Commissioner Parker re-elected

Congratulations Commissioner Parker on winning re-election.

You're a good man and Comal County is a better place because you're here.

Parker declared winner after all

By Chris Cobb The Herald-Zeitung

In what was one of the closest — and certainly the most unusual — local races in Tuesday’s election, incumbent Precinct 3 Comal County Commissioner Greg Parker narrowly held onto his seat against Democratic challenger Ramon Chapa Jr.Parker won by carrying just more than 51 percent of the vote.

But when all of the county precincts originally were counted Tuesday night, Chapa was the one ahead in the polls — by 193 votes. The race flipped when processing errors by elections officials forced them to start over and re-tabulate all of the votes from every race at around 9 p.m. When they had finished, Parker won by a margin of 118 votes.“I went to bed last night after giving my concession speech, and I thought it was over,” Parker said. “I woke up this morning and found out I was the winner.”

Comal County Clerk Joy Streater said elections officials had been pushing the wrong button while adding the electronic voting totals to the county database, accidentally adding votes they shouldn’t have been. Once the mistake was realized, they were forced to start over. Once the votes were counted for the last time, Parker officially had 2,557 votes to Chapa’s 2,439. There are still around 300 military mail-in ballots that have not been counted, but not all of them are from Precinct 3, and Streater said there probably wouldn’t be enough to change the outcome.

Chapa said he might always be somewhat skeptical about how the votes were counted but thought the election coordinators were honest and should be commended for their work in Tuesday’s election.“It was kind of odd the way they tabulated those results, but I was there last night and was able to see firsthand how hard they worked,” Chapa said. “We’re disappointed that it didn’t turn out favorably for us, but we ran a good campaign, and we can hold our heads up high.”Chapa said he didn’t know his plans for the future and didn’t rule out the possibility of a recount.

“It wasn’t meant to be for me, but I feel with my experience and my contacts in this region, I could have done a lot for this community,” he said.

Barring any unforeseen changes, Parker will begin his second term on Commissioners Court in January. “I’m going to continue to work for Precinct 3 and would like to thank all of the individuals that supported my campaign,” Parker said.

Three found

Thanks to whoever gave the tip on this.

Let the system fire up and the process begin as to guilt/innocence.

Three held in slaying outside VFW Hall
-SAEN

Three men were arrested and facing capital murder charges in last month's slaying of a man who tried to defend his mother-in-law during an attempted purse snatching.

Manuel Barrera, his wife and her mother were leaving a VFW Hall on Frio City Road on Oct. 10 when men got out of a van and attempted to rob Barrera's mother-in-law. Barrera was shot and killed trying to fend off the robbery.

The men fled in the van without taking the woman's purse. The van, which had been stolen during a carjacking earlier that night, was later burned and abandoned on the East Side.

Police said a confidential infromant led them to the suspects.

This little piggy went to market

What a haul to take these piggies to market.

Man accused of stealing 8 piggy banks from home

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Police said a 34-year-old man was charged with second-degree burglary after allegedly stealing eight piggy banks from a home, netting more than $2,700 in change.

Police said the man then went to a bank, where he spent more than half an hour standing at a coin-counting machine while the device tallied the money.

Police said the man, already on probation for first-degree burglary, then picked up his girlfriend and bought a coat, boots and shirts at Burlington Coat Factory.

Police found him after a neighbor saw a man leave with two large nylon bags and noted the plate number.
Police said the man may have lived with the victims in the past.

Drink drive ask question

It would be too easy to turn this into a Polish joke.

So I won't it speaks for it self.

yet, it is funny.

Drunk driver's dozy dilemma

A Polish motorist lost his licence after he drove to a police station to ask officers if he was too drunk to drive.

Dariusz Mazowiecki, 33, was breathalysed, arrested and charged following the incident in Bialystok in north east Poland.

A police spokesman said: "He had been out drinking with friends and at the end of the night wasn't sure if he was over the limit or not and wanted to find a policeman to ask.

