mincooper's Blog

Last Edited: Tuesday, 30 Sep 2008, 2:22 PM CDT

Created: Tuesday, 30 Sep 2008, 12:44 PM CDT

(KTVI - myFOXstl.com)  -- 

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The president of St. Louis' Board of Aldermen drives a $25,000 city-purchased sedan with such luxury options as a heated leather steering wheel and seats.

And he uses the city-owned vehicle for personal use.

Those are among the claims made by State Auditor Susan Montee in reports released Tuesday on four areas of city government. She says additional reports will come later from the ongoing audit.

A citizens group requested the audit.

Montee's office also found that some city departments may be making what they term emergency purchases to buy such things as a sno-cone machine, fleece blankets and magnetic baseball schedules.

I am sure that this audit is going to uncover more wasteful spending.  How difficult is it for the city to realize that they are using taxpayers money.  If this was a corporation, I would not care, that is their money, this is a city, which gets a majority of its money from the taxpayers.  I think that the employees who have abused this should be fired.  What a disgrace. 

The following was on the MTV website about Ms. Hilton's new realty show-

Paris Hilton is a woman who needs no introduction, but she'd probably want one anyway. As America's #1 "it" girl, Paris and her entourage make headlines almost daily -- from parties at the hottest clubs to whirlwind weekend getaways to lavish shopping sprees. Rolling with Paris' inner circle is a pleasure normally reserved for A-list celebrity friends like Nicole Richie and Britney Spears, but Paris has decided that she wants a new BFF -- and Paris Hilton always gets what she wants.

With the celebutante at the helm, Paris Hilton's My New BFF is sure to be a reality show unlike any other. In it, Paris wields ultimate power. Her whim becomes law with a simple text message to her 18 potential new BFFs, and heaven help them if it's a frowny face. From her secluded VIP control room, Paris keeps a close eye on the contestants while making all the catty comments she wants. And if the wannabe BFFs aren't keeping her entertained, a simple "I'm bored" sent via text will whip everyone into a frenzy.

But the 14 tabloid-ready girls and two flamboyant guys vying for Paris Hilton's friendship will have to do more than just entertain the demanding diva; they'll have to prove they can handle her over-the-top lifestyle. Each week Paris will pose new challenges to the BFF hopefuls, who must rely on their wits, charm and looks to get ahead. Of course, Paris won't be going easy on them. She might invite them out to a club and "forget" to put their names on the guest list but still expect them to get in or bring them to Tokyo -- without luggage -- and tell them to be red carpet ready soon after touching down. Mean? Sure. Sadistic? You bet, but it's just another day at the "office" for the queen bee of celebrity.

Only one contestant will emerge victorious on Paris Hilton's My New BFF, and with 16 attention-starved jet-set wannabes living under one roof, drama is inevitable. As if that isn't enough, group challenges wherein teams are picked "schoolyard style" will put alliances to the test on a weekly basis. Fortunately, some two-way mirrors in the bathroom -- aka "gossip central" -- and a tell-all "burn book" will keep viewers in the loop about what's going down behind the scenes. That's hot!

Since Paris Hilton has total subjective control over who stays and who goes, it's up to the contestants to figure out what she's really looking for in a new best friend. Like any diva, Paris is prone to flights of fancy, so the quest for her affection will be a confusing one. Only those who play the game to perfection will find success on this most unpredictable quest to be Paris' new BFF!

Who in their right mind is going to watch this show?  This has to be the dumbiest thing I have ever seen.  Competing to be a friend of her's?

St. Louis.....the new New York?

You may wonder what I mean.  I am begining to think that St. Louis is the new New York.  It used to be that New Yorker's were known for being rude, I think that St. Louis is taking its place.  I have lived her all my life and I have friends who visit who say, you know your city is quite rude.  We are dubed the city that asked "what high school did you go to?"  If you did not grow up here that question has no merit.  Our drivers are rude if not the rudiest.  People in St. Louis are very self centered and in my 40 years in this city I can say it has gotten worse.  Think about how you treat people, do you treat them with respect?  Do you always feel you have to get something and if you don't you throw a temper tamper to get it?  We are entering into the time of the year where we are suppose to be thankful for what we have,  For those of you who think that the earth revolves around you, it does not, take some time to think of someone other than yourself.  Try putting your cell phone away when you are checking out, (I am sure that conversation is not that important), try to acknowledge a person who says hello to you,  if you don't get your way, try and be an adult and think does it really make any sense to get upset and make a scene?

OK

what is up with Metro Buses?  Why do they drive so fast?  On our way to work today we witnessed a Metro Bus driving down Forest Park Boulevard west bound like it was going to a fire.  We called Metro and they stated, we will look into it.  Funny that is what they said 2 months ago when the same bus was driving the same way.....I guess Metro wants a lawsuit when one of their bus drivers kills someone because they feel the need to drive so fast?

