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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Shooting In Salisbury

A shooting has been reported on Carrollton Ave in Salisbury.
Victim was shot in the leg with a shotgun.

Colorado Drivers Say Police Profiling Them In Other States On Heels Of Pot Legalization

Colorado drivers claim they're being unjustly targeted by police officers in other states who are singling them out because of their state's recent legalization of marijuana.

Legal experts predict the complaints will soon lead to a string of "license plate profiling" lawsuits -- one of which already has been filed in Idaho.

Darien Roseen, a 70-year-old retiree, was returning home from his daughter's baby shower in Washington state in January when he was followed into an Idaho rest stop by a state trooper. A dash-cam shows Roseen -- who was driving a vehicle with a Colorado license plate -- being subjected to questioning over marijuana he did not have. His car was searched multiple times, and he was subsequently detained by police. On March 26, he sued the Idaho State Police for alleged license plate profiling as well as civil rights violations, according to the federal lawsuit obtained by FoxNews.com.

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Ten Most Dangerous Jobs in the U.S.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent figures, there were 4,693 fatal occupational injuries in 2011, 146 more than reported in 2010. The majority of these injuries occur in a handful of sectors representing the most dangerous ways to earn a living in the country. Median annual salaries also come courtesy of the BLS.

1. Job: Fishing

Risk factors: Malfunctioning gear, inclement weather and transportation incidents all factor into the highest fatality rate, a distinction it has held since 1992.

Fatality rate: 127.3 per 100,000 workers, 42 total

Median annual salary: $25,590

STUDENTS WANT WASHINGTON & LEE TO FREE 'STUDENTS OF COLOR' FROM 'PSYCHOLOGICAL SHACKLES'

A group of multiracial students calling themselves The Committee wants Washington and Lee University (W&L) to free "students of color... from the psychological shackles that currently exist."

On April 17th Breitbart News reported The Committee was demanding W&L "acknowledge" General Robert E. Lee's "dishonorable side," apologize for the university's "participating in chattel slavery," end neo-Confederate marches across campus on Lee-Jackson Day, and recognize "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on the undergraduate campus."

The students say they will "engage in civil disobedience" if the demands are not met by September 1.
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Nebraska School’s ‘Ludicrous’ Advice for Bullying Victims Sparks Parent Outrage — Read the 9 Rules Here

Fifth grade students at Zeman Elementary School in Lincoln, Neb., were recently sent home with a “flyer” outlining how they should handle bullies. The instructions were apparently deemed so ridiculous by parents that the school district quickly issued an apology and the “inaccurate information” was pulled.

That was after the nine “rules” for dealing with bullies went viral, of course.

Here are some of the more questionable ones:

• Rule #3 Do not be afraid.
• Rule #4: Do not verbally defend yourself.
• Rule #7: Do not tell on bullies.
• Rule #8: Don’t be a sore loser
• Rule #9: Learn to laugh at yourself and not get “hooked” by put-downs.

You can read the full list, along with their descriptions in the photo below:

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Boy Sings Gospel And Escapes Kidnapper

A nine-year-old boy, armed only with swift thinking and a favorite gospel song, was able to escape a kidnapper and sing another day.

According to reports Willie Myrick was playing with his pet chihuahua outside his Atlanta home when a man grabbed him and forced him into a car.

"He was cursing at me telling me to shut up and didn't want to hear a word from me," Willie told ABC affiliate WSB-TV. "He said if I told anyone, he would hurt me, like in a bad way."

But Willie, who just turned 10 this week, told police he started singing the song "Every Praise" over and over, until the man finally threw him onto the street and drove away.

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Dupont First-Quarter Profit Tumbles 57%

DuPont Co. said its first-quarter earnings fell 57% as the chemicals and agricultural-products company reported that growth in most of its businesses was offset by harsh weather and shifts in agriculture.

DuPont said that in the latest quarter, adverse weather reduced per-share earnings by an estimated seven cents owing to increased operating costs and lost sales.

In its agriculture business, volume growth in the Americas was constrained by shifts in the timing and planted area as well as harsh weather. However, volume improved in each of DuPont's industrial related segments.

In the latest quarter, the agricultural business reported sales fell 6% to $4.39 billion.

