- Murder and violent crime have been trending downward in New York City for some time now. In related news, cops need something to occupy their time now that murder and violent crime are trending downward in New York City. Sixteen members of the New York Police Department have found that something special: a "highly organized, systematic" and large-scale ticket-fixing operation as part of an even larger scandal. These 16 officers were indicted on charges they were involved in misconduct that included the ticket-fixing scam and a litany of other wrongdoing. It is the second major scandal in a week to hit the department, coming just a few days after five active and three retired officers were among 12 people charged with conspiring to transport and distribute firearms and stolen goods across state lines. The ticket-fixing operation is old-school, with officers allegedly using their positions to take care of citations for family members and friends. The indictments allege that officers tampered with the tickets to have them thrown out, according to a press release from the Bronx District Attorney's Office. "It's difficult to have to announce for the second time this week that police officers have been arrested for misconduct," New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a press conference. "Their misdeeds tarnish the good name and reputation of the vast majority of police officers who perform their duties honestly and often at great risk to their own personal safety." Friday’s announcement was three years in the making. The police department's Internal Affairs Bureau began investigating the scam in December 2008 after some anonymous snitch ratted out the nice little arrangement these officers had created. The first tip came in about a police officer in the Bronx allegedly "engaged in various illegal business activities with a reputed drug dealer," the district attorney's office said. From there, detectives continued to discover more suspected misconduct, including the alleged ticket-fixing operation and even "the alleged failure of police officers to make an arrest and subsequent attempt to cover up an assault" by a suspect connected to the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. A whopping 1,500 felony and misdemeanor charges were filed in connection with the investigation, including attempted robbery, attempted grand larceny, theft, tampering with public records, official misconduct, conspiracy and assault. Five civilians were also charged and all of the individuals indicted pleaded not guilty, the district attorney's office said…………
- Score one for the power of the family film over the might of the scary film on Halloween weekend. Puss in Boots debuted in first place, racking up $34 million and nearly doubling up reigning box office champion Paranormal Activity 3. Paranormal dropped one spot to second place, making another $19 million to raise its cumulative total to $86.4 million and counting after a massive opening last weekend. Newcomer In Time rode Justin Timberlake’s wave of former man-bander appeal to a third-place finish and garnered $12 million in the process. From the top three, there was a massive dropoff in earnings as the crappy remake of Footloose secured fourth place with a scant $5.5 million and has somehow thieved $38.3 million from moviegoers in its short run in theaters. Johnny Depp’s new flick The Rum Diary held down the final spot in the top five, making $5 million in its opening weekend, a more modest opening than the film’s backers had hoped for. The latter half of the top 10 consisted of the “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots” movie, a.k.a Real Steel (No. 6 with $4.9 million and $74.1 in cumulative earnings thus far), the disappointing Three Musketeers (No. 7 with $3.5 million and with $78.3 million in total earnings as Mila Jovovich continues to seethe somewhere over Summit Entertainment’s lack of promotion behind the film since its U.S. debut), George Clooney and Ryan Gosling’s political drama The Ides of March (No. 8 with $2.7 million and an extremely disappointing $33.5 million in its first month in theaters), Moneyball (No. 9 and not able to convert the enthusiasm over a thrilling and just-concluded World Series into interest in a baseball movie, making $2.4 million to raise its cumulative tally to $67.4 million and counting) and Courageous (No. 10 with $1.8 million and $27.6 million overall). Dolphin Tale, the abysmally awful Johnny English Reborn, The Thing and 50/50 all dropped out of the top 10 from last weekend……….
