- Citizens of Philadelphia, you now have yet another reason to ignore, er, forget to respond to that summons for jury duty that lands in your mailbox. Aside from the fact that it’s an unwanted, underpaid intrusion into your normal routine and necessitates you sitting in a courtroom with 11 other losers who likewise didn’t find a way out of jury duty to hear a case you couldn’t care less about involving a defendant you also don’t care about, now comes words that jurors in Philly’s First Judicial District will no longer receive doughnuts or coffee. Beginning this week, the district cut the doughnuts, bagels, coffee and tea it used to provide in the Criminal Justice Center's jury-assembly room, where potential jurors report on their first day of service. “It's regrettable we had to do that, but we're looking at challenging financial times," David C. Lawrence, court administrator, said. So if you’re looking for someone to blame, potential Philly jurors (other than yourself for not being smart enough to find a way out of jury duty), Lawrence would be your man. He was the one who suggested the cut to Administrative Judge D. Webster Keogh of the Common Pleas Trial Division to help with the city's budget crisis. So just what does it cost to provide hunks of fried dough topped with frosting and sprinkles or crammed full of jelly for jurors? Try $104,000 a year, according to Lawrence. Props to Judge Keogh for pretending to give a damn by agreeing that the decision was "really unfortunate, but we have to look for savings in every corner that we can." But no free grub isn’t all jurors can look forward to, there’s more! Because the First Judicial District also recently made other cuts to help the city's budget, including scaling back on the custodial contract for the court-occupied spaces in City Hall, some courtrooms won’t receive the same level or frequency of cleaning that they have in the past. No free food, dirtier courtrooms, it makes you wonder why anyone shows up for jury duty in the first place……..
- Because it’s clear you all need some more motivation, FAT people of the world and specifically of the United States of America, here you go. Not only will being FAT increase your chances of heart disease and diabetes, make your joints break down because of all the excess weight you’re carrying, cause you to fatigue much more quickly, force you to buy an extra seat when you travel by plane and suffer a litany of other negative side effects, a new study suggests that obesity also poses significant dangers for pregnant women and their developing babies. That revelation comes courtesy of a new study, published Feb. 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which documents a wider than expected range of birth defects for babies born to obese women. Researcher Katherine Stothard of Newcastle University in Great Britain and her team reviewed 18 earlier studies of maternal weight and congenital abnormalities. They found that FAT (okay, technically it’s obese) women— defined as having a BMI of 29 or greater — prior to pregnancy were more than twice as likely to have an infant with spina bifida, nearly twice as likely to have a baby with other neural-tube defects, and more vulnerable to giving birth to babies with heart problems, cleft palate or cleft lip, abnormal rectum or anus development, and hydrocephaly, a condition in which excess spinal fluid builds up in the brain than were women with the recommended body mass index (BMI) of between 18.5 and 26. These findings come on the heels of previous studies that documented the greater risk of neural-tube defects and kidney problems in children of obese moms. Although theories about why obesity and birth defects are so strongly correlated vary and none are ironclad, researchers believe that there may be several explanations. One of those explanations is that many obese women may also have undiagnosed diabetes, which can lead to abnormal development of a fetus. Second, and this may shock you, but obese moms may be eating a much less healthy diet than non-FAT moms, and those missing nutrients, like folic acid, that are needed to prevent birth defects such as neural-tube abnormalities. Yes, FAT moms, your Ho-Ho and chili cheese fry benders do have an impact on your future child. The last theory about the link between obesity and birth defects is simply that doing ultrasound monitoring of obese patients is much more difficult and that could lead to more missed cases of deformities like neural-tube defects. However you want to spin this, the bottom line is that being FAT isn’t good for you and clearly, it’s not good for any children you might have. Of course, being that obese could also severely lessen the chances that you’re going to have sex and become pregnant in the first place, but just to be safe, go ahead and push away from the dinner table before your third helping……..
