The Off Topic Topic

[Jaron]

Of course I do. Been quite sometime since I've moved without.

[Eddie Teach]

I hope you have peons do the lifting and carrying. It always annoys me when I hear of grown people who don't do the sensible thing.

[garbon]

Of course I do. Been quite sometime since I've moved without.

9 years.

[Josquius]

I drank 1 and a half beers at home yesterday and gave myself a big headache. Damn cold

[Tonitrus]

New fossil suggests Siberian unicorn may have lived among humans 29,000 years ago.

Cannot be true.  That is too long for Jesus to have been riding one.

[CountDeMoney]

Video shows white cops performing roadside cavity search of black man
By Radley Balko April 1 at 11:54 AM

For the past few weeks, I've been working on an investigative series about police abuse in South Carolina. I've found a dizzying number of cases, including illegal arrests, botched raids, fatal shootings and serious questions about how all those incidents are investigated. Many of these cases were previously unreported, or if they were reported, the initial reports were a far cry from what actually happened. The series will run at some point in the next week. But in the meantime, I want to share one particularly horrifying incident that I came across this week while researching the series.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/04/01/video-shows-white-cops-performing-roadside-cavity-search-of-black-man/?tid=pm_pop_b

The anal probe happens out of direct view of the camera, but the audio leaves little doubt about what's happening. Pontoon at one point says that one of the officers is grabbing his hemorrhoids. Medlin appears to reply, "I've had hemorrhoids, and they ain't that hard." At about 12:47:15 in the video, the audio actually suggests that two officers may have inserted fingers into Pontoon's rectum, as one asks, "What are you talking about, right here?" The other replies, "Right straight up in there."

Pontoon then again tells the officers that they're pushing on a hemorrhoid. One officer responds, "If that's a hemorrhoid, that's a hemorrhoid, all right? But that don't feel like no hemorrhoid to me."

The officers apparently continue to search Pontoon's rectum for another three minutes. They found no contraband.

[11B4V]

Here's what happened: Lakeya Hicks and Elijah Pontoon were in Hicks's car just a couple of blocks from downtown Aiken when they were pulled over by Officer Chris Medlin of the Aiken Department of Public Safety. Hicks was driving. She had recently purchased the car, so it still had temporary tags.

In the video, Medlin asks Hicks to get out, then tells her that he stopped her because of the "paper tag" on her car. This already is a problem. There's no law against temporary tags in South Carolina, so long as they haven't expired.

Medlin then asks Pontoon for identification. Since he was in the passenger seat, Pontoon wouldn't have been required to provide ID even if the stop had been legitimate. Still, he provides his driver's license to Medlin. A couple of minutes later, Medlin tells Hicks that her license and tags check out. (You can see the time stamp in the lower left corner of the video.) This should be the end of the stop — which, again, should never have happened in the first place.

Instead, Medlin orders Pontoon out of the vehicle and handcuffs him. He also orders Hicks out of the car. Pontoon then asks Medlin what's happening. Medlin ignores him. Pontoon asks again. Medlin responds that he'll "explain it all in a minute." Several minutes later, a female officers appears. Medlin then tells Pontoon, "Because of your history, I've got a dog coming in here. Gonna walk a dog around the car." About 30 seconds later, he adds, "You gonna pay for this one, boy."


Moments later, a K9 officer named Clark Smith arrives. He walks around the car with his dog. A fourth police officer then shows up. The four officers then spend the next 15 minutes conducting a thorough search of the car. Early into the search, Medlin exclaims, "Uh-huh!" as if he has found something incriminating. But nothing comes of it.

After the search of the car comes up empty, Medlin tells the female officer to "search her real good," referring to Hicks. The personal search of Hicks is conducted off camera, but according to the complaint filed by Phillips, it allegedly involved exposing Hicks's breasts on the side of the road in a populated area. The complaint also alleges that this was all done in direct view of the three male officers. That search, too, produced no contraband.

The officers then turn their attention to Pontoon. Medlin asks Pontoon to get out of the car. He cuffs him and begins to pat him down. Toward the end of the first video, at about the 12:46:30 mark, he tells Pontoon: "You've got something here right between your legs. There's something hard right there between your legs." Medlin says that he's going to "put some gloves on."

The anal probe happens out of direct view of the camera, but the audio leaves little doubt about what's happening. Pontoon at one point says that one of the officers is grabbing his hemorrhoids. Medlin appears to reply, "I've had hemorrhoids, and they ain't that hard." At about 12:47:15 in the video, the audio actually suggests that two officers may have inserted fingers into Pontoon's rectum, as one asks, "What are you talking about, right here?" The other replies, "Right straight up in there."

Pontoon then again tells the officers that they're pushing on a hemorrhoid. One officer responds, "If that's a hemorrhoid, that's a hemorrhoid, all right? But that don't feel like no hemorrhoid to me."

The officers apparently continue to search Pontoon's rectum for another three minutes. They found no contraband. At 12:50:25, Medlin tells Pontoon to turn around and explains that he suspects him because he recognized him from when he worked narcotics. "Now I know you from before, from when I worked dope. I seen you. That's why I put a dog on the car."


That was Medlin's "reasonable suspicion" to call for a drug dog — he thought he recognized Pontoon from a drug case. Medlin could well have been correct about recognizing Pontoon. He has a lengthy criminal history that includes drug charges, although his record appears to be clean since 2006, save for one arrest for "failure to comply." Of course, even if Medlin did recognize Pontoon, that in itself isn't cause to even stop him, much less search his car, or to subject him to a roadside cavity search.