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Voting-Rights Quest In Va. Will Become Easier For Ex-cons Held On Serious Drug Charges

The excited calls from felons started coming in on Friday. There was a 54-year-old construction worker from Richmond who was convicted on a drug charge decades ago and had never voted. There was a young father, busted for dealing years ago, now trying to bounce back.

“He wanted to be an example for his children — that it’s their constitutional right to vote, and it’s their responsibility to vote,” said Richard Walker, founder of Bridging the Gap in Virginia, a group working to help restore felons’ voting rights. “I’m going to be swamped.”

Walker is on the leading edge of far-reaching change, set to take effect Monday, in how Virginia treats its felons. 

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I Thought Government Wasn't In Business To Make Money/Profit?

The U.S. Marshals Service will sell more than $5 billion worth of confiscated property related to a New York terrorism case. A federal judge has approved the plans. The Marshals will put a 36-foot Manhattan skyscraper on the auction block. The owners secretly funneled revenue from it to a state-owned Iranian bank, in violation of U.S. law. 

The Justice Department calls it the largest terrorism-related forfeiture ever. It stems from a deal between the federal government and victims, including family of those killed on 9/11. 

The government will receive reimbursement for legal expenses and costs of the sales before distributing the rest of the money to victims.

Food Stamps Used To Buy 1,200 Cases Of Red Bull

The owner of a Fairfield Avenue grocery store was charged with illegally using government food stamp money to buy 1,200 cases of Red Bull.

Aslam Khawaja, 48, of Iranistan Avenue, the owner of the SK Grocery at 856 Fairfield Ave., was charged Wednesday with first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

From March through December 2013 Khawaja paid cash to 128 of his customers who are on the state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for their SNAP benefits at 50 cents to a dollar of benefit, the arrest affidavit states.

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Federal Employees Getting A 25% Discount At U of M

The University of Maryland's online University College rolls out a new discount program for federal employees. The school will offer a 25 percent discount on out-of-state tuition, at both the undergrad and graduate level. It applies to federal employees and their families, as long as they are not Maryland residents. The Office of Personnel Management worked out the deal. Director Katherine Archuleta tells agency HR officials, this is a way to close skill gaps and make federal employment more attractive. She says subject-matter experts from the federal government are helping to develop curricula for the school.

Top 10 Reasons to Vote Democrat in 2014

I can only take credit for #10, but thought you’d get a kick out of this.

10. I’ll vote Democrat because I can’t wait for college football season to be delayed or cancelled because the student athletes are union employees.

9. I’ll vote Democrat because I believe oil company’s profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.



8. I’ll vote Democrat because I believe the government will do a better jo
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A Viewer Writes: The lighter side of everyday life.. DRYER BALLS??

The wife told me to buy her some “dryer balls”. Several months ago I purchased a new $900 dryer because the old one was “older” technology and “beat the clothes to death”. The new one saves lots of energy by tumbling and gently blowing warm air through the clothes. But apparently this does not “fluff up” the material, thereby requiring dryer balls to be inserted to create more agitation. I see something sinister in this.

A couple of years ago, it was a new washer ($1000), ostensibly to save energy, water and wear and tear on clothing. But when it was installed, there were not enough bubbles. The well water contained too many minerals. A new water conditioner ($1200) caused the washer to overflow with bubbles, thus a change to a more expensive detergent (which caused skin rash). Finally, things looked right....until the septic drain field overflowed because the water conditioner installer exhausted the salt water into the septic pipes. Another $3500. AND now we must buy bottled water to drink because it contains minerals and tastes better than the well water. Am I alone, or is this what is considered normal??

Poor Economy Has Impact On Area Recycling Efforts

Recycling revenue dropped dramatically for Worcester County in fiscal year 2013, rebounded this fiscal year and is expected to drop just slightly in the coming fiscal year. During the same time period, the amount of recyclables remained about the same.

“It’s the economy, period,” Ron Taylor, the county’s recycling manager, told the Worcester County Commissioners during their April 8 budget work session.

In fiscal year 2013, recycling revenue was $303,000 and in the current fiscal year it is expected to be $225,000. For fiscal year 2015, $222,000 is estimated.
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3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale formation."

