Potato Salad Mayhem!

All this over not sharing some potato salad?

And after coming after Dad with a kitchen knife…

She really expected Dad to welcome her back home? “Here baby, have some salad…”

Karen Henry Arrested: Florida Woman Attacks Father For Not Sharing Potato Salad, Cops Say

One charge of aggravated assault, with a side of rage.

Police in Florida arrested a 45-year-old woman after she allegedly attacked her father for refusing to share his potato salad.

Officials say that Karen Henry, of Palm Bay, became enraged during the Oct. 22 incident, wielding a knife against her 80-year-old father and verbally abusing him, CBS Tampa reports.

“Karen became very angry that she could not have the potato salad and began throwing and breaking items,” a report obtained by The Daytona Beach News-Journal states. “[She] then grabbed a large kitchen knife and began threatening [her father] with it.”

Henry’s father, Hubert, defended himself with a chair before retreating to his bedroom for safety, according to reports.

Shortly after police arrested Henry, she began complaining of abdominal pains. Authorities allowed the suspect to be treated at Florida Hospital Flagler, only to catch her on the phone pleading with her father to drop the charges against her. As a result, police added an additional charge to Henry’s file: tampering with a witness.

Karen Henry is also charged with aggravated assault using a deadly weapon and is being held in Flagler County Inmate Facility without bail.

 

More Trouble for the “Sperminator” – Herman Cain

"Cornbread" is Cain's Self Appointed Nickname

Right on the tail of the Cain sexual harassment story, comes the Cain…

Campaign Finance debacle.

Moving money between a charity and a political campaign is definitely illegal, a big no-no – and should result in prosecution.

But the thing that caught my eye was near the bottom of the article – where it is reported that Cain paid $100,000 to speak to a black conservative organization. In the strange world of black conservative front organizations – “Cornbread“, didn’t get paid to speak as you would normally expect…. Cornbread had to pay a black conservative group $100,000 to listen to him!

Herman Cain campaign’s financial ties to Wisconsin charity questioned

Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain, whose candidacy is under siege followingsexual harassment allegations, also faces new questions about financial ties between his fledgling campaign and a private charity launched by two of his top aides.

Citing interviews and internal financial documents, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reportsthat a Wisconsin tax-exempt charity called Prosperity USA footed the bill for about $40,000 worth of iPads, chartered jet services and other expenses as Cain’s campaign got off the ground this year.

Expenses totaling $37,372 are listed in the group’s financial records as “due from FOH,” or Friends of Herman Cain, the name of his campaign committee. It is not clear whether Cain repaid the alleged debts, which are not listed in his personal or campaign disclosures.

Such payments are forbidden under federal tax and election laws, because nonprofit charities are not allowed to participate or donate money or services to political campaigns, according to election-law experts.

“It looks like a law school exam on potential campaign-finance violations,” said Lawrence H. Norton of Womble Carlyle, former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission. “Many of these payments would be prohibited contributions under federal election law.”

Prosperity USA was founded by Mark Block, Cain’s chief of staff, and Linda Hansen, deputy chief of staff. Block launched Prosperity USA and a related group after he had headed the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a tea party-aligned organization based in Washington.

Looks Like the Cornbread is Getting Burnt

Block said Monday that the campaign has requested an independent investigation of the allegations. He did not provide further details.

“As with any suggestions of this type, we have asked outside counsel to investigate the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s suggestions and may comment, if appropriate, when that review is completed,” Block wrote in an e-mail…

Cain began taking donations for his then-quixotic presidential campaign in January. Bank records cited by the Journal Sentinel show Prosperity USA paid for $15,000 for a trip to Atlanta, $17,000 for chartered flights and $5,000 for travel and meeting costs in Iowa, Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas and Louisiana. The newspaper also said the Cain campaign was billed $3,700 for iPads purchased Jan. 4.

