Worst day ever ...

Reginald F. Cat

After intestinal trouble for a week, Reggie called it a day.  He was born on February 14, 1995 and passed away in my arms today, December 28, 2012, at 4:37PM.  Reggie had an amazing, kind soul.  I can't even begin to express how substantive a loss he will be.  A more thorough obituary will follow when I am capable.

This is the worst day ever.

Nice Twist: Cop Violated By Cops

A fun twist on an old saw: cops abusing power!  Yep, big shock there.  This time though, they're unchecked assholes against one of their own.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Ex-St. Paul cop names names in suit over illegal data access

A former Eden Prairie and St. Paul cop who says police across the state repeatedly checked her personal data without an official purpose is naming names in a lawsuit against the officers and their employers.

Anne Rasmusson is suing at least 16 cities and counties and more than 140 police officers who she says illegally accessed her information in a state drivers license and vehicle registration database as many as 550 times. She filed a federal suit in March, and sought to amend the complaint on Friday with an 88-page filing that lists every officer involved.

The access was most prevalent in the Twin Cities, where 46 Minneapolis police employees and 61 St. Paul police employees accessed Rasmusson's data, according to the complaint. The filing shows that Rasmusson's information was accessed regularly, at all hours, over a six-year period.

Court filings show the case was slated for a settlement conference all day Monday. One of Rasmusson's attorneys, Jon Strauss, said in an e-mail Monday evening that the conference was ongoing and they had "nothing to report right now."

The state's Driver and Vehicle Services database contains personal information on drivers, including photographs, physical descriptions, convictions and addresses. The information is protected under state and federal laws. Just last week, two Minneapolis employees were placed on paid leave for using the database without an official purpose.

Rasmussen's complaint claims that employees at 23 agencies across the state accessed her information between 2005 and 2012, based on an audit by the Department of Public Safety and information gathered during the discovery process. It says the city of Eden Prairie, for example, demoted Sgt. Carter Staaf after he encouraged subordinates to look Rasmusson up "because she was very attractive and so they could see that 'she's changed and she's got a new look.'"

One of the defendants, an unnamed sergeant in the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department, said he was out of the country when the alleged searches occurred, but had given his password to two Bureau of Criminal Apprehension employees he worked with on the Metro Gang Strike Force, according to the complaint. Those employees deny receiving or using the password, however.

A list included with the complaint reports that the most inquiries came from Rasmusson's ex-husband, Minneapolis police officer Jason King, between August 2006 and December 2010. Many of those occurred after 11 p.m. -- sometimes as late as 2 a.m. King could not be reached for comment.

A Minneapolis police spokesman, Sgt. Steve McCarty, said the department found that some officers had accessed the data inappropriately, but that no one was disciplined because they had no "ill intent." Officers were required to undergo coaching.

"After this, you can believe our policies got a lot ... stronger with regard to accessing DVS records," McCarty said.

St. Paul Police Department spokesman Howie Padilla said their investigation is not finished.

Rasmusson's suit, which also cites the state's public safety commissioner, says that illegal access "appears to be widespread and pervasive throughout departments, and is a custom and practice."

Rasmusson started her career in Eden Prairie in 1996, first as a park ranger and then as a police officer. She was injured in 1999 during a medical call. In 2001, she joined the St. Paul Police Department. Because of nerve damage and an unstable pelvis, she retired in 2003.

She requested an audit of inquiries about her DVS information after encountering officers at social gatherings who knew peculiar details about her, such as her address and the type of car she drove.

NFL Replacement Refs Are Doing Fine!

Yes, I'm serious.

Now quit crying like a little teenage girl.

What sort of expectations did you have?  The NFL brings in a bunch of replacements with no experience at the NFL level and gives them a month [speculation] to get up to speed.  All things considered, I think they're doing great.

So there's some bad calls?  You think the regular officials weren't as myopic or bad?  Riiiight.  Thanks for opening the door, because referees have been making horseshit calls since about 1930.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time supporting my assertion because frankly, I just don't care.  It's only sports, not something important or life threatening.

However, a few things do come to mind.