With no contraband and no traffic violation to justify the stop in the first place, Medlin concluded the stop by giving Hicks a "courtesy warning," although according to the complaint, there's no indication of what the warning was actually for. Perhaps it was to warn to steer clear of police officers in Aiken

Oy vey WTF

[Eddie Teach]

Sneezing, coughing, vomiting, runny nose... probably coming down with a fever too. 

[Josquius]

Welcome to the club.
Thought it'd be gone by the weekend but nope

[MadImmortalMan]

More lead in the water?

Schoolchildren tested for lead after water scare in Goodsprings


Looks...familiar.


By HENRY BREAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

County health officials conducted voluntary blood tests Wednesday on seven schoolchildren and four adults who may have consumed lead-tainted water in the tiny town of Goodsprings, 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

The Southern Nevada Health District offered the screenings in response to a routine water test in September that showed elevated lead levels in the water system that supplies Goodsprings Elementary School and the adjacent community center.

Dr. Joe Iser, the district's chief health officer, said the blood tests were recommended "in an abundance of caution" for anyone who may have consumed water at those locations between Aug. 24, 2015, and March 1.

Iser said he could not discuss the results of Wednesday's screenings, but he offered something of a hint: "I very much doubt if anyone will show up with elevated blood-lead levels," he said.

The health district has offered to perform follow-up testing and make "appropriate referrals to a medical provider" for anyone who might show signs of lead exposure, which can cause brain damage and other health problems.

"Additionally, health district staff will conduct environmental assessments on the personal residence of any person found to have an elevated blood-lead level to help further determine the source of the exposure," the health district said in its statement.

Water samples collected by the Clark County School District in September showed a lead concentration of 16 parts per billion, just above the action level of 15 parts per billion set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The school district notified the health district about the results in February, and Iser said that's when his agency began planning its response.

The first order of business was to shut off the drinking fountains and begin handing out bottled water at the school and the community center. That was followed with a letter, sent to parents and school staff members on March 16, recommending the blood screening for anyone who might have consumed the tainted water.

In the early 20th century, Goodsprings was at the heart of one of Southern Nevada's most productive mining districts, and lead was among the minerals extracted there. But the boom seemed to fade for good after World War II, leaving the husk of a town now home to just over 200 people, according to Clark County estimates.

Iser said the seven children who underwent the finger-stick blood test Wednesday represent nearly the entire student body at the K-5 school.

The screenings were conducted at the historic schoolhouse, which marked its 100th birthday in 2013.

A staff member who answered the phone at Goodsprings Elementary on Wednesday afternoon referred all questions to the school district's communications office.

In a statement Wednesday, the school district stressed that elevated levels of lead were found only in samples taken from fixtures at the community center not at the school itself.

"(The health district) has tested students at Goodsprings Elementary and community members, and CCSD is providing bottled drinking water for use at both the community center and the school," the statement from the school district reads. "The Southern Nevada Health District, Clark County School District and Clark County are working together to find more answers and a solution and will continue to keep the community informed."

Iser suspects the lead contamination is coming from old pipes, fixtures or the solder used to hold them together, but tests will be conducted on the entire water system, including the source groundwater.

Most Goodsprings residents get their water from groundwater wells.

Lead in drinking water has become a nationwide concern following the crisis in Flint, Mich., where shortcuts by state and local officials resulted in widespread lead contamination in the economically depressed industrial city.

A recent investigation by USA Today and the Reno Gazette-Journal brought the issue into focus in Nevada, where state records requested by the news organizations showed three public water systems with lead levels above EPA's action level: the Marigold Mine Potable Water System in Humboldt County, Fort Churchill Power Plant in Lyon County and the system in Goodsprings.

According to JoAnn Kittrell, spokeswoman for the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, all three sites have posted notices about the test results and started providing bottled water to drink.

Well, hopefully they'll send someone to check out the source. Just ignore that guy who says his girlfriend is in trouble. He's probably a prankster or a con man or something.

[Josquius]

A thought.
British TV often draws flack for having shorter series than US TV (a product of smaller writing teams).
Though I've just realised.
This actually makes sitcoms more realistic.
6 episode worthy adventures in a year? Sure. Sounds belivable.

[Liep]

Watching a documentary on the Panama Papers.

[Savonarola]

Gato Barbieri (Argentinian Jazz Saxophonist, best known for "Last Tango in Paris") died   

[jimmy olsen]

RIP, dude lived an interesting life
http://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/joe-medicine-crow-dies-in-billings-on-sunday-morning/article_c0654e7c-740a-5b5d-9e60-46909ca1bf5d.html

BILLINGS -- Crow chief, World War II veteran and historian Joe Medicine Crow died Sunday morning in a Billings hospice center, according to Big Horn County Coroner Terry Bullis.


Medicine Crow, 102, was the last Crow war chief as the result of his military accomplishments. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor awarded to a civilian in the United States, by President Barack Obama in 2009.

...


Born Oct. 7, 1913, Medicine Crow was the official Crow Tribe historian. He was a Crow war chief, having completed the required four war deeds while serving in the Army during World War II.


Those deeds included leading a war party, touching the first fallen enemy and stealing his weapon, and entering an enemy camp and stealing horses.


"I never got a scratch," he recalled about 60 years later.

[CountDeMoney]

Medicine Crow told the Billings Gazette that a great warrior, No Vitals, had a vision that the Crow people would have to be strong to fend off the other tribes and white men, who would try to take their good land.

No Vitals.  Best warrior name evah.