"Unfortunately he decided the nearest station was too far for him to walk and so he drove there.
"Officers did a breath test and found he was over the drink drive limit. He was arrested and was stripped of his licence."

Good work

Good job on getting into the child porn "community" and busting these guys up.

Child predator gets 20 years for porn
By Guillermo Contreras - Express-News

A San Antonio computer security expert and former Air Force airman who was part of a community of child predators was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday for two counts of possession of child pornography.

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia gave Richard W. Fleming a stiffer sentence than the recommended sentencing guidelines, which called for a maximum of 10 years. The judge also ordered Fleming to serve a lifetime of federal supervision after his release from prison.
Fleming, whose case revealed he had molested several children, issued a brief apology and said he needed treatment.

He pleaded guilty in September and still faces trial in Chicago, where he is charged with seven counts of sexual exploitation of children in connection with the creation of child pornography in 2001 and 2003. One of the charges says he traveled from Texas to Illinois to have sex with a minor under the age of 16.

Fleming, 44, is the former executive vice president of security and risk management consulting for Digital Defense Inc., a network security firm he co-founded in 1999 in San Antonio.
In the San Antonio case, FBI agents alleged they found more than 500 explicit sexual digital images involving prepubescent boys being molested by other minors or adults.
Authorities said Fleming associated with other child predators, including William Martin, 35, of Wisconsin, convicted in 2005 and sentenced to 50 years for masterminding a ring of men who traveled across the country and videotaped their molestation of numerous boys.
The group of men met online at a Web site, the “Starkids,” that federal agents said served as a meeting place for child predators.

Fleming's name was mentioned at the 2005 trial of an Illinois man, Charles Burt, who was sentenced in 2006 to 100 years in prison for photographing and distributing pornographic images of boys, including some who were living with him.

Federal prosecutors in Illinois have described Fleming as a “close friend and associate” of Burt, and said Fleming “was present on the occasions when Burt was staying with the boys.” The prosecutors also said testimony in 2005 placed Fleming at a state park and a hotel there, sites where sexual images of boys were taken.

Fleming has more than 24 years of experience in the information security industry and built it as an officer in the Air Force. He also served as director of the Air Intelligence Agency Technology Demonstration Center at Lackland AFB. In this role, he identified and applied new security technologies for the intelligence communities. Additionally, he also tested and certified information systems worldwide for classified or sensitive operations, Digital Defense's Web site said.

Hope and Change arrived

Congratulations Barack Obama on your historical victory. It is an amazing testimony to the times and the distance we, as a nation, have travelled since Martin Luther King's speech in 1963. As a boy I read the stories and saw the photos in Life magazine of the civil rights movement and the growing pains of a people striving for the light.

You have arrived, you are human and the burden and hopes placed on you by all of us are many and the path will be wearying. May God grant you the wisdom to solve the problems we and the world face. I salute you Mr. President.

A mammoth undertaking

I know this isn't a legal matter but let me indulge my geologist side here once in a while.

It would be a pretty cool thing in a way, no?

Not really a Jurassic Park, however more like a Pleistocene Park. Last comment, what about the "ice man" that was found up in the Alps, will they want to clone him?

Japanese clone mouse from frozen cell, aim for mammoths

Japanese scientists said Tuesday they had created a mouse from a dead cell frozen for 16 years, taking a step in the long impossible dream of bringing back extinct animals such as mammoths.
Scientists at the government-backed research institute Riken used the dead cell of a mouse that had been preserved at minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a temperature similar to frozen ground.

The scientists hope that the first-of-a-kind research will pave the way to restore extinct animals such as the mammoth.
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

The scientists extracted a cell nucleus from an organ of the dead mouse and planted it into an egg of another mouse which was alive, leading to the birth of the cloned mouse, the researchers said.
"The newly developed technology of nucleus transfer greatly improved the possibility of reviving extinct animals," the research team led by Teruhiko Wakayama said in a statement.