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‘Damn The Career Consequences!’ Pat Sajak, Man Of ‘Courage,’ Comes Out With The Truth

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Selling Tainted Beef to the States

The Tucson Ring - Almost everyone knows the story about Geronimo, how he broke out of the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona and went on a rampage before he was finally captured in 1886. What most people don't know is the front end of that story, that the Indian Agent there, a fellow named Tiffany, had formed a syndicate with a group of businessmen, later called "the Tucson Ring," who sold tainted beef to the reservation, pocketing the difference. This caused Geronimo and other bands to bolt the reservation, and go on their sprees. After a few years, many deaths, many soldiers and dollars, and several dime novels, Geronimo surrendered to a Florida prison an American folk hero, while Agent Tiffany and the Tuscon Ring were finally rounded up, indicted and punished.

(On a melancholy note: Grover Cleveland was president at the time so this is probably the only recorded incident in American history in which a government employee was both fired and prosecuted criminally under a Democrat administration. So, remember Grover Cleveland in your prayers.)

What follows is a sordid tale of selling tainted beef by tainted salesmen.

As promised in Part I, I won't rehash the Article V argument substantively. I've provided links here where you can review aspects of it, but in the context of the tone of the parties, and as a prelude to possible motivations of its promoters.

Because of the length, this will require a Part III, for as with most investigations, new leads keep popping up.

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More School Safety Measures Near

NEWARK — The Worcester County Board of Education this week approved the second phase of a vast number of safety measures at public schools across the county.

Following the Sandy Hook tragedy in late 2012, Worcester County Public Schools officials worked closely with local law enforcement, school administrators, parents, teachers and students to review and evaluate the existing safety policies and procedures in an attempt to help ensure a similar incident doesn’t happen here.

The first phase’s safety measures included Worcester County Sheriff’s Office deputies in each of the public schools, electronic access entry systems to control who goes in and out of the schools, a standardized visitor identification system at each school and additional security cameras at each school.
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Liberty Movement Rising

"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing." - Thomas Paine

The label of “fringe” is a common one used by statists, bureaucrats and paid shills in order to marginalize those who would stand against government corruption. The primary assertion being sold is that the “majority” joyously supports the establishment; and the majority, of course, is always right.

The liberty movement, which is a collection of numerous freedom organizations and political activists brought together by a shared philosophical bond, has been accused of “fringe” status for quite some time. With corporatist dominance over the mainstream media for decades backing an elitist machine in Washington and a global banking cartel footing the bill with money created from thin air, any such accusation can be made to seem “real” to those who are unaware.

The problem has always been a matter of physical action giving rise to an acknowledgment of numbers.

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Berlin Seeking To Create Public Urination Law

BERLIN — With thousands of people cramming into downtown Berlin last Saturday for a multitude of events, highlighted by the wildly successful “America’s Coolest Small Town” celebration, one of the interesting side stories to emerge is that Berlin does not have a public urination ordinance on its books.

The huge party held in celebration of the town’s “Coolest Small Town” honor attracted thousands of reveling residents and visitors last Saturday for an afternoon of live music, dancing and the liberal flow of adult beverages. During his follow-up report to the Mayor and Council on Monday, Berlin Police Chief Arnold Downing said the big crowd was generally well behaved and there were no major incidents reported, but perhaps the largest celebration in downtown Berlin ever revealed a glaring omission in the town code.

“It was a good day all around and the attitude and behavior of the crowd was outstanding for the most part,” he said. “What we did learn, however, is we have an omission in our ordinance covering public urination.”
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Furnace Town Strawberry Days

FURNACE TOWN LIVING HERITAGE MUSEUM
3816 OLD FURNACE ROAD
SNOW HILL, MD 21863
 
Back in the old days ripe strawberries meant Strawberry Socials, Festivals, and Strawberry Days. Families would bring their own strawberry specialties for sharing and a chance at bragging rights. If your mouth waters at just the thought of strawberries you don’t want to miss Strawberry Day this Sunday, May 25th at Furnace Town! Doors will open at 12:00pm and general admission prices will apply. Furnace Town Members are FREE!!
 
Tickets sales will begin at 1:00pm for strawberry tastings. Items to taste include but not limited to Chocolate Covered Strawberries, Strawberry Salsa, & even Strawberry Lemonade!
 
If baking is one of your skills and you have a dessert you would like to share, enter our contest! No cream fillings or cheesecakes allowed. Each dessert must feature strawberries and should be accompanied by two (2) copies of the recipe. Desserts will be accepted from 11:00am – 12:30pm. Give Furnace Town a call at 410-632-2032 if you plan to enter!
Arts & Craft vendors are also welcome. Limited spots available.
 
