XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Friday 18 October 2013

NYPD Mistook Jolly Ranchers For Meth Rocks - was busted after buying the candy at Brooklyn store -

NYPD Mistook Jolly Ranchers For Meth Rocks - was busted after buying the candy at Brooklyn store - 



A New York City man arrested this summer for possession of methamphetamine was actually carrying Jolly Rancher candies that cops mistook for a controlled substance, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Love Olatunjiojo was busted in late-June after being searched by cops who approached the 25-year-old and a friend as they walked on a Coney Island street. According to a police report, officers seized six “crystalline rocks of solid material.” Four of the rocks were blue, while two were red.

As detailed in Olatunjiojo’s October 15 lawsuit (which does not specify monetary damages), he had stopped at the It’Sugar candy store before being approached by police. While there, Olatunjiojo and his friend “purchased various candies…including some ‘Jolly Rancher’ brand candies.”

Kenneth Smith, Olatunjiojo’s lawyer, told TSG that the Jolly Ranchers were in their “individual wrappers” when seized by police.

Olatunjiojo, who is of African descent, was charged with drug possession. He spent 24 hours in custody before being released on his own recognizance on the misdemeanor count.

A Criminal Court complaint alleged that officers seized a “quantity of methamphetamine” that field tested positive for a controlled substance. One of the arresting officers “has had professional testing as a police officer in the identification of methamphetamine.”

But the crystalline rocks purportedly containing methamphetamine were not illegal. Two days after Olatunjiojo’s arrest, the NYPD’s Controlled Substance Analysis Section performed lab tests that revealed they contained no controlled substances. A resulting lab report directed cops to notify the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office of the test’s negative results.

Despite that warning, the narcotics count against Olatunjiojo remained pending until a September 19 court hearing, when a prosecutor moved to drop the charge.

Olatunjiojo’s friend, who was also carrying Jolly Ranchers, was similarly arrested on a drug possession count, said Smith, who added that the criminal charge was subsequently dropped. A third man was busted for interfering with police as they arrested his two friends. That man, Smith said, exclaimed to cops that, “It’s candy!”

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Hotels hire specialists to cure guests' hangovers... -

Hotels hire specialists to cure guests' hangovers... - 



Want to smell like Chanel No.5, get rid of a hangover, or score hand-shaved artisanal chocolate soap — all without leaving your hotel room? (Yeah, me too.) If you’re a guest at some luxury hotels, a “specialty concierge” can take care of that.

High-end hotels are hiring highly specialized butlers and staffers who attend to very select needs of guests, be it their love lives (romance concierge), hangovers (recovery concierge), or cleanliness (bath butlers). Just this year, Westin Hotels & Resorts hired a running concierge, who helps coach hotel guests by giving running advice and tips, and last year Rosewood Hotels began offering guests the services of fragrance butlers, who bring perfume and cologne to guest rooms, in its New York, Dallas, Menlo Park, Vancouver and Saudi Arabia locations.

Hotels say these specialists enhance the guest experience. Brian Povinelli, the global brand leader for Westin Hotels & Resorts, says the hotel hired the running concierge because they thought he would “seamlessly connect with our guests and ultimately help them achieve their goals.” Pedro Lara, General Manager at Viceroy Riviera Maya, says “the soap concierge is one more way to surprise and delight guests.” And Laura Benge, Exhale Spa’s national spa director (the spa has partnered with the Gansevoort Hotel Group to offer bath butler service) says that “the bath butler service is one way we make traveling easier for our guests.”

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Machine gun-toting robots may soon back up U.S. soldiers -

Machine gun-toting robots may soon back up U.S. soldiers - 



A robot, equipped with an M240 machine gun, moves through the darkness until it stops under a stand of trees 100 yards from its squad of U.S. troops. The robot uses thermal imaging to detect enemy combatants hiding up ahead and aims its gun at them.

With a single command from its human controller, who is with the squad 100 yards back, the robot opens fire and takes out the enemy, saving the troops from a potentially deadly attack.

A weaponized robot acting as a member of a squad of U.S. soldiers fighting on the battlefield is no longer science fiction. They may not be two-legged, humanoid robots yet, but with wheels or tracks they are able to follow troops through a wide range of terrain and back them up in battle.

Both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marines have tested prototypes of weaponized robots on the battlefield. However, armed robots are not currently in the Army's inventory of weapons.

Army leaders got a look at what technology is available for the battlefield during a robotic live-fire demonstration at Fort Benning, Ga., this week.

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Syria’s civil war has become so dire that some Islamic clerics are telling starving Syrians to eat Cats and Dogs -

Syria’s civil war has become so dire that some Islamic clerics are telling starving Syrians to eat Cats and Dogs - 



Syria’s civil war has become so dire that some Islamic clerics are telling starving Syrians to eat cats and dogs.
A bad humanitarian situation has turned worse as Syrian President Bashar Assad has escalated a war against rebels, including some with ties to al Qaeda, even as progress has been made on the destruction of the regime’s stockpiles of chemical weapons.
The Assad regime has tightened siegelike conditions around rebel-held parts of the country, including Damascus neighborhoods, its suburbs of Ghouta and Muadhamiya, and the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees.
Deprived of food and medicine, many residents are starving and traumatized. Videos shared by activists show images of emaciated children.
The grim circumstances prompted religious leaders to issue a fatwa, or ruling, allowing starving citizens to eat animals normally forbidden by Islam to consume.
Syrian activists said the fatwa appeared to be an attempt to focus international attention on the humanitarian crisis engendered by the 2½-year-old civil war.
The fatwa coincides with the Muslim holiday of Eid al Adha, a festival marked by lavish feasts.
“It is difficult to celebrate when every day children are dying around us,” said Sami Ibrahim, a Damascus-based spokesman for the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
Meanwhile, the Western-backed opposition political coalition suffered a potential setback Wednesday as dozens of rebel groups in southern Syria reportedly rejected its authority.
A rebel commander said in a video that the Syrian National Coalition had failed the revolution, the Associated Press reported. He said he was joined by 66 rebel groups in disavowing the coalition. His claims could not be independently verified.