The cloned mouse was able to reproduce with a female mouse, it added.
But the researchers said tough challenges remain ahead on how to restore extinct animals, which would require breeding with animals that are still alive.

To revive a mammoth, researchers would need to find a way to implant a cell nucleus of a mammoth into the egg of an elephant and then implant the embryo into an elephant's uterus, it said.

The elephant is the closest modern relative of the mammoth, a huge woolly mammal believed to have died out with the Ice Age.

One vote One soldier's doesn't count

Why would anyone try to disenfranchise soldier's votes who are deployed overseas?

That is pretty pathetic and reprehensible.

If it was negligent it is just as bad.

McCain campaign sues over overseas military ballots
RICHMOND

John McCain's presidential campaign filed a federal suit Monday against Virginia seeking to extend by 10 days the deadline for the state's acceptance of military members' federal absentee ballots.

Word of the suit emerged Monday afternoon, around the time that a separate election-related injunction request to extend voting hours in today's election was being rejected in federal court.
A national voter rights group, the Advancement Project, and the state NAACP chapter sued the state last week claiming unfair election practices and sought court action to change the distribution of voting machines in Norfolk, Richmond and Virginia Beach, extend polling hours and permit wider use of paper ballots.

Judge Richard Williams did not grant the immediate injunction, though the suit is expected to proceed at a later date. In his ruling, Williams reasoned that last-minute changes to the election format could harm the public in the name of protecting voters potentially disenfranchised by current state election laws.

The McCain suit, meanwhile, seeks an injunction to extend the date by which federal write-in absentee ballots must be received to be counted. The current deadline is today, but the suit seeks to have the date changed to Nov. 14.

"Because many counties in Virginia failed to mail absentee ballots in time to our men and women in uniform stationed overseas, service members are being disenfranchised because they are unable to return their ballots before the November 4 deadline," campaign spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said in a written statement about the suit, which is scheduled to be heard in Williams' courtroom at 1:30 p.m. today.

Chesapeake, Suffolk and Virginia Beach are among the localities cited in the lawsuit as those that mailed absentee ballots overseas in late September. The suit argues that service members didn't have enough time to cast their votes and return them stateside.

Estimates range between federal agencies, but systemic impediments to overseas voting are seen as a hindrance that keeps service members stationed abroad from voting with the same success rate as the domestic population.

This is the second recent flap over federal absentee ballots; an earlier dispute was resolved last week when state election officials allowed about 100 ballots to be counted that otherwise would have been disqualified under state law.

Responding to the suit, Obama campaign spokesman Kevin Griffis said the Democratic presidential candidate "is strongly committed to protecting the rights of veterans and active-duty military. That is why our campaign sent a letter to every secretary of state earlier this fall urging them to do everything they can to ensure that the vote of active military and veterans are counted."

In the earlier lawsuit regarding voting equipment and hours, Williams acknowledged in his ruling that he would like to see Virginia adopt the early voting rules used by some other states, and also use more voting machines on Election Day. "Those changes have to come from the Virginia General Assembly, not the court," he said.

The judge, however, ordered state election officials to publicize the availability of curbside voting for elderly and disabled citizens and to remind voters that anyone in line when polls close at 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote.

After Monday's hearing, NAACP national President Ben Jealous urged voters to be patient as they wait in Election Day lines.
"We are urging all voters to stay in line tomorrow," Jealous said. "Americans have waited 230 years for this: a multi-gender, multi-generational, multi-racial" election.
"This is a big day. Stay in line," he said.

One vote One lawsuit in the making

The BS has apparently started already.

Expect more of the same from both sides today, I imagine.

Then the lawsuits and counter-suits will happen.

A Repeat of 2004 Philly Voter Chaos, Fraud
Posted by: Amanda Carpenter at 7:46 AM

EXCLUSIVE, DEVELOPING--GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in more than half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.A liberal judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could be NOT removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening.