In the aftermath of the Seahawks/Packers game, there seems to be a consensus that the touchdown should have been nullified because of Offensive Pass Interference on receiver Golden Tate, who CLEARLY pushes off on the defender right in front of him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_69zsC08cxg&feature=relmfu

That was with replacement officials.  The replay officials who were consulted, by the way, were still the real deal.

Time for a flashback now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFsb4vIvLzI

Yep, many people think that pushoff by Drew Pearson was just as egregious.  Perpetrated by regular officials. Yes the video quality is shit, but I still love the television presentation back then -- full screen football!  No logos.  No dumbass score ticker.  Just the damn game.

The Packers only lost an early regular season game.  Boo hoo.  Minnesota got screwed out of the playoffs

Flashback 2, a bit more recent.

A case can also be made that the "regular" bad officials blew about a half dozen cheap shot calls against Vikings quarterback Brett Favre that impacted the finale of the game.  The result was that Minnesota got screwed and the Cheats, er Saints, got a gift Super Bowl appearance because the league felt bad for poor, poor New Orleans after they got crushed by Katrina.  "Look the other way fellas, we gotta give New Orleans something to feel good about."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPZCVCZNc50

Equally bad ... like ten different times ... as the current replacement referee error.  So get over it, the replacement referees are doing just fine.

NFL referees have been horseshit forever.

Aimee Mann again!

Seeing Aimee Mann for the third time in November.  Here's a recent interview she did regarding her great new album, Charmer.


http://www.papermag.com/2012/09/aimee_mann.php

Article reprinted below.

Also, below is a link the video Labrador, referenced in the article.  It features Jon Hamm and is a great homage to the classic Voices Carry video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA1cX-wgMdM

With her eighth album, Charmer, Aimee Mann turns a gimlet eye on charm and its practitioners -- not that she considers herself one.

Aimee Mann may be the smartest songwriter you're not listening to. After 30 years in the music industry -- a handful of them as the front woman of the '80s pop group 'Til Tuesday, whose video "Voices Carry" was a staple of early MTV -- Mann is the idol of a smallish but fiercely devoted fanbase. For much of the rest of the world, she's the woman whose songs scored Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. (Her best-known of these, "Save Me," was nominated for an Academy Award and a Grammy; she lost to a Phil Collins love theme from Disney's Tarzan and Macy Gray's "I Try," respectively, neither of which has weathered the intervening years as well as hers.) The major labels for which she recorded didn't appreciate her much more. Disputes with them eventually led her, in a blaze of irritated song craft ("Nothing Is Good Enough"), to found her own.

Sweet and sour tend to mingle in Mann's work: There are few songwriters out there with a sweeter ear for melody, and few as ready to twist the knife lyrically. "What's the point, we're only flogging the horse," she sings on "The Fall of the World's Own Optimist,"co-written with Elvis Costello for 2000's Bachelor No. 2, "when the horseman has up and died." (Not for nothing was her 2008 album called @#%&*! Smilers.) With her new album, Charmer, Mann delivers again, spinning 11 tales of relationships past their expiration dates and the charmers who stay in them. Despite the penchant for dark material and deadpan treatment, she's warm, clever, and unusually willing to laugh at herself and others -- case in point, her cameo on Portlandia and her new video for "Labrador," a recreation of the original "Voices Carry" video, her own regrettable hairstyle included. She checked in with Paper from Los Angeles to talk charm,comedy, and the industrialist allure of Theodore Dreiser.

Tell me a bit about the conceit of Charmer. It's an encouraging enough name -- but I've heard you say it's a synonym for"narcissist."

I think if you think of charming people and what that consists of, pretty quickly you realize it starts to tread on narcissist territory. It's kind of on a continuum from people who are charming in a nice way -- [they're] friendly and take an interest in you in a healthy and benevolent way that's fun for everyone--and then it can start to creep into a territory of manipulation and flattery towards a certain end. That's kind of a different situation. It starts to get a little sinister.

Do you think of yourself as a charmer?

I don't feel like I'm that charming, no. I try to be friendly and interested in people, but I don't feel like I'm charming. It's a different skill set. It takes a lot of confidence and sometimes bravado that I don't really have.

Do you think that kind of charm is an expectation, or maybe even a responsibility, of doing what you do? That kind of taking an interest -- is that what people expect of those in the public eye?