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71 percent of people ages 18 to 29 —say the Internet is their number one News source -

71 percent of people ages 18 to 29 —say the Internet is their number one News source - 



Kids (and adults) these days. According to a new study from Pew Research Center, the majority of young Americans — a whopping 71 percent of people ages 18 to 29 —say the Internet is their number one news source. TV was the runner-up, at 55 percent. Only 22 percent of young people said the good old fashioned newspaper was their main news center.

For those of us who are fat and old (30 to 49), the Internet is tied with TV as our main source of news, at 63 percent. Oddly enough, radio comes in second for this group, at 27 percent. Radio is followed by newspapers, at a lowly 18 percent.

While you’re busy cursing the young and old for abandoning newspapers, here are some other highlights from the report:

Overall, TV is still the clear winner; 69 percent of the general public say it’s their main source of news.
Last year, 19 of Americans reported viewing a news story on a social network “yesterday.” That’s more than double the nine percent who had reported doing so in 2010.
65 percent of those who claim the Internet as their main news source say news organizations are politically biased.

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Fukushima Beta-Radiation Levels Soar To New Record In Aftermath Of Typhoon Wipha -

Fukushima Beta-Radiation Levels Soar To New Record In Aftermath Of Typhoon Wipha - 



It is only fitting that on the day the Stalingrad & Poorski 500 rises to a new record high, that that other centrally-planned catastrophe, the exploded Fukushima nuclear power plant, in the aftermath of Japan's Radioactivetyphoonado reports a completely different record: namely the level of beta radiation levels at Fukushima. Bloomberg notes that the nationalized utility Tepco, which has taken denial to a different superstring dimension altogether, has detected beta radiation levels of 400,000 becquerels per liter in a water sample taken yesterday from a monitoring well near storage tank area H4 at Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. This was the highest reading on record. This number compares to Beta radiation levels of 61 Bq/L in the sample taken Oct. 16 and 90 Bq/L in the Oct. 15 sample.

Japan Times has more:

The highest level yet of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances, including strontium, has been detected at one point in a drainage ditch at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant where measurements are regularly taken, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday.

According to Tepco, a water sample taken Wednesday at a point in the ditch some 300 meters from the ocean was found to contain 1,400 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances, the highest level ever detected at that location.

Tepco said water that passed through the ditch may have entered the sea.

A water sample taken Tuesday at the same point contained 19 becquerels of such radioactive substances.

The radiation level surged after heavy rain caused by Typhoon Wipha, which hit the Tohoku region, including Fukushima Prefecture, on Wednesday, Tepco said. It is thought the rain washed out radioactive substances that had been absorbed by the ground.

Radiation levels also hit record highs in water samples collected Wednesday at three upstream points in the drainage ditch, which passes close to the storage tank from which highly radioactive water spilled in August, with the amount of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances ranging from 2,000 to 2,300 becquerels per liter.
And while 400,000 may sound like a lot, keep in mind it is substantially less than the P/E Ratio that Mr. Yellen has in store for the S&P before this whole manipulated farce ends up in a just as radioactive pile of dust.

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Man's wild bet on grandson 15 years ago nets him over $200,000 -

Man's wild bet on grandson 15 years ago nets him over $200,000 - 

Harry Wilson and Craig Bellamy

A proud grandfather’s wild bet that his toddler grandson would someday play professional soccer paid off when the boy made his debut this week, earning the U.K. man over a quarter of a million dollars.  

BBC News reports the grandfather of 16-year-old Harry Wilson placed a bet when the boy was only 18 months old that his grandson would one day play for Wales’ national soccer team.

Peter Edwards wagered 50 British pounds, or $80.73, and was given odds of 2,500 to one in Wrexham, Wales.

On Tuesday Wilson made his debut playing as a substitute against Belgium, making his grandfather very proud, and thousands of dollars richer.

Edwards told BBC that when it came down the wire, he was worried Wilson would not be substituted in before the end of the game.

"I was shattered because I had to wait for 85, 86 minutes before he came on and I was panicking because they'd already substituted twice, so I thought he wasn't going to make it," he said. "But when he came on I had another glass of wine. (I was) a proud granddad first for sure.”

Edwards says he has always told his boss if he won his wager on his grandson, he would retire. Now, he can. He will net 125,000 pounds, or $201,987.50.

"I've retired one year early,” he told BBC. “I have come home now and will not be going back. Not bad for a daft bet."

Wilson, who his grandfather said showed talent from an early age, is the youngest player ever for Wales, beating the old record holder by 108 days.

Read more -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-24555555