Records obtained by the Milwaukee newspaper also appeared to show a $100,000 payment to the Congress on Racial Equality, a conservative black group, shortly before Cain served as the keynote speaker at the group’s annual dinner, the newspaper said. The expense was apparently covered by $150,000 worth of loans to Prosperity USA by unidentified supporters, the report said…

"You welcome to stop by anytime, Cornbread. Just bring more money!" (Herman Cain and Niger Innis)

 

Black Folks and the Parks

Been to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon – and a number of the other Parks in the West and Southwest. Grand

Teton is one of the most stunningly beautiful places I’ve ever been to.

But to be honest with you – black folks are a bit thin on the ground in these parts. Then again, the population of the whole state of Wyoming is smaller than Washington, DC.

Grand Teton

Now that doesn’t mean you are not welcome – and it sure has heck doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the trip.

Yosemite seeks a more diverse visitor base

Reporting from Yosemite National Park— Their YosemiteValley tour was nearing its end, and the church ladies and gents from South Los Angeles had heard enough. Almost.

“He’s been telling us stories he thinks we want to hear for two hours,” said Ann Hale, 70, heaving a sigh of frustration from the back of the tram.

In fact, guide William Fontana had been regaling his listeners — most of them white — with stories about John Muir andTheodore Roosevelt, about fur trappers and rock climbers.

“We’re still waiting for at least a few words about Yosemite’s African American Buffalo Soldiers,” Hale grumbled to a fellow passenger.

 

Faux News Hammers Cain for Sexual Harassment

Liberal press?

I don’t think so. This is fratricide within the Republican Party with Karl Rove’s fingerprints all over it. Faux News even jumped on this one to bring Cain down a peg or two – and possibly destroy his campaign.

Cain has gone in a few hours this morning from “it didn’t happen” to “I was falsely accused!”.

I think Mr. Lawn Jockey Cain got a bit too much traction, and was too full of himself… So he had to be reminded exactly what his value to the Republican Party is.

 

Is Herman Cain Another Clarence Thomas?

Who...Me?

Those who remember the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, recall the Anita Hill affair…

Seems Clarence had a problem with the ladies.

Reports are coming out now that Herman Cain may indeed have the same problem. To be fair, this is still in the category where it could be a smear…

But Cain’s response below does leave a few questions.

Herman Cain denies report of sexual harassment

Herman Cain, a businessman whose rise to the top of the Republican presidential polls has stunned the U.S. political establishment, was on the defensive Monday after a report he had faced sexual harassment accusations in the 1990s.

Cain planned to make several scheduled appearances in Washington on Monday following the report that alleges he was twice accused of sexual harassment while he was the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

In a statement to The Associated Press on Sunday, his campaign disputed a report on the website Politico that said Cain had been accused of sexually suggestive behavior toward at least two female employees.

Cain — a self-styled outsider relatively new to the national stage — is facing a new level of scrutiny after a burst of momentum in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. He’s been steadily at or near the top of national surveys and polls in early presidential nominating states, competitive with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The report said the women signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them five-figure financial payouts to leave the association and barred them from discussing their departures. Neither woman was identified.

The report was based on anonymous sources and, in one case, what the publication said was a review of documentation that described the allegations and the resolution.

Cain’s campaign told the AP that the allegations were not true, and amounted to unfair attacks.

“Inside-the-Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain,” spokesman J.D. Gordon said in a written statement. “Dredging up thinly sourced allegations stemming from Mr. Cain’s tenure as the Chief Executive Officer at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts.”

Asked if Cain’s campaign was denying the report, Gordon said, “Yes.”

“These are baseless allegations,” Gordon said in a second interview later Sunday evening. “To my knowledge, this is not an accurate story.”

Cain plans to continue with several planned appearances in Washington on Monday. He is slated to discuss his tax plan at the American Enterprise Institute, appear at the National Press Club and hold a healthcare briefing on Capitol Hill.

The former pizza company executive has been pointing to his long record in business to argue that he has the credentials needed to be president during a time of economic strife.

In its report, Politico said it confronted Cain early Sunday outside of the CBS News Washington bureau, where he had just been interviewed on “Face the Nation.”

