But it gets better for our sauced politician. Ashburn has made a name for himself in the GOP for his staunch views on family values – bitterly opposing the gay rights movement. And that morning he was spotted leaving  the known gay club Faces. With another man.

Riiiiight.

So have we established a pattern yet? At this point, I’m going to starting outing every Republican who loudly opposes gay rights. I mean, if he protests against it, doesn’t mean he is gay?

Now don’t get me wrong. I, myself, don’t care what a person chooses to do on their own, private time. But these people up on capitol hill make a big stink over a private matter, and potentially causing real heartache to innocent people wanting to just live their lives, only to have it revealed that they themselves are shooting a hole into their own boat. It’s hypocritical behaviour, and it’s wrong.

She and a few friends standing on a sidewalk discussing an upcoming funeral when the police officer stopped and asked them to move. Given the fact that 60 year-old women aren’t the usual suspects when it comes to disturbing the peace (with talk of a funeral, no less), Minnie Carey asked why they were required to move. Instead of calmly explaining his reasoning for the order (which I highly doubt would have been reasonable), officer Brandy Dolson slapped handcuffs on her, threw in the back of a paddy wagon and hauled her off to jail, where she sat for a total of 9 hours.

Carey met three friends on the sidewalk outside the Boulevard Lotto convenience store mid-afternoon last March 26, and for a few moments they talked about upcoming services for a friend who had died after she was hit by a car in front of the store where they were standing.

Dolson and his partner pulled up and told the four women to “move it.”

All agreed that the women were not blocking the sidewalk and that the women were the only people on the sidewalk.

Three women started walking away but Carey didn’t, asking “why” instead.

An account given by Dolson’s partner, Jamie Nelson,  was that Carey “yelled ‘why’ with a loud manner and refused to leave after we instructed her several times to do so.”

Carey and one of the women with her, 56-year-old Diane Ward, told the AJC there was no shouting.

All the same, Dolson’s answer to Carey’s question was “because I said so,” according to the file.

“I’m a citizen and I’m a taxpayer and I have a right to be here. I’m merely trying to find out about a sister’s funeral,” Carey responded, according to records.

That’s when Carey was handcuffed, her hands behind her back, and put into the back of the patrol car – the only time she has been arrested in the 15 years she has lived in Atlanta.

Forty-five minutes later she was moved to a police van with the doors closed despite the heat, where she waited another 45 minutes with others accused of violating city ordinances.

“I was very upset and very angry. Here I am being treated as if I’m not a human, not a citizen of this country,” Carey said in an interview. “I was in this little hot box. There was no air. I was perspiring so much my glasses were sliding off my face.”

On her signature, Carey was released from the city jail around 12:30 a.m. the next day. She took a taxi home to her apartment on Boulevard.

Carey, a diabetic, had gone without food until she got home hours later. She said the handcuffs caused her hands to swell.

Carey had three court dates – the first time her case was not heard because there was no prosecutor and the second and third times it was not heard because Dolson was not in court.

The disorderly conduct charge was dismissed at the third court hearing, she said. (source)

Now if that is not an example of an officer drunk off his power, then I don’t know what is. Obviously this guy wanted to push some people around that day, and Carey’s “insolence” of asking “why” was his perfect excuse.

So I’m not exactly sure who Warner Bros. thinks they are, but they sure have put popular movie rental services such as NetFlix and Redbox between a rock and a hard place. Lately the movie giant has gotten the crazy idea into their corporate money-grubbing heads that if they delay rentals, they will make more money on DVD sales.

Sound logic….?

Of course the next step would be to muscle the two biggest rental services in the country – Netflix and Redbox – into not renting new releases until nearly a month after they’ve been released. 28 days to be exact. Only an eternity in the world of sales.

The crazy behind this rental raping plan is the thought that the public will purchase the movie if it is unavailable to rent immediately after release.  Because I’ll just have to see the DVD release of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore the instant it hits the shelves.

Puh-leez.

