12 year old arrested and handcuffed for doodling

A 12-year-old Queens girl was hauled out of school in handcuffs for doodling her name on her desk with a lime-green erasable marker, the Daily News reports.

Alexa Gonzalez's transgression at Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills included scribbling "I love my friends Abby and Faith" and "Lex was here. 2/1/10" (plus a smiley face) while waiting for her Spanish teacher to pass out homework.

The News says she was taken in handcuffs to the police precinct across the street from the school and detained for several hours.

"I started crying, like, a lot," Alexa tells the newspaper.
Although she remains suspended from school and must perform eight hours of community service, city officials say Alexa's arrest "shouldn't have happened."

"Even when we're asked to make an arrest, common sense should prevail, and discretion used in deciding whether an arrest or handcuffs are really necessary," said police spokesman Paul Browne.

source

Caution: slow posting period

Yeah i'm out of town for hockey. Please be patient.

Fashion Disaster

Tattoos needing spell check week

Alice Cooper just turned 62

New York boy apprehended with 2 inch toy gun

An irate Staten Island mom blasted a grade school principal for treating her son like a pint-sized Plaxico Burress after he brought a 2-inch-long toy gun to school.

The fourth-grader was nearly suspended for playing with the tiny toy at lunch.

"The gun was so little," the boy said. "I don't understand why the principal got so upset. I was a little nervous. They made me sign a statement."

Patrick and a friend were playing with Lego figures in the school cafeteria on Tuesday when he pulled out the faux machine gun and stuck it in the hands of his plastic police officer.

After a meeting between the principal and the parents, the boy was spared any disciplinary action. City school officials said Patrick agreed to leave the "gun" at home.

source

One Hit Wonder

Ides of March - Vehicle (1970)

Ides of March - Vehicle
by DwightFrye

Mug Shot of the Week

The down side of big contracts under the NHL salary cap

The standard procedure in the NHL these days is to lock up your big stars to long term contracts. The Islanders got the ball rolling in 2001 by signing Alexei Yashin to a 10-year, $87.5 million contract. That was eclipsed in 2006 n 2006, when they signed Rick DiPietro to a 15-year, $67.5 million contract. There was Mike Richards' contract at 12-year, $69 million, Vincent Lecavalier received an 11-year contract worth $85 million, Roberto Luongo got a 12-year, $64 million contract, but the wopper goes to Alex Ovechkin at 13 years and an incredible $124 million.

The thinking among GMs is that you can't afford to lose a franchise player and if you don't pay your star big bucks then someone else will. With players becoming eligible for free agency at much younger ages, these players are being locked up for 10 years or more. However, not only are the risks high if you don't lock your stars in to long term contracts but they are also high when you do sign them. Players get hurt (DiPietro), their production can decline earlier than anticipated (Lecavlier) or they just don't develop into the player you were expecting (Spezza).

The NHL has only had three 50-goal scorers over the age of 30 - Johnny Bucyk (35), Jaromir Jagr (34) and Joe Mullen (32). Goal scorers decline considerably after age 30. But all of these star players will be pulling in big salaries well into their 30s. Should you be stuck with a contract that goes bad or that you can no longer afford, dropping that salary will be a challenge.

The two big contracts that Brian Burke recently picked up are classic examples. J-S Giguere in 2007, signed a 4-year, $24 million contact with Anaheim at the age of 30. Not a huge contract for today's standards. But shortly afterwards, his production began to decline and by the end of last season he had lost his starting job to Jonas Hiller. But no one was interested in picking up a goalie with declining skills that would be paid $7 million next season. That would place him tied for second among the highest paid goalies. In the end they had no choice but to accept two toxic contracts from the Leafs because they perceived that to be a preferable situation to carrying Giguere for another season.

As for Dion Phaneuf, the Flames signed him to a 6-year, $39 million contract at the age of 23. They were expecting him to develop into a franchise player and were paying him accordingly. But it never happened so they found themselves stuck with the 8th best paid defenseman who possessed very ordinary statistics. But with a contract like that you can't expect to trade Phaneuf for Ilya Kovalchuk. Instead the best the Flames could do was a package of players from one of the worst teams in the league. If they had no impact in Toronto, nothing is going to change in Calgary.

As they say in the securities world, buy low and sell high. Nothing could be truer in the NHL today.