For more information please contact Furnace Town at 410-632-2032.

Easter Weekend Specials

Come on down to Boonies this weekend for a great meal!

Chef's Specials... 
Seafood Quesadilla... 10.99 
Crab Dip Burger... 10.99 
Blackened Chicken Wedge Salad... 12.99 
Broiled Stuffed Scallops... 27.99 
Steak Alfredo over Linguini... 18.99 
Fresh Keywest Broiled Rockfish... 23.99 

Open today at noon!  KIDS EAT FREE every Saturday until 6pm! (With purchase of adult entree.)  Happy Hour is 4-7pm and Reverse Happy Hour 9pm - close!  Entertainment - Murphy's Law 9pm-1am in the Pub!
 
EASTER SUNDAY... We open at noon!  Happy Hour ALL DAY!  Dine inside or out on the deck!  Enjoy great drink specials out at the TIKI BAR!  
 
Can't make it this weekend?  We have great weekly specials too!  Wednesday nights get 1/2 price burgers... Thursday nights 1/2 Crab Cake and Rockfish Sandwiches (for a limited time only)... 'Fry-Day' nights we offer fried seafood basket specials!  Check our chalkboard for the Chef's specials!

See you soon!
Management & Staff
Boonies Restaurant & Tiki Bar
410-873-2244

SFD Calls For Service 4-18-14

  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 23:33:42Nature: Hemorrhaging City: Salisbury
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 21:35:14Nature: Pi Accident Address: N Salisbury Blvd and centre Rd Salisbury, MD 21802
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 19:47:10Nature: Subject Fallen City: Salisbury
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 19:02:00Nature: Structure Fire Address: 208 N Camden Ave Fruitland, MD 21826
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 14:45:35Nature: Emergency Unknown City: Salisbury
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 13:11:37Nature: Pi Accident City: Salisbury
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 10:38:37Nature: Sick Subject City: Salisbury
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 10:06:08Nature: Chest Pain City: Salisbury
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 08:25:37Nature: Subject Fallen City: Salisbury
  • Friday April, 18 2014 @ 07:54:29Nature: Sick Subject City: Salisbury

Inflexible regulations giving ‘green’ a black eye

I get so tired of the almighty dollar dominating our society that I sometimes forget: While the sustainable world we environmentalists seek is about so much more, economic sustainability is crucial.

Which brings me to farmer Ted Wycall, of Greenbranch Organic Farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Ted’s delicious food is a beacon of hope in a landscape of industrial farming with its impacts on Bay water quality.

His free-range chickens, grass-fed beef, organic veggies, and pork from hogs that root acorns in his woods are a path we greenies favor for the planet—a local economy that is good for the soil, good for our health.

His little farm store hums with customers glad to pay more than supermarket price for the food, for the Earth. Ted had planned to expand, in this, his seventh year of farming the land he inherited from his grandfather.

But recently, with frustration and some bitterness, he said he is close to moving to Montana, where he went to college, where “there are almost no rules.”

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8 Things Mainstream Media Doesn't Have the Courage to Tell You

News sources speak for the 5%.

The following are all relevant, fact-based issues, the "hard news" stories that the media has a responsibility to report. But the business-oriented press generally avoids them.

1. U.S. Wealth Up $34 Trillion Since Recession. 93% of You Got Almost None of It.

That's an average of $100,000 for every American. But the people who already own most of the stocks took almost all of it. For them, the average gain was well over a million dollars -- tax-free as long as they don't cash it in. Details available here.

2. Eight Rich Americans Made More Than 3.6 Million Minimum Wage Workers

A recent report stated that no full-time minimum wage worker in the U.S. can afford a one-bedroom or two-bedroom rental at fair market rent. There are 3.6 million such workers, and their total (combined) 2013 earnings is less than the 2013 stock market gains of just eight Americans, all of whom take more than their share from society: the four Waltons, the two Kochs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett.

3. News Sources Speak for the 5%

It would be refreshing to read an honest editorial: "We dearly value the 5 to 7 percent of our readers who make a lot of money and believe that their growing riches are helping everyone else."