Doing some googling we came across these.  Some will take your breath away, there is one of someone jumping, those are the hardest for me.  Hit enter to move through the pictures in the slideshow.

http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/136846.pps

Rover, call me an ambulance — dog calls 911 

 The German shepherd remembered his training and saved his owner's life Associated Press

PHOENIX - "Man's best friend" doesn't go far enough for Buddy — a German shepherd who remembered his training and saved his owner's life by calling 911 when the man had a seizure. And it's not the first time Buddy has been there for owner Joe Stalnaker, a police officer said Sunday. On a recording of the 911 call Wednesday, Buddy is heard whimpering and barking after the dispatcher answers and repeatedly asks if the caller needs help. "Hello, this is 911. Hello ... Can you hear me? Is there somebody there you can give the phone to," says the dispatcher, Chris Scott. Police were sent to Stalnaker's home, and after about three minutes Buddy is heard barking loudly when the officers arrived. Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Stalnaker spent two days in a hospital and recovered from the seizure.  "It's pretty incredible," Clark said. "Even the veteran dispatchers — they haven't heard of anything like this." Clark said police are dispatched whenever 911 is called, but that Stalnaker's address was flagged in Scottsdale's system with a notification that a trained assistance dog could call 911 when the owner was incapacitated. Clark said Stalnaker adopted Buddy at the age of 8 weeks from Michigan-based Paws with a Cause, which trains assistance dogs, and trained him to get the phone if he began to have seizure symptoms. Buddy, now 18 months old, is able press programmed buttons until a 911 operator is on the line, Clark said. Clark said Buddy has made two other 911 calls when Stalnaker was having seizures. He said Stalnaker's seizures are the result of a head injury he suffered about 10 years ago during a military training exercise. Stalnaker was not listed in the phone book, and he did not immediately respond to a request through police for an interview. 

OK

here goes!  Today we were out enjoying the weather.  Watchin traffic and there was Fire truck that was approaching an intersection and had their sirens blairing.  Other cars felt the need to slow down and stop, (mine you it is the law)  A cab driver decided that he was going to speed up and try and go pass the fire truck that was coming into traffic.  The cab driver almost hit the fire truck.  What is up with this?  We tried to get the license of the cab driver so we could report it.  I have seen this a few times in the past....  Wonder how this cab driver would feel if they were the family that requested the fire truck and the fire truck was in an accident due to a person who did not want to obey the law and stop so that the Ermergency vehicle could do their job.....  I am just amazed at people.

I can't believe this, but have to share it due to I am a big animal supporter.  Can we as human think of any more ways to harm God's creatures?  I post this to educate not for shock value.

August 21, 2008
NEW YORK -- One of the most barbaric forms of animal cruelty has an underbelly which for years has remained literally hidden in darkness: "Trunking" is dog fighting's ugly secret.
"It's just that taboo," Tio Hardiman, a Chicago-based, dog fighting consultant to the Humane Society of the United States.
Capt. Steve Shatkin of the New Jersey SPCA described trunking to Pet Pulse at the state's headquarters in New Brunswick.
"Two dogs will be thrown, literally, into the trunk of a car like this," Shatkin said, pointing to a mid-sized car in NJSPCA's parking lot. "(The) trunk is closed, and the operators either drive around for a set period of time, or just leave them in there with the trunk closed."
"And after a certain time, open the trunk, and the best man left is standing. And it's a bloody mess in there, and that's how they declare a winner."
The carcass of the defeated dog is typically tossed to the side of the road, says Hardiman, who also is a pit bull advocate.
"Once in a while I've seen it, OK?" Hardiman said. "I know some guys may have put some dogs in a trunk. They fought, and then the next thing you know they turned the music up real loud -- for about 15 minutes, maybe 30 minutes.
"And then you open up the trunk, one of the dogs might be dead, the other one might be mangled up."
Across the country, Pet Pulse conducted numerous interviews with officers in animal control and law enforcement specializing in animal cruelty cases. Due to the nature of trunking, relatively few had even handled a trunking case first-hand.


For some dog fighters, trunking is a chosen method because it is so difficult for police to detect, in fact nearly impossible, authorities say. Typically it can neither be seen nor heard.

"(For) law enforcement driving by, it wouldn't raise an eyebrow," said NJSPCA Cpl. Al Peterson, whose beat includes known dog fighting ghettos in the crime-ridden city of Newark.

Inner cities are prime trunking territory, with participants partial to larger cars with spacious trunks, Peterson says.

"I found out about it through police intelligence coming out of North Carolina," Peterson said of how the re-born crime hit his radar. "The criminal element never sleeps. They're always thinking of some kind of way to do something to get it done."

