Heroin seized in Waterville

WATERVILLE -- A Connecticut man who showed up Wednesday at District Court to face an assault charge was arrested by police in connection with heroin found last month near the Head Start school in the South End.

As an added bonus, police said, Darryl Copeland, 25, of Hartford, had 98 bags of heroin on him Wednesday, adding new, more serious charges.

Police had been waiting for Copeland to return, Deputy Chief Charles Rumsey said.

Nine packets of Blue Magic heroin were found March 4 behind the Kennebec Valley Community Action Program building.

Police said the discovery could have saved the life of a child who might have found the pretty packets and tasted the contents.

"It didn't take us very long to discover that the night prior to that heroin being discovered, Waterville police had actually detained Mr. Copeland right there on that corner for suspicion of an assault that had taken place in a cab," Rumsey said.

Copeland was interviewed and issued a summons to appear in court related to a fight that allegedly took place in the cab that night.

"His court date was today," Rumsey said.

He said investigators "put two and two together" after realizing that police had spoken to Copeland near where the heroin had been found.

Police ran Copeland's name and found he had arrests and convictions in Connecticut in 2002 for possession and sale of heroin, Rumsey said. A search warrant for Copeland and the vehicle in which he was a passenger was secured and police waited for the court date to arrive.

"When he came back up to Waterville for his court appearance today, we were watching and waiting for him," Rumsey said. "When he left the courthouse this afternoon Detective Chris Paradis and Office Dwayne Cloutier and a number of other police officers tailed him in the vehicle he was in from the courthouse down to the South End."

The car was parked near The Chez on Water Street, where police converged on the vehicle and searched Copeland and the car.

"In his right front pocket officers located 10 bundles of heroin -- there was 98 bags of heroin -- they are usually bundled 10 bags to a bundle," he said. "All marked Blue Magic and all packaged the very same way as the heroin that was recovered by KVCAP, which is a very unusual method of packaging heroin. We haven't seen it like this before."

He said the heroin is packaged in small glassine bags and stamped Blue Magic, then are encapsulated in black plastic, almost like a bubble pack.

Each bag is about one-tenth of a gram and sells for $25-30. Ten bags make up one gram of heroin. Copeland is charged with aggravated trafficking in heroin, a Class A felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison for the 98 bags seized Wednesday. The charge is aggravated by the amount of heroin -- valued at about $3,000 -- and by its proximity to the Head Start school and the alternative education school on Silver Street, Rumsey said. He is charged additionally with possession of about three grams of cocaine and prescription pills. The charge related to the March 4 heroin case is Class B felony, furnishing drugs, punishable by up to 10 years. The charge is not aggravated further due to the relatively small quantity of drugs -- nine bags -- in that case, according to Rumsey said.

Bail was set at $31,500 cash.

Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey said he was pleased with the resolution of the case. He said heroin found within 20 feet of any school touches a nerve.

"Officers Paradis and Cloutier have done a lot of work over the last month on this particular case and it all came together for them today," Massey said. "In addition, patrol officers were instrumental in being kind of the eyes and ears, relaying information to them as to what they were looking for -- how and who to identify when he came back to the city.

"What I like is the good, consistent effort to get drugs off the street, to arrest drug dealers and I think it's working," he said.

Copeland is scheduled to appear in Kennebec County Superior Court on July 8, but his initial appearance could be sometime this week.

Quoted from http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/4952592.html:

Heroin seized in Waterville

Technorati Tags: Justice,Maine,Sad

Fire officials seek ban of novelty lighters

By Morning Sentinel Staff

The State Fire Marshal's Office will hold a news conference Tuesday to support a ban of the sale of novelty cigarette lighters in Maine, according to the Department of Public safety.

A collection of novelty lighters was purchased at Maine stores during the past year.

Some emit a flame four inches high, and adults and children have been burned using them, department spokesman Stephen McCausland reported Friday.

The news conference will take place in the Statehouse, Hall of Flags, at 2:30 p.m.

Quoted from http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/4671857.html:

Fire officials seek ban of novelty lighters

Technorati Tags: Lame,Maine,Sad

Officer Helps Stranded Motorist, Then Arrests Him

 

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- A Portsmouth police officer helped a stranded motorist get his car started, then arrested the driver for marijuana the officer said he found in the car.

Patrick Kimball, 21, of Eliot, Maine, pleaded guilty on Monday to two misdemeanor counts of drug possession. Prosecutors said that in November, an officer helped Kimball pour gas into his car, then got in and helped start it up.

While in the car, the officer said he saw a bag of marijuana in plain view. Police said several more bags were found in a later search of the car and of Kimball.

Prosecutors asked for a one-year jail sentence with six months suspended. A sentencing hearing will be held in one month.

Officer Helps Stranded Motorist, Then Arrests Him - Portland News Story - WMTW Portland

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Atheist Files Discrimination Suit Against Wal-Mart

SANFORD, Maine -- A Lebanon man said he was fired from Wal-Mart for refusing to dress up as Santa Claus.

Christopher Nolan, 27, claimed he was asked to dress as Santa last month at the Sanford Wal-Mart but would not, saying he was an atheist and didn’t believe in Christmas.

Nolan has filed a discrimination claim against the store with the Maine Human Rights Commission.

The commission’s investigation into the allegation could take as long as two years.

Quoted from http://www.wmtw.com/news/14971563/detail.html:

Atheist Files Discrimination Suit Against Wal-Mart - Portland News Story - WMTW Portland

Technorati Tags: Lame,Maine,Sad,Walmart

'Beer fridges' present a gassy problem

Getting rid of vintage “beer fridges” – secondary fridges which many North American and Australian homes boast – could have a significant impact on household greenhouse gas emissions, suggests a new study.

Beer fridges are additional fridges that are generally used to keep beer and other drinks cold on top of a household’s primary fridge for food. One in three Canadian households has a second fridge, many of which are ageing, energy-guzzling models, according to Denise Young, a researcher at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Young suggests that getting rid of older models, in Canada at least, would have an impact on energy usage. Her study analyses industry data and the results of a national survey to look at the environmental effects of having beer fridges in Canada.

"People need to understand the impact of their lifestyles," says Joanna Yarrow, director of Beyond Green, a sustainable development consultancy in the UK. "Clearly the environmental implications of having a frivolous luxury like a beer fridge are not hitting home. This research helps inform people – let's hope it has an effect".