Instead, the business media seems unable to differentiate between the top 5 percent and the rest of society. The Wall Street Journalexclaimed, "Middle-class Americans have more buying power than ever before," and then went on to sputter: "What Recession?...The economy has bounced back from recession, unemployment has declined.."

The Chicago Tribune may be even further out of touch with its less privileged readers, asking them: "What's so terrible about the infusion of so much money into the presidential campaign?" 

Cop Tries to Shoot Dog, Ends Up Shooting Himself

A California sheriff’s deputy is feeling the sting of humiliation after he attempted to shoot a fenced-in dog, but failed, succeeding only in shooting himself.

The deputy, who works with the Riverside County Court Services Division, was reportedly serving an eviction notice at a Riverside home on Wednesday at around 2p.m. when a “large dog” approached him.

Police say the pit bull, who can be seen in footage shot by Los Angeles NBC affiliate KNBC being playful and friendly with several children, attacked the officer, forcing him to draw his weapon.
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8 Most Absurd Things We're Teaching America's Kids About Sex

According to America's moral scolds, sex is like used chocolate, backwash and duct tape.

Despite the fact that 95 percent of Americans have premarital sex, and that this has been true for decades, abstinence-only education continues to be taught in classrooms across the U.S. Abstinence programs have received $1.75 billion in federal funds since the creation of theTitle V abstinence-only-until-marriage program in 1996, and that’s not including the Adolescent Family Life Act, created in 1981. What, exactly, are your hard-earned tax dollars teaching America’s youth about sex? Oh, just that it's dirty, disgusting, shameful, and worthless, at least according to the following abstinence messages.

1. Sexually active girls are like used chocolate.

Before a group of parents forced a change, a school district in Oxford, Miss. taught the evils of sex by passing a Peppermint Pattie around among the students to prove how filthy sexually active girls can become. “They’re using the Peppermint Pattie to show that a girl is no longer clean or valuable after she’s had sex—that she’s been used,” Marie Barnard, a parent and public health worker, told the L.A. Times. “That shouldn’t be the lesson we send kids about sex.” Indeed. Also, this seems more like a lesson of “wash your hands, children!” than anything sexually useful. And hey, here’s an idea, while we’re ruining desserts: Put a condom on that chocolate and see how it remains protected.

2. Sex is like backwash.

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Why the Media's Fearmongering on Marijuana Effects on the Brain Is Faulty

A neuroimaging study of the brains of marijuana smokers caused unwarranted frenzy.

The mainstream media launched into a reefer mad frenzy this week after researchers from Harvard University in Boston and Northwestern University in Chicago published the results of a neuroimaging study assessing the brains of a small cohort of regular marijuana smokers and non-users. The brain scans identified various differences between the two groups in three aspects of brain morphometry: gray matter density, volume, and shape. These differences triggered dozens of high-profile media outlets to lose their collective minds. Here’s just a sample of the screaming headlines:

CNN: Casual marijuana use may damage your brain; Science Daily: More joints equal more damage; Financial Post: Study proves occasional marijuana use is mind altering; Time: Recreational pot use harmful to young people’s brains; Smoking cannabis will change you. That’s not a risk, its a certainty.

Just imagine how the media would have responded if the study in question had included more than 20 actual cases — or if the authors had actually bothered to assess its subjects for demonstrable deficits in cognitive performance. Yes, that’s right. Despite the sky-is-falling rhetoric and the shock claims of permanent brain damage, a careful review of the study and its findings reveals little, if any, cause for alarm.

So what did the study find? In truth, not a whole lot.

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Weekend Concert Event Denied Liquor Sales

SNOW HILL — The Worcester County Board of License Commissioners (BLC) had a busy afternoon on Wednesday, approving a liquor license for a new business in north Ocean City, some changes at a popular bayfront restaurant downtown, a few requests for businesses in Berlin and most notably, a denial of a one-day permit for a special event in a rural area of northern Worcester County associated with Bike Week in September.

The non-profit organization Law Enforcement Officers Safeguarding America (LEOSA) came before the BLC on Wednesday seeking a pair of special one-day permits for two events scheduled at Airlift Acres, a 50-acre tract along Route 113 near Showell that hosts various festivals of different styles and sizes throughout the year. LEOSA was seeking a one-day permit for a Country Music Event on July 19-20, and another one-day permit for a larger Soundwave Music Festival on Sept. 11-13 associated with Ocean City Bike Week going on at the same time.