- Dammit, this has gone too far. Climate change is a global concern but until now, its true impact hasn’t been felt. With the news that swathes of Australia's seaweed are shifting south to escape warming oceans, it’s fair to say this has gone from passing concern to über-serious matter. Again, SEAWEED IS BEING DISPLACED, ALL. If that doesn’t shake you to your core, then nothing will. Marine ecologist Dr. Thomas Wernberg, of the University of Western Australia, and his team of researchers recently conducted a survey and have reported their findings in Current Biology. "Temperate species are moving to cooler environments," Wernberg stated. "In Australia there are no cooler environments beyond the south coast, so if they are pushed to go beyond that they basically go extinct.” Wernberg believes that too much of existing climate change research to this point has focused on corals and that seaweed research has been neglected. Why worry about the affect of climate shifts on seaweed? He says while seaweeds might seem bland and uninteresting, they are an important habitat and food resource for underwater animals and plants. "Just as trees in the forest provide living space for birds and other animals, so do the seaweeds in the oceans. There's a large amount of biodiversity associated with seaweeds," he explained. Unlike coral reefs, which tend to be restricted to tropical waters, seaweeds are more widespread and any impacts on them could have a broader cascading effect on marine ecosystems. Wernberg and his research group analyzed records of seaweed from Australia's Virtual Herbarium and looked specifically at how seaweed communities comprising up to 300 species had changed over time. By comparing distribution of 52 species of seaweed along the east and west coasts of Australia during the period 1940 to 1960 with seaweed distribution during the period 1990 to 2009, they were able to draw some disturbing conclusions. A key difference between the two 20-year sample periods was a slight increase in ocean temperatures, leading to seaweed migration. "What we saw is that the seaweed communities migrated south towards the cooler environments," Wernberg said. The temperature shift and seaweed migration occurred on both the east and west coasts, but researchers found that seaweeds moved further south on the east coast where the warming had been greater. Seaweed species on the east coast moved about 125 miles south, while those on the west coast moved about 32 kilometers. What does all of that mean? "If this rate of shift continues a relatively large number of species could go extinct," Wernberg explained. According to the study, once a species reaches the south coast it will not be able to move any further south and if temperatures continue to rise, that species will have no alternative habitat to move to. Extrapolating out, Wernberg estimates as much as 25 percent of temperate species in Australia could go extinct by 2070. Let’s do what we can to support the seaweed, all…………
- One of the most consistent storylines thus far in the NFL season has been the scrutiny on Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh allegedly being a dirty player and incurring fines and penalties galore from officials and the league office for his excessively violent hits. Suh has also been called dirty by opponents and was accused of talking smack to injured Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan in a Week 7 game while Ryan lay hurting on the turf. A player in Suh’s position could react in any number of ways; lash out at the haters, ignore all of the criticism…….or go straight to the source of the problem. Suh has chosen the third option and will soon be heading to Park Avenue to visit with commissioner Roger Goodell. No, Suh has not been summoned to Manhattan by the commish - he requested the meeting. Suh reportedly wants clarification as to why he gets flagged and fined and there is no better source on that subject than the man who hands down the fines and presides over the league. Some might think that Suh wants the chance to win Goodell over and convince him that the supposedly dirty tactics the burly defensive tackle uses aren't illegal or fine-worthy, but that is not necessarily the goal. That would be nice, but Suh apparently wants to figure out where the line is so he can avoid having money taken out of his pocket on a regular basis. Expecting him to change his game entirely and stay on the right side of that line is implausible and given the impact his physical, bruising style of play has had on the Lions and their turnaround, an all-around bad idea as well……….
- Nice. Finally, someone other than the United States, United Nations and most of the international community is picking a fight with Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The fight comes from within this time, as the Iranian parliament is set to summon President for questioning over an economic scandal and his polices after the required number of lawmakers signed a petition Sunday. It is the latest strike in a prolonged battle between the president and his rivals. In a twist that will surely put a smile on the faces of all the Ahmadinejad haters in the world (approximately 6.4 billion of the world’s 6.5 billion people), he would be the first president to be hauled before the Iranian parliament. Tensions between Ahmadinejad lawmakers and Iran's powerful clerics have been building for quite some time and it came as little surprise that at least 73 lawmakers signed the petition to question Ahmadinejad, just above one-quarter of the 290 members required by Iran's constitution to call in a president. The parliament recently found Ahmadinejad's economics minister guilty in relation to a $2.6 million fraud case, considered the largest in Iran's history, and it was the latest in a series of economic misconduct cases that target Ahmadinejad allies. The controversial despot has been bickering with parliament and the clergy over in the run-up to parliamentary elections in March and a presidential election in 2013 that he will undoubtedly rig in order to remain in office. Rigging the vote may be necessary if his support continues to erode and the same hard-liners who brought him to power continue to turn on him. Dozens of his political allies have been arrested or run out of public life by hard-line forces in recent months and his protégé and top aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, has been basically blackballed from succeeding Ahmadinejad by a series of reputation-killing accusations that include leading a "deviant current" that seeks to challenge the system of theocratic rule and ties to the $2.6 billion bank fraud. Ahmadinejad has had a rough run of late and been fighting some very bitter political battles since he challenged Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, in April over the choice of intelligence minister. The fraud case opened the door for lawmakers wishing to call Ahmadinejad in for questioning and the parliament's presiding council acknowledged receiving the petition Sunday. Economy Minister Shamsoddin Hosseini is set to be impeached Tuesday over the case. One conservative lawmaker, Ali Motahari, resigned earlier this month to protest the parliament's failure to summon Ahmadinejad for questioning but said Sunday he would withdraw his resignation if Ahmadinejad is actually questioned. The fraud case involved the use of forged documents to obtain credit from at least two Iranian state banks to purchase state-owned companies and centers on Iranian businessman Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, who has been accused of masterminding the scam. Should be an entertaining scene in Tehran this week for sure…………
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