Robbery trial comes to abrupt end
6:30 p.m. January 27, 2009
SAN DIEGO – A robbery trial ended abruptly Monday when a defendant smeared feces on his lawyer and threw it at jurors, authorities said.
Weusi McGowan, 37, had apparently smuggled a plastic bag filled with excrement into the San Diego Superior Court building, said Paul Levikow, spokesman for the District Attorney's Office.
As the jurors stood to leave for their mid-morning break, McGowan smeared the feces in the face and hair of his attorney, Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin, and threw it at the jury box. It did not hit any of the jurors.
Judge Jeffrey Fraser declared a mistrial.
Levikow said McGowan was apparently upset because the judge had previously denied his request to dismiss his lawyer.
McGowan faces charges including kidnapping and assault in connection with a robbery in Barrio Logan in October 2007. He is accused of hitting a 54-year-old man with a rock in a sock and demanding money and drugs.
McGowan is also accused of tying up the man, ransacking his apartment and stealing his 1994 Ford Taurus
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is receptive to the idea of prosecuting some Bush administration officials, while letting others who are accused of misdeeds leave office without prosecution, she told Chris Wallace in an interview on "FOX News Sunday."
"I think you look at each item and see what is a violation of the law and do we even have a right to ignore it," the California Democrat said. "And other things that are maybe time that is spent better looking to the future rather than to the past."
Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced Friday he wants to set up a commission to look into whether the Bush administration broke the law by taking the nation to war against Iraq and instituting aggressive anti-terror initiatives. The Michigan Democrat called for an "independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities."
President-elect Barack Obama has not closed off the possibility of prosecutions, but hinted he does not favor them.
Perhaps at the same time we need to initiate a criminal probe of Senator Edward Kennedy and his culpability in the murder of his campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne.
Oh....forgot...silly me...he needs to be excused that, one, he is a "Kennedy," and, two, he has brain cancer. Those are two good reasons.
And of course, we have nothing else dire to take care of in this country.
Venezuela's Chavez says Obama has "stench" of Bush
CAMPO CARABOBO, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday Barack Obama had the "stench" of his predecessor as U.S. president and was at risk of being killed if he tries to change the American "empire."
Most world leaders expect a new era of U.S. foreign relations when Obama, a Democrat, is sworn in as president on Tuesday after Republican George W. Bush's eight years in the White House.
But Chavez said frayed ties with Washington were unlikely to improve despite the departure of Bush, who the Venezuelan leader has often called the "devil."
"I hope I am wrong, but I believe Obama brings the same stench, to not say another word," Chavez said at a political rally on a historic Venezuelan battlefield.
"If Obama as president of the United States does not obey the orders of the empire, they will kill him, like they killed Kennedy, like they killed Martin Luther King, or Lincoln, who freed the blacks and paid with his life."
Obama, who will be the first black president in U.S. history, was given Secret Service protection on the campaign trail earlier than is customary for candidates and security for Tuesday's inauguration is extremely tight.
Venezuela is a leading supplier of oil to the United States and the two countries once enjoyed close ties.
Relations deteriorated after Chavez first won election in 1998 as he took on U.S. companies as part of his socialist agenda of nationalization of various industries and accused Washington of backing a brief coup against him.
Last year, he expelled the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela.
Chavez's foreign policy is based on countering U.S. global influence and promoting countries like Russia and China as world leaders. He has close ties to U.S. foes Cuba and Iran.
Until recently, Chavez had said he hoped relations with Washington could improve. But in the last few days, he has picked up on comments he attributes to Obama accusing him of obstructing progress in Latin America and exporting terrorism.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
For the past four days I have been suffering a severe allergic reaction to an antibiotic I was taking for two weeks for a nasty sinus infection over Christmas and New Year's. I'm not even going to go through the details of what I looked like, but suffice it to say that I was covered with very red splotches on my Scandinavian bluish-white skin on my entire body...with a miserable feeling of almost best described as a severe sunburn that itches from the inside and the outside. I saw it coming on so I was able to get the proper care before the total onset of the severe allergic reaction. Still, I was so beaten down emotionally with being alone, feeling woozy from the meds, and with my skin breaking out. I was one total piece of mess. (I have to say a couple of friends did call to keep check on me however they could...something which I so appreciated.)
Anyway.......True to my luck, in the midst of the bout I received the following very comforting advertising letter with the appropriate soothing pink printed paper with serene images of flowers and things associated with death from a local crematorium. And best of all, they are offering me a deal I simply can't refuse!
I don't know how they figure it out, but everytime I come down with an illness which beats me down with a Rocky Balboa-like knockout punch, I ALWAYS get these kinds of letters. (I think they must have some triggering mechanism with my local Target pharmacy.)
In the words of Charlie Brown, "Good grief...."
ROURKE: 'BUSH WAS IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME'
Monday January 12,2009
London Daily Express
Actor MICKEY ROURKE sympathises with U.S. President GEORGE W. BUSH - insisting he doesn't know how any politician could have successfully navigated America after the 9/11 attacks on New York.
The Hollywood tough-guy spoke out about his political views in a candid interview with Britain's GQ magazine, and admits he doesn't understand why so many people blame Bush for a string of world issues - including Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in the West.
And the actor, who claims he didn't follow last year's (08) historic U.S. election battle between Barack Obama and John McCain, urges the public to consider the tremendous pressure the controversial president was under following the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
He tells the publication, "President Bush was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I don't know how anyone could have handled this situation.
"I don't give a f**k who's in office, Bush or whoever, there is no simple solution to this problem... I'm not one of those who blames Bush for everything. This s**t between Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it.
"It's too easy to blame everything on one guy. These are unpredictable, dangerous times, and I don't think that anyone really knows quite what to do."
Rourke also confesses he was so angry after 9/11, he wanted to fight the war on terror himself.
He adds, "I'm not politically educated. But I do know that after 9/11 I wanted to go over there, you know what I'm saying?"
And the star is baffled by the U.K.'s approach to fundamentalists - insisting he was taken aback by the freedom of speech allowed in the U.K.
He explains, "I was in London recently and I couldn't believe all these hate-talking fanatics you have over here who are allowed to carry on doing their thing even when a bus full of women and children gets blown to pieces.
"I know you've deported one or two of them, but it seems crazy. I think there is worse to come, something terrible will happen to either America or the U.K., or France even. I don't think these fundamentalists should be allowed to talk all this crap, and brainwashing these young kids."
THERE IS apparently some intelligence in Hollywood....
I made this very point the other day about President Bush's performance over the past eight years to a friend of mine.
I find it interesting when my "blue friends" get more than a bit uncomfortable and unnerved and suddenly change th conversation when I make the suggestion when President-elect Barack Obama is really going back to center and is already bucking heads with the liberal Democrats.
So many Democrats have taken snippets of what President-elect Obama has said during the campaign and used "projection" to make it mean what they think it means. Believe me, I see it at as great vision that Pres. Obama is going to be disappointing a lot of liberal Democrats when he takes office next week. He said he wants to close Gitmo....like John McCain...but it could be YEARS before that actually happens. And while gay activists march around with placards with Obama's campaign logo in rainbow colors, he has made it very clear that he is against gay marriage and will not support it in anyway...yet the gay community rallies around Pres.-elect Obama as though he is their biggest ally.
To say the very least, methinks it's going to be an interesting three-and-half years.
I didn't vote for President-elect Obama, but I'm going to be his biggest supporter...because he represents a major "change" -- for better or worse. And that's good news for the greatest country in the world.