LEOSA, a non-profit and charitable organization made up of active and retired police officers, got approval from the BLC for a special permit for the Country Music Fest at Airlift Acres on July 19-20, but the board denied the special permit for the Soundwave Music Festival, citing potential traffic problems and a dearth of other events throughout the region during Bike Week in September.

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5 of the Worst Cities to Be a Renter Unless You're Fabulously Wealthy

Rents in urban areas are skyrocketing. What’s going on?

The housing market is supposedly recovering, yet the homeownership rate is dropping. Meanwhile rents in urban areas were already high but now are absolutely skyrocketing. What’s going on? As millions lost their homes many of the houses were and are being bought up by large investors. And what do these investors want? They want rent and lots of it. According to a NY Times report, In Many Cities, Rent Is Rising Out of Reach of Middle Class, “In December, Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan declared ‘the worst rental affordability crisis that this country has ever known.’ ”

Since the Great Recession the squeeze on 99% of us has gotten much tighter. What does this mean for people looking for a place to live? People used to be able to buy a house and put down roots. But in most cities buying a house is just out of the question for most people. Prices are back up and climbing fast, while salaries and wages for most of us are stagnant if not falling. So coming up with a down payment and qualifying for a mortgage is beyond the reach of many city-dwellers.

And now already-strapped home-buyers are competing with the big money. Many of the houses that come up for sale are sold in “all cash” deals, which means regular people are competing with “investors.” Because these investors pay cash sellers know they don’t have to wait for a buyer to get approved for a mortgage that could fall through.

Michaels Says Nearly 3 Million Customers Hit By Data Breach

Michaels, the craft store chain that confirmed a data breach earlier this year, said nearly 3 million customers’ information had been stolen from its point-of-sale system, including from several Washington-area stores.

The company’s statement late Thursday said an analysis by two security firms found that criminals broke into its system using “highly sophisticated malware that had not been encountered previously by either of the security firms.”

The malware has since been removed, the company said. 

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AG Biden's office target of overtime lawsuit

Three men who worked as detectives in the Delaware attorney general's office have filed a lawsuit claiming that the justice agency and Attorney General Beau Biden have refused to pay them overtime.

Robert Durnan, Gerald Christian and Mark Forbes also allege in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that they were subjected to retaliatory reassignments or duty restrictions last year after their attorney sought payment for overtime accrued since November 2010. Payroll records show no overtime payments to the men in that period.

The lawsuit claims the men's duties, primarily returning fugitives to Delaware, were taken over by other employees who lacked the proper training, including Biden's former chauffeur.

A spokesman for Biden said officials had not been served the lawsuit, and that the office does not comment on pending litigation.

Source

From High School To Heroin

By his own admission, self-proclaimed drug addict Connor “Wes” Bresnahan is fuzzy on the details of what transpired as he plunged ever downward into a world of needles, theft, dealing and, ultimately, jail time.

Convicted twice on drug charges, the 23-year-old looked like any other young adult as he walked into a private visiting room at the Worcester County Jail. Clean, tall, trim and light-haired, Bresnahan might otherwise be any white middle-class young man about to embark on a successful career, were it not for the county-issued jumpsuit that he wore.

The other indicator of how far he had fallen was the door that locked behind him as he entered the room and the sheet of glass pocked with handprints that separated the visiting station into the prisoners’ side and those who come to see them.
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College: The Sixty-Five Thousand Dollar Misunderstanding

Back in 1962, Robert Gover published a novel called the One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding whose premise Amazon describes this way: “A college sophomore spends a weekend with a pretty 14-year-old black prostitute under the manly misapprehension that she has invited him because she finds him irresistible.”

I remember reading it as an undergraduate and finding it mildly amusing. Of course, inflation being what it is, it’s hard to write a book about a piddling hundred dollar misunderstanding anymore. But somehow the novel came to mind today when reading one of my favorite websites — The College Fix.

The misunderstanding it called to mind, however, is not between johns and hookers of whatever ages. It is between parents and the colleges to which we are sending our children. And the cost of this misunderstanding has expanded exponentially — to sixty-five thousand dollars! That’s the current approximate total for room, board and tuition at many of our finest private universities for those considered “fortunate” enough to be able to pay the full amount. For others it can be anything from ten to forty grand, still a princely amount.

