XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: 02/25/11

Friday, 25 February 2011

FWD - Minnesota Man Arrested After Caught Deep-Frying Wings While Drunk -

A 21-year-old former criminal justice major is accused of FUI -- frying under the influence.

The troubles for man started about 1:25 a.m., when he tripped the alarm where he works, Pizza Hut in the 100 block of 7th Avenue S., authorities said.

"He had access to the building, but he just didn't reset the alarm," said Police Lt. Jerry Edblad.

Officers arrived and found the restaurant's back door open. They came upon the man inside and saw that he had tried to deep-fry some boneless chicken wings, police said. The marinara sauce must not have been to his liking. Police say he threw some on the wall.

After his arrest, the man was given a preliminary breath test for alcohol. His blood-alcohol content reading came back at .22, police said. That's nearly three times the legal limit for driving in Minnesota.

The suspect was jailed on suspicion of third-degree burglary, but Edblad suspects that the man could end up being charged with a lesser offense, possibly theft, given that he is an employee.

The man had been studying criminal justice recently at St. Cloud State University but was not enrolled this semester, said school spokesman Michael Nistler.

Voodoo sex ceremony spawns fatal fire -

Candles used in voodoo sex ceremony caused a fatal five alarm fire after they tipped over and ignited bed sheets in a Brooklyn, New York, apartment, authorities said Friday.

The fire left an elderly woman dead and injured 20 firefighters and three Brooklyn residents, according to a New York Fire Department statement.

A voodoo priest allegedly placed the candles on the floor around the bed on Saturday after a woman paid him $300 to perform a ceremony with a sexual component, that was meant to bring her good luck, fire department officials said.

The candles were accidentally knocked over during the ceremony prompting the man to douse the flames with water and open a window in an effort to clear smoke from the room, the statement said.

Forty mile-per-hour wind gusts instead shot the flames back inside the room, it said, creating a "blowtorch effect" that whipped through the open window and pushed the fire into the building's fourth floor hallway.

"Time and time again we respond to tragedies that could have been so easily prevented," Fire Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano said in the statement. "This fire had so many of those elements ... hopefully others will learn from this tragedy."

The occupants fled the apartment, leaving the door open, the statement said.

Nearly 200 firefighters from 44 companies took seven hours to bring the fire under control.

Authorities are currently investigating the incident.

Fed Owns 37% More Treasurys Than China - total bank reserves held with the Fed current record $1.29 trillion -

There are two key datapoints to present in this week's Fed balance sheet update: the surge in excess reserves, and the comparative Treasury holdings between the Fed and other foreign countries. But first the basics: the total Fed balance sheet hit a new all time record of $2.5 trillion. The increase was primarily driven by a $23 billion increase in Treasury holdings as of the week ended February 23 (so add another $5 billion for yesterday's POMO) to $1.214 trillion. With rates surging, QE Lite has been put on hibernation and there were no mortgage buybacks by the Fed in the past week: total MBS were $958 billion and Agency debt was also unchanged at $144 billion. The higher rates go, the less the QE Lite mandate of monetization meaning that the Fed will be continuously behind schedule in its combined QE2 expectation to buy up to $900 billion by the end of June. Yet most notably, as we touched upon yesterday, the Fed's reserves with banks surged by $73 billion in the past week, as more capital was reallocated from the unwinding SFP program. As noted previously, we expect the total bank reserves held with the Fed to jump from the current record $1.29 trillion to at least $1.7 trillion by June.

FBI being sued for crashing a Ferrari - fishtailed and slid sideways shortly after leaving the FBI storage warehouse -

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice have landed themselves in hot water over the destruction of a Ferrari F50. According to The Detroit News, the vehicle was reported stolen from a dealership in Rosemont, Pennsylvania in 2003, and the dealer made and insurance claim for the sum of $750,000 at that time. Michigan-based Motors Insurance Corp. shelled out the cash, and in August 2008, the FBI recovered the vehicle in Kentucky. At that time, the FBI stored the vehicle while waiting to prosecute the thief, at least until someone at the bureau decided to use it for a little local arbor work.