“I am not going to comment on that,” he told Politico when asked specifically about one of the woman’s claims.

When asked if he had ever been accused of harassment by a woman, he responded, Politico said, by asking the reporter, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”

 

Occupy Baltimore Gets Support of Police and Firefighters Unions

One of the things being challenged by Occupy Baltimore is the failure of the Education System…

The Occupy Movement evening meetings appear to be the only place democracy is actually working in America anymore. There certainly isn’t any democracy left in the big marble buildings just 30 miles down Interstate 95 from Baltimore.

 

Pizza Wars! Worker Burn Down Rival Store

These guys are SERIOUS!

Herman Cain Pizza - Full of Isht, and more than a little burnt

Police: Pizza workers burned down rival store

The battle for pizza supremacy has taken a wrong turn in Florida.

Two managers of a Domino’s Pizza restaurant in Lake City, in north-central Florida, have been charged with burning down a rival Papa John’s location. The motive? Police say one of the men admitted that he believed with his competitor out of the way, more pizza lovers would flock to his restaurant.

The Papa John’s was gutted in the Oct. 20 fire.

Both men — Sean Everett Davidson, 23, and Bryan David Sullivan, 22 — were booked on an arson charge and were being held in jail.

The Star-Banner of Ocala reports that police are still looking for an ignition device that the men claimed they made but did not use to start the fire.

Geez… Folks have no imagination anymore! All the had to do was to put a couple of Godfather’s Pizza signs up near the Papa John’s with the same phone number, and float the rumor it had been bought out by Godfather’s…

And that would have had folks flocking to Dominos!

Herman Cain Pizza…Indeed.

 

Egyptians March in Support of Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy movement has truly gone worldwide. Yesterday, pro-Democracy Egyptians in Cairo marched in solidarity with Americans in the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The brutal assault on the Occupy Oakland protest has gone worldwide.

As they vowed earlier this week to do, Egyptian pro-democracy protesters marched from Tahrir square to the U.S. Embassy today to march in support of Occupy Oakland—and against police brutality witnessed in Oakland on Tuesday night, and commonly experienced in Egypt.

Yet another battle is brewing in Louisville, where Police were ordered by Tennessee’s Republican Governor to arrest protesters for the second time this week. Once again, a Judge has thrown out the arrests as illegal.

The arrests and harassment of Occupy protesters is beginning to resemble that endured by Civil Rights protesters in the 60’s. It’s not nearly as violent (yet)… But if some of the local authorities don’t get a grip – it may be. As evidenced by the protests in Egypt, people worldwide are disgusted with the assault upon the First Amendment rights of the protesters in the supposed bastion of Democracy.

Occupy Nashville protesters arrested again

State troopers for the second straight night arrested anti-Wall Street protesters for defying a new nighttime curfew imposed by the Republican governor, in an effort to disband an encampment near the state Capitol in Nashville.

And also, for a second time, a Nashville night judge dismissed the arrest warrants.

The Tennessean newspaper reported early Saturday morning that Magistrate Tom Nelson told troopers delivering the protesters to jail that he could “find no authority anywhere for anyone to authorize a curfew anywhere on Legislative Plaza.”

Occupy Nashville protesters – including many of the 29 arrested in a pre-dawn raid on Friday – returned to the Legislative Plaza that evening and remained through the 10 p.m. curfew…

 

What Not to Choose as a Getaway Vehicle

Grand Theft Auto…

For a Forklift?

This republican didn’t even order a cheesesteak!

Man uses stolen forklift for getaway after stealing sandwich

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing a sandwich and then hopping on a stolen forklift to make his getaway.

On Sunday, 38-year-old Sean Faulkner walked into Sieb’s Pub, ordered a Reuben sandwich, and then ran out without paying. He jumped into the forklift he had pilfered from a construction site earlier that day.

Kelly Donatelli, who served him at Seib’s said, “He said he was gonna go eat in the corner and he ended up running out of the front door, down the parking lot with the sandwich. Just very bizarre. It was weird.”

