The leader of a body-snatching ring responsible for stealing the bones of veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke is dying of bone cancer, his lawyer has been revealed.
Michael Mastromarino, who made millions of dollars by illicitly harvesting skin and bones from corpses, was given his last rites two weeks ago in a New York state prison.
Bone cancer has spread through the 49-year-old former dentist's entire body.Karma -- It's a beautiful thing.
"My brother-in-law works at a hospital and EMS there brought in a 'homeless' man that needed treatment for a minor injury. This man placed his belongings in a hospital locker and among those belongings was $2,367 in singles. He was, as he described it, 'A Professional Panhandler.' He made that figure in two days. That's more than what the doctor treating him makes in two days and he's saving lives and Sh#t."Seriously, be choosy about your generosity.
"By the way, the single most interesting number in the whole race was 28,785. That is how many dues-paying members of the American Federation of State, County and Municiple Employees were left in Wisconsin after Mr. Walker allowed them to choose whether union dues would be taken from their paychecks each week. Before that, Afscme had 62,218 dues-paying members in Wisconsin. There is a degree to which public union involvement is, simply, coerced."That's huge.
Diner suffers cardiac arrest while eating a Triple Bypass Burger in restaurant called the Heart Attack Grill... the one named Karma can be the biggest bitch of all.
The first time people read - or watch - through, they are focused on events and stories.George R.R. Martin, Nancy Atherton, Jacqueline Carey, Karen Miller, Gary Jennings, Janet Evanovich (books 1-10, anyway), and many, many more are all old and dear friends of mine.
The second time through, the repeated experience reignites the emotions caused by the book or film, and allows people to savour those emotions at leisure.
Calling the cops almost has become a default solution, one that's not especially productive.
"No one likes having the police called on them," said Will Reimers, a neighborhood contact officer with the Boise (Idaho) Police Department. "Oftentimes that makes things worse, when suddenly police show up and start talking to you. People resent that. So it's not the best first step."
What is the best first step? Try talking to each other.
"It seems today that talking to your neighbors is something that has fallen out of fashion," Reimers said. "It's just not done as much anymore. But it's an old technique that should be resurrected."Which all sounds good until you realize that today's Daily Mail illustrates the flip side of that solution:
Franklin Santana, 47, allegedly went to his neighbour's home in the Tacony region of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to complain about his dogs.I'd say you really need to pick your battles -- and you might want to let the police handle the ones that involve an armed and angry neighbor after all.
The neighbour, Tyrirk Harris, 27, was licensed to carry a gun and had it in a holster as the two talked on the front porch on Tuesday, police said.
‘I (saw) them arguing, then from there a little scuffle,’ neighbour Miguel Rivera told the Philadelphia Daily News. ‘Then I heard the shots.’
Mr Santana was found dead outside the Torresdale Avenue home after confronting Harris about the mess constantly left by his dogs, police said.
Winner's attorneys argued that punishment was too harsh, according to court papers.And what exactly is he guilty of?
Winner's attorneys also asked that his emotional problems and difficult childhood, including physical and psychological abuse at his father's hands, be taken into consideration, court papers show.
An Illinois man was sentenced Friday by a federal judge in Rhode Island to more than three years in prison for shipping unwanted penis enlargers to diabetes patients as part of a larger fraud scheme that prosecutors say bilked $2.2 million from Medicare over four years.He's a real winner all right.
A convicted felon chose the wrong victim when he tried to rob an MMA fighter Friday night on the Southwest Side and ended up with two black eyes and a gunshot wound to the ankle.I laughed and laughed!
Longtime WGN-720 AM Radio overnight co-hosts Steve King and Johnnie Putman are ending their 26-year run.Now where am I going to find cool new music? Steve and Johnnie have been a constant source of good stuff (and have been big cheerleaders of my friend Lisa McClowrey's for a long, long time)!
Their final show will air Friday.
She’s publicly criticized Gov. Pat Quinn, battled with the sheriff over budget cuts and even taken a jab at President Barack Obama’s signature health-care plan.See what I mean?
Her critics, and even some of her fans, say the 64-year-old Toni Preckwinkle, president of Cook County Board, can be abrupt, even “autocratic” — a throwback to the iron-fist rule of the so-called machine Democrats that ruled the county for decades.
But feather-ruffling aside, Preckwinkle has managed to shepherd through two balanced budgets, advance a socially liberal agenda and even make a few power grabs — all with the support of the county board.
And she’s done it all in a year’s time, after taking office last Dec. 6 on a platform of reform and transparency following the ouster of past president Todd Stroger.
"I am in full nip denial." -- Nancy Grace*Ahem*
A six-year-old girl who went fishing in a Texas lake using a piece of a hot dog as bait got more than she bargained for when she landed her very first catch - a flesh-eating piranha.Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lindsey Schutte and her parents took the fish home in a bucket unaware of its true identity - until it sank its razor-edged teeth into her seven-year-old brother's hand when he tried to play with it.