It is the duty of election board workers to monitor and guard the integrity of the voting process. Denying access to the minority (in this case Republican) poll watchers and inspectors is a violation of Pennsylvania state law. Those who violate the law can be punished with a misdemeanor and subjected to a fine of $1,000 and sent to prison between one month and two years. Those on site as describing it as "pandemonium" and there may be video coming of the chaos.

Some of the precincts where Republicans have been removed are: the 44th Ward, 12th and 13th divisions; 6th Ward, 12th division; 32nd Ward, Division 28.“Election board officials guard the legitimacy of the election process and the idea that Republicans are being intimidated and banned for partisan purposes does not allow for an honest and open election process,” said McCain-Palin spokesman Ben Porritt in a statement to Townhall.

The City of Brotherly Love was roiled in controversy during the 2004 election because of rigged voting machines that showed nearly 2,000 votes for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry before the polls had opened. A man also used a gun to intimidate poll workers at Ward 30, division 11 in 2004.

One vote One riot

A sad commentary on today's election.

On the other hand you do get a free cup of coffee at Starbuck's if you voted!

So there will be angry people all hopped up on caffeine.

Toledo Police brace for possible civil unrest
By Aaron Brilbeck

TOLEDO, OHIO -- Toledo police are gearing up for possible "Civil unrest" during and after tomorrow's elections.

In an internal memo obtained exclusively by NBC 24 News, officers are ordered to "Have their riot equipment with them Tuesday and Wednesday".

Police chief Mike Navarre confirms, officers will have gear similar to the equipment they used during the 2005 race riots. "They have been asked to have their helmets and their gas masks available tomorrow and Wednesday.", Navarre says, "That's the equipment they would not normally carry with them on a normal day".

Navarre also says, officers will not be stationed at individual polling stations. But the memo says otherwise. It reads, "On Tuesday, units shall be directed to patrol the polling locations".

Olly...Olly.....Oxen.....Free

Pretty silly, eh?

I mean what's the point of this unless you're playing an adult version of hide and seek.

Outrage over 'chastity belt' lingerie fitted with GPS tracking system
By Daily Mail Reporter

Controversial: Critics have said underwear featuring a tracking system is the high-tech equivalent of a chastity belt

Feminists around the world have reacted with horror to a new line of lingerie that comes equipped with a GPS tracking system.

The 'find me if you can' range of underwear has been described as a modern-day, high-tech chastity belt.
'It is outrageous to think that men can buy this, programme it and give it to their partners and then monitor them,' said Claudia Burghart, leader of a Berlin feminist group.
'It is nothing more than a chastity belt for insecure men.'

Lingerie maker Lucia Lorio of Brazil says her design targets the 'modern, techno-savvy woman'.
The lingerie combination set consists of lace bodice, bikini bottom and faux pearl collar, with the GPS device nestled in the see-through part of the bodice next to the waist.

'This collection... is a wink to women and a challenge to men because, even if she gives him the password to her GPS, she can always turn it off,' Lorio said.
'It's not a modern chastity belt. Some men think they can keep tabs on their girlfriends with it, but they're wrong,' she added.

Unconcerned with the controversy her collection has raised, Lorio is also dismissive of the global financial crisis and its adverse impact on luxury items sales.
The GPS lingerie sells from a cool £500, complete with a standard Global Positioning System, to £700 with a more advanced model.

'Some women are now interested in buying it for protection,' she said, programming it for partners themselves so they are safe on a night out alone.

'In London, New York, Rio de Janiero - wherever there is danger, the underwear may prove to be a lifesaver,' she added.

But feminists in her homeland have called her a modern-day slaver and urged women to boycott the GPS underwear.

Good job Officer Glover

Send it to the grand jury and clear the officer.

Sure sounds like he was on his toes and saved Harris County a ton of legal fees.

Houston police fatally shoot man after club incident

A Houston police officer fatally shot a man that he spotted firing at several passing cars early Sunday, only minutes after the same person reportedly shot and wounded a security guard at a southeast-side nightclub, officials said.