Tattoos needing spell check week

Wonder what shape his eggs are in when he gets home

Techno Shopping
by Faceweb

I just started feeling this stabbing pain in my neck....

Mugging victim Julia Popova calmly went home after being robbed on her way home from work - without realising she had a six inch knife stuck into her neck.

The 22-year-old office worker had grappled with her attacker when he snatched her handbag as she walked to her parents' home in the Russian capital Moscow. But she was so shocked by the ordeal she didn't know that the thug had buried a kitchen knife in her neck just fractions of an inch from her spinal cord.



Her horrified parents rushed her to hospital where surgeons managed to remove the blade without damaging Julia's spine.

"Shock had kicked in and her body prevented her from feeling any pain. She simply walked home without feeling the knife in her back," said one medic.

Al Qaida to use exploding boobs?

Agents for Britain's MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives.

Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery. The lethal explosives – usually PETN (pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate) – are inserted during the operation inside the plastic shapes. The breast is then sewn up.

Similar surgery has been performed on male suicide bombers. In their cases, the explosives are inserted in the appendix area or in a buttock. Both are parts of the body that diabetics use to inject themselves with their prescribed drugs.

The discovery of these methods was made after the London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came close to blowing up an airliner on Christmas Day with explosives he had stuffed inside his underpants.

Top surgeons who work in the National Health Service confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.

source

Man sues over exploding cigarette

An Indonesian man has been given compensation after a cigarette he was smoking exploded, taking out six teeth.

Andi Susanto, 31, told Indonesian media the cigarette had blown up in his mouth while he was riding a motorcycle.

He accepted a payment of 5m rupiah ($535) and all his medical costs from PT Nojorono Tobacco, makers of the brand of cigarette he was smoking. Police are investigating what caused the blast, but Mr Susanto said he would try to give up smoking now anyway.

He said he had been smoking since he was a schoolboy and had never had any problems. "The incident was all so unexpected". He said the company had talked to his family and agreed to "settle it amicably" with an out-of-court settlement.

A spokesman for Clas Mild cigarettes, the brand Mr Susanto had been smoking, said there were no plans for a recall.

"We are communicating with the police and still waiting on the forensic laboratory tests," Iwan Sulistyo said. "We do not put any strange materials in the cigarettes, so we think that this is a weird case. This is the first time for us."

Just wondering what the settlement of that lawsuit would have been in America? Hey that woman who spilled hot coffee in her lap got $640,000 from Mcdonalds. An exploding cigar that knocked out six teeth would be work millions!

Hump Day Hottie

Olivia Wilde

Tattoos needing spell check week

Leafs now have a Puck Bunny, Elisha Cuthbert

Hey not only did the Maple Leafs pick up Dion Phaneuf on the weekend but now the ACC will have its own Puck Bunny in the form of actress Elisha Cuthbert. You remember her, the ex-girlfriend of Sean Avery who he referred to as his "sloppy seconds."

Not only did she go out with Avery but also Mike Komisarek when he was with Montreal. Come to think of it, Komisarek is also on the Leafs now. Wonder how that is going to play out?

Almost caught again

His backside is a little too pale to be Tiger Woods so I'm guessing John Edwards.

Happy 33rd Shakira

More Parents of the Year Candidates

Police say the parents of a 12 year-old girl forced her to live locked in a closet with no light and minimal contact with the outside world. Police say no one had a clue about the abuse, not neighbors or school officials, until the girl's brother spoke up. When police went to the family's home, they found the girl locked inside the closet.

She was allegedly only let out so she could go to school, eat, or use the bathroom during the day. The bucket in the space was her bathroom at night. Police say she was forced to clean it every morning.

The girl's mother told police she kept the girl locked up because she didn't want her stealing food from the refrigerator. But police say the girl needed to eat. They say she was malnourished and looked like an 8 or 9 year-old instead of 12.

