- There are just a few places you want to scratch off your list of potential targets if you are a would-be thief. A nuclear facility with a history of leaks……a house occupied by O.J. Simpson……and oh yeah, the local police department. John Prentis should have known better, but of course the Elmwood Place, Ohio resident didn’t. When the Elmwood Place Police Department suffered a break-in this week, officers were clueless as to who was responsible. The break-in happened in the middle of the freaking day, around 4 p.m. Monday, and the surveillance video shows the suspect kicking open the chief's door and stealing money from the evidence room inside. The thief took $1,000, then came back to shut the door and wipe off his fingerprints from the knob. Police chief William Peskin and his men were obviously intent on solving this crime as quickly as possible, as it would be a pretty freaking big embarrassment to have someone come into their house, kick in their evidence room door, steal money from the room and get away with it. Not exactly making your citizens feel safe if you can’t even protect your own police station, methinks. So Peskin and his men pored over the evidence….and it didn’t take them long to crack the case. Additional surveillance footage from a different camera showed John Prentis breaking into an interior office and stealing items. Putting two and two together and overcoming the fact that they are police officers, the Elmwood Place PD was able to deduce that Prentis was responsible for both break-ins. "Actually that was a human error on our part. We did leave one back door unsecured. The one place that I would never go to steal from is the police department," Peskin admitted. "He knew the ins and outs of the building." The chief also explained that Prentis got into the police department building through an open door before hitting the evidence room and also Peskin’s own office. The irony is that Prentis is an informant the department has used to help stop crime previously, but now this clown is contributing to it. What makes Prentis an even bigger idiot than he would seem is that he was aware of a video camera that pointed towards the chief's office, but said he did not believe it recorded video. What did you think, that it was there for aesthetics? Perhaps some feng shui? Either way, think about what an idiot you are as you are arraigned, tried and convicted on breaking and entering and several other charges, Prentis……….
- Now that takes commitment. Abdullah Hassan al Asiri, the psychopath who attempted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's Prince Mohammed bin Nayef by hiding his bomb in his underwear, (insert your joke of choice here, the continue) may be a crazed nut in most sense of the word, but this guy has also earned a measure of respect from me for his act. Sure, he only shoved his incendiary device down his drawers because he believed that cultural taboos would prevent a search in that part of his body, but that’s just solid, out-of-the-box creative thinking. Put the bomb where they ain’t looking, I always say. Of course, the attack wasn’t a huge success because the prince was only slightly injured when the bomb exploded in the August attack, so that mitigates my respect a bit. Actually, the revelation that the bomb was simply hidden inside the would-be assassin’s Calvin Klein’s was a downgrade from the shock value of the initial story, which had al Asiri hiding the bomb inside his rectum. The government assessment discounted those reports based on several factors, including: When the bomb went off there was a flash of light, suggesting that the bomb was not hidden inside the assassin's body. Also, doctors consulted by the government judged that the toxicity of the plastic explosives would make them hard to hold for many hours inside the rectum, and the environment in this area of the body would make detonation "difficult.” Know what? That’s good enough for me. Actually, you could have simply said, “We have evidence that he couldn’t have hidden the bomb up his butt,” and that would have been enough for me. Everything else was just TMI. Estimates put the weight of the bomb at 100 grams and the composition of the bomb as being heavy on plastic explosive. That allowed the device to avoid detection by metal detectors through which the would-be assassin had to pass before he was allowed to meet with the prince. The explosive used for the bomb was PETN, which was used by the so-called shoe bomber Richard Reid, who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight to Miami, Florida, in December 2001. Meanwhile, al Asiri has been identified as a Saudi member of al Qaeda who had fled to Yemenand posed as a member of the terror group willing to surrender personally to Prince Nayef. Because the prince is responsible for overseeing the kingdom's terrorist rehabilitation program, he’s had some two dozen members of al Qaeda surrender to him the past few months. On top of that, during the month of Ramadan, traditionally a time of repentance in the Muslim world, these surrenders are more common. Once he got close to Prince Nayef, al Asiri called other members of al Qaeda to tell them that he was standing by the prince and once he hung up, the bomb blew up, killing al Asiri but only slightly injuring the prince. Happy to see the deserving party be the one to die in one of these attacks, it’s a nice change………….