Authorities said Faulker was still in the forklift in the parking lot when officers arrived. His escape was reportedly thwarted because he could not put the forklift in reverse.

“Apparently he was tired of walking and he saw the forklift with the keys in it and seemed like a good idea at the time,” Detective Brian Kohlheep told CBS affiliate KDKA.

Maybe he should have gone for a Chevy.

 

 

Huntsman Daughters Parody Cain Commercial

The Jon2012Girls jump in with a parody of Herman Cain’s smoking video. Candidate Jon Huntsman’s daughters have posted a parody on YouTube hitting back at Cains ridiculous and pathetic ad.

No word yet on whether the Cain grandchildren will strike back.

Can the Huntsman girls burst Cain’s bubble? 

If policy speeches and retail campaigning don’t work, there are always fake mustaches and bubbles.

Eager to find its way into any story line, the Jon Huntsmancampaign is up with a new Web video parodying the viral Herman Cain spot featuring his smoke-blowing campaign manager.

It features three of Huntsman’s daughters — the “Jon2012girls” — wearing thick-rimmed eyeglasses and terrible, terrible fake mustaches in an attempt to mimic the bizarre Cain video.

“We strongly believe that our dad has the experience and proven track record to revive America’s economy and create jobs. Even if we didn’t believe that, we’d still have to be here,” says one of the girls.

It ends with the three girls blowing bubbles, not smoke as Mark Block did in his version. It also borrows Cain’s catchy campaign anthem.

 

Usher Attacked BY Woman … For Parking in Handicapped Spot!

Dang! It’s tough out there for a crooner! Usher, more used to them screaming and falling down when he hits those high notes…

Gets a beat-down from a woman for illegal parking on his way to the show!

Obviously this woman isn’t a fan… Or maybe Usher should have taken his shirt off?

USHER ATTACKED BY WOMAN FOR PARKING IN HANDICAPPED SPOT

Usher was planning to engage in an early Halloween celebration but instead of partaking in the festivities in a positive light, the R&B crooner was met with negativity by a woman who attacked him for parking in a handicapped spot in an Atlanta lot.

TMZ reports that the ‘Raymond v. Raymond’ creator arrived to the Little Points Halloween Parade, where he parked his black SUV into a spot that was reserved for those with a handicap. Usher was met by a screaming woman, who grabbed at his shirt and tried several times to swing her arms at him. Bystanders dressed in costume — an Elvis impersonator was among them — helped to prevent the woman from getting close to the singer.

According to the video, the woman is taped screaming and attempting to accost the ‘DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love’ performer in front of her child. “You don’t belong here!” the woman screams at Usher. Sources tell TMZ that she was eventually lead away from the fracas by her husband.

 

It’s Not the Education System That’s Broke

You hear this refrain frequently – that American companies can’t find qualified or educated workers. With the recent exposure that many companies automatically exclude the unemployed as potential employees – it’s becomming incresingly obvious that it is not the education system that is the problem…

It’s the companies themselves.

Some years ago many companies started using automated search engines which sorted resumes looking for keywords. The growth of the Internet has also meant the growth of potential resumes which a company can choose from. Keyword searches are based on the faulty idea that someone who is qualified for a potential position will include those words in the resume. So for instance, a candidate with an ITIL, Six Sigma, or PMI certification would include those terms in the resume. Since real work skills, accomplishments, and experience don’t translate to such simpleminded analysis – the impact of this was to devalue the experience of anyone who could actually do the job, and raise the value of folks who became certification whores.

Leading to the surreal environment where the self proclaimed “father of the Internet” couldn’t get hired for a technical job in the industry he created – or a guy who had actually designed and built bridges over rivers for 25 years…

Is suddenly “unqualified” for a job to design and build bridges, because he hadn’t built a bridge over a creek.