 

High demands

The survey that Young analysed was commissioned by Natural Resources Canada and suggests that 30% of households have two or more refrigerators. About 20% of secondary fridges are older models that are kept after the household buys a newer model as their primary refrigerator.

Having a second fridge for cooling drinks means more demand for electricity, and this demand is even worse when the second fridge is an older model.

The Canadian Appliance Manufacturers Association estimates that typical 1985 refrigerator models use 1060 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy per year, while a 1975 model uses 1580 kWh per year. In contrast, more recent and energy-efficient models can use as little as 380 kWh per year.

The survey shows that in 2003 about 65% of beer fridges were more than 10 years old. About 30% were at least twice that age.

Using the survey's information on the distribution of beer fridges and the data on energy consumption, Young calculated that the 65% of beer fridges that are 10 years or older consume 1165.7 million kWh of energy each year – roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of 100,000 average US suburban homes.

By abandoning beer fridges altogether, Canada's 11.5 million households could save 3500 million kWh each year, says Young.

 

Class divide

Young also found that low-income families were less likely to retire their old refrigerators to the garage to store drinks after buying a new model. She says this is probably because these households find the cost of running an additional fridge (up to $150 per year) too high.

She concludes that middle- to high-income families should be targeted by campaigns to remove old secondary refrigerators. Existing schemes encourage people to buy new more energy-efficient fridges by offering financial bonuses for each purchase – sometimes with a cash-back offer for handing in older fridges.

Young warns, however, that "these financial incentives may also induce a household to purchase a new unit earlier than they would have otherwise done so", which can actually encourage people to keep a second fridge.

Instead, Young supports government-run "round-ups" offering to pick up and dispose of old refrigerators. A 2006 study commissioned by the Ontario Power Authority showed that such programmes have been successful in the past, especially when they are boosted by information on how much money and energy can be saved by getting rid of the beer fridge.

But environmental effect of beer fridges depends on the source of electricity. "In Canada, there are major regional differences," notes Young. "In places where hydroelectric power is used, the greenhouse gas emissions are negligible. In places where coal or natural gas are used, the impacts can be substantial."

She calculates that a 1975 fridge in British Columbia – where most electricity comes from hydropower – is responsible for a negligible increase in emissions. But the same fridge in Alberta, where electricity is primarily generated from natural gas and coal, would be responsible for 1.4 tons of greenhouse gases every year.

 

Quoted from http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12975-beer-fridges-present-a-gassy-problem.html:

'Beer fridges' present a gassy problem - earth - 28 November 2007 - New Scientist Environment

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School officials unite in banning Wikipedia

By Lynn Olanoff

Express-Times (Easton, Pa)

EASTON, Pa. — Linda O'Connor regards Wikipedia the same way former first lady Nancy Reagan campaigned against drugs.

She urges people to "Just Say No."

The Great Meadows (N.J.) Middle School librarian hasn't been a fan of the online encyclopedia for years. This fall, she decided it was time to make others at her school aware of the Web site's pitfalls.

She put up a sign saying "Just Say 'No' to Wikipedia" over the computers in the school library.

Several other school officials feel similarly about the Web site. Wikipedia is blocked on all computers in the Warren Hills Regional School District.

Some teachers at Easton Area High School discourage its use, as do officials at Centenary College and Lehigh University.

"We don't see it as an authoritative source," said Nancy Madasci, Centenary's library director.

The problem with Wikipedia, the school officials said, is it can be modified by anyone. There have been many cases of incorrect information on the Web site, some of which has been biased.

Egregious errors

Warren Hills teachers and students have found at least two cases of incorrect information while using Wikipedia, said Dawn Moore, the high-school librarian. A teacher researching Martin Luther King Jr. found white supremacist information in his entry, she said. A student researching the Vietnam War found Wikipedia's casualty count far lower than the actual number of people killed in the conflict.

O'Connor said many of her students don't realize Wikipedia can contain inaccuracies.

"Kids just take it for gospel, they really do, and that's my concern about it," she said.

Wikipedia officials recognize the problems with using the Web site for research, said Sandra Ordonez, communications manager for Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group behind Wikipedia. The company does not recommend using the Web site as a primary research source, she said.

"Not a primary source"

"The best way to use Wikipedia is to get a global picture of a topic," Ordonez said. "It's not a primary source, and in college, you probably should not be citing an encyclopedia."

Wikipedia can lead researchers to primary sources, as much of the Web site's content comes from such sources, she said.

Several school officials agreed Wikipedia is good to get overviews of topics.

Greg Reihman, the Lehigh faculty development director, encourages students to use the Web site "to get a quick snapshot or an initial sense of views as they are commonly understood," according to university spokeswoman Dina Silver Pokedoff.

Many students use Wikipedia because it's often one of the first Web sites to come up on search engines, according to Kris Dumschat, a high-school senior.

He said his English teacher last year warned students against using the Web site because of inaccuracies. Dumschat said he's sure some of his classmates got points off their research papers for using wrong information from Wikipedia.

"It never happened to me; I stay away from it," he said.

Madasci, the Centenary librarian, said the college also has students who favor the Web site. She said some incoming freshmen have to undergo "Wiki-shock" to learn not to use Wikipedia.

"We've seen freshmen come in and need to be trained to do appropriate research," she said. "Students will gravitate toward what's easy."

 

Quoted from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2004025648_wikipedia21.html:

Living | School officials unite in banning Wikipedia | Seattle Times Newspaper

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Egg in nog? No joke, says Smiling Hill

BILL NEMITZ November 18, 2007

When your family owns and operates a place called Smiling Hill Farm, you tend to go through life with a grin. But last week, the best Warren Knight could manage was a grimace.

It started with a spot inspection from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration -- it happens every year or two at the Westbrook dairy farm and has never been a big deal.

But this time was different. Looking over a fresh batch of the Smiling Hill egg nog, the inspector did a double take: The bottle cap -- the only place on the otherwise all-glass container with any printing -- was out of federal compliance.

How so?

"Eggs were not listed as an ingredient," Knight recalled.

Egg, you see, is an allergen. As such, the inspector told Knight, it must be explicitly listed as an ingredient somewhere on the one-and-three-eighths-inch-wide cap.

"But the cap says 'Egg Nog!' " protested Knight.

Didn't matter.