- Money sure makes people play nice, er, Apple certainly is making an effort to mend fences with musicians it has had a beef with in recent years. Although the company’s détente with the Beatles that could have paved the way for the Fab Four’s music to finally become available through iTunes hasn’t yet materialized, that could still be in the offing some time down the road. In the meantime, Apple has managed to mend fences with the music publisher for Eminem and the rapper’s music to be sold on its online music store. Eight Mile Stylee had claimed that its deal to sell the rights to 93 songs to Aftermath Records did not authorize the record label to strike a separate deal with Apple to sell the songs on iTunes, so Apple had to send its legal team in to clean things up, throw some money around and make problems go away. Sure enough, everyone has their price and Eight Mile had its price met Thursday. The publisher had been seeking millions of dollars in compensation, so even though Apple and Aftermath would not comment on the settlement or its terms, go ahead and assume that it was an eight-figure deal. Apple now has the digital downloading rights to most of Eminem’s music, Aftermath and Eight Mile have the money they were after and Eminem fans can now join the herds of music fans everywhere who no longer have any contact with a hard copy of their favorite artists’ music and simply hit up iTunes for their listening needs. In the end, I guess everyone wins, except for fans of vinyl who still like to kick it old school when it comes to their music…………
- A heavyweight Saturday of college football it was not. Top-ranked Florida was on a bye, meaning star quarterback Tim Tebow had an extra week to recover from the concussion he suffered last Saturday versus Kentucky. The No. 2 team in the country, Texas, also had the week off, meaning the top two teams in the polls will almost certainly remain the same next week. The highest-ranked team to play was No. 3 Alabama, which went on the road and coasted to an easy 38-20 win over the aforementioned Kentucky Wildcats. As usual, the day’s best games didn’t involve top 10 teams. Perhaps the most exciting contest of the day was in South Bend, Ind., where Notre Dame and Michigan battled it out on an overcast, chilly and rainy afternoon. The game went back and forth all afternoon long, largely a duel between quarterbacks Jake Locker (Washington) and Casey Clausen (Notre Dame). Clausen overcame a horrible screen pass-turned-backwards pass/fumble that UW returned for a touchdown in the first half, a last-second UW drive for a field goal to tie the game and send it into overtime and the elements to lead his team to a 37-30 overtime win. Clausen’s 422 yards passing were key to the win, as was the ND defense’s four-and-out stop of Locker and the Huskies after the Irish scored to open overtime. Another dramatic overtime game happened in East Lansing, Mich., where in-state rivals Michigan and Michigan State did battle. Michigan State dominated the game for the first three-and-a-half quarters, building a 20-7 lead that the Spartans then watched evaporate as Michigan’s “Mr. Clutch” freshman quarterback Tate Forcier threw a 60-yard touchdown pass to Darryl Stonum with 4:03 left in the game and then the tying touchdown pass with two seconds left in the contest. However, his heroic touch ran dry in overtime as he was intercepted in the end zone and MSU running back Larry Caper stole the show with a 23-yard touchdown run to end the game. Michigan State 26, Michigan 20, thanks for coming. For the first time in 42 years, MSU has wins over UM in back-to-back years. Speaking of history, historically great rivals Miami and Oklahoma dusted off their dormant rivalry in south Florida and the No. 17 Hurricanes held on for a huge 21-20 win over the eighth-ranked Sooners as reigning Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford again watched from the sidelines as he attempts to come back from a shoulder injury in OU’s opening game of the season. Although Miami quarterback Jacory Harris struggled for most of the game, in the end his mobility and poise were enough for his team to hold on and the Canes ground out a drive to close the game that allowed them to run out the clock as OU was frantically looking for a stop to get the ball back. Other than that, not a ton of great action on the day. Georgia and LSU played a typically overrated SEC game that sucked for three quarters (but SEC honks will label it “two hard-hitting, physical SEC team getting after it and playing great defense), then remembered how to score points in the fourth quarter and wound up with a final score of LSU 20, Georgia 13. Boise State looked especially feeble in taking most of the game to dispatch Div. I-AA UC-Davis by a 34-16 margin, while No. 12 Houston showed it clearly didn’t deserve its lofty ranking by losing 58-41 to a University of Texas-El Paso team that had been bludgeoned by 60 points in a game against Texas last week. Iowa nearly suffered an equally big embarrassment, needing key defense stops late to secure it’s second narrow home win against a I-AA team this season, 24-21 over Arkansas State. Oh, and would someone please check on the entire University of California football team. They haven’t been seen or heard from in any way, shape or form the past two weeks for two pretty big games. Following a 42-3 throttling in Oregon last weekend, the Bears were supposed to play a home game today against USC, but once again failed to show up. The Trojans waltzed to a 30-3 win that proved once and for all that Cal is a total fraud and shouldn’t be anywhere near the top 10 for a long, long time. That’s all for now, so until next time……………
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