Enabled by the power of the computer, Human Resources folks were able to get very precise in developing requirements for potential hires. This meant developing skills criteria where no one, who wasn’t already doing the job for the hiring company (and usually even the person in the job couldn’t qualify for), could ever fit. Years ago, I took a job with a company which had developed a proprietary technology which was only utilized at that time in 3 other places in the world, including DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – which is a small group of really smart guys working on super secret technology projects), and MIT being two of the three other places. My advantage? I had at least read about it in technical publications. Recognizing that the pool of folks who knew anything about the technology was exceedingly small – the company had an aggressive internal education program to bring employees up to speed.

Today, companies don’t want to invest in training employees – believing that the alphabet soup of outside certification agencies is somehow going to produce qualified employees. It doesn’t, what it produces is a lot of employees with the common toolkits to work – which is a large distance from having the real functional skills.

Being in the tech industry means getting approached by headhunters several times a week, sometimes on resumes that are 10 years or more old. My last name is the same as a company which produces a very sophisticated software system. For years I’d get calls from breathless headhunters looking for programmers familiar with the system. Never occurred to these folks that if I was the guy who had created the system, and CEO of the company bearing my last name…

WTF would I be looking for a junior or mid-level programming job?

 

First Convictions in Philly Abortion Clinic Crimes

The case of the Philadelphia abortion butcher made national news. Operating out of a filthy facility in the city, the Gosnell was responsible for the deaths of at least 7 children, and an unknown number of mothers. This guy escaped scrutiny by medical and regulatory authorities for years. The cases are finally coming to court, with the first guilty pleas by “nurses” who assisted Gosnell in his scam.

Two plead guilty in deaths at Philadelphia abortion clinic

Two women accused of participating in the deadly activities inside a filthy West Philadelphia abortion clinic calmly told a judge Thursday that they were guilty.

The guilty pleas by Adrienne Moton, 34, and Sherry West, 52, leave seven defendants to be tried in the case that grabbed national headlines due to the shocking nature of the crimes that took place inside Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society.

Gosnell, 70, could face the death penalty if convicted. He is accused cutting the spinal cords of seven babies born alive at his clinic. He is also charged with the third-degree murder of Karnamaya Mongar, 41, a clinic patient who died in November 2009 from an overdose of drugs prescribed by Gosnell.

Moton, of Upper Darby, Pa., was an unlicensed clinic worker. She pleaded guilty to third-degree murder for the death of “Baby D,” one of the seven babies.

She also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit third-degree murder, participating in a corrupt organization and conspiracy to participate in a corrupt organization.

She entered her plea via a video link because she is incarcerated outside of the city. Tasha Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, declined to say why Moton is being held elsewhere and for what reason.

Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner told Moton that he could sentence her to as much as 120 years in state prison and fine her up to $125,000.

The plea came with no agreements with the prosecution, which leaves the sentence up to him, Lerner said.

West, of Newark, Del., was an unlicensed clinic worker who routinely performed illegal operations and administered anesthesia, according to a 281-page grand jury report released in January.

She pleaded guilty to the third-degree murder of Mongar, conspiracy to commit third-degree murder, drug delivery resulting in death, participating in a corrupt organization and conspiracy to participate in a corrupt organization.

Lerner told West that she faced the possibility of being sentenced to 140 years in prison and fined up to $175,000.

Lerner set Dec. 2 as a tentative sentencing date for both women.

 

Rising Like a Phoenix? US Economy…

This may well just continue to work and turn the US economy around…

As long as conservatives don’t get elected to screw it up.

The fact is, it has now become cheaper to manufacture many products in the US than in China. Those companies who haven’t made plans to “inshore” yet may well be holding losing cards. This could have a net impact on the US economy of over 3 million new jobs in 3 years. Foreign based companies have figured it out, with both Asian and European companies flocking to build plants in America. You add that to the two major “bleeding edge” chip foundries being built right here in America – and there are some fundamental economic changes afoot.

No small contributor to this shift is that energy independence thing. The US isn’t very far from being able to be self-sufficient. There are humongous reserves of Natural Gas in the Midwest, and oil reserves beggaring those in the Middle East in the Gulf of Mexico. This should mean stabilized energy costs, no longer at the whim of some crackpot oil-can Dictator.