And what are we parents getting for this (besides broke)? The College Fix’s editor Nathan Harden gives us a look in a report today — “Adventures in Gender Neutral Bathrooms”— that begins:

When you really have to pee at Columbia University, there is one question that must be answered before you can go: What is my gender today?

If you are biologically male, for instance, but feel like a female, you may feel the need to use the ladies restroom. And why shouldn’t you? If the girl in the stall next to you doesn’t like to take her pants down next to a man she doesn’t know, that’s just evidence of her hetero-normative bigotry. That’s why the Obama administration ruled in 2012 that dudes who feel like ladies have a right to use the women’s bathrooms on campus, no matter how unsafe that makes the women on campus feel.

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HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 4-19-14

Growing Up In Salisbury

I was born in 1943, so the 1950’s were the years of my youth. I don’t know how we managed without all the electronic gizmos they have today, but we did. My granddaughter, Lily, has something called a DS that is a handheld device with which she plays games. She is ten and can run circles around me with it. Her little fingers fairly fly, and she has good enough hand/eye coordination to win occasionally. I wonder if I will live long enough to share my Methotraxate with her.

As seen by the above picture, I liked playing on the cannon down at the city park. It is still there and she likes to play on it, too – 65 years later. Some things never change.

Anyway, I had the standard equipment for a boy in the 1950’s – a bicycle, a baseball glove, a fishing rig and one football and one basketball. We played basketball with a hoop that my grandfather installed at the end of our driveway. The driveway was constructed of stone chip and tar and was really hard on a pair of Chuck Taylor’s (low cut black sneakers). Everybody wore them with white athletic socks. I can well remember that the driveway would wear them down to where they were almost slick. I used to take them to my grandfather’s shop and put them in a vise to saw new tread in them. You would have thought I had new shoes. They would really grip.

Of course there was always the Red Shield Boys Club. How many remember the director, Kenny Cathell? I still have my membership card. And Don Patterson manned the “cage” during football season handing out helmets, shoulder pads and uniforms. For boys 8-14 years old, their football and basketball programs were top-notch. It seemed like every boy got to play, no matter what his skill level. Of course, if you didn’t play well, you didn’t play much. That was the incentive to practice and get better.

The same mentality of thrift I used on my sneakers was exhibited by my mother. She had all kinds of ways to extend the life of an object, most of which are not even heard of in this era of a “throw away” world. When the collar or cuffs on a shirt would fray, she would “turn” them. We thought it was as good as new. It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford to buy something if we had to, but we got more out of things in those days.

Fishing in the Park was another favorite pastime in the summer. We used to fish for bass, pike and pickerel. If you didn’t have a lure to suit the occasion, the old fashioned worm came into play. We had a neat trick to obtain our worms. Have you ever observed a robin scurrying around on your lawn? What he is doing is looking for worms. He can feel them with his feet and digs down for them. We would soak a patch of our yard to get the worms moving and then wait for an accommodating robin to pull the worm half-way out. We would then shoo the robin away and proceed to extract the rest of the worm and have our bait. That seems mean to me now to have done that to the robin, but we didn’t think about that then. I have more than made up for it in the amount of peanuts I have given to the squirrels over the years.

Along with the Saturday afternoon movie at the Ulman Theater, the only other diversions before television were board games, and we played them all. My father and mother never gave up their frequent game of Parcheesi. They were compatible. Pop always won, and Mom didn’t seem to mind. I think when he died in 1978; the score was something like Pop 10,000 – Mom 4.

Those were so much simpler times.

County Rookie Robotics Team Goes Into Fundraising Frenzy

After earning top honors at two regional competitions, Worcester County’s rookie robotics team is in a fundraising frenzy for an international contest next week.

Team Titanium-Wrecks, comprised of 19 high school students from across the county, earned its spot at the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) global championships in St. Louis April 23-26 after a great showing at two regional competitions this spring.

Competing against around 50 teams, many with more than 100 members each, Team T-Wrecks walked away from a Fairfax, Va. competition in March with the “Rookie All Star” award, earning a spot at the global championships.
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Bundy Ranch Nevada Update 1: Call to Stand

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Highway Trust Fund Bankruptcy Will Halt Nation's Transportation Projects

By the time of President Obama’s election in 2008, the nation’s transportation system was in need of repair and many portions of the original system were still somewhat incomplete. Entering office in the midst of a recession, Congress was able to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which allocated funding for various public works projects, including repairs to the nation’s ailing highways and bridges. The act also included the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) competitive grant program that invested $3.5 billion in 270 projects across the country.