I think people do expect it. Or you know, I don't know-- I don't know what people expect. I think when people know any kind of public performer through their music or work or whatever, there's always an expectation, a relationship that already pre-exists on one side. So I think those performers who are charming in person have a better time of it, because the ones who are shy and awkward are very disappointing to people.

Do you think that extends to the work itself? Do you feel you're always having to explain what you're doing or why you're doing it? Even when I say, for instance, that I think this album is very dark, and you say, no, actually, it's not...

I guess it depends on what you mean by dark. To me, to explore the idea that the kind of charming people who become very dependent on outside approval or outside validation might feel kind of empty inside -- to me, that's standard-issue darkness. Believe me, it can get worse. I know people whose charm is borderline criminal. I've encountered that. I'm not writing about that.

I wanted to ask you about comedy, because you're so connected to the comedy world, which I don't know if everyone expects of their singer-songwriters.

Me and my husband, it just turns out that we have a lot of friends who are comedians--that we make friends who are comedians, probably stemming from the comedians and musicians playing at Largo in Los Angeles. They had a comedy night that we would always go to, and we started doing shows together and becoming friends with different comics. I think comedy's really fascinating. I think [comics'] minds work in a really particular kind of way that's very extemporaneous, which is exactly not what my skill set is, so I'm really in awe of that. The nerve that it takes to go up and talk about yourself. That's exactly what I can't do.

I would have thought that's a big part of what you do. Do you think of the songs that you sing and the characters you sing about as very distinct from yourself?

I don't think they're totally distinct from myself. I can always relate to everybody that I'm singing about, or whatever characters I'm singing about, because otherwise I don't think I'd be able to write about them.

But have you moved from a more confessional mode to a more fictionalized one?

I don't know. I think maybe it is more fictional, but even saying that -- if I wanted to, I could always say, this started to be about that person but it merged with this other person and became a conglomerate, and here's my own experience that I threw in...It's a recipe.

The new videos for "Charmer" and"Labrador" are great. Laura Linney as as Robot Aimee Mann! Jon Hamm as a creepy alter ego of the actual director! How'd those come about?

It's another comedy-world connection. The director, Tom Scharpling, is a really good friend of mine. He's a comedy writer, and he's done a handful of videos that I really liked; he did this great one for the New Pornographers for their song "Moves." I had been wanting to work with him for a while. I wanted to do two videos and try to do them at once, and thought maybe I could afford it if we filmed them at the same time. He came up with these two concepts that I thought were terrific. By some stroke of luck, I got Laura Linney to be in one, and John Hodgman, and then Jon Hamm to be in the other. My friend Jon Wurster, he does a lot of comedy bits with Tom Scharpling.He plays drums with Superchunk and the Mountain Goats and Bob Mould, but he's also super funny, so he has a foot in the comedy world too.

For people like Jon Hamm, was this an unusual request?

Jon Hamm does a lot of comedy stuff. Hodgman had been in a couple of Scharpling videos before, so I knew that was a reasonably safe assumption. Jon Wurster, too. Laura Linney, I just went out on a limb with. I had met her at a show, I knew she was a fan, I didn't know if she was enough of a fan to even consider being part of something so ridiculous, but I took a chance and she happened to have some time off and she was in New York and she happened to be game. It was very nice of her, I have to say. It was pretty decent to just jump right in.

Don't know if you know that the guy who plays the robot delivery guy from "Charmer," Alex Scordelis, is a Paper copy editor and music writer?

God, is that right? Yeah, Alex. That's hilarious.

Everybody needs a good six or seven different professions to keep going.

Exactly.

And you've got yours,too. You've done a bit of comedy acting yourself. I think your Portlandia cameo is a new classic.

I definitely get recognized for that more than music. It seems to have hit people in some kind of way.

Are you fielding house cleaning questions?

There's a lot of those jokes, yeah.

Speaking of guest appearances, you recently played for the President and First Lady at the White House.

It was really an inspiring, incredible event. I really didn't know what to expect. It was part of a day celebrating poetry, which is an honor to be included in there, that someone thinks your lyrics are good enough to be considered poetry. In the afternoon, there was a seminar for high school poetry students. They asked questions, and the poets talked about their process... that alone was really inspiring, to listen to these poets talk about art and writing, how they approach it and how they think. Then in the evening,there was a performance. And the President of the United States is, like, 10 feet away from me. It was crazy.