China’s counterfeiting and Intellectual theft issues are huge for tech industries, it is also impacting firm’s brand names. I for one, have never been convinced it was ultimately profitable to move any high tech or leading edge product production to China because of the theft issue. It really doesn’t matter if you can make a big screen TV 15 cents cheaper – if the manufacturer is making knockoffs, using your logo, and selling them $100.00 cheaper. I think it’s time to cut the George Bush (pick one) support system for China. They have a huge internal market, and there is no reason their economy should not be strong once the necessary changes are made in how their government works, and business is conducted are made.

World power swings back to America

The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.

Assumptions that the Great Republic must inevitably spiral into economic and strategic decline – so like the chatter of the late 1980s, when Japan was in vogue – will seem wildly off the mark by then.

Telegraph readers already know about the “shale gas revolution” that has turned America into the world’s number one producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia.

Less known is that the technology of hydraulic fracturing – breaking rocks with jets of water – will also bring a quantum leap in shale oil supply, mostly from the Bakken fields in North Dakota, Eagle Ford in Texas, and other reserves across the Mid-West.

“The US was the single largest contributor to global oil supply growth last year, with a net 395,000 barrels per day (b/d),” said Francisco Blanch from Bank of America, comparing the Dakota fields to a new North Sea.

Total US shale output is “set to expand dramatically” as fresh sources come on stream, possibly reaching 5.5m b/d by mid-decade. This is a tenfold rise since 2009.

The US already meets 72pc of its own oil needs, up from around 50pc a decade ago.

 

What’s With the Criminal Republican Candidates?

You gotta know if you run for office, if you have isht in your past it is going to come out.

And while a DUI or a Speeding Ticket or two probably isn’t going to impact voters very much…

Having sex with a child is a surefire ticket to voter (and hopefully incarceration) hell. Sounds to me that this Republican Independent, Linda Wall belongs on the Sexual Predator registry – instead of being registered as a candidate for the Virginia House.

What is amusing about this is that it appears Ms. Wall, the “Independent” candidate is in the race because of Republican candidate, Mr. Fariss’s legal and ethical problems…

Democrat Connie Brennan (l), and "Independent" Linda Wall (r)

Linda Wall, Virginia House Of Delegates Candidate, Admits Lesbian Affair With Minor

Linda Wall, a conservative independent Virginia candidate for the House of Delegates, admitted on Wednesday that she had an affair with a female student as a junior high gym teacher in the early 1970s, but said she has changed.

“I’ve never tried to hide that I was in homosexuality,” she said in an interview with the AP. “If anybody Googles me, they would find that out there,” she said. “Forty years ago I was a different person. I was a heavy pot smoker with … impaired judgment and made some bad choices,” she added. The student was a minor at the time, meaning Wall could still be prosecuted if she comes forward.

In a 2006 deposition as part of a defamation lawsuit former Republican candidate Paul Jost filed against her and state Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., Wall confirmed that she had sexual relations with a minor. She said resigned her position after the superintendent of the unspecified Prince George County, Va. school confronted her about the allegation.

Wall said that she converted to Christianity, changed her sexual orientation and stopped using drugs. She has lobbied the Virginia legislature on social issues and describes herself as “ex-gay.”

Wall isn’t the only candidate with ethical issues in the November election centered in Appomattox County, Virginia, following the retirement of independent Del. Watkins Abbitt. Republican candidate Matt Fariss was named in a 2002 emergency protective order against a local woman, and was convicted in separate incidents for holding a concealed weapon and drunk driving. Supporters of Democratic candidate Connie Brennan have publicized repots on Fariss, whose record includes several misdemeanor convictions related to hunting violations and a DUI.

Apparently the guys are getting heavy financial support from the Republican Party, as reported here. And Mr. Fariss’ criminal record seems to be a bit more extensive than mentioned.