"But we're limited by cap space," Knight persisted. What's more, they can't start slapping warning labels onto their reusable bottles without gumming up the bottle washer.

Not the feds' problem.

Then things turned really sour. The FDA notified the Maine Department of Agriculture that all Smiling Hill egg nog on store shelves -- about 400 gallons at that point -- had to be recalled to protect people with egg allergies who don't know there's egg in egg nog.

Enter, not a moment too soon, Ashley Slattery, Maine's dairy inspector.

"We really didn't want to do a recall," Slattery said Friday. Still, she added, the FDA wanted something on that cap "so the people would know egg nog contains eggs."

Umm ... wouldn't people already know that by the name of the product?

"You'd think so," Slattery said.

So here's the deal. No recall, but Knight agreed to have his label redesigned to include the ingredients and, in the meantime, affix a warning label to every bottle of egg nog that leaves his farm.

Knight headed for Staples Thursday and bought a bunch of red, one-inch-round labels. Then he fired up his computer and printed "WARNING Contains EGGS" twice on each one.

Then he and the rest of the family spent the day cutting each label in half and affixing the semi-circular warnings to the cap on each bottle -- being careful not to encroach on the bar code.

"Someday we're going to look back at this and laugh," chortled one of the workers.

Replied Knight, "Yeah, but it won't be tomorrow."

It's not that Knight has anything against enforcing food safety regulations.

"The health and safety of our customers is foremost," he said. "Since without them, we cease to exist."

But Knight checked with the National Institutes of Health and found that .05 percent of the U.S. population is allergic to eggs. And he has a strong hunch that every last one of those poor folks already knows that egg nog contains eggs.

So go ahead and chuckle. But if you're within earshot of Smiling Hill Farm, please do it quietly.

"Sometime after applying sticker number 783," said Knight, "this theater of the absurd stopped being funny."

Quoted from http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=148740&ac=PHnws:

Egg in nog? No joke, says Smiling Hill

Technorati Tags: Business,Lame,Laws,Maine,Sad,Weird

ADHD Drugs Have No Long Term Benefits

London (ECN) - Ritalin and other drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have no long term effectiveness, according to a new study which will be part of a BBC television special.

A long-term monitoring program involving 600 kids across the United States since the beginning of the 1990s will be shown in a TV program from BBC called 'Panorama' - with some of its results revealed.

Researchers found drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta do work well for short term, but no do offer improvement in a children's behaviour after three years.

The studies co-author from the University of Buffalo Professor William Pelhamsays, says he believes the beneficial impact of medication is exaggerated.

It had been thought that kids would have better outcomes if they were medicated for longer - however, it is not the case, there were no beneficial effects at all.

"I think that we exaggerated the beneficial impact of medication in the first study," Pelham told BBC. "We had thought that children medicated longer would have better outcomes. That didn't happen to be the case. In the short run (medication) will help the child behave better, in the long run it won't. And that information should be made very clear to parents."

The Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD study also found that these drugs may also stunt a child's growth, the BBC reported.

"The children (taking the medication) weren't growing as much as other kids both in terms of their height and in terms of their weight," the studies co-author from the University of Buffalo Professor WilliamPelham told BBC.

Pelham believes that behavioral therapy and Omega-3 should be the first steps in helping a child with ADHD.

 

Quoted from http://www.ecanadanow.com/news/health/adhd-drugs-have-no-long-term-benefits-20071112.html:

eCanadaNow.com - ADHD Drugs Have No Long Term Benefits

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Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally

By MATT RICHTEL Published: November 4, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone.

“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.

Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius.

“She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moly! Deliverance.”

As cellphone use has skyrocketed, making it hard to avoid hearing half a conversation in many public places, a small but growing band of rebels is turning to a blunt countermeasure: the cellphone jammer, a gadget that renders nearby mobile devices impotent.

The technology is not new, but overseas exporters of jammers say demand is rising and they are sending hundreds of them a month into the United States — prompting scrutiny from federal regulators and new concern last week from the cellphone industry. The buyers include owners of cafes and hair salons, hoteliers, public speakers, theater operators, bus drivers and, increasingly, commuters on public transportation.

The development is creating a battle for control of the airspace within earshot. And the damage is collateral. Insensitive talkers impose their racket on the defenseless, while jammers punish not just the offender, but also more discreet chatterers.

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”

The jamming technology works by sending out a radio signal so powerful that phones are overwhelmed and cannot communicate with cell towers. The range varies from several feet to several yards, and the devices cost from $50 to several hundred dollars. Larger models can be left on to create a no-call zone.

Using the jammers is illegal in the United States. The radio frequencies used by cellphone carriers are protected, just like those used by television and radio broadcasters.

The Federal Communication Commission says people who use cellphone jammers could be fined up to $11,000 for a first offense. Its enforcement bureau has prosecuted a handful of American companies for distributing the gadgets — and it also pursues their users.

Investigators from the F.C.C. and Verizon Wireless visited an upscale restaurant in Maryland over the last year, the restaurant owner said. The owner, who declined to be named, said he bought a powerful jammer for $1,000 because he was tired of his employees focusing on their phones rather than customers.

“I told them: put away your phones, put away your phones, put away your phones,” he said. They ignored him.

The owner said the F.C.C. investigator hung around for a week, using special equipment designed to detect jammers. But the owner had turned his off.

The Verizon investigator was similarly unsuccessful. “He went to everyone in town and gave them his number and said if they were having trouble, they should call him right away,” the owner said. He said he has since stopped using the jammer.

Of course, it would be harder to detect the use of smaller battery-operated jammers like those used by disgruntled commuters.

An F.C.C. spokesman, Clyde Ensslin, declined to comment on the issue or the case in Maryland.

Cellphone carriers pay tens of billions of dollars to lease frequencies from the government with an understanding that others will not interfere with their signals. And there are other costs on top of that. Verizon Wireless, for example, spends $6.5 billion a year to build and maintain its network.

“It’s counterintuitive that when the demand is clear and strong from wireless consumers for improved cell coverage, that these kinds of devices are finding a market,” said Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon spokesman. The carriers also raise a public safety issue: jammers could be used by criminals to stop people from communicating in an emergency.

In evidence of the intensifying debate over the devices, CTIA, the main cellular phone industry association, asked the F.C.C. on Friday to maintain the illegality of jamming and to continue to pursue violators. It said the move was a response to requests by two companies for permission to use jammers in specific situations, like in jails.

