I guess the cop decided that Kenyatta was demographically easy to push around and told Kenyatta that he must have stolen the gaming console.

Excuse me?

Even after running the serial numbers on the Xbox produced no records of it being stolen, the cop confiscated it anyway, saying that it might not be reported as stolen yet. Yet.

I say “yet” because when Kenyatta showed up at the police station with receipt in hand, the Xbox was no where to be found.

I’d say it was stolen alright, but not by Kenyatta. Someone acting under the authority of the law was able to walk away with his property, scot free, and he could do nothing about it.

I’ve got to disagree, especially when the danger is coming from none other than the people in charge of guarding them. This abuse of power is disgusting.

In this story, a y0ung woman, Michelle Ortiz confined in the Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) for a sentence of one year  found out first hand how little rights she actually held. While in the ORW, a male guard advanced his unwanted attentions on her, fondled her, and threatened her saying, “I’ll get you tomorrow, watch.”

Later he returned while she was sleeping and raped her.

Ortiz reported the abuse to prison official Paula Jordan, who did nothing about the earlier incident with the male guard. This was before he raped her. After that horrible night, Ortiz was punished for her complaints of the abuse. She was handcuffed and put in solitary confinement. Rebecca Bright, another prison official, was the one to order the confinement, saying that Ortiz was talking to the other inmates about the abuse.

This behaviour by the ORW guards and officials is absolutely inexcusable. And the horrible thing is that this incident is in no way unique. Across the country, prison guards take advantage of their positions of power over the inmates. I guess they figure that just because these people have made grave mistakes in their lives and ended up in prison gives them the right to abuse or use them however they see fit.

Not so.

Even though I have used a female inmate as my example, no prisoner – male or female – is safe from these abuses. In many cases, the guards harm merely by doing nothing. How many inmates have abused each other under the watchful eye of guards that do nothing to stop it?

These people need to own up to their behaviour, and their colleagues need to stop covering for them.

Wait, she was punished for doing the right thing?

So how do you get suspended for adhering to school rules? Rachael Greer was in the locker room before her fifth-period gym class, when a fellow student walked in with a bag of pills. The other girl put one in Rachael’s hand. However, Rachael turned the offer of drugs down, saying “I don’t want this.” and putting the pill back into the bag. She then proceeded to go to gym class.

That should have been the end of the story for Rachael. However, during her next class, the assistant principal came and took her to the office. She told Rachael that the other girls had been caught. Rachael gave an honest statement regarding what she knew, but soon enough the hammer came down on her.

For merely handling the drug, even to return it to its illicit user, she was suspended from the school for 5 days.

According to Greater Clark County Schools district policy, even a touch equals drug possession and a one week suspension.

“The fact of the matter is, there were drugs on school campus and it was handled, so there was a violation of our policy,” said Martin Bell, COO of Greater Clark County Schools.

Despite what the school thinks, Rachael’s mother Patty is proud of her daughter.

“I’m proud her conscience kicked in and she said, ‘No, I’m not taking this. Here you can have it back,’” Patty Greer said.

Now what would have happened if Rachael had been a little more responsible and gone straight to the principal to report the incident right away?

According to Martin Bell, the “punishment would not have been any different” and that they need to be strict with their drug policies to be taken seriously.

Really?

Now how does adhering to this policy help anyone? I’m thinking the lesson learned was that Rachael should have lied. Instead of rewarding her honesty and strong will to stand up to hers peers while under pressure, she was punished for her troubles. When a kid will be punished for doing the right thing, then why bother? Just lie and avoid whole thing.

Is that the attitude we want to be teaching our children? Of course not. Good, honest behaviour should always be rewarded. Here’s hoping Rachael’s parents have an opportunity to reward their daughter during this week off from school. I’m sure they can do much better.

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.