Trunking has existed for at least two decades, authorities say. Yet not a single agency contacted by Pet Pulse could claim one arrest, much less a conviction for trunking.

"It's out there," Shatkin said. "And it's a technique that amateur, urban dog fighters will use as a way to thwart law enforcement. It's just another creative, brutal method of dog fighting."

While fighting dogs in trunks is not new in concept, the term, "trunking," is, Hardiman says. The results of a Google search proved it with barely a notable entry surfacing after entering "trunking" and "dog fighting."

During his younger days, Hardiman says he ran Chicago's mean streets and associated with dog fighters. While the illegal blood sport is still rampant in the Windy City, Hardiman says trunking is more prevalent on the East Coast.

"Nobody's heard about it," said Hardiman, as he walked through the West Side of Chicago's Austin section with his own pit bull. "This is the first time that it's really come up again, and it's resurfaced just a little bit."

Urban youth, often unable to afford entertainment, sometimes use trunking for amusement at the expense of helpless dogs, Hardiman says.
"If your music is blasting, you can actually be driving around. So it's like a thrill," Hardiman said. "It's exciting just to have those dogs gorging each other up in the trunk, while you're smoking a blunt or something like that."

But the web of dog fighting's underground hierarchy is best defined by three levels, according to Hardiman.

"Level One:" one-on-one street fights arranged by teens, with little or no money gambled.

"Level Two:" fights in abandoned buildings or garages, often involving those with gang affiliations, with hundreds to thousands of dollars wagered.

"Level Three:" sophisticated dog rings, like Michael Vick's, carried out in a pit with spectators, handlers and a referee, with up to hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake.

Trunking typically happens on Level Two, and can serve as a dog-fighting training ground for dogs and breeders, Hardiman says.

"You can definitely build your reputation, because every time you come out of the trunk and you don't have many scars on you, you won the fight," Hardiman said.

"Once they let you out of the trunk, your reputation gets bigger, and bigger and bigger because you had the baddest fighting dog."

Recalling a cruelty call in Norfolk, Va., Mark Kumpf, a former animal control officer for the city, told Pet Pulse he confronted juveniles suspected of trunking.

"The dogs had some clearly fresh injuries on them. And we were able, through our investigation, to determine that they had actually placed the dogs in a vehicle a short time before and allowed the dogs to fight," said Kumpf, who now is the president of the National Animal Control Association in Kansas City.

Reports of trunking also stem out of Indianapolis.

Stacey Coleman, president of Indy Pit Crew, a pit bull advocacy group in Indianapolis, says some known gang members told her they were involved in trunking.

"It was something that these particular young people were aware of," Coleman told Pet Pulse. "They suggested they had participated in it."

To end the streets' appeal of dog fighting, Hardiman helps rehabilitate former dog fighters and their pit bulls through the Humane Society's Campaign to End Dog Fighting. A few of the program's participants and their dogs roamed the streets with Hardiman during Pet Pulse's interview.

One of those men -- a former dog fighter -- says he no longer fights dogs and advocates against the practice.

Wanting to only be referred to as "Marco," he recounted his dog fighting days, telling Pet Pulse the mutilation of innocent dogs had only bothered him for one reason in particular.

"You lost your money," he said.

While the loss pinched Marco's wallet, Pet Pulse asked if the dogs' injuries ever hurt his conscience.

"Back then you didn't really care. You trained it, fed it to do what it do," Marco said.

Marco's candor continued with an answer about if, at that time, he had any feelings at all for a dog maimed in a fight.

"No, you can't have no feelings or you wouldn't fight it," Marco said.

That lack of empathy toward the canine victims represents a prevailing attitude among those involved in trunking, Hardiman says.

"Guys are just in the swing of things, guys in the community," he said, adding they figure, "Hey look, it sounds like it's something good to do, fight some dogs in a trunk, OK?"

The HSUS told Pet Pulse that national statistics on animal cruelty convictions from dog fighting are not kept. While the NJSPCA says that since the Vick case, tips from the public have increased but dog fighting arrests have not.

"I don't think we're going to just be able to put the brakes on it," Shatkin said. "We just have to persevere, and we have to continue our efforts in law enforcement."

Until police make better inroads, trunking will remain cloaked in darkness.

To report suspected trunking, dog fighting or other illegal animal fighting, call 877-TIP-HSUS.

The following is a link to a video on this topic.  Some of the material is graphic.

http://www.zootoo.com/petnews/hiddenindarknesst
runkingisdogf

Hello all-

just curious about the following.....

I work in HR during the day and then part time maybe 3 days at a retail establishment.  What is it with the public?  I am seeing more and more people enter our store 5 minutes before we close and we politely tell them we are closing in 5 minutes and they acknowledge it and then they are the ones still in the store 30 minutes after we close and get this, they don't even buy anything......  I personally also love the ones that come up and literally almost break the front door trying to get in after we are closed.  We have 2 doors and if one is locked they try their hardest to open it and then do the same with the other.  Or better yet, it is really necessary to be waiting in line at opening time?  I guess I understand around holidays, but on a beautiful day, there is a group of people standing outside only to come in.