Individuals using jammers express some guilt about their sabotage, but some clearly have a prankster side, along with some mean-spirited cellphone schadenfreude. “Just watching those dumb teens at the mall get their calls dropped is worth it. Can you hear me now? NO! Good,” the purchaser of a jammer wrote last month in a review on a Web site called DealExtreme.

Gary, a therapist in Ohio who also declined to give his last name, citing the illegality of the devices, says jamming is necessary to do his job effectively. He runs group therapy sessions for sufferers of eating disorders. In one session, a woman’s confession was rudely interrupted.

“She was talking about sexual abuse,” Gary said. “Someone’s cellphone went off and they carried on a conversation.”

“There’s no etiquette,” he said. “It’s a pandemic.”

Gary said phone calls interrupted therapy all the time, despite a no-phones policy. Four months ago, he paid $200 for a jammer, which he placed surreptitiously on one side of the room. He tells patients that if they are expecting an emergency call, they should give out the front desk’s number. He has not told them about the jammer.

Gary bought his jammer from a Web site based in London called PhoneJammer.com. Victor McCormack, the site’s operator, says he ships roughly 400 jammers a month into the United States, up from 300 a year ago. Orders for holiday gifts, he said, have exceeded 2,000.

Kumaar Thakkar, who lives in Mumbai, India, and sells jammers online, said he exported 20 a month to the United States, twice as many as a year ago. Clients, he said, include owners of cafes and hair salons, and a New York school bus driver named Dan.

“The kids think they are sneaky by hiding low in the seats and using their phones,” Dan wrote in an e-mail message to Mr. Thakkar thanking him for selling the jammer. “Now the kids can’t figure out why their phones don’t work, but can’t ask because they will get in trouble! It’s fun to watch them try to get a signal.”

Andrew, the San Francisco-area architect, said using his jammer was initially fun, and then became a practical way to get some quiet on the train. Now he uses it more judiciously.

“At this point, just knowing I have the power to cut somebody off is satisfaction enough,” he said.

 

Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/technology/04jammer.html?_r=3&ei=5088&en=e80e8e8d2c6a9275&ex=1351828800&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all:

Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally - New York Times

Technorati Tags: Cell Phones,Scary,Sad

Man accused of guzzling at Wis. Wal-Mart

 

MUKWONAGO, Wis. - A man told police he couldn't help himself when he took seven bottles of a spiked lemonade drink from the shelf at a Wal-Mart Supercenter and drank them in the liquor aisle.

Police Chief Fred Winchowky said the 43-year-old town of Eagle man claimed he was a recovering alcoholic and had been dry for 16 months before he went to the store Oct. 14 with his wife, who was not aware of what he was doing.

"He went down that aisle and he said 'I just couldn't control myself,'" Winchowky said. "He stated he was upset he broke his 16-month streak and he didn't know how he was going to tell his wife."

The chief said security video caught the man drinking the 12-ounce bottles of Jack Daniels Lynchburg Lemonade over a 15-minute period. He placed the empty bottles back on the shelf.

Confronted by a store official, he first denied it but smelled of intoxicants, Winchowky said.

The man was cited for retail theft.

Man accused of guzzling at Wis. Wal-Mart - Yahoo! News

Technorati Tags: Funny , Sad , Wal-Mart , Weird

Police seek man after fight with sister in cat-shaving case

By Bangor Daily News Staff
Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

SWANVILLE, Maine— Police continue to be on the lookout for a local man who fled into the woods after getting into a fight with his younger sister over shaving the family cat.

State Trooper Luke Cunningham said police were searching for Nicholas Palmer, 22, of Stevens Road. Police were called to the family residence at 1 p.m. Monday after Palmer’s 18-year-old sister claimed he choked and struck her. Before police could arrive, Palmer escaped into the woods. Using two tracking dogs, separate teams of officers searched unsuccessfully for Palmer for about four hours.

Cunningham said the sibling altercation began when Palmer attempted to stop his sister from shaving the family cat. The sister thought shaving would rid the cat of fleas and ticks. According to the sister, when Palmer attempted to cut the cord of the clipper she was using she responded by kicking him. The kick caused Palmer to cut himself with the knife he was using to sever the cord and he responded by choking and pushing his sister. He ran off when she called 911, Cunningham said.

"We’re still on the lookout for him," Cunningham said Tuesday. "We definitely want to get his side of the story."

 

Quoted from http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=155692&zoneid=500:

Police seek man after fight with sister in cat-shaving case

 

Technorati Tags: Animals,Justice,Lame,Maine,Sad,Weird

"Vinegar Boy", as told by Aaron - Customers Suck!

 

Thursday, April 3

This is what happens when I swap work hours with the day shift - I get all their weirdoes!

About 2 pm today, in storms this woman who starts going totally apeshit at me and screaming incoherently while waving around a half-full bottle of malt vinegar.
I had no idea what she was on about and, before I could find out, the police arrived - but I hadn't called them!

Now, I know nearly every cop within fifty miles of my site (I call them all often enough), so when they come in, I greet them by name and they do the same back and tell me they've been called here because of allegations I've poisoned a small child.

Wuh?
The crazy lady identifies herself as the kid's parent and tells them I poisoned her lad. To avoid describing twenty minutes of ranting and gibbering on the woman's part, I'll cut right to the chase.

I had sold a 1L bottle of malt vinegar to a kid (about fifteen years old) that morning and he had taken the bottle home and drunk half of it - yes that's right, he had drunk vinegar. Of course, he got sick as a dog and "redecorated" the walls and floor of several rooms.

[No, I do not know why a teenager, who should be old enough to know better (and be at school too, for that matter) would drink half a litre of malt vinegar.]

At this point the cops and I exchange looks and one said, "Damn Aaron, and we all thought you had finally snapped." Ha ha. There's always a comedian.

The woman demanded that I be arrested, but the police weren't buying it now that they knew the situation. She eventually relented on her demands that I be be thrown in jail, but demanded an apology from me for "failing to tell her son not to drink vinegar."

I said, "I don't tell people not to stick the fuel nozzle up their nose and fill their brainpan with diesel either. And do you know why? Because most people aren't that stupid!"

End result: I refuse to apologize, and stand firm by my statements that her child is a moron. She demands apology, threatens to sue for slander, and promises to return tomorrow when the manager is here.