Today, all of those projects risk being halted before completion.

The idea of an interstate network of highways and roads crossing the United States began in the 1930s. There were many ideas and plans presented to create a transcontinental system that would meet the defense needs and the anticipated traffic of a peacetime society. Amid regional and national political differences, the first attempts at such a network began in 1945, though there were no uniform standards in place. By the time President Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953, less than a quarter of the highway system was deemed adequate for the then current traffic and definitely not ready for the projected levels of the future.

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Actress Mary

How the President Got to ‘I Do’ on Same-Sex Marriage

By presidential fund-raising standards, the dinner at the St. Regis hotel in Washington in April 2011 was an intimate one. President Obama made the rounds, moving among the dozens of people in attendance, including Chad Griffin, a 37-year-old political operative known for his ability to raise money in Hollywood and for his work on trying to legalize same-sex marriage. It was Griffin who persuaded the conservative lawyer Theodore B. Olson and the liberal attorney David Boies, adversaries in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case, to bring a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, the amendment banning same-sex marriage that voters approved in 2008.

Griffin and a team of veteran political operatives were using the litigation to mount a campaign intended to frame same-sex marriage as a civil right. They were working to create a political climate that would make the Supreme Court, which was disinclined to get too far out in front of public opinion, comfortable enough to rule in their favor. But the president was standing in their way. His opposition to same-sex marriage had been cited repeatedly by Proposition 8’s defenders as evidence that people who wanted to retain the traditional definition of marriage were not motivated by prejudice. Though Obama had recently taken to saying that his views on the matter were “evolving,” Griffin worried that they were moving too slowly to help with his cause.

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Washington’s Corruption and Mendacity Is What Makes America “Exceptional”

As I have reported on several occasions, the US government pays foreign rulers to do Washington’s bidding. There is no such thing as an independent government in the UK, Europe or Japan. On top of all the other evidence, it has now come to light that the US Agency for International Development has a large slush fund “where millions are paid to political figures in foreign countries.”http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38253.htm

If you have four hours, watch President Putin’s amazing open press conference with the Russia people and then try to imagine an American or European leader capable of such a feat.http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38254.htm The Russians have a real leader. We have two-bit punks.

The Los Angeles Times has acquired its own Judith Miller. His name is Sergei L. Loiko. An incompetent Obama regime has botched its takeover of Ukraine with its Kiev coup. The White House Fool is embarrassed that so many Ukrainians prefer to be part of Russia than part of Washington’s stooge “freedom and democracy” government in Kiev. The prostitute American and European media have thrown the propaganda into overdrive, demonizing Russia and President Putin, in order to cover up Washington’s blunder.

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Janet Kavinoky on the need for Infrastructure investment

Tennessee Becomes First State To Offer Free Tuition To All Graduating High School Students

Earlier today, Consumerist reported on a town in Michigan that is footing the bill for recent high school graduates to attend public universities and community colleges. Little did we know that was small potatoes compared to a program brewing in Tennessee.

The Tennessee House of Representatives and Senate gave their stamp of approval on a plan that gives all Tennessee high school graduates the opportunity to receive two years of free tuition to community colleges or technical schools in the state, The Tennessean reports.

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Illinois- Cooking The Books For Common Core: Only Honors Students Were Chosen to Take Exams

This High School student relates their experience in recently taking the ‘test of the test’ for Common Core. He observes that only his Honors class peers were chosen to take the test.

Via America Rising:

Recently I was “selected” to participate in a “test of the test” for the new Common Core state test (the PARCC) which is set to replace the PSAE in the state of Illinois. On paper, Common Core sounds like a good idea, asking a student to explain how they got the wrong answer to a math problem and if they can explain their answer giving them credit for their work; however, in the long term, this will only undermine the American education system. We all (I hope) have been taught that 2+2=4. Under Common Core, if a student answers with 5 instead of 4, and can explain their answer, the student will receive credit.

School officials have said that Common Core is meant to drift towards the “how” and “why” questions instead of correct computation.

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