Blog sprinkles

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday Hope Blog.

Prepare to be trampled in every Wal-Mart except New York?

The 401k pirates

Newspaper Narcissism

Pakistan's meltdown:

In the last few days, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Pakistanis have fled to North West Frontier Province, just south of the military operation, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond, citing provincial government data.

Another 300,000 Pakistanis are on the move or expected to flee the fighting, he said Friday.

The massive displacement is a result of "more widespread" fighting between Pakistani forces and Taliban militants as well as people taking "advantage of the partial lifting of curfews to move into safer areas," according to a UNHCR news release.

Those fleeing the recent fighting are in addition to 555,000 previously displaced civilians who have fled their homes in Pakistan's tribal region and North West Frontier Province since August, according to the U.N. agency.

Oh look, Kyrgyzstan is having problems with terrorism too...

The threat posed by Islamic militant groups in Central Asia, especially in the Kyrgyz and Tajik portions of the Ferghana Valley, appears to be growing, according to the US State Department’s recently released annual report on terrorism.

The State Department’s 2008 Country Reports on Terrorism, released April 30, suggest that the membership in Kyrgyzstan of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a group that the State Department says advocates "the establishment of a borderless, theocratic Islamic state throughout the entire Muslim world," grew from 5,000 in 2006 to 15,000 in 2008.

Words used to describe President Barack Obama.

Maybe we should reconsider the death penalty?:

A cyber hacker who claimed to have stolen the medical records of more than 8.3 million residents of the state of Virginia is demanding 10 million dollars for their return, the Washington Post reported Thursday. The FBI and state officials have confirmed that they are investigating the incident.

The report came a week after someone managed to take over a Virginia Department of Health website that monitors prescriptions to track the sales of controlled substances. The hacker shut down the site and posted a ransom note online, claiming to have stolen and encrypted the data and threatening to sell the data to the highest bidder if authorities did not pay him by Thursday.

"Attention Virgina," the demand read, "In my possession right now are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too."

Abba returns!

Roland Burris doesn't leave!

I know it's a terrible job to be a Wal-Mart greeter

But to be tossed about by a policeman just for doing your job is really too much:

Chattanooga Police Det. Kenneth Freeman will not face charges in an incident in which he shoved a 71-year-old greeter at the Wal-Mart in Collegedale to the floor after he tried to stop him while doing a receipts check.

Collegedale Police declined to bring charges, then the employee, Bill Walker, filled out a complaint himself. Collegedale Judge Kevin Wilson has reviewed the complaint and did not issue an assault charge.

In the incident on Christmas Eve, Mr. Walker said an alarm went off when Det. Freeman and another city police officer, Edwin McPherson, were leaving the store.

He said he reached to try to stop Det. Freeman and he was pushed against a soft drink machine and to the floor. He said the officer then hovered over him as he lay on the floor.

The policeman then threw another man who came to help through the plate glass. And Collegedale Police are not going to bring charges? WTF?

One more reason not to shop at Wal-Mart

After the delicate way they've handled this case... (my bold)

HOUSTON -- A college student’s trip to Wal-Mart last month ended with her in handcuffs and a two-day stay in the Harris County jail.

Nitra Gipson was charged with felony forgery after the Meyer Park Wal-Mart manager accused her of passing bogus money orders. Thing is, the money orders were legit and had been purchased at Wal-Mart to begin with.

The cash-strapped college student had just sold her car to pay for her last two semesters at Texas Southern University, where she is studying criminal justice. She was paid with Wal-Mart money orders, which the giant retailer advertises as “good as cash.”

In Gipson’s case, they were as good as time behind bars.

“Humiliating is not the word for it,” said Gipson. “I was horrified. I think they singled me out because of the amount of money that it was and (thought) I was trying to get over on them.”

No manner of effort by Gipson to show that the money orders were legit worked. The store manager insisted she be charged.

The district attorney’s office saw it differently. Charges were dropped after the money orders were verified when Gipson provided the purchase receipts.

But after spending 48 hours behind bars, the damage had already beeen done.

“Wal-Mart should be held responsible and accountable for letting this child go to jail for two days. All because she was doing what any customer of Wal-Mart should do,” said community activist Quannel X.

Gipson said Wal-Mart then added insult to injury when she got a letter in the mail.

“I started to read it and thought, ‘Oh my God.’ They are asking me to pay them when it was clearly their mistake,” said Gipson.

The letter demanded Gipson pay Wal-Mart $200 to settle a shoplifting charge. It is a charge that never existed, though.

When 11 News contacted Wal-Mart officials they said they were looking into the case and would provide no further details.

The spokesperson did claim that the decision to pursue charges was up to the law enforcement officials on the scene. But the copy of the criminal complaint obtained by 11 News, shows that the store manager is who pressed charges.

Lawsuit anyone?

crossposted at SteveAudio