It was designed to deter the red threat from the old Soviet Union, but now a Cold War-era missile has had the cobwebs brushed off to launch a U.S. military satellite.How cool is that?
The Peacekeeper, also known as an MX or intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), became part of America’s nuclear arsenal back in 1986 but was decommissioned in 2004.
Converted into a Minotaur IV rocket, it successfully blasted a Tactical Satellite-4 (TacSat-4) into space from a launchpad in Alaska.
They want the next person to think twice before walking into their community and taking advantage of their friends.Love it, love it, LOVE IT!
“I think you give a message. You come to our neighborhood. You mess around. You are going to get taken out.”
The world’s most famous White House intern reportedly is living a fairly lonely, solitary life and, while not as desperate as profiled in the National Enquirer, “Monica’s situation is certainly not a happy one,” a source very close to Lewinsky told me....How is it that a naive intern gets "permanently stained" for her unfortunate bad judgment and the asshole boss, who should have been older and wiser but absolutely overstepped boundaries and was impeached for god's sake, gets paid big bucks as a speaker and lives a perfectly happy life?
“I hate to make a bad pun — but she is permanently stained by that scandal.”
Another politician forced to resign after sending naked pictures to woman he had online relationship withCamera phone + naked + press "send" = TROUBLE + caught... er... red-handed
In 55 days, Kellogg assisted 115 strangers and made an exhilarating realization: “You don’t have to be a billionaire to be a philanthropist,” he says. “You just have to ask people, ‘How can I help?’ ”Would that there were many more young folks out there just like him.
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Officials believe the man was using the portable toilet (also known as a port-a-potty) at Rockhampton Airport, in the state of Queensland, when he lit a cigarette.Go here to find out what happened next.
To partake of Hardee's latest round of breakfast promotions, you'll have to road trip to Wisconsin, say, or the Southeast and promise to exercise a couple hours extra post-consumption of the items: A Double Loaded Omelet Biscuit and Fried Bologna Biscuit.OMG! Fried balogna!
You may know two men that you think would be perfect as a couple except one likes leather daddies and the other is into twinks----and they’re both tops. If you don’t know what that means, then you shouldn’t play cupid.Yup.
Lingering would be a colossal waste of love and money.Go read the whole thing.
The U.S. Army has established an app store (the Army Marketplace) for military smart phone users. This includes the iPad, which soldiers are also big fans of. The army app store includes an "App Wanted" section where users can post descriptions of an app they need. If a developer (in uniform, or an army approved civilian with access to the Army Marketplace) is interested, a discussion can be started on an attached message board. The army hopes that the needed app will be quickly created and made available at the Army Marketplace. Developers can charge for their apps, although the army is also willing to pay developers to create needed apps that have been described by military smart phone users.Go read the whole cool article.
Illinois Department of Public Health officials are bracing for a flood of requests in November when a new law will allow thousands of adult adoptees to obtain their birth certificates.I can make an argument for finally opening those doors... and I can make an argument for keeping them closed.
The law passed in Illinois last year could give some adoptees the names of their birth parents for the first time.
Birth parents can remain anonymous and have their names redacted from any released birth certificate by filling out a form by Nov. 1.I've been very, very lucky, but I can understand how this could be a difficult choice. Whatever your choice, I stand behind you.
(One day I will have one of my very own, just you wait!)
_____When confronted with the allegations of force-feeding the activists meat, using them as ad hoc latrines, leaving them incapacitated in fast food restaurant dumpsters, and ‘farting on their heads,’ the organizer declined to comment in detail. “That’s just our secret handshake,” assured the organizer.I apologize to no one for laughing myself silly over this. (Thanks, Denny!)
“All of the sudden, I realized, my God, am I 16 again?” she said “What’s the matter with me? I was sitting there hoping he’d call! It just surprised me that I was having that good of a time.”Love is not strictly the province of the young... and we should all be thankful for that!
Nine days later, Sabrina's grandparents knew the end was near. They called Matt. He held her hand through the night. Sabrina died in her sleep, with the boy who loved her with all his heart by her side.If that doesn't get you, you have no heart.
Before her body was taken away, Matt kissed her gently on the head.
"Thank you for saving me," he told her.
“It’s a quiet corner most of the time, other than the regular drug and gang activity,” said a worker at a nearby shop.Sheesh.
Text message blows up suicide bomber by accidentKarma -- it's a beautiful thing.
Dr Teddy Wu, who is currently working in the neurology department at Christchurch Hospital, said he believed it was the first time someone had been hospitalised by a "hickey".I nearly wet myself laughing.
The boy and his sister, believed to be about 4 years old, were playing in the elevator when the incident occurred, according to residents at the Plaza Hotel, 26 W. Clinton St. in downtown Joliet.This is inexcusable parenting.
The accident happened around 3:30 p.m Sunday. The toddler left his family's room on the second floor of the Hotel Plaza and got into an elevator, according to Joliet Police Lt. Jeff Allbert. The boy apparently started playing with the elevator's buttons, he said.
The elevator rose, then stopped, leaving a 10-inch gap between the elevator and shaft. The toddler slipped through the gap and fell about 30 feet to the basement, Allbert said.
