- To the cynic, it might appear that the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office is either lazy, bad at its job, dishonest or some combination of the three. Granted, maintaining law and order in a major city has to be a daunting task and all, but it really shouldn’t be too much to ask for the department to make sure it doesn’t have an extra $56 million or so laying around in multiple bank accounts when much of that money belongs to former property owners who lost their homes to foreclosures and tax sales. The exact total is $55,936,154.16 in 13 bank accounts, at least half of which is owned to those property owners who had their home taken from them. "Today, the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office takes the next step on the road to restoring the public's confidence in our real-estate division," said Sheriff Barbara Deeley. Restoring confidence? Hey Babs, how is admitting you just “misplaced” $56 million supposed to bolster anyone’s confidence in you? No credit for doing what you should have done in the first place, paying attention to your finances at least enough to make sure you’re not amassing a small fortune that does not belong to you. Deeley, the former chief deputy sheriff who replaced longtime Sheriff John Green in January and eliminated the division's management team, didn’t actually find the misplaced money, nor did her staff. It took an outside accounting firm to locate it after an eight-month analysis. How did that much money pile up in a place it did not belong? The $56 million includes fees and proceeds associated with about 170,000 properties and a million transactions, Deeley said. The external investigation came after city controller Alan Butkovitz released an audit last year which stated the office's finances under Green were a disaster. Now that they know about the money, what will the sheriff’s department do? Deeley said the office would transfer nearly $40 million to the city and state, but a significant chunk of that money could be reclaimed by the city’s school district and former homeowners who are owed the excess proceeds from the sales after all other parties have been paid. In the end, the city is expected to receive less than $10 million. This situation is especially pertinent right now because the city’s finance department 2 percent cuts from all departments - with the exception of police, fire and prisons - to offset a drop off in tax revenues. Giving the sheriff’s office a break given its sorry state of affairs doesn’t seem like such a swell idea any longer…………
- Add another nickname to golf great Greg Norman's resume: Truth Teller. Norman, whose nickname is "The Shark," was asked Saturday about the selection of Tiger Woods for the U.S. team in the upcoming Presidents Cup. Norma, captain of the International team for the event, explained that if he were making selections for the U.S. squad, PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley, not Tiger Woods, would have been on his team. "No, I wouldn't have [picked Tiger], to tell you the truth," Norman said. "I think Keegan Bradley was much more deserving of one of the two spots that were available. He's a major championship winner; he's won a couple of times this year." And in other news, Tiger Woods is currently ranked 52nd in the world, hasn’t won in two years and is a shell of his former self. Norman said as much, explaining, "I can understand the name of Tiger Woods and his history of what he's done on the golf course. But me, as a captain, I pick the guys I think who are ready to get in there and play, who have performed to the highest of levels leading up to it." U.S. Presidents Cup captain Fred Couples is the one Norman is second-guessing, as Couples used one of his captain’s picks on Woods despite the former world No. 1’s total lack of success over the past two seasons. Woods’ best outing of late was a tie for 30th at last week’s Frys.com Open, a Fall Finish event on the PGA Tour that lacked top-tier players Woods used to dominate. In fact, the tournament was one Woods has never played before because when he was actually good, he clearly felt the event was beneath him. Now, he’s coasting on what remains of his reputation and taking spots that should go to more-deserving players. Couples did say that if Steve Stricker can't play at Royal Melbourne, the vacated roster spot would go to Bradley. The problem then would be that the player who should have been given Stricker’s spot with Bradley already on the team will now be left sitting at home…………
- Again, Tibetan Buddhist monks? For the freaking eighth time this year, a current or former Buddhist monk has set himself on fire to protest Chinese rule in Tibet. Norbu Dathul set himself ablaze Saturday in the main market in Aba, a town in the western province of Sichuan near Tibet that has been the site of a series of protests. Police was able to extinguish the fire, but Dathul’s condition was unknown, Free Tibet, an activist group, said. Dathul was heard shouting "Tibet needs freedom!" and call for the return of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, prior to his self-inflicted arson. Unidentified sources at the town's Kirti monastery confirmed that Dathul had served there but offered no further comment. A man who answered the phone at the Aba police headquarters also did not have much to say when asked about the incident; he hung up without responding. Aba and Kirti monastery have both been the sight of multiple protests against the Chinese government, nearly all of them led by monks who are loyal to the Dalai Lama. That he is still sparking protests and incendiary demonstrations despite fleeing the region way back in 1959 during an abortive uprising against Chinese rule is impressive, but the whole setting oneself on fire tactic doesn’t seem to accomplish much. Still, Free Tibet understands the impulse - somewhat. The latest incident "provides further evidence that Tibetans now feel that setting fire to themselves is their only recourse," said Free Tibet's director, Stephanie Brigden, in the group's statement. Leave it to China to find a way to make this situation even more ridiculous than it already is, something the Chinese foreign ministry did last week by accusing overseas followers of the Dalai Lama of inciting the protests. Right, because it couldn’t possibly be your repressive and overbearing rule in their country. Better still, ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said the protests were part of a plan to violently overthrow Chinese rule in Tibet. By doing what, having monks turn themselves into human torches and burn down every city in Tibet? Never mind that the Dalai Lama has routinely condemned violence and advocates a peaceful campaign for greater autonomy for Tibetans in China while remaining under Beijing's rule, because the Chinese government knows the real truth……….