Tapping along?

He seemed to be enjoying it, I think. I'm very fortunate that a couple of good friends of mine actually work in the White House, so I asked them to sit up front so I could see a reassuring face and not be too nervous.

I can imagine there's an aura surrounding him that would be a bit nerve-wracking.

I did get to meet him and the First Lady beforehand. They were very friendly and very sweet. I just think the unusual aspect... it's bizarre, to tell yourself, "I'm in the White House and I'm playing for the President of the United States."

To go back to poetry to a second: Your lyrics are so literary. Are you a big reader? Is literature something that's particularly influential to you and the way you write?

I am a big reader. It's not like "literature" in quotes is necessarily a big influence, but I love language and words, and I like seeing how other people use language and put words together to articulate complicated ideas in a simple way. To me, that's all very interesting. Any body who manipulates words for a living is interesting to me.

Are there any writers in particular who are especially meaningful to you?

F. Scott Fitzgerald clearly is a giant for me. Theodore Dreiser. Edith Wharton. Just kind of randomly choosing people.

They're all congregating in the beginning of the 20th Century, I notice. And I don't think Dreiser gets name-checked as often as perhaps he should.

That's true! But every now and then, I go on a Dreiser jag, I don't know why [laughs].

He kind of has an Aimee Mann feeling to me.

There's sort of a spare, Americana, Industrial Age, a kind of...

 ...a bracing grimness.

Yes, exactly! "A bracing grimness." Thank you. Very well put. I'm going to use that now. When you see that phrase come up in other interviews, you'll know I stole it from you.

I'll take it, proudly. Last question: I read on Wikipedia, that faultless resource, that you're six feet tall. Can that be true?

No! That's insane. A very, very short person must've seen me and thought... I'm 5'9", maybe. Six feet is crazy tall.

Take it as a compliment, I guess. The world sees you bestriding the globe like a colossus.

Oh, my god. I'm a colossus? Finally.

http://www.policemisconduct.net/

http://www.policemisconduct.net/

Self-explanatory.

Why I DISLIKE Cops, part 47

Two newspaper articles below do most of the talking.  The first was in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the second, linked to in the STrib article, appeared in the Winona Daily News and provides the original source material.

I will post comments in the article as thoughts appear.

The first headline, which drew my attention:

Houston County sheriff's deputy not disciplined for racing squad car while on duty

And the article [STrib] :

CALEDONIA, Minn. - Members of the Houston County Board are asking why a sheriff's deputy was not formally disciplined for drag racing in his squad car while on duty.

          --> INTERJECTION: That is a good question, isn't it?

The Winona Daily News reported Saturday that the deputy raced his Dodge Charger down a runway at the Houston County Municipal Airport in Caledonia on July 12 ( http://bit.ly/RRkVTz). A Caledonia police officer raced against him in a new Crown Victoria cruiser.

The Caledonia officer was suspended for a month when superiors learned what happened. Board members in the southeastern Minnesota county said there should have been consequences for the deputy too.

Sheriff Doug Ely declined to name the deputy to the newspaper or explain why he wasn't formally disciplined. Commissioner Jack Miller says he learned what happened from citizens, not the Sheriff's Department.

Chief Sheriff's Deputy Scott Yeiter defended the department's handling of the incident and described it as "an employee coaching session." He said the deputy's decision to race a squad car on duty "wasn't egregious enough to have a disciplinary letter placed in his file."

Ely, in an email to board members, declined an invitation to attend their next meeting to discuss the incident. Referring to both the racing incident and a previous dispute between his department and commissioners, he wrote that "more discussion about these items on their part will be considered harassment."

          --> INTERJECTION: Actually Sheriff Ely, you freakin' idiot, that's not harassment.  It's a fair, common sense question from those of us who are held to higher standards of behavior by your department.  Maybe you are as stupid as you look ...

Sheriff  Doug Ely: stupid as he looks?

Miller said the racing incident deserved a stronger response. He said if Ely skips the board meeting, that commissioners would have to consider their next move.