In the end, this only hurts the rental business (and most likely cause deep, irreparable resentment) and makes zero difference on DVD sales. People aren’t completely retarded (Warner Bros excluded). They’ll just wait the 28 days to rent – or more likely, and more painfully for Warner,  just download it off Pirate Bay. I don’t think that the delay will cause people to go buy more DVDs.

This is how it works: I either liked The Dark Knight enough to convince myself that the outrageous DVD cost it worth it, or I watch it occasionally by some other means. Period. I’m not going to buy a movie I didn’t care for just because I can’t rent it immediately.

Not happening.

The employee was caught giving friends a break on the bottom line when requesting a cheeseburger. Instead of charging the more expensive price to her friend, she rang up a cheaper hamburger.

And was quickly fired.

Of course the matter went to court, where common consensus is agreeing that a dismissal from her job was incredible overkill for such a simple matter as a slice of cheese. The court ordered the fast food franchise to pay the remaining salary the employee had contracted for, in addition to the court costs.

Men in Black's Rip Torn arrested for a bank break-in.

Having always liked Rip Torn as an actor, I’m quite disappointed that he managed to find a spot on this site.

Disappointed indeed.

Torn was arrested Saturday the 30th for breaking into a local bank in his current town of Salisbury, Conn. The police arresting him described the whole incident as “booze inspired”.

The banks alarm went off at 9:40 pm and when the cops arrived they found Torn drunk as a skunk and carrying a loaded revolver.

Not a smart idea, Rip.

Torn has landed himself in a heap of trouble with this stunt. Among the many charges brought against him are “carrying a firearm while intoxicated, carrying a pistol without a permit, first-degree criminal trespass, first-degree burglary, and third-degree criminal mischief.”

Evidently this isn’t the first time Torn has had trouble mixing the law with a dash of alcohol. He has been busted several times for operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

Oh, did I mention that her license wasn’t really suspended and that she was wrongfully imprisoned?

And the wrongs don’t just stop at her being wrongfully arrested. This poor woman had her justice system fail her at every opportunity.

From the initial arrest, to two assistant public defenders who didn’t do their job of representing her during her initial appearance,  to a judge who didn’t even bother to look up from his papers when addressing a group of defendants. and also her unlawful time spent in jail.

County Court Judge, Lee J. Seidman had enough of this and quickly had her released from her “sentence”.

“She’s handcuffed like Houdini, for the record. She’s got chains around her waist, and she’s got handcuffs in front around her hands as if she was some kind of a violent criminal,” “I want her released. I think she’s suffered enough at our system’s mistakes.” said Judge Seidman, according to the court transcript.

Source Article (Newsflavor)

Edwards confirmed this in a statement released to The Associated Press Thursday, after initially denying that he’d fathered a child during his affair with the videographer, Reille Hunter.

“I am Quinn’s father,” the former senator declared in his statement, as the second birthday of Frances Quinn Hunter approaches.

A former Edwards aide, Andrew Young, initially claimed paternity of the child shortly before the 2008 presidential primary contests began. Young is scheduled to release a book on Feb. 2 that details the scandal.

Frances was born Feb. 27, 2008, indicating that the child was conceived in the middle of 2007, several months after Hunter stopped working for Edwards. John and Elizabeth Edwards renewed their wedding vows in July of 2007 to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. (NPR)

Something I do find surprising is his wife, Elizabeth, saying that she was ‘relieved’ to hear his admission. That’s not a statement you hear often after a husband admits infidelity – especially from his wife.  Of course, she’s been surprisingly understanding thus far. By understanding, I mean, she hasn’t dumped his cheating self on the curb yet. I hear that they are seperated, but I also haven’t heard any divorce plans either.

This information is not new, nor fun. But when it comes to something as serious as bankruptcy or foreclosure, we’d like to think that the bank would take measures to perform their duties as accurately as possible.

We’d like to think.

But just ask Dr. Alan Schroit. The retired professor returned to his vacation house to discover the power shut off, the locks changed, and 75 pounds of salmon spoiling.