Officer Michael J. Glover heard gunfire about 3:30 a.m. while he was investigating reports of a fight outside a Fiesta supermarket at 7510 Bellfort, Houston police said.
The officer began searching for the source of the gunfire and spotted the man running down the 7500 block of Bellfort, Houston police said.
“He sees him shooting at several vehicles as he's running along the street,” said Sgt. John Chomiak, who is a spokesman with the Houston Police Department.

Glover, assigned to HPD's Southeast Patrol Division, moved in closer and saw the man about to shoot at an oncoming car.
“The officer fired at least twice — striking the suspect,” Chomiak said.
The man was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, police said.

Release of the man's identity is pending notification of his relatives.
Glover, 30, who joined the department last year, was not injured, officials said.
Police said four cars in the area were struck by the man's barrage of gunfire — with at least one person reporting injuries at the scene.
HPD investigators have linked the man to an earlier shooting at a nearby nightclub that sent a security guard to the hospital.

Police said the man became belligerent when the security guard would not allow him to go into Susana's Place, 7614 Pecan Villas. The nightclub is near the scene of the fatal shooting.
The man left but quickly returned with a pistol. He shot the guard twice and then fled on foot, police said.

The guard was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital, where he is expected to recover from his wounds, police said.
The incident remains under investigation by Houston police homicide and internal affairs detectives. The Harris County District Attorney's Office also is investigating.

Master of the Obvious

Wow, I am sure glad this study was done because, I mean, who knew?

Watch sex-filled shows and listen to racy dialogue means the kids may be more promiscuous?

What a concept!! How much did we pay for this study?

Teen pregnancies, racy TV linked
By Lindsey Tanner - Associated Press

CHICAGO — Groundbreaking research suggests pregnancy rates are much higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and behavior, compared with those who have tamer viewing tastes.
“Sex and the City,” anyone? That was one of the shows used in the research.

The new study is the first to link those viewing habits with teen pregnancy, said lead author Anita Chandra, a Rand Corp. behavioral scientist. Teens who watched the raciest shows were twice as likely to become pregnant over the next three years as those who watched few such programs.
Previous research by some of the same scientists had already found that watching lots of sex on TV can influence teens to have sex at earlier ages.

Shows that only highlight the positive aspects of sexual behavior without the risks can lead teens to have unprotected sex “before they're ready to make responsible and informed decisions,” Chandra said.

The study was to be released today in the November issue of Pediatrics. It involved 2,003 12- to 17-year-old girls and boys nationwide questioned about their TV viewing habits in 2001. Teens were re-interviewed twice, the last time in 2004, and asked about pregnancy.
Among girls, 58 became pregnant during the follow-up, and among boys, 33 said they had gotten a girl pregnant.

Participants were asked how often they watched any of more than 20 TV shows popular among teens at the time or that were found to have lots of sexual content. These included “Sex and the City,” “That '70s Show” and “Friends.”
Pregnancies were twice as common among those who said they watched such shows regularly, compared with teens who said they hardly ever saw them.

Chandra said TV-watching was strongly connected with teen pregnancy even when other factors were considered, including grades, family structure and parents' education level.
But the study didn't adequately address other issues, such as self-esteem, family values and income, contends Elizabeth Schroeder, executive director of Answer, a teen sex education program based at Rutgers University.

“The media does have an impact, but we don't know the full extent of it because there are so many other factors,” she said.
But Bill Albert, chief program officer at the nonprofit National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, praised the study and said it “catches up with common sense.”
“Media helps shape the social script for teenagers. Most parents know that. This is just good research to confirm that,” Albert said.

Still, U.S. teen pregnancies were on a 15-year decline until a 3 percent rise in 2006, based on the latest data available. Experts think that could be just be a statistical blip.
And Albert noted the downward trend occurred as TV shows were becoming more sexualized, confirming “it's not the only influence.”

Psychologist David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, cited data suggesting only about 19 percent of U.S. teens say they can talk openly with a trusted adult about sex. With many schools not offering sex education, that leaves the media as sex educator, he said.