Two words: Good. Lord.Yep.
The new push is a crackdown on the rising cost of health care for retired state workers. The program costs the state nearly $500 million a year, and more than 90 percent of the retirees and survivors pay no premiums....Yes! It's about time those who can afford to pay for this are held to account. I don't begrudge those who can't afford to pay, but I do begrudge those who can and don't. Especially those who retire on more than I make in any given year.
The idea is to start charging the retirees who can afford to pay for their health care. And new state research shows some of the 84,100 retirees and survivors appear to possess the ability to pay — the average annual household income for a retired state worker younger than 65 was nearly $78,000.
The sizable rocking-chair income is the result of waves of state workers taking advantage of sweet early retirement plans that allowed them to walk out of government jobs in their 50s, start collecting pension benefits and still have time to start a second career.
The retirees are responsible for co-payments, even if nine out of 10 of them don't pay premiums. The state's costs rose more than 10 percent to hit $488.2 million in the last budget year, and that doesn't even include dental and vision expenses. Some of the increase is attributed to workers who have left Illinois for warmer climates. The cost for their care can be higher because they can't always get the group rate discounts of a managed-care plan when they move to another state.
"You know how when you sit on your phone when it's in your back pocket and it calls the last number that was dialed? His wife was the last number he'd dialed," said Winnetka police Chief Joseph De Lopez. "The conversation led her to believe there was someone holding him hostage."Heh!
In the popular vernacular, it was a butt dial, the bane of many a chagrined cell phone user. This time, it led to a frantic 911 call from a wife. Soon, more than 30 gun-toting officers converged on Carleton Washburne School, which also houses the District 36 offices where the man works.
_____“If these things really work by social media, they could just go to food deserts. There are plenty of neighborhoods in the city that have a shortage of restaurants and grocery stores or late-night places to eat,” said the association’s president, Sheila O’Grady, Mayor Daley’s longest-serving chief of staff.First of all, I can assure the owners throwing the biggest tantrums that someone who would choose to dine from a food truck on any given day probably didn't even consider a bricks & mortar fine dining restaurant as an alternative. Second of all, food trucks have been successfully integrated into the food scene in such cities as Los Angeles and New York with no harm at all to the B&MRs.
“The thing that appeals to people is they think some fabulous chef will be producing some amazing street food. They use Twitter to say, ‘I’m gonna be at this corner at this time. Come meet me.’ If that’s really how it works, people will follow you regardless of where or who you are.”
White House leaks about the ineffectiveness of Obama's presidency are expandng [sic] beyond the revelations attributed to a former high-level Obama administration insider and which have been reported by a blogger named "Ulsterman." Some White House staffers have described a "reign of terror" in the White House over continued leaks and a troika of leadership that is making decisions without any input from the president. The troika reportedly consists of First Lady Michelle Obama, presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, and the president's mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, who resides in the White House.... or that Biden is second in line.
"Well, (legislators) voted for it, seniors ride free, a couple years ago. I think when you have a program, you want to see how it works. I think the seniors are pretty happy with it. (Curtailing free rides) is really not going to save the state money. I think we should do as much as we can for public transit."...but at least one newsman does:
Asked if a means test should determine which seniors ride free, Quinn said: "Well, you don't have means tests for Social Security. The genius of that program that was founded by President Franklin Roosevelt was, when you have a universal program, you have everyone participating and everyone supporting. I do believe in that principle of universality on important programs. I have supported seniors ride free, and I don't think that's our top priority right now; our top priority is to fund our schools."
The free-rides program for seniors that Blagojevich jammed through the legislature costs the three transit agencies at least $38 million a year. Given their finances, the transit agencies cannot afford these free rides. Quinn should be apologizing for another governor's financial recklessness, not declaring that he'll block any attempt to rein in the freebies. [Emphasis mine]Too right.
Remember, these transit systems survive only because governments create them and riders pay to use them. We were troubled to read a comment in Wednesday's Tribune from Beryl Clemens, former president of Metro Seniors in Action, an advocacy group: "The whole bus is empty. It's not costing (the transit agencies) anything." Yes, it is. Those who use these systems ought to share the costs. All of us could, in a moment of selfishness, point to an empty seat and say, "I'll just plop my fanny right here and nobody's out a dime." Doing that would steal revenue from the kitty that keeps public transit in business for everyone.
We hope legislative leaders deliver to Quinn a more sensible means for handling senior riders. If Quinn issues a veto, we hope legislators override him and bring this notion of free rides to an end.
For the first time in almost two years Thursday, WGN-AM 720 made a major personnel move that didn't upset at least some of its longtime listeners: It said so long to Kevin Metheny, its polarizing program director for the last 23 months.I didn't like what he did back then, and I still don't like it. I'm not sorry to see him go.
'Devil of Detroit St' woman who taunted terminally ill girl is now arrested after 'trying run down' another neighbour in her carLet me perform the introductions -- Petard, Hoist. Hoist, Petard.