The sheriff "doesn't necessarily answer to the board, but we are the budgeting board, and I believe our jurisdiction does cover employees in his office," Miller said.

----------------------

And the original article, featuring the headline from the Winona Daily News.

On-duty officers drag race cruisers: Lack of formal discipline against deputy creates rift with Houston County Board

On the warm night of July 12, two squad cars driven by on-duty officers roared down the Caledonia municipal airport runway.

A Houston County sheriff’s deputy was behind the wheel of a Dodge Charger. A city of Caledonia officer drove a Crown Victoria.

The officers weren’t chasing a suspect.

They were chasing each other.

Apparently the drag race was inspired by the purchase of a new cruiser in Caledonia, according to Houston County Chief Deputy Scott Yeiter.

Once superiors learned about it, the Caledonia officer was suspended for a month.

The Houston County deputy, however, was not formally disciplined, a decision that has created friction between the sheriff’s department and the Houston County Board.

The incident became public this week at a county board meeting, where former commissioner Kevin Kelleher brought it up and asked commissioners to address what he alleged in an interview as a “culture of, quite frankly, bad behavior” within the sheriff’s department.

In an interview, Yeiter defended the way the department handled the incident and described it as “an employee coaching session.”

He said the deputy’s decision to drag-race a county squad car while on duty “wasn’t egregious enough to have a disciplinary letter placed in his file.”

          --> INTERJECTION: Did the asshole at least get a speeding ticket?  Seems only fair if you want to at least pretend that you place any worth in the written laws.

Yeiter declined to name the deputy, as did Houston County Sheriff Doug Ely. Ely declined to comment when asked to explain why the deputy wasn’t formally disciplined.

          --> INTERJECTION: Ah yes, the cover-up. Citizens ticketed or arrested routinely get the humiliation of seeing their names publicly in print.  But a guy speeding ON THE JOB, ON A RUNWAY ...?  Nah, let it slip.  Assholes.  That's the kind of crooked, Gestapo-style lack of accountability that featured so prominently in the reports on those Metro Gang assholes.  Good role models.

Caledonia Police Chief Kurt Zehnder also declined to comment on the incident and declined to release the name of the Caledonia officer involved.

The Houston County Board has asked Ely to attend the next meeting to brief commissioners on the incident and address Kelleher’s comments.

“The issue is a little bigger than what the sheriff and chief deputy are making it,” Commissioner Jack Miller said.

Miller said commissioners are frustrated because they were aware of the incident previous to the meeting — but not because they heard about it from the department.

“I certainly would have liked the full story from the sheriff instead of having citizens tell me,” Miller said.

Ely said in an email to the commissioners that he won’t attend the next meeting.

“The DVD issue and the driving complaint are done and over with,” he wrote in the email, obtained by the Daily News. “Any more discussion about these items on their part will be considered harassment.”

The DVD issue Ely was referring to was a 2009 incident where county employees were accused of using county equipment to illegally copy DVDs and sell them. Two county officials — none in the sheriff’s department — were formally reprimanded. The sheriff’s department did not investigate the issue or request an independent investigation, a decision Kelleher continues to criticize the department for.

          --> INTERJECTION: Whoa, whoa, WHOA!  Hold on.  I gotta stop for a second here and really consider this.  So at a time when we are losing more and more internet freedoms because of concerns over the pirating of copyrighted material, some ASSHOLES use county property to copy and SELL DVD's and the Sheriff declines to investigate?  WTF is going on here?  One of the primary reasons I hate law enforcement is that these assholes seem to think they can pick and choose who the laws apply to. This is a great example.

“We have law enforcement that just does not want to be accountable,” Kelleher said. “That is not giving people confidence in the county that they have a law enforcement agency that is not only enforcing the law but obeying it.”

“Houston County law enforcement is the butt of a lot of jokes right now,” Kelleher added.

If Ely doesn’t come to the next board meeting, Miller said, the board will have to discuss its next move.

“(Ely) doesn’t necessarily answer to the board, but we are the budgeting board, and I believe our jurisdiction does cover employees in his office,” Miller said.

It’s unknown who won the race, or what speeds the two officers reached. Ely said he didn’t know, and Yeiter declined comment.