“For a kid who no one's talking to about sex, and then he watches sitcoms on TV where sex is presented as this is what the cool people do,” the outcome is obvious, Walsh said.
He said the message to parents is to talk to kids about sex long before they are teens. Parents also should be watching what their kids watch and helping filter messages that sex-filled shows are sending.

Go to Jail, do not pass Go

More senseless, meaning less death.

Please go to jail, do not pass Go.

1 dead, 1 jailed in alleged street race
By David Saleh Rauf - Express-News

A 22-year-old man remained jailed Sunday evening with bond set at $20,000 after the death of his passenger in an early morning wreck on the Northwest Side that police said was the result of a race that reached 80 mph.
Charged with racing on a highway resulting in death, Elwin Albert Rozyskie III is accused of losing control of his Mitsubishi Eclipse and crashing into a pole as he raced another vehicle in the 11000 block of Culebra Road, according to a police report.

Traveling at speeds “at or near 80 mph,” Rozyskie struck a curb at Culebra and FM 1560 and lost control, the report said, causing his sports coupe to veer across three lanes of oncoming traffic before hitting a tree line and ultimately striking a light pole.
Killed in the collision, 20-year-old Jayson Mrazek was riding in the front passenger seat of the Eclipse. He was pronounced dead at the scene of the 2:15 a.m. wreck that mangled the Eclipse so badly that both Mrazek and Rozyskie had to be cut free by San Antonio firefighters.

Rozyskie was taken to University Hospital and later released. He was charged Sunday afternoon with a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The Legislature made street racing a felony in 2003; previously it was an offense punishable only by citation or fine.
“This is something they put into the books because street racing has increased,” said San Antonio Police Department spokesman Joe Rios. “Legislation has given us that power to make this a serious violation, a felony.”

Police are still trying to determine the identity of the other driver in the race and find him and his vehicle. According to the police report, the second vehicle made a right turn at the intersection, while the Eclipse continued to travel west until it crashed.
“If anybody comes forward, it would be great to have, because he could be charged with the same thing that the driver (Rozyskie) was charged with,” Rios said.

Sunday's incident is the second of its kind in San Antonio in less than three weeks. On Oct. 12, street racers were blamed for sending three members of a family whose vehicle had stalled on Loop 410 to University Hospital with serious injuries. The family was stalled on the shoulder of Loop 410 eastbound at Babcock Road when a Volkswagen Jetta that had been racing another car slammed into the rear end of their vehicle.

Police charged Geraldo Candelas, 22, with racing on a highway causing serious bodily injury or death in that incident.

Please help find them

Brave men, killing children and babies while they sleep.

I hope they're found and go to prison for the rest of their lives.

Someone out there knows, please help us find them.

Sleeping Toddler Shot in Drive-by

Reported by: Aubrey Mika Chancellor Email: AubreyMikaChancellor@woaitv.com

SAN ANTONIO - Shots were fired into a home while a family slept inside. A 3-year-old was killed and her mom was injured.
The shots were fired on the 3700 block of Candleglenn on the northeast side.

The family was in shock and just wants answers. They were sleeping in a front bedroom of the house when around 3a.m. someone knocked on the window and started shooting. Eternity, 3, was sleeping in a bed close to the window. She was hit and killed by one of the bullets.

Investigators tell News 4 several shots were fired. Detectives are not sure if this shooting was retaliation for something or just random. The shooting of the young girl, however, was apparently a mistake.

The family tells us they have no idea who would want to hurt them.
"I was sleeping and I heard all these shots and I heard the glass break. I grabbed my daughter, I didn't know she was shot," said Eternity's mom. "I ran to the living room. I thought I was shot. A bullet hit me also, but it didn't go through."

Her mom didn't want to give us her name. She is scared and wants justice for her daughter.
"I don't care how strong you are, how many years you have on the department, a child is not supposed to die," said Deputy Ino Badillo.

If you have any information about this shooting, call the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.