Schroit, his wife and some friends arrived at the house Oct. 31 to prepare for about 30 guests to arrive the next day for a party, Schroit said.

When Schroit’s wife tried to unlock the door, the key wouldn’t work, he said. They noticed a poster with the message that the house had been seized by Bank of America in a foreclosure.

“We have nothing to do with Bank of America,” Schroit said.

Schroit called an emergency number on the poster and got a recording advising him to call back during normal office hours during the week, he said.

Schroit said he suspects the bank was really after a house with the same address number on the next street.

Agents working for Bank of America cut off power to the property by turning off the main switch in the lower part of the house, according to the lawsuit. They also changed the locks, so Schroit was unable to reach the switch to turn the power back on, according to the lawsuit.

The Schroits called the police and finally managed to get into the top part of their house, only to be hit by an “overpowering putrid smell of rotten fish,” according to the lawsuit.

The power had been off for about a week, Schroit said.

The Schroits had planned to grill some of the fish for the party.

“It was the most unbearable stench,” Schroit said. “It was so unbearable the police officer asked if we could leave the house so he could take the report; it was absolutely horrible, a gooey mess.”

The Schroits returned to Houston and told people they had invited that the party had been canceled.

“The property sustained water damage, potential mold contamination arising from the standing freezer residue, water, heat and high humidity conditions during the time the electrical power was off,” according to the lawsuit.

Schroit said he kept doors and windows open for days to try to rid the house of the foul odor. Cleanup efforts were substantial, he said.

The floors had to be cleaned, as did the joists of a lower-level ceiling, through which fish blood seeped, and some painting had to done to get the house back to a “preinvasion” state, according to the lawsuit.

Although Bank of America said it would investigate, it did not aid the Schroits, according to the lawsuit.

Schroit currently has a lawsuit pending against Bank of America.

And what is sad is that this isn’t the first time for this to happen with the big banking firm.  A Kentucky man with no mortgages under Bank of America came home to find his locks changed. In his case, Bank of America refused to pay any damages to the property – the only exception was that they did pay for the changed locks.

Bank of America really needs to man up in these cases. If they can’t handle seizing the correct property, then they owe it to the rightful owners to pay for every scrap of damage sustained by the wrongful seizure. And then feel lucky that they aren’t being sued for the outrageous inconvenience sustained by said owners.

But I guess they just want to be jerks about their own mistakes.

People quickly learned that they could offer help by simply texting the word “HAITI” to 90999 in order to donate $10 towards a recovery fund.  As of yesterday, organizations such as American Red Cross and Yele Haiti Foundation had raised over one million dollars to help the island and its people through this remarkable, and widespread method, of text donations.  In fact, the overwhelming success of this venture has encouraged the charity organizations to use this method more in the future.

That’s fantastic! It’s wonderful that the American people could band together to help people in the midst of a natural disaster.

Of course, I don’t write this blog to talk about successful charities and good organizations. So, why am I talking about the Haiti earthquake disaster and text donations?

Because out of the “big four” wireless carriers, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, only AT&T didn’t feel charitable enough to waive text messaging fees to their big hearted customers who donated to the cause. All the other chose to support the donations.

“It’s a way we support non-profits who are tipping their toes into the mobile giving water,” said Jeffrey Nelson, Verizon Wireless spokesperson. T-Mobile was in on the giving: Amanda Ginther, spokeswoman for T-Mobile said that the texts “will not draw down on a messaging plan, and customers without a messaging plan, will not be charged for the text.”

However, customers of AT&T can expect no encouragement from their carrier. In their case, “Standard text-messaging rates “may apply”.

Thanks AT&T. Your company is so giving.

The women in the town were getting nervous after repeated incidents of burglary swept through the seaside town. And who wouldn’t be creeped out if your neighbor just had her underwear stolen right out of its drawer?

Stafford was pinned after one concerned lady took it upon herself to set up a hidden camera in her bedroom.

The 58 year-old mayor soon resigned after his arrest.