- Life isn’t so good for Sirius XM right now, as the one and only name in satellite radio is currently trading for just six cents a share on the New York Stock Exchange. Clearly having a “talent” like Howard Stern on your payroll just isn’t enough to make a company successful. Even with a loudmouth a-hole like Stern to draw in listeners, Sirius is still carrying a huge debt load, which is why its stock has sunk so low. The plunge went to the extreme yesterday, as shares plunged more than 45 percent following several reports late that the company may now actually seek bankruptcy protection. That move could help Sirius avoid a takeover by media big shot Charlie Ergen, the chairman of Dish Network and set-top box maker EchoStar. Ergen
owns a large chunk of the $300 million collection of debt that will mature on Feb. 17, plus he’s already made a takeover offer for Sirius XM that the company turned down. So what is Sirius’ response to all of this? Like a good corporate giant, the company is sticking its head squarely in the sand and putting on a happy face as if it’s business as usual. To that end, Sirius XM put out a press release Wednesday to let subscribers know that Tom Petty's "Buried Treasure" show would now be available on the Deep Tracks channel on Sunday evening. Yeah, because one Tom Petty single is going to save you from bankruptcy (that’s coming from someone who is a fan of Petty’s music). What are Sirius investors and subscribers to make of all of this? They’ve already suffered through an 18-month antitrust review of the company and seen it complete a trumped up merger last summer, so it’s been a rocky couple of years. The answer depends on which group you fall into, subscribers or stock holders. The picture is much sunnier for Sirius’ 19 million subscribers, because even if the company files for bankruptcy, the end result is much more likely to be a reorganization, not a liquidation. As for shareholders….I don’t know how to put this, but…..you’re screwed. Even if Sirius manages to dodge this financial scud, the company has even more debt due later this year. If Sirius files for bankruptcy, odds are that investors will be completely wiped out. The best hope - and I use that term liberally - is that Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin gives in and strikes a deal with Ergen, which would likely result in Ergen converting his debt into an equity interest in Sirius XM -- which would dilute the stake of existing shareholders. However, most industry observers feel that Karmazin won't take that route. He could always sell to another bidder, but given his previous stance on the issue of ceding control, it’s hard to imagine that. All in all, not what anyone expected last summer when Sirius and XM merged after doling out big-money contracts for big-name radio personalities like Stern, who inked a 5-year, $500 million deal that I’m guessing Sirius would like to have back at this point………
- I often mention the seminar I’m putting together for aspiring, IQ-deprived criminals who need a little help in getting their criminal enterprise off the ground. Lesson No. 142 of the seminar, which I plan on teaching in week five or six of the seminar, is going to feature my good friend David Eric Hampton of Cape Haze, N.C. See, D.E. Hampton (never a good sign if I know your middle name) decided that he was going to rob his local BP station in Cape Haze Sunday at 3:30 a.m. He packed his trusted Bowie knife, put on his black hooded sweatshirt and set out in his white Mercury Cougar for one of the more classic petty crimes, armed robbery. Once he arrived at the store, Hampton pulled his 12-inch Bowie knife on the clerk, demanded money, then fled. I get it….sometimes you lose your nerve, can’t go through with it, that’s fine. We all get stage fright (or robbery fright) and some of us can’t battle past it. I don’t fault him for it and in retrospect, not following through on the robbery could end up helping Hampton based on how the rest of his night unfolded. Anotehter customer who was fueling up his whip outside saw the incident, got back in his car and followed Hampton while calling 9-1-1. However, the witness lost sight of Hampton’s vehicle and doubled back to the gas station, leaving the pursuit to the professionals. Charlotte County Sheriff's deputies picked up the chase after being dispatched to find Hampton. They went all-out on this one, bringing in K-9 units and a helicopter. The deputies set up a perimeter after a black hooded sweatshirt and other clothing matching the description of the outfit worn by the suspect were found behind a home on Cape Haze Drive. The next break came when a newspaper carrier told the K-9 deputy that he had encountered a white car stopped at Arlington Dr. and Amberjack Place driven by a man with a beard who told the carrier he ran out of gas. Damn, hate it when that happens. But that is the key point in this particular lesson at my seminar: always make sure your tank has enough gas when attempting an armed robbery. It doesn’t need to be totally full, just full enough to get you a solid 100-150 miles away. That way, if you have to flee the cops, you have a good amount of distance you can cover. You don’t want to run out of gas and be forced to abandon your car in some random neighborhood where the cops can find it, trace the tags and make the link to you. Once they know who you are and the general area you’re in (without a vehicle now), it’s a matter of time before they locate a man fitting the description of the suspect they’re seeking, lurking behind a house just before 9:00 a.m. Maybe if it had been 9 p.m., you’d have a better shot, but in the light of day hiding becomes much harder. Actually, that’s why many criminals choose to operate after dark, believe it or not. Now, Hampton finds himself in the Charlotte County Jail, charged with robbery with a weapon, loitering and prowling. Hopefully all of the aspiring criminals attending my seminar will learn from his mistakes and avoid repeating them……
- Life as a walk-on in college athletics is tough. You’re putting in the same time in practice, in the weight room and in the classroom as your teammates who are on scholarship, but unlike them you’re paying your own way. You need to find a way to make money to pay for school and unless you want to go neck-deep in student loans, you don’t have many options. So I can see how Oklahoma State wide receiver Bo Bowling might make the decision to turn into a drug dealer, I really can. Books aren’t cheap, neither is rent and you need to buy food and clothes too. With those things in mind, I’d advise you not to be too harsh on Bowling for being arrested early Sunday by Stillwater police and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia. While the university is doing what universities do in such situations, namely suspending him indefinitely from the team, I urge you not to overreact to dude being found to have a total of 108.6 grams of marijuana, more than $1,000 in cash and several plastic baggies with marijuana residue in his apartment when authorities executed a search warrant. Don’t be like the Oklahoma State athletic department, looking to crack on the guy for showing a little entrepreneurial spirit. Get past the fact that he was rocking all sorts of drug paraphernalia, including the anti-depressant Xanax (technically called Alprazolam) and a digital scale. I’m just hoping Oklahoma State doesn’t reverse field and double back on its intention to offer Bowling was expected to receive a scholarship after a strong 2008 season in which he tallied 10 catches for 200 yards and ranked fourth on the team in receiving. Heck, Bowling was expected to challenge for a starting position in the 2009 season, but maybe not so much any more. What, did you expect him to donate plasma or volunteer for medical experiments to earn cash? Ease up, OK State, who among you hasn’t done a little drug dealing at some point in their life……..
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