- All marvel at the power of the “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em” Robots movie. Real Steel withstood the challenge of two lame remakes to retain the top spot at the box office, making an additional $16.3 million domestically to make its two-week total $51.7 million. The first of the two awful remakes, Footloose, landed in second place with $16.1 million in its debut. That was nearly double the effort of the spectacularly bad horror movie The Thing, which finished third thanks to a meager $8.7 million haul. Two returning films claimed the last two spots in the upper echelon of the top 10, with George Clooney’s political thriller The Ides of March stumbling from second last weekend to fourth this time around. The film made an additional $7.5 million, falling off just 28 percent, and has garnered $22.2 million domestically in two weeks. The still-cheesy, still-lame Dolphin Tale somehow hunkered down and stayed in the top five, ranking fifth with $6.3 million and having made $58.6 million through its first month in theaters. Brad Pitt’s Moneyball started off the second tier of the top 10 with $5.5 million, boosting the film’s four-week tally to $57.7 million and counting. Seventh place went to Seth Rogen’s comedy 50/50, which scored an additional $4.3 million and has garnered $24.3 million in three weeks’ worth of work. Moralilty-focused Courageous finished eighth for the weekend with $3.4 million, which in and of itself nearly doubled the movie’s scant $2 million budget. The last newcomer to the top 10 was The Big Year, which premiered in ninth place by hauling in $3.3 million. The Lion King (in 3D) snared 10th place thanks to a $2.7 million effort and has made $90 million since Disney decided to make a blatant cash grab by pulling it out of retirement and making it “new” by turning it into a 3-D film. Three films dropped out of the top 10 from last weekend: Dream House (No. 11), Contagion (No. 12) and What’s Your Number (No. 15)……………
- Oui, Google Conversation Mode parle Français. Actually, Google’s translation app for Android phones not only speaks French, it now speaks a total of 14 new languages. Google released Translate for Android last year to assist Android phone owners in translating content into different languages via text and for spoken translation on Android handsets, but the language choices were limited to English and Spanish. Even when the company earlier this year added Conversation Mode, users were only able to translate chats between English and Spanish. With this new tool, users can translate speech back and forth between 14 languages, text among 63 languages, voice input in 17 of those languages, and text-to-speech in 24 of them. Translate is available for Android 2.2 handsets and later in Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish. The technology is still in fairly unrefined form, meaning background noise and regional accents may affect accuracy. That issue is common amongst most speech recognition technologies, but Google hopes Conversation Mode will be refined by the struggles if people continue to use it. Utilizing Conversation Mode is as simple as speaking into an Android handset's microphone, allowing the Translate app to translate what they say and read the translation back to them aloud. The person on the other end of the call can then reply in their language from their phone and Conversation Mode will translate what they said and read it back to the original speaker. Google desperately needs Conversation Mode to succeed so it can compete with Apple's Siri artificially intelligent personal assistant, which allows users to speak into their phone to have it find certain information and conduct other tasks. Conversation Mode’s edge may come from adding features intended to make it easier to speak and read as a user translates. "For example, if you wanted to say, 'Where is the train?' but Google Translate recognizes your speech as 'Where is the rain?' you can now correct the text before you translate it," said Google Product Manager Jeff Chin. "You can also add unrecognized words to your personal dictionary.” Another extra feature is a magnifying-glass effect so users can view translated text in full-screen mode to easily show it to someone nearby, or pinch to zoom in for a close-up view. All part of Google’s ongoing plan for world domination, of course………….
No comments:
Post a Comment