And I thought the loons only came out after dark
I'm curious to see what sort of reaction she'll get from my half-wit manager if she comes back. But knowing him, he'll probably apologize to her, and make a new rule that all staff will have to tell people not to chug-a-lug vinegar.

 

Monday, April 7

She came back in! This time she apparently brought both the vinegar-drinker and her husband.

I got the call from my manager around noon today after they had been in to see him. The story they gave him was, unsurprisingly, very different from how it happened.

In their revised version, the kid asked me whether or not you could drink vinegar and I said yes. However, since we now have cameras that record sound (I don't know how I ever got along without them!), the manager played back the transaction to them. Apparently she now claims we edited out the sound.

 
Despite all that, my worthless sack of shit manager caved in to them and apologized, and told me on the phone that he wanted me to write them a letter of apology.

THAT was never going to happen and, after an extended argument, with my manager using the "saying sorry does not mean you accept blame, it just means you're sorry" speech, he's decided to write one for me which he tells me I have to sign.

Well, that's never going to happen either. He can sign the damn thing himself if he wants, but there's no way I'll be apologizing to this stupid woman because of her stupid child.
So much for unwinding on my days off .

Tuesday, April 8

A lot of nasty stuff happened today.

My manager called me again today and told me to come in to work for a meeting. He wouldn't say why, but I guessed it was either about Vinegar Boy or the recent hassles we've been having with 'Sudsy', the drug dealer I had arrested, and his junky horde.

When I get in to work, I find my store manager (SM), the territory manager (TM), the stupid mother, and Vinegar Boy all there.

Can you spell 'ambush'? My manager can.

We go out to the back office, and my SM and the TM tell me off in front of the idiot family for failing to exercise due care in selling a fifteen year old boy a bottle of vinegar. The TM tells me to apologize immediately. I ask, for what should I apologize?

The stupid mother chose this moment to pipe up and screech, "I want you to say sorry for telling my son it was okay to drink vinegar - he could have DIED!"

I reply that I never did any such thing, and told her that her son was either grossly in error or a liar.

Both my SM and the TM again say to apologize - and now they want me to say sorry for calling the kid a liar. I say I have nothing to apologize for, and that I never told the kid it was okay to drink vinegar.

At this point I should point out that I managed to keep my temper under check for the entire time, even though I was extremely angry at being ambushed. I figured there was a time and a place to unleash it, and that it could wait for a little while.

Then the TM says that they know I did tell Vinegar Boy it was okay, they have it on film (technically, we have it on computer disk, but who's quibbling?). I ask to see the replay and if, from that viewing I am seen to tell the kid it is okay to drink vinegar, not only will I apologize, I will donate my last month's salary to the kid as restitution.

The mother goes off about how we edited the footage to remove my words and the manager started to get a bit shifty. The TM looked curious about all this, and I thought that if the TM really hadn't seen the footage, I might get out of this with my manager getting his lazy arse kicked right out of the company.

Silly me - like that was going to happen.

So, at the TM's insistence, we watch the footage and sure enough, all I say to the kid is to greet him, tell him the price, count him his change, and a goodbye as he leaves.

The TM looked pretty angry and glared at my SM, but said nothing. Nothing! He then repeats his demands to apologize.
I was floored by this. The TM saw I did nothing wrong, and still demanded I grovel to this sack of waste after he and my SM publicly abused me in front of her.

I refused to apologize (again!) and this time, demanded an apology from both the SM and TM for ambushing me, attempting to humiliate me in front of a proven liar and for trying to get me to apologize to Vinegar Boy and his mother.
The TM told me to apologize, or I would be suspended for a week and written up. I say, "Fine" and walk out with the stupid woman trailing me and gloating at how I got what I deserved. As I get to the door, the SM comes out and says, "If you walk out the door, don't bother to come back!"
I didn't even pause.

When I got home, I had nearly a dozen messages from work on my machine, but I deleted them without listening to them. I've now changed the message on my machine telling my ex-SM that anything he has to say to me can now be done through the union and to stop calling my number - of course he hasn't listened and has called me at least another fifty times since I got home.

When I had calmed down a bit, I called the site owner to see if he could take a look at what happened. The owner of my site is a totally cool guy, he's been in the fuel business since Henry Ford was a boy and is very clued-in. But as he's semi-retired now, it's pretty hard to get into contact with him. I did manage to catch his wife, so I explained things to her.

Tomorrow, I'm going to my union rep to see about suing those sons of bitches till they fucking bleed.

But right now, despite how angry I am at what happened, there's a big upswelling of sheer, unadulterated joy bubbling to the surface because I'm free of that damn craphole, and I'll be making my SM's and TM's life hell for as long and as hard as is humanly possible.

__________________

"Vinegar Boy", as told by Aaron - Customers Suck!

Technorati Tags: Business , Funny , Lame , Sad , Weird

52 cent doughnut may cost man 30 years to life

By Todd C. Frankel — ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

FARMINGTON, MO. — Shoplifters at Country Mart tend to favor cold medicines and packaged meats. They used to steal cigarettes, too, until tobacco was moved behind the counter. But the doughnuts were never a target for thieves.

Country Mart's doughnuts — fried fresh daily in the store — sell for just 52 cents each. That is why the "shoplifters will be prosecuted" signs are displayed in aisle 4 with the pricey pain and allergy pills, and not in aisle 5 beside the glass doughnut case with its tiger tails, jelly-filleds and eclairs.

Then one man's sweet tooth got the better of him. He stole a doughnut. A single doughnut.

Authorities called it strong-arm robbery. The "doughnut man," as the suspect is now known, faces five to 15 years in prison for his crime. And Farmington, a town of 14,000 people about 70 miles south of St. Louis, has been buzzing about it ever since. 

"That someone would take just a single doughnut, not something very expensive or extravagant, that's unique," supermarket assistant manager Gary Komar said, smiling.

Scott A. Masters, 41, is accused of shoplifting the pastry and pushing a store worker who tried to stop him. The worker was unhurt. But with that shove, his shoplifting turned into a strong-arm robbery. Masters, who appeared in court Friday, is stunned. The prosecutor shows no signs of backing down. In fact, because Masters has a prior record, he could get a sentence of 30 years to life.

Lanell Gibbs was there the day of the doughnut heist.

"That was a first," Gibbs, 68, said.

