investments to Fidelity. Most of the funds had been transferred by August 19.

Two days later when Montalvo discovered all the money had not been moved, he entered the HSBC branch and accused them of stealing his money. Stamford police were called to remove him.

The charge, which maintains Montalvo threatened to kill, injure or intimidate HSBC employees, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The federal sentencing guidelines recommend, however, that Montalvo receive no more than a year in prison.

Sentencing is set for April 17.

Montalvo remains free on $250,000 bail but he has been ordered to stay away from the HSBC branch on Broad Street, Stamford.

He told the court that he is undergoing counseling, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings daily and hoping to receive psychiatric treatment.

[Based on reports by the Connecticut Post and newsday.com.]

Former Texas sheriff forced arrested woman to perform sex act

By Calvin Palmer

A former North Texas sheriff pleaded guilty in federal court today to sexually assaulting a woman, telling her sex was the only way to avoid going to jail for drug possession.

Former Montague County Sheriff Bill Keating, 62, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He will be sentenced in May for the civil rights violation.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert K. Roach did not detain Keating, saying he did not pose harm to the community and wasn’t a flight risk because of his family ties to the area. But Roach ordered Keating, who recently surrendered his Texas peace officer’s license, to hand over his weapons and meet other conditions.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Calvert said after the hearing that the case “can and should serve as a wake-up call to all individuals who hold positions of trust.”

In the signed plea documents, Keating admitted to forcing the woman to perform a sex act after he and deputies went to her house to arrest her boyfriend in November.

According to court documents, Keating and deputies found items commonly used in methamphetamine-manufacturing, and also a container with what appeared to be traces of meth on it.

Deputies arrested a man on a warrant, removing him from a bedroom he shared with his girlfriend. Once the sheriff was alone with the female, identified only as L.M., behind the closed bedroom door, he told her she would need to “assist” him to avoid going to jail.

He took her to his personal vehicle and drove to a secluded location in Montague County, where he unzipped his pants and told her to perform oral sex. He grabbed the back of her neck, and pushed her head into his lap, causing pain.

The one-term sheriff was defeated in a runoff after the March primary election, and the assault took place before his replacement was sworn in.

Keating and some jail personnel also face state charges related to having sex with inmates and taking illegal substances into the jail, Montague County District Attorney Jack McGaughey said.

The cases will be present cases to a grand jury in February. McGaughey said he also plans to pursue state charges against the former sheriff.

“I would like to have the public know everything that was involved here,” McGaughey said. “I would like to see the full picture emerge.”

[Based on reports by Associated Press and Times Record News.]