The girl's parents are in jail. Leticia and Alfredo Ines are charged with injury to a child and unlawful restraint. The mother is a Wal-Mart employee. The step-father is a maintenance worker with Brownsville Independent School District.

source

Groundhog Day Recipe

Groundhog Pie

1 groundhog, skinned and cleaned
1/4 cup onion
1/4 cup green pepper
1/2 tbsp minced parsley
1 tbsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
4 1/2 tbsp. flour
3 cups broth

Biscuits:
1 cup flour
2 tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. fat
1/4 cup milk

Cut groundhog into 2 or 3 pieces. Parboil for 1 hour. Remove meat from bones in large pieces. Add onion, green pepper, parsley, salt, pepper, and flour to the broth and stir until it thickens. If the broth does not measure 3 cups, add water. Add the meat to the broth mixture and stir thoroughly. Pour into baking dish.

For biscuits: sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Cut in the fat and add the liquid. Stir until the dry ingredients are moist. Roll only enough to make it fit the dish. Place dough on top of meat, put in a hot oven (400 degrees F.) and bake 30 to 40 minutes or until dough is browned. Serves 6-8.

Tattoos needing spell check week

The question no man wants to hear

The Prorogue Polls

A new Harris Decima poll indicates the Liberals are now more popular than the Conservatives:

Liberals 32%
Conservatives 31%
NDP 15%
Greens 9%

Last week an EKOS polls had similar numbers:

Liberals 31.6%
Conservatives 31.1%
NDP 14.6%
Greens 11%

Interestingly the Liberals have no policy platform to speak of and their caucus can't even agree on when to eat lunch. But that dreaded prorogue of Parliament has brought the party together and even many Canadians. Why they are protesting in the streets. Over what?


Well Prime Minister Harper has shut down Parliament. It was bad enough the first time he did just about a year ago to avoid a non-confidence vote in Parliament. Critics claim that the move was used this time in order to postpone an inquiry into accusations of war crimes complicity for members of his administration and the Canadian military. Stemming from evidence that Canada continued handing- over people detained in the war in Afghanistan over to Afghan prisons that they knew practiced torture.

Though the rationale for avoiding an inquiry during the Olympics escapes me. Does the Prime Minister actually believe that Cabinet Ministers having the photo taken with Canadian athletes with medals around their necks will make them more popular? I would rather face the inquiry now while the country is glued to their TVs watching the Olympics.

Did the Canadian public just wake up to the fact that the Prime Minister is arrogant and has no respect for Parliament? Since becoming Prime Minister he has stripped Cabinet Ministers of any real authority. The country is run out of the Prime Minister's office. To me the progroguing of Parliament is symptomatic of Harper's administration. He can only wait so long and then he has to call an election. Unless he plans a putsch.

Tattoos needing spell check week

Carol Channing had her 89th birthday today

Statue of the Week

When is the rest of the Leaf roster getting traded?

Many Leaf fans have been so fed up over ineptness of the Maple Leafs that they have been suggested that the entire roster get dumped. Well Brian Burke did his best to meet that demand by trading away over 25% of the roster in two deals today.

I had planned to write a post today outlining what the Leafs greatest needs were and who they should deal away. Of course their greatest need is another goalie. That has now been addressed but with with a large cap hit. J.S. Guigere comes with a cap hit of $6 million. That can partially be swallowed by the loss of Jason Blake whose cap hit is $4 million.

I was going to suggest that the Leaf should attempt to move the line of Stajan-Ponikarovsky-Hagman. The first two were to become unrestricted free agents this summer and likely not worth the cost for a team that was deep into a rebuild. As for Hagman, at 30 his best contribution might also come in the form of prospects or draft picks. Only Ponikarovsky remains for now. He too may be moved because it may take $3.5 to $4 million to sign him to a contract. Not sure if he is worth it. A big man that rarely uses his big frame.

The only significant player traded by the Leafs was Ian White who arguably has been their best defenseman over the past two seasons. However, picking up Dion Phaneuf makes White expendable.

As for the numbers, the Leafs moved out $14,933,333 in cap space and received back $13,250,000 so it seems like a wash. However, when you consider only the contracts that don't expire this season, the Leafs moved out only $7 million so they have lost a lot of flexibility for next season. They have 15 players under contract for $48 million. That does not include Jonas Gustavsson, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Nik Kulemin, Garnet Exelby, Wayne Primeau, Mike van Ryn, John Mitchell and Lee Stempniak from their current roster. With a potential salary cap at around $50 million, Burke will need to unload some more contracts. Considering they have 7 defensemen on contract for next season totalling more than half the cap, it shouldn't be shock to see Tomas Kaberle traded during the off season. Hopefully, Jeff Finger as well.