She has worked for 11 years as a cashier at Country Mart, a regional supermarket chain. Next to her register, she keeps a clipping from the local newspaper about the doughnut man's case. He was indicted just last month, although the theft took place in December. She likes to show the article to customers as she recounts the story.

It was about 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 6. The store was in a lull. Gibbs, who could see the doughnut case from her station, said she saw Masters slip the doughnut into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt.

She turned to a co-worker and said, "I saw him take a doughnut. Let's see if he pays for it."

They watched Masters as he strolled past the seven green checkout lanes and out a side door between the customer service desk and the pharmacy, passing under a giant "Country Mart Thanks You" sign.

Gibbs' co-worker followed Masters into the parking lot. The co-worker, a 54-year-old woman, demanded that Masters come inside, according to the police report. He offered to give the doughnut back. She declined and grabbed his arm.

That is when Masters allegedly delivered "a backhanded punch to the chest" and took off running, police said.

"That made her mad," Gibbs recalled.

The woman, who was uninjured, jumped in her car and called police as she chased Masters. He was arrested minutes later.

Farmington Police Chief Rick Baker said the two incidents taken separately equaled two misdemeanors: shoplifting and minor third-degree assault. Together, they make for second-degree robbery, a class B felony, defined in state law as forcibly stealing property. The amount of force and the amount of property does not matter.

"It's not the doughnut," Baker said. "It's the assault."

Masters is a small man, wiry, about 5-foot-6, with short-cropped hair, a graying goatee and hound-dog eyes. He is a "frequent flier" at the St. Francois County detention center.

"Yeah, Scotty is well known," said Deputy Sheriff Dennis Smith, reviewing Masters' criminal history.

Masters, who lives in the nearby town of Park Hills, has been arrested more than a dozen times: for being drunk, for shoplifting, for missed court dates, for marijuana possession. He spent most of the 1990s and a stretch from 2000 to 2004 in state prison for the felonies of torching a car to collect insurance and possessing methamphetamine ingredients.

In a jailhouse interview last week, Masters admitted he had taken the doughnut. Masters said he had been taking a break from his roofing job when he stopped into Country Mart. He was hungry. He fled the scene, but he said he did not lay a hand on the woman.

"Strong-arm robbery? Over a doughnut? That's impossible," Masters said, exasperated. "I've never had a violent crime in my life. And there's no way I would've pushed a woman over a doughnut."

After his arrest, he forgot all about the case. He assumed it had been dismissed. He spent the summer in jail on outstanding warrants. Just before he was to get out, he was indicted Sept. 14 in the doughnut case. His bail was set at $25,000 — well beyond his means.

Masters briefly appeared in court Friday. His case was continued until next month. He is shaken by the possibility of a third felony conviction. A prosecutor could pursue an enhanced sentence. As a persistent offender, Masters could face a murderer's term.

"I can't believe this crap," Masters said.

A grand jury agreed with police on the strong-arm robbery charge. County Prosecutor Wendy Wexler Horn said that it was "way too early to know how it is going to play out" but that the charge seemed appropriate given the allegations. She was aware that some people seemed shocked by the case.

"People are missing the point," Horn said. "It is not about the doughnut."

But to many people here, it is all about the doughnut.

Still, for all the attention paid to the doughnut incident, one detail may never emerge: the kind of doughnut Masters stole.

Country Mart stocks everything from simple glazed ring doughnuts to gooey butter squares to filled cream horns and danishes. But the police report makes no mention of the doughnut style. Gibbs said she could not recall it. Other workers, too, drew a blank.

Even Masters, sitting in jail with only time to think, said he could not remember. It is a detail that seems lost to history.

And Masters never got a chance to enjoy that fateful doughnut.

He said he threw it to the ground when he fled.

 

Quoted from http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/2F37838AFD546C9A8625736D000B589F?OpenDocument:

STLtoday - News - Missouri State News

Technorati Tags:Justice,Lame,Sad,Weird

Conman shot nails into himself

By JOHN COLES
October 05, 2007

A CONMAN shot himself seven times with a nail gun in a bid to win compensation, a court heard.

X-ray ... five nails in chest

David Russell blasted five two-inch nails into his chest and another two into his forearm.

One came within an inch of his heart and those in his arm bent as they hit bone.

Russell’s blood-soaked T-shirt was pinned to his body.

Arm in pain ... two nails in limb

Doctors took an hour to remove the nails.

Russell, 38, told cops he was wounded by muggers.

But he later admitted inflicting the injuries on himself in the hope of landing a handout from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

He owned up after cops uncovered inconsistencies in his story and were unable to find witnesses or evidence to support it.

In agony ... Russell

Telephone engineer Russell claimed three youths grabbed him from behind and fired a 10in-long nail gun at him.

A judge at Gloucester Crown Court said Russell faced jail after hearing that he had pulled off another stunt three years ago — and won £4,175 damages.

Shot himself with ... nail gun

Russell admitted perverting the course of justice and also pleaded guilty to a similar count relating to the previous incident.

He will be sentenced after psychiatric assessment.

 

Quoted from http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007460246,00.html:

The Sun Online - News: Conman shot nails into himself

Technorati Tags:Funny,International,Lame,Sad,Scary,Weird

Fast dog dodges 12 police bullets

NEW Zealand police fired their guns 12 times at a snarling rottweiler during a domestic dispute but missed every time, local media reported.

Officers had already tried capsicum spray on the "large, lunging rottweiler" with no effect, the New Zealand Press Assocation said.

A 19-year-old man threw an axe, logs and bottles at police who tried to arrest him last night at Porirua, near Wellington, before setting his partner's dog on officers, Inspector John Spence said.

After the capsicum spray failed to subdue the rottweiler, the young officers began shooting at the dog as it ran around the property, but missed.

Asked why police fired so many shots at the dog, Insp Spence said shooting at moving things in real life was different to shooting at targets at the range.

"It was a small, fast moving target. I am satisfied no members of the public were put at risk," he said.

The 90-minute stand-off ended when police set three of their own dogs on the man, inflicting leg wounds that needed surgery.

The rottweiler was returned to its owner and would not be put down, police said.

 

Quoted from http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22524111-23109,00.html:

Fast dog dodges 12 police bullets | NEWS.com.au

Technorati Tags:Animals,International,Lame,Sad

Officials eye ban on smoky dwellings

 

Health Dept. to survey landlords

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff  |  September 28, 2007

There are smoke-free offices, smoke-free bars, smoke-free malls. Could smoke-free apartment houses and condo towers be next?