The Ferrari F50 lost control and struck a tree with an FBI special agent behind the wheel in May of 2009, and Motors Insurance Corp. subsequently filed a claim to both the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice for the full $750,000. Both parties rejected the claim under the pretense that the Ferrari was being detained by the FBI at the time of the incident.

The insurance company then set about submitting Freedom of Information Act requests for documents pertaining to the storage, transportation and handling of the Italian exotic, most of which were denied under federal exemptions or outright ignored. The company did manage to get a hold of one email that said that U.S. Assistant Attorney J. Hamilton Thompson rode with Special Agent Frederick C. Kingston on the day of the accident and that the vehicle fishtailed and slid sideways shortly after leaving the FBI storage warehouse.

Motors Insurance Corp. is now suing both the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to release the rest of the documents pertaining to the vehicle.
Read more - http://www.autoblog.com/2011/02/24/fbi-being-sued-for-crashing-a-ferrari/

If he runs for president, Donald Trump is likely to spend $200 million of his own funds - in his latest publicity stunt -

If he runs for president, Donald Trump is likely to take a page out of other recent billionaire political aspirant's playbooks and cut himself a check to the tune of $200 million to finance the expensive endeavor.

That's according to longtime GOP operative Roger Stone, who is currently an informal adviser to Trump.

"I would imagine he would be a self-funder," Stone told Politico Thursday.

"I think he passes up public finance because he then could say, 'I don't answer to anybody but myself and the American people, not special interests,'" Stone also said.

"He's sitting on $2 billion in cash. That's what he says. And if that's true, he could write a check for $200 million if he wanted to."

Trump would be the latest in a string of wealthy individuals who have completely self-financed their campaigns with mixed results. Most recently, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman dropped close to $150 million of her own fortune in her unsuccessful bid last year to become governor of California.

In 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent $90 million of his own money only to narrowly squeak out a re-election victory over the poorly funded city comptroller William Thompson.

Of course, it remains to be seen if Trump is actually serious about running for president, or, more likely, stringing the media along in his latest publicity stunt.

But MSNBC's Joe Scarborough reported Friday Trump told him his current presidential deliberations are no joke.

"I talked to him yesterday on the phone ... and he said, 'Most people out there think this is a joke – that I'm doing this for publicity. Imagine what happens the day I announce I am actually running for president,'" Scarborough aid on his program Friday.

Pelosi edits honorary resolution...on Pelosi - its praise wasn't good enough for the House minority leader -

The Democratic National Committee wanted to honor Nancy Pelosi Thursday -- but its praise wasn't good enough for the House minority leader.

When the DNC's Resolutions Committee brought up a resolution commemorating Pelosi's years as speaker of the House, Pelosi's daughter sought to alter the proposal at her mother's behest, adding some of the accomplishments that the elder Pelosi felt the committee had overlooked.

"I have some friendly amendments," said Christine Pelosi, a political strategist, at the committee's session during the DNC Winter Meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel Thursday afternoon. She is a member of the committee.

"You think I'm kidding," Christine Pelosi added, to surprised laughter from the room. The proposed changes, she indicated, came out of a discussion with her mother.

First, Pelosi wanted to add a mention of her fight against HIV and AIDS, because it was "why she went to Congress." Then, she wanted to insert a paragraph on her "accomplishments for equality," mentioning the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 and the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in December.

"Finally, since, as she said, 'I'm not going anywhere,' she wanted to add, in the final 'whereas' clause, '...and will continue the fight for America's working families,'" Christine Pelosi said.

The committee applauded that point, and approved the amended resolution on a voice vote.

The Pelosi resolution, submitted by a roster of Democratic luminaries headed by DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, was one of dozens of ceremonial acts considered by the committee, on such topics as praising President Obama's State of the Union address, honoring the victims of January's Tucson shootings and memorializing Elizabeth Edwards. Most of the resolutions were approved without changes.
Read more - http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0211/Pelosi_edits_honorary_resolutionon_Pelosi_.html?showall