----------------------------------------------

Law enforcement, what a noble profession.  Assholes.  And in the case of Houston County Sheriff Doug Ely, stupid assholes.

Don't forget Doug, you're accountable to the citizens of your county. Hope you've got a new job lined up, I'd like to think there's no way a crooked loser like you retains his job.

American killed in Libya protest over film

Protesters angered over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad fired gunshots and burned down the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, killing one American diplomat, witnesses and the State Department said. In Egypt, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo and replaced an American flag with an Islamic banner.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Above headline and paragraph courtesy of the AP.

I love it, this pic is from a Google search of "Muslim idiots."

Man, this is such a tired occurrence.  Islam, Muslim, whatever: settle the fuck down you small minded simpletons.

If Islam's prophet Muhammad would sanction killing others for having an opinion, then Mohammad is an asshole.

Suck on that Libya and Egypt!  You either worship an asshole ... or you're fucking stupid.

[directed at the fine fellows involved, not a blanket condemnation]

If I see a movie that aggravates me, I stop watching.  I usually don't murder anyone over it.

Like I said ...

These assholes in the now defunct Metro Gang Strike Force deserve to be shot in the head.  I've been saying this for over a year on this blog.  Again, if you can't behave at a job where you carry a gun, get a different job, asshole.

If you have a job carrying a gun, and you commit crimes on the job, you should be executed and left roadside for trash pickup.

This is the follow up article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, regarding the payouts to victims of these guys who deserve to be shot in the head.

Equally criminal is how these Metro Gang assholes haven't been publicly identified and have been allowed to return to their former law enforcement agencies.  This is a fucking travesty and a prime example of why average citizens don't trust the police, nor should they.

This shouldn't be allowed to be swept under the carpet.  Support capital punishment for crimes committed with guns.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Payouts reveal brutal, rogue Metro Gang Strike Force.


A toddler, not yet 2 years old, was kicked in the head by a Metro Gang Strike Force officer and his crib was destroyed during a botched drug raid. The government's payout to the child: $6,000.

A Lincoln Navigator SUV, seized by the Strike Force, was returned to the owner 18 months later, with 20,000 more miles on it. Payout to the owner: $25,000.

In other raids, officers improperly seized a blender, class rings, an ice augur and a stump digger. One man lost some Twins baseball hats he said were autographed by Joe Mauer. His compensation: $2,000 if the caps are not returned.

The stories and payouts to 96 victims of the now-defunct Strike Force, cited in 600 pages of documents released last week in a class-action lawsuit, provide the most detailed picture yet of an out-of-control police squad, and put a price on every wrongful seizure, unjustified punch or dubious raid.

The $3 million suit was filed on July 30, 2009, less than two weeks after the scandal-ridden unit, made up of officers from metro agencies, was shut down by then-Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion. The collapse of the Metro Gang Strike Force revealed widespread illegal behavior by officers and prompted new laws and policies designed to improve oversight and accountability of police in Minnesota.

Two people nearly deported to Mexico in 2008 may have been the biggest winners. Strike Force police searched them at the Minneapolis impound lot, found no drugs but took $100 from them and turned them over to immigration authorities. Deportation proceedings were canceled last October and they won special visas because they were Strike Force crime victims. They were awarded $33,500 in the suit.

"It was a tremendous outcome," said Randy Hopper, the attorney who won the settlement in the civil rights suit.

The payouts were issued last week by attorney Mark Gehan who was appointed special master by the U.S. District Court.

Gehan cited 15 people he believed were victims of excessive force and nine whose residences were torn apart during Strike Force raids, mostly between 2006 and 2009, records show. He awarded compensation to four people who lost flat screen TVs and 11 whose vehicles were seized.

Gehan rejected 120 claims, including one from a man who alleged the Strike Force took $100,000 from his backpack in 2003.

He awarded about $840,000 to Strike Force victims and ordered various property returned. Fifty-six people began filing appeals Friday of Gehan's decisions. U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen will issue decisions in those cases.

The payouts come from the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust, which insured the Strike Force. About $2 million will be used for training law enforcement statewide on proper seizure methods and racial and cultural sensitivity.

Some who won awards were accused of trafficking in illegal drugs or associated with gangs. Some of the raids did recover illegal drugs and lead to arrests.