Scattered apartment units across the state already ban smoking. But early next year, the Department of Public Health plans to survey landlords, condominium associations, and tenants about the feasibility of making smoke-free residential zones the norm, rather than the exception.

There could even be a state-run registry to connect tenants with landlords and condo boards that offer developments entirely devoid of smoke.

The state review emerges as an influential coalition of health and housing officials is issuing a sweeping call to make smoke-free housing standard across New England. The Asthma Regional Council will issue a report today saying that mounting evidence about the dangers of secondhand smoke, especially to children, provides the best argument for establishing rules that restrict smoking in buildings with multiple units.

It is striking evidence that the war against tobacco has shifted to a new front: the home. Having succeeded in eliminating smoking from most public haunts, antismoking forces are now turning their attention to residences, equating the dangers of tobacco to lead or asbestos.

"For a lot of people now, they go to their workplace, and the workplace is smoke-free, and then they go home and they realize they're being exposed to secondhand smoke," said Eileen Sullivan, director of policy and planning for the state of Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program.

A 2006 US surgeon general's report concluded that secondhand smoke "is not a mere annoyance."

"It is a serious health hazard that can lead to disease and premature death in children and nonsmoking adults," the report said.

Still, health authorities in New England are treading lightly, concerned that if they push for measures that are considered draconian - backing laws that ban smoking in all homes, for example - they will be dismissed as the "public health police," their efforts derailed. Instead, they are championing an approach that combines education with voluntary smoking prohibitions.

Laurie Stillman, executive director of the Asthma Council, said her group has no interest in forcing landlords to go smoke-free. Instead, she said, the coalition is hoping "to get a snowballing effect where you get a few developments doing this, and then more and more will see this as more of a common thing."

That is precisely the course charted in Maine, where a Web-based registry of smoke-free units has proved successful. Landlords who promise their buildings are truly free of smoke can post their vacant units - there are 1,600 listed - and tenants weary of smoke seeping into their apartments can locate a new, smoke-free home.

The Smoke Free Housing Coalition of Maine appeals to a landlord's bottom line. "We emphasize the financial aspect," coalition chairwoman Tina Pettingill said. "They want to save money."

The average cost of maintaining an apartment occupied by a smoker is $2,740, five times more than a unit that is home to a nonsmoker, according to a landlord survey the Maine coalition conducted. The money is spent to slather special paint on smoke-stained walls and replace burned carpeting and counters.

Allen Hebert is all too familiar with those costs. For the last five years he has advertised the 14 apartments he owns in Cambridge, Somerville, and Waltham as nonsmoking. A leader of the Massachusetts Rental Housing Association, a trade group, Hebert enthusiastically endorsed the prospect of a registry listing smoke-free apartments in Massachusetts.

Under state law, according to the Asthma Regional Council report, property owners can prohibit smoking in much the same way that pets can be barred.

"There are still people who smoke; they have to live somewhere," Hebert said. "But if I'm a nonsmoker and I detest smoking and the person next door is smoking like a chimney, why should I have to put up with it?"

When Dana Ann Whidden, 60, moved two years ago into a senior housing development in Dedham, the downstairs neighbor sent cigarette smoke swirling into her apartment.

"And I have asthma," Whidden said. "I would cough, I would get wheezy, I would get sick. It was awful."

So she asked to be moved. Nine months later, she got a first-floor apartment - and neighbors who didn't smoke.

"It's a big difference," Whidden said, "a big, big difference."

Officials eye ban on smoky dwellings

Technorati Tags: Lame , Laws , Sad

Navy to alter swastika-shaped barracks

CORONADO, Calif. - The Navy will spend as much as $600,000 to modify a 40-year-old barracks complex that resembles a swastika from the air, a gaffe that went largely unnoticed before satellite images became easily accessible on the Internet.

The Navy said officials noted the buildings' shape after the groundbreaking in 1967 but decided against changing it at the time because it wasn't obvious from the ground. Aerial photos made available on Google Earth in recent years have since revealed the buildings' shape to a wide audience.

The Navy approved the money to change the walkways, landscaping and rooftop solar panels of the four L-shaped barracks, used by members of the Naval Construction Force at the Navy's amphibious base at Coronado, near San Diego.

"We don't want to be associated with something as symbolic and hateful as a swastika," Scott Sutherland, deputy public affairs officer for Navy Region Southwest, told the Los Angeles Times.

Online commentators remarked widely about the buildings' resemblance to the Nazi symbol.

Dave vonKleist, host of "The Power Hour," a Missouri-based radio-talk show, said he wrote to military officials calling for action.

"I'm concerned about symbolism," he said. "This is not the type of message America needs to be sending to the world."

The Navy decided to alter the buildings' shape following requests this year by Anti-Defamation League regional director Morris Casuto and U.S. Rep. Susan Davis.

"I don't ascribe any intentionally evil motives to this," Casuto said of the design. "It just happened. The Navy has been very good about recognizing the problem. The issue is over."

 

Quoted from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070926/ap_on_fe_st/swastika_barracks:

Navy to alter swastika-shaped barracks - Yahoo! News

Technorati Tags:Lame,Politics,Sad,Weird

Why are U.S. kids obese? Just look around them

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Tough choices tempt kids at every turn -- whether it is soda in school, junk food ads on TV or the fast-food chain around the corner -- and school policies limiting physical activity only make matters worse, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

This throng of temptations may explain why childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions, they said.

The collection of studies, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, together suggest environmental factors and policies conspire to challenge the health of children in America.

"We have in our schools and communities a perfect storm that will continue to feed the childhood obesity epidemic until we adopt policies that improve the health of our communities and our kids," Frank Chaloupka, an economics professor the University of Illinois at Chicago, said in a statement.

While too many calories and too little exercise explain how children become obese, the research looks at environmental factors that contribute to these behaviors, and suggests policy changes that could make healthy choices easier.

"The environment that they live in matters," said Lisa Powell of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who studied restaurant and food store options in the neighborhoods and food-related television advertising aimed at teens.

She said when people cannot get to supermarkets but instead must rely on the convenience stores that proliferate in many poor neighborhoods, families end up eating less healthy food.

Lower-income neighborhoods also tend to have a higher proportion of fast-food restaurants, and black urban neighborhoods have the highest percentage of fast-food restaurants.