What is the appropriate time for a store to close?  9, 9:30?  When we close at 9:00, they think you should be open til 9:30 or 10????????

OK  here is the scenario-

I am an HR Manager and part of my job is filling positions.  I reach out to applicants who apply and schedule interviews.  I have found that when I do talk with candidates they are clueless about positions they have applied for and want you to discuss with them the job and pay and basically tell them what was in the ad. 

What are your thoughts on this?  If you are applying for a position, would you not know what you are applying for?  Keep records of what you are applying for?

JERUSALEM - An Israeli couple going on a European vacation remembered to take their duty-free shopping and their 18 suitcases, but forgot their 3-year-old daughter at the airport, police said Monday.

The couple and their five children were late for a charter flight to Paris Sunday and made a mad dash to the gate. In the confusion, their daughter got lost.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a policeman found her wandering in the duty-free area at Ben-Gurion airport, Israel's bustling main international air portal. He said the officer alerted airline staff, but the flight had already taken off.

Israeli media said the parents were an ultra-Orthodox Jewish couple but did not give their names.

Rosenfeld said the parents were unaware they had boarded the aircraft with only four children instead of five until they were informed by cabin staff after 40 minutes in the air.

The child, accompanied by an airline staffer, took the next flight to Paris where she was safely reunited with her parents.

Rosenfeld said police would question the couple when they return from vacation, on suspicion of parental negligence.

Associated Press

Here is another blog I have been meaning to write and getting as old as I am I keep forgetting and then I recalled this weekend.  I am a native St. Louisian and thus I recall so many things that used to be here and are no longer when I drive by various places.  If you are a native you will probably recall more than if you moved here, but all are welcome.  Here are a few of places I recall from my childhood, not sure if a blog has been done like this....

Shakey's pizza on Watson  (big in the 70's)

Drive In on Watson where the Best Buy and Schnucks center is (across from Crestwood Plaza)

Jo Jo's on watson down from Crestwood Plaza

West County Dove

Schnucks where Kohls on Watson is

I have a few more but need to head to a meeting.

OK

here it goes.  I am an HR Manager during the day and see hundreds of resumes come across my desk.  The one thing I have been seeing a lot of lately is individuals who have enrolled to these online schools to get their undergraduate degrees or graduate degrees.    In speaking with other HR Managers it appears that many agree that these online programs are not viewed to highly by HR or Hiring Managers.  Here are a few reasons why:

1.  How difficult is it to take one of these?  I admit I took one in college ( a telecourse) (I went to a university in person) and vowed I would never again take another, why?  I did not learn a darn thing, I learned how to look up answers and write papers from notes I transcribed.  In my opinion a telecourse and online course are one in the same, no interaction what so ever.  In a classroom you interact with the professor and other students.

2.  Are we that lazy?  I love that these schools sell you that you can do this whenever,   Nothing was gotten the easy way, it takes work to get something, not sitting on your butt in front of a computer and copying stuff down. 

What are you thoughts?

Vick files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Imprisoned quarterback Michael Vick filed for bankruptcy protection while serving time for federal dogfighting charges, saying he owes between $10 million and $50 million to creditors.

Vick filed Chapter 11 papers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newport News on Monday. The seven largest creditors listed in the court papers are owed a total of about $12.8 million.

Vick is serving a 23-month prison sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., after pleading guilty last year to bankrolling a dogfighting ring. He was subsequently suspended indefinitely without pay and lost all his major sponsors, including Nike. He also faces state charges related to dogfighting.

The suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback "will seek to rebuild his life and career" upon his release, according to the filings.

The debt includes part of a signing bonus that the Falcons are seeking to recover.

After the plea on dogfighting charges, the Falcons tried to recover about $20 million in bonuses Vick earned from 2004 to 2007. But a federal judge held that Vick is entitled to keep all but $3.75 million of the money paid to him for playing football through the 2014 season.

According to the filings, Vick's other debts include $4.5 million owed to Richmond-based Joel Enterprises Inc., and $550,0000 owed to Radtke Sports Inc. for breach of contract.

In May, a federal judge ordered Vick to repay about $2.5 million to a Canadian bank for defaulting on a loan. The Royal Bank of Canada had sued Vick in September, arguing his guilty plea to a federal dogfighting charge — and the resulting impact on his career — prevented him from repaying the loan.

A default judgment for $1.08 million also was entered in January against Vick and a business partner in a lawsuit brought by Wachovia Bank over a loan for an Atlanta-area wine shop and restaurant.