Gehan did not state the overall criteria he used in calculating the payouts, but it was apparent that some Strike Force behavior particularly offended him. "I do not see how a plasma television or an ice auger constitutes evidence of a crime," wrote Gehan in the case of Joseph Kujawa, who had both items seized and was awarded $25,000. The Strike Force found 2 pounds of marijuana in his house, although he was apparently never convicted for it, Gehan said. Kujawa was later convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on methamphetamine charges.

Some raids led to collateral damage. In July 2006, the Strike Force kicked in the door of a St. Paul house, conducted a search and took a dog owned by Mohamed Aboubaker.

Gehan reviewed photos of the raid, writing, "It is quite clear that the residence was 'trashed.' It goes beyond the 'disarray' described in the defendants' response."

Gehan awarded Aboubaker $5,000 for property damage and $225, the cost of retrieving his dog from the pound.

In August 2006, Strike Force officers and the Minneapolis police SWAT unit broke into a residence, based on an informant's information about the sale of cocaine. They found a small amount of marijuana, but no cocaine or two drug dealers they were looking for. An officer tried to kick a woman, but instead kicked her toddler. A photo showed a bruise on his forehead. A $289 crib was destroyed.

In its defense, the Strike Force called it "a high-risk raid and that officers are permitted to use force commensurate with the danger," Gehan wrote.

"I am unable to discern why it would be necessary to kick claimant's mother," Gehan wrote, issuing a $6,000 award.

"Is that all?" Joe Neeland, 63, asked this week after told by a reporter he'd been awarded $5,000, plus $3,000 if authorities can't find the computer and peripherals the Strike Force took in 2008.

They also took a 42-inch flat screen TV, a class ring on a necklace and 60 pain pills prescribed after his back operation. He was never arrested.

Seated in his kitchen at the Little Earth of United Tribes housing project in Minneapolis, Neeland said, "I was so mad. I had that ring since 1968 when I graduated from Park Rapids Area High School."

A few blocks away, Zenaido Rivera Garcia, lead plaintiff in the suit, said he never expected to win. He and Veronica Nunez Guevara, his sister-in-law, had gone to the Minneapolis impound lot in 2008 to retrieve her 1991 Nissan Maxima.

They were patted down by the Strike Force who called them "illegals" and took $100 from them, according to their claim.

Gehan said police never gave him a reason for stopping the two Mexican immigrants. "It is inescapable that it was because they were Hispanic," he wrote.

The Strike Force handed the two over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which jailed them for five days and began deportation proceedings. The two found support from immigration attorneys Phil Fishman and Khanh Nguyen and from Hopper.

Gehan ordered Rivera Garcia be paid $15,500 and Nunez Guevara, $18,000.

Under a special provision in immigration law that rewards crime victims who cooperate with prosecutors, both have won visas and Rivera Garcia's wife, Gloria Nunez Guevara, Veronica's sister, also won a visa. "Justice has been served," Rivera Garcia said in an interview through a translator. "Many times the police acted wrongfully and thankfully through God, I used great attorneys to help us and the Hispanic people get justice."

A day late, but still ...

Happy Birthday Brian Wilson, big seven-oh!

Kim Jong Un ... Projectile Dysfunction

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - North Korea defied international warnings, launching a rocket Friday that the United States and its allies called a provocative pretext for developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that might one day carry a nuclear warhead. But in what was a major embarrassment to the North and its young new leader, the rocket disintegrated soon after the launch, and U.S. and Japanese officials said its remnants fell harmlessly into the Yellow Sea.


Do they make a little blue pill for that?

So it appears I was correct to mock you and your lame country as being both incompetent and impotent, no?

Ya, I guess that is pretty funny.

And the requisite cheap shot in 3, 2, 1 ... um, Kim Jong, you might wanna mix in a salad on occasion you lardass.


[Italicized text courtesy of the AP]

Drew Brees: Smart As Aerosol Cheese

"I am speechless. Sean Payton is a great man, coach, and mentor. The best there is. I need to hear an explanation for this."  -- a "Tweet" from New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees

I guess I AM as dumb as I look.

Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints quarterback, is wondering why his head coach has been suspended for the upcoming season.

Ok, Drew, here's the explanation:

Brees, you stupid sack of shit.  Your coach is suspended for promoting an illegal bounty on opponents and intending to injure them, for covering it up, and for getting a gift Super Bowl because your poor town got flushed down the crapper.

Idiot.

Kim Jong FF revisited...

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Issues Threat To Retaliate Ahead Of South Korea-US Drills


Headline from the Star-Trib.

I've tried real hard not to use extreme profanity in this blog, but I have to say this as I thought it.

Message to Kim Jong:

"Hey fat fuck ... lighten up."

North Korea: led by a lardass with a bad haircut.

Prayers answered!

Finally.

I see that "Jon & Kate & her huge, great big crotch & 8" is returning.

Again, if your life is so shallow and vacant that you give a crap what these shallow and vacant people do, my condolences.

I hate these guys.  Kids included.

Media whores.

Valentine's Day: the proper context

Not being a fan of pseudo-holidays created by Hallmark, I prefer to mark todays date for Al Capone's massacre:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day_Massacre


And, of course, the big guy turns 17 today.  Happy Birthday to Reggie, a kind soul and a true gentleman.

It's On!

Seen below is recently disgraced former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch.  I dub her "disgraced" by virtue of campaigning on a strong "family values" platform, only to turn out to be a cheating whore.

Sen. Koch lines up a gangbang.

I love seeing the "family values" crowd turn out to be rotten bastards.

I'm looking at you Newt Gingrich.

The headline is:

Somalis Again Protest Closing Of Money-Transfer Accounts


The one sentence answer:

I don't know, I guess you could just leave.

Guess God thinks you're an asshole

From the StarTribune:

Bachmann ends presidential bid: "I have decided to stand aside"


Michele Bachmann Wednesday morning announced in Iowa that she would suspend her presidential campaign after a disastrous finish in the first-in-the-nation caucus voting on Tuesday.


“Last night the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, so I have decided to stand aside,” she said, putting her campaign in the past tense.


She walked through the history of the country and criticized "ObamaCare" in her much-awaited announcement before confirming her departure from the race.


"I am not motivated in this quest by vain glory," she said [although she was -Reg] this morning in her West Des Moines news conference. The sudden stop came after she fought through just one early state's contest.


Bachmann did not outline her future political plans Wednesday. “I look forward to the next chapter in God’s plan," she said.


Hmm...

So if running was "God's plan," and you got your ass kicked, what might this mean?

1] God hates you.

2] Your claim that God had called you to run was a load of shit.

3] You worship some "alternate" God.

4] Even God was tired of you lying and making up facts.

Not sure what the answer is, but all possibilities point to you being an asshole.

Finally, justice is served.  Are you reading between the lines Michele: nobody wants you.  Shut your piehole and leave with dignity.

Happy New Year, fat ass!

PYONGYANG, North Korea - North Korea vowed Sunday to stage an all-out drive for prosperity as it unites behind new leader Kim Jong Un, ushering in 2012 with promises to resolve food shortages, bolster its military and defend Kim Jong Il's young son "unto death."


"All-out drive for prosperity"  Ha, you North Koreans really are funny.  And you probably will defend Kim Jong Fatass until you're all dead.

Oh well, I can deal with it.

I'd love to hear how the North Korean geniuses in YingYang plan to resolve food shortages and bolster their military.  Surely their populace can't be so f'n retarded as to believe any of this bullshit, can they?

Happy New Year!

North Korea and Iran still suck.

P.S.  Hey Kim Dong, you're supposed to be 27 or 28, how come you're such a grotesque lard-ass?   Nothing inspires a military more than a little tub of shit barking out orders.

Salute if you're a fat f#ck.

By the way, nice freakin' haircut there too tubby.  I'm surprised they could find a bowl big enough to fit over your fat f#ck melon head.

***this just in!***

Computer generated image of Kim Dong Sack-o-shit in five years.

"Let's see, the four food groups: the butter group, the deep-fried group..."

Kim Dong is alleged to have two collegiate degrees.  We're skeptical.  "Give me a degree of my little despot daddy will have you killed."

Best of luck North Korea, with a lameass, fatass loser of a leader like Kim Dong, you're gonna need it.