"The general environment around them is not really conducive to a healthy lifestyle," she said. "It is not surprising that we would in turn see an increased likelihood of overweight."

NO SAFE HAVEN

When teens are at home, they see a barrage of advertisements for fast food and sweets, Powell said.

She and colleagues studied more than 200,000 ads on top-rated shows viewed by teens aged 12 to 17 in 2003 and 2004. Powell found more than a quarter of the ads were for fast food, sweets and beverages -- items well within a teen budget.

Overall, fast-food advertising comprised 23 percent of all food-related ads seen by teens.

At school, teens have ready access to high-fat, sugary foods and drinks, according to a study by Lloyd Johnston and colleagues at the University of Michigan.

Johnston found the majority of middle schools (67 percent) and high schools (83 percent) had contracts with a soft-drink company.

While high schools are more likely to offer soft drinks, they are less likely to require physical education, Johnston found in a separate study. While 87 percent of 13- to 14-year- old students surveyed attend schools that require physical education, only 20 percent of 17- to 18-year-olds face physical education requirements.

"Historically, people have thought of obesity in terms of individual willpower, but there is a great abundance of environmental influence that contributes as well," he said in a telephone interview.

"Communities and schools need to be looking at what they are doing and trying to improve it," he said.

 

Quoted from http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2430531820070925?sp=true:

Why are U.S. kids obese? Just look around them | U.S. | Reuters

Technorati Tags:Health,Sad,Scary

French PM Fillon tells farmers 'France is broke'

By Henry Samuel in Paris

France is bankrupt and can no longer afford to pay its workers generous salaries and subsidies, its prime minister has declared.

Francois Fillon made the undiplomatic outburst during a trip to the French island of Corsica, where farmers were demanding more government money.

"I am at the head of a state that is in a position of bankruptcy," he said.

"I am at the head of a state that for 15 years has been in chronic deficit. I am at the head of a state that has not once passed a balanced budget in 25 years. This can't go on."

Mr Fillon's government is due to announce the 2008 budget this week with a deficit of €41.5billion (£29billion).

But his remarks drew immediate fire, both from within his own ranks and from the opposition.

Francois Bayrou, the head of the centrist Modem party, said Mr Fillon seemed to forget that both he and Nicolas Sarkozy, who was finance minister before becoming president, had been in government since 2002 without improving the situation.

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He added that Mr Sarkozy's decision to spend up to €15billion (£10.5billion) on a package of tax cuts had only made things worse. One deputy from Mr Fillon's UMP party added: "This phrase was badly timed. The French are liable to ask why we committed all this spending on the fiscal package if we are in such a bad way."

It is the second time in two weeks that Mr Fillon has run into trouble over his tough-talking rhetoric.

The first came when he announced that he only needed "the word" from Mr Sarkozy to roll out a plan to enact state pension reforms, even before trade unions had begun negotiations. They called a strike for Oct 18.

This gaffe reportedly enraged Mr Sarkozy, who spent days reassuring the unions that they would be consulted.

There were rumours that Mr Fillon would be replaced in a reshuffle in the New Year. However, in an interview last week, the president showered his prime minister with praise, even describing the two men's views as "interchangeable".

Some observers say Mr Fillon has decided to speak out because he is tired of being stifled by the "hyper-president" and his media-friendly aides at the Elysee, and is keen to push ahead with reforms.

One colleague from the Sarthe region, where Mr Fillon is a deputy, said: "Fillon has immense pride. While Sarkozy continues to stifle him and wants to do everything, Fillon will try and give provocative speeches in order to exist. It's a process that could get out of control."

Others argue that his "spontaneous" outbursts are part of a co-ordinated double act, with Mr Fillon playing the tough guy and Mr Sarkozy the conciliator.

Either way, Le Monde praised Mr Fillon's "language of truth" in its editorial, adding that, given the parlous state of France's debt and deficit, he "had good cause for concern."

Quoted from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/24/wfra124.xml:

French PM Fillon tells farmers 'France is broke' - Telegraph

Technorati Tags:International,Lame,Politics,Sad

Sept. 11, 2001: The Day the Earth Stood Still

2001: Militants from al-Qaida, a network of Sunni jihadists under the nominal leadership of Osama bin Laden, hijack four California-bound commercial airliners and use them to stage suicide attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. Nearly 3,000 people are killed in the most carefully orchestrated attack against U.S. targets since Pearl Harbor.

The fallout from what has become known, simply, as 9/11 continues to reverberate internationally, throughout all spheres of life. In the tech world, 9/11 and President Bush's subsequent declaration of a "war on terror" led to some nice profits in some sectors, especially among businesses involved in communications, surveillance, security and weapons technology.

Probably the most conspicuous tech impact on the average citizen involves the security measures now in place at virtually every major airport on Earth. Almost six years of trial and error, and an improvement in scanning equipment and training, have streamlined the process of screening every single passenger on every single flight, but this technology, like any, is hardly foolproof. It is, however, likely to remain a permanent fixture of airline travel.

More insidious is the intrusion of sophisticated surveillance technology into everyday life. Some of it -- like the Bush administration's controversial domestic spying program -- can be tied directly to 9/11. Under provisions granted by the Patriot Act, the government began actively spying on the communications of its own citizens, including the inspection of cell-phone records and e-mail logs.

Federal law enforcement officials, in the name of ferreting out terrorists (as well as more garden-variety criminals like child molesters and online fraudsters), have also pressured ISPs into providing customer information that allows them to track an individual's whereabouts on the internet. The result of all this has led many Americans, and some of their politicians, to begin questioning how much government intrusion is permissible in the name of homeland security.

Since it led directly to the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, 9/11's impact on military technology has also been profound, but not necessarily to the good. Rather, these conflicts have exposed the limitations of high-tech warfare on battlefields lacking a static front or a concentrated enemy force. If anything, the guerrilla war that followed the collapse of Saddam Hussein's conventional army seems better suited to low-tech ordnance: Roadside bombs and portable rocket launchers, for example, have been used to devastating effect against the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

In the end, though, 9/11's immediate effect on technology probably has had less to do with the development of new surveillance toys and weapons than it has with the mindset of the people using what's already available.

(Source: Various)

 

Quoted from http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/09/dayintech_0911:

Sept. 11, 2001: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Technorati Tags:History,Privacy,Sad,Scary,War