MEET A MASS MURDERER IN TRAINING

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U.S. News

California man avoids prison after 2021 attack on tortoise

Michelangelo, the 70-year-old African tortoise and San Jose preschool pet, wanders around at ARCHVET Animal Hospital in San Jose, Calif., Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021, following surgery the day before after being beaten and stabbed by an assailant. On Friday, Dec. 16, 2022, a judge sentenced the assailant to two years of probation and mandatory mental health and substance abuse treatment, according to The San Jose Mercury News. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group via AP)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California man avoided prison time Friday after he drunkenly trespassed at a preschool last year and attacked a pet tortoise named Michelangelo, The San Jose Mercury News reported.

The 42-year-old man was also linked to other break-ins at the East San Jose school, and stole thousands of dollars of items in the days before and after the attack on Michelangelo, a decades-old African sulcata, in January 2021.

The school's owner discovered Michelangelo bleeding last year after the attack, impaled in the shell with 6-inch (15-centimeter) shards from a wooden garden gate post. The man had also shoved a rake handle between the animal’s head and leg and broke flood lamps and put the shattered glass on the tortoise’s back, The Mercury News reported.

A judge sentenced the man Friday to two years of probation and mandatory mental health and substance abuse treatment. He had pleaded no contest to charges of animal abuse, commercial burglary and vandalism earlier this year, the newspaper reported.

The man is now also banned from having any animals for 10 years. His public defender said his client’s behavior against the tortoise was the result of excessive intoxication, rather than animal cruelty, the newspaper wrote.

The preschool did not return the newspaper's request for comment Friday.

ACCESSORIES TO MURDER

Steyer, Bloomberg, Soros, Schultz & other such fortunates should spend their billions to target EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN SENATOR in Washington up for re-election in 2020.

From now until November, the billionaires should blanket newspapers, magazines, airwaves, Facebook, Instagram & Twitter with facts exposing these unprincipled representatives to the cleansing effects of sunlight, for turning their backs on our civilized society. They are criminals.

The law goes like this: If you are a witness to murder and you do nothing, you are an accessory to the crime.

The crime: murdering the rule of law, murdering the Constitution, murdering our values, our respect for each other, murdering our way of life, all to preserve their miserable fiefdoms & by so doing, unleashing the sociopath, who resides in the White House, onto the rest of us.

Making dRump the unPOTUS is the imperative but let's finish it in one sanitary flush.

Voters in every town, city & state that has a Republican Senator up for a re-election, should organize to wipe out these spineless individuals. Citizens should take to the streets again, again & again in order to show them the door in November.

These Senators are nothing less than a virulent form of political Ebola that spreads like wildfire. And that's already happened via social media & on the airwaves; both in broadcast & cable.

It is now up to us to mobilize our forces to quarantine it for reasons of our national health.

So organize! If we can get to the moon in less than a decade, we can run these criminals out of office in less than ten months.

Wake up! The clock is ticking, ticking, ticking...

Does the RACIAL JUSTICE ACT have to become a political matter?

The Trevon Martin / George Zimmerman case starting me thinking about the Racial Justice Act. Will this law be reduced to politics  or can it be discussed as a matter of conscience? What do you think? Comment below. 

Is this what our world is coming to? Sheeesh.

Anti-Theft lunch bags make thieves think your sandwich Is moldy. Here's the website if you want to order some..... but as of 2010/09/29 they are temporarily out of stock but you can reserve some.

A headline you've got to love > Alleged Walmart Robber Hides in Dumpster, Gets Compacted

Book Review > "Innocent" by Scott Turow

406 pp

Other books by Scott Turow

• Limitations
• Ordinary Heroes
• Ultimate Punishment
• Reversible Errors
• Personal Injuries
• The Laws of Our Fathers
• Pleading Guilty
• The Burden of Proof
• Presumed Innocent
• One L

This book had 3 distinct story parts:

1. A love affair between an aging judge & a young lawyer
2. A court case
3. The relationship between a father & son

There are only a few characters in this book; the main ones are father, son, lover, DA.

For me, the core of this book is the relationship between the father and the son; both lawyers. The father, a well known & respected Prosecutor & Judge, about to be elevated from the Court of Appeals to the Superior Court, finds himself deliciously & troublingly embroiled in a great love affair and has to confront his demons.

That confrontation unfolds in a courtroom as Judge Rusty Sabich, once accused & acquitted of a prior murder charge, is again charged of murder; this time of his own wife.

The prosecutor's explanation of the murder plot takes shape as the reader is follows step by step through the logical questioning of the Judge and as he testifies to those questions put to him by the current DA, his prior & current nemesis. Of course, there are two sides to every court case & the defense side is just as convincing.

In the beginning of this novel Turow provides the back story of the prior murder charges (& acquittal) brought by Tommy Molto against Rusty Sabich; details not permitted into evidence at the second trial for fear of prejudicing the jury. It also puts the reader on the the emotional roller coaster that is the intimate & sincere love affair between Rusty & Anna. As a senior citizen, myself, reading about this sexy love affair produced some longing in me. Of course, it is immoral by our puritanical social standards but it is also very real, desirable and special for both participants. Unfortunately, it could never have ended well and didn't.

Nevertheless this secret affair, to all except the participants, plays a pivotal role in Rusty's wife's demise and the strengthening of Rusty's  relationship with Nat, his  overshadowed son (who is clerking in the Superior Court), and who hasn't quite found his place in life when the story begins.

The dialog between father & son seems haltingly genuine as does the court testimony and other relationships in the book. None was a real stretch for this reader. It all seemed so credible, thanks to the author's talent. It will probably make an excellent movie one day.

I consider "Innocent" a thoroughly enjoyable read; once I got into it, I could hardly put it down. For anyone who likes a process piece, like a CSI or seeing how lawyers present opposing views of the same evidence, this is a definite read. I'm giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Innocent by Scott Turow | Book review (guardian.co.uk)
• Back To The Courtroom (living2read.blogspot.com)

Book Review > Hot Springs by Stephen Hunter

First Sergeant Earl Swagger returns from the war in Europe & the the Pacific, a certified hero, a tough guy; winner of the medal of honor bestoyed on him by President Harry S. Truman.

With his young wife newly pregnant & still living in a military Quonset hut & ready to work at the local mill until he can afford a house in Polk County AK, Earl is recruited to help organize a group of highly trained shooters (including Audy Murphy) by a newly elected & ambitious prosecuting attorney named Becker, the group to be led by an old time FBI agent and fast draw named D.A. Parker. Their aim:  to clean up Hot Springs.

The group, drawn from varied locations & walks of life, train in a secret location with pistols, rifles, automatic weapons, military tactics & discipline. Earl's sergeantry comes in handy here. Up at 5:00am, stripping down weapons, reassembling them in the dark, shooting, shooting & more shooting,  physical exercise, eating & sleeping repeated day after day until, finally they are ready for 'battle'.

Their nemesis: Owney Maddox, the godfather of Hot Springs who runs all the whorehouses, gambling casinos, numbers rackets & the like. All the local politicians are in his pocket as are the judges & police. His enforcers are an ornery clan of ruthless hillbillies. They rule the city unopposed until D.A. Parker, Earl Swagger & the team start taking Owney's underworld kingdom apart piece by piece in one surprise raid after another.

This causes great consternation, not only for Owney Maddox, but also for the godfather's in the New York mob who consider Hot Springs their personal playground, their safe haven, a place where everything is under control, where they can let their hair down, go to shows starring Mickey Rooney, Dina Shore & other stars of the time, to drink, gamble & cavort with whores without fear of being hassled by the cops. 

There are four or five detailed story lines in this book. One of them has Bugsy Seigel visiting Hot Springs with his girlfriend, Virgina Hill, on his way out west to build a casino in a place called Las Vegas, a state where gambling is legal & Meyer Lansky sees the potential of a great investment for mob monies. 

Other story lines involve Earl's wife, Earl's family background, racial integration, loyalty, betrayal and final restitution. 

The book has the richness of extreme detail that all Stephen Hunter books have, interwoven with bits of history, mixed with the brutality of the times. This book is definitely a page turner. My only problem is that I find the dialog in Mr. Hunter's books a bit stilted but after a while you just accept it as you are swept away by the story. 

Other books by & information about the author, Stephen Hunter

• Wikipedia
• Random House
• Unofficial Stephen Hunter website

BBC News > Iranian cleric denounces dog owners

An old but scary article about life in Tehran. Another & more extensive article on the same subject can be found here.

A conservative Iranian cleric has denounced the "moral depravity" of owning a dog, and called for the arrest of all dogs and their owners.

Dogs are considered unclean in Islamic law and the spread of dog ownership in Westernised secular circles in Iran is frowned upon by the religious establishment.

"I demand the judiciary arrest all dogs with long, medium or short legs - together with their long-legged owners," Hojatolislam Hassani is quoted as saying in the reformist Etemad newspaper.

"Otherwise I'll do it myself," said the outspoken cleric, who leads Friday prayers in the north-western city of Urumiyeh.

"In our country there is freedom of speech, but not freedom for corruption," he said.

Tehran journalist Mafiseh Kouhnavand told the BBC that the subject of dog ownership had been brought up many times before.

Hardline judiciary agents and police occasionally clamp down on the practice, fining owners and confiscating their pets from streets and parks.

Short-legged dogs were the target of a previous campaign

In June, police banned the sale of dogs and penalised anyone walking a dog in public. The practice is seen by conservatives as a corrupting influence of decadent Western culture.

But despite the clampdowns, dog ownership has been on the rise, especially among rich Iranians in the north of Tehran.

"Now it has reached Urumiyeh, but some people were not ready for it," Ms Kouhnavand said.

Hojatolislam Hassani appears to be widening the scope of his anti-canine campaign.

Last year, he publicly thanked police for their policy of exclusively confiscating short-legged dogs in Urumiyeh.

SCOTUS impaired > The right to remain silent now requires you to speak.

A suspect was given his Miranda rights to remain silent (or it could be used against him in a court of law). He remained mostly silent despite 3 hours of continued questioning by the police. Finally one his questioners asked Q: Do you believe in God? 'Yes" he answered. Q: Do you think God is forgiving of people's sins? (paraphrase) "Yes" he answered. Q: Do you think God would forgive you for what you did to [the victim]? "Yes" he replied.

These answers were used against him in court which led to his conviction. When challenged by their admissibility the Supreme Court found that the accused hadn't really said he wanted to remain silent so whatever he said was admissible.

“The right to remain silent” now requires you to speak: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Tuesday that criminal suspects must explicitly tell police interrogators that they wish to remain silent in order to receive Miranda protections. Previously, that right had been a given. The decision split the court along its familiar conservative-liberal fault line. Writing the dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the decision “turns Miranda upside down